Jeanette Ehrmann
I am a postdoctoral researcher in the research and teaching area Political Theory at the Department of Sciences at Humboldt University Berlin.
In my book "Tropes of Freedom. The Haitian Revolution and the Decolonization of the Political" (forthcoming with Suhrkamp), I reconstruct the ideas and practices of political agency, emancipation, and decolonization in the Haitian Revolution. For the study, I have received the Werner Pünder-Prize 2019 for outstanding research on the subject of "freedom and domination in past and present".
Currently, I am leading a research project on "Postcolonial Gender Relations and the Crisis of Democracy", which is funded by the Hessen State Ministry for Higher Education, Research and the Arts (HMWK). It is part of a broader project with the title "Unsettling the Coloniality of Democracy", which seeks to develop a post-/decolonial critique of Western liberal democracy.
Currently, I am a speaker of the section "Gender and Politics" in the DVPW (Deutsche Vereinigung für Politikwissenschaft)/GPSA (German Political Science Association) and a German Political Science Association (GPSA) and a member of the Research Network in Queer Studies, Decolonial Feminisms and Cultural Transformations (QDFCT).
Previously, I was a visiting scholar at the "Critical Theory in the Global South Project" at Northwestern University's Critical Theory Cluster, a fellow at the Hanover Institute of Philosophical Research (FIPH), a research associate at the Frankfurt Research Center for Postcolonial Studies (FRCPS) at the Cluster of Excellence "The Formation of Normative Orders", a member of the Franco-German Collège doctoral "Normes et constructions sociales" at Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and a visiting scholar at Université d'État d'Haïti and at Oxford University.
In my book "Tropes of Freedom. The Haitian Revolution and the Decolonization of the Political" (forthcoming with Suhrkamp), I reconstruct the ideas and practices of political agency, emancipation, and decolonization in the Haitian Revolution. For the study, I have received the Werner Pünder-Prize 2019 for outstanding research on the subject of "freedom and domination in past and present".
Currently, I am leading a research project on "Postcolonial Gender Relations and the Crisis of Democracy", which is funded by the Hessen State Ministry for Higher Education, Research and the Arts (HMWK). It is part of a broader project with the title "Unsettling the Coloniality of Democracy", which seeks to develop a post-/decolonial critique of Western liberal democracy.
Currently, I am a speaker of the section "Gender and Politics" in the DVPW (Deutsche Vereinigung für Politikwissenschaft)/GPSA (German Political Science Association) and a German Political Science Association (GPSA) and a member of the Research Network in Queer Studies, Decolonial Feminisms and Cultural Transformations (QDFCT).
Previously, I was a visiting scholar at the "Critical Theory in the Global South Project" at Northwestern University's Critical Theory Cluster, a fellow at the Hanover Institute of Philosophical Research (FIPH), a research associate at the Frankfurt Research Center for Postcolonial Studies (FRCPS) at the Cluster of Excellence "The Formation of Normative Orders", a member of the Franco-German Collège doctoral "Normes et constructions sociales" at Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and a visiting scholar at Université d'État d'Haïti and at Oxford University.
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Articles/Book Chapters by Jeanette Ehrmann
Abstract: In recent years, the passage across the Mediterranean Sea has become one of the deadliest migration routes in the world. While the member states of the European Union pursue a military and discursive policy against the so-called “refugee crisis” that securitizes borders and even suspends and criminalizes the sea rescue of refugees, normative political theories of migration often depict border crossings as a political or moral problem as well as a crisis for established democracies. Against the trope of the “refugee crisis” and the tacit normalization of borders in much of current political theory debates on migration and refugees, this article develops a political theory of the border from the perspective of postcolonial critique and Black critical thought. It introduces coloniality and race as previously neglected analytical categories into political theory to theorize the colonial present of border regimes and the racialization of borders. It then draws on the Black Mediterranean — an epistemology that originates from the Black radical tradition and is currently used to discuss African migrants’ routes to Europe — to develop an alternative register for a political theory of the border. The epistemology of the Black Mediterranean is unfolded in three respects: first, it allows for the European border regime to be reconstructed as a racialized politics of borderization; second, it highlights the postcolonial ambivalences and racialized dimensions of a politics of pity and solidarity with refugees; third, it understands refugee movements as resistant political imaginations and practices that reveal the contradictions of hegemonic conceptions of democracy and belonging. Finally, the article suggests that the epistemology of the Black Mediterranean offers a critique of the dominant crisis-of-democracy narrative while enabling self-reflective interrogation of the cognitive limits of political theory itself.
Starting from the American and the French Revolution, the evolution of human rights is commonly represented as a linear development of moral progress revolving around Europe and North America. Complicating this normative account of human rights, the article takes the hitherto silenced Haitian Revolution serious as one of the sites of a transatlantic constitutional revolution and centres it as a powerful moment in the foundation of political modernity. Haiti’s revolutionary constitutions are testimonies of a radical legal critique of racism that have not yet been addressed in political theory. The article analyzes the relation of universalism and racism as dealt with in the Haitian constitutions of 1801 and 1805 and argues that they are more than merely founding documents of a postcolonial state. With their alternative conception of universal human rights, they rather constitute the beginning of anti-colonial political theory. Therefore, the Haitian Revolution is both an important counter-narrative for the pluralization of a Eurocentric canon of political theory and at the same time a starting point for theorizing the persistent contradictions between the rule of law, human rights and racism.
Kerner, Ina: Postkoloniale Theorien zur Einführung, Hamburg 2012.
Mbembe, Achille: Critique de la raison n., Paris 2013.
Spivak, Gayatri C.: An Aesthetic Education in the Era of Globalization, Cambridge (Mass.) / London 2012.
Diese Ausgabe der ZfK untersucht die Figuren des Untoten aus historischer, transkultureller und interdisziplinärer Perspektive – vom ersten karibischen »Zombi«-Text aus dem 17. Jahrhundert bis zu den Zombie-Walks von Occupy Wall Street."
The collection advances discussion of how best to understand women’s political contributions during the period, the place of salon sociability in the political development of Europe, and the interaction between discourses on slavery and those on women’s rights. It will interest scholars and researchers working in women’s intellectual history and Enlightenment thought and serve as a useful adjunct to courses in political theory, women’s studies, the history of feminism, and European history.
Presentations by Jeanette Ehrmann
Abstract: In recent years, the passage across the Mediterranean Sea has become one of the deadliest migration routes in the world. While the member states of the European Union pursue a military and discursive policy against the so-called “refugee crisis” that securitizes borders and even suspends and criminalizes the sea rescue of refugees, normative political theories of migration often depict border crossings as a political or moral problem as well as a crisis for established democracies. Against the trope of the “refugee crisis” and the tacit normalization of borders in much of current political theory debates on migration and refugees, this article develops a political theory of the border from the perspective of postcolonial critique and Black critical thought. It introduces coloniality and race as previously neglected analytical categories into political theory to theorize the colonial present of border regimes and the racialization of borders. It then draws on the Black Mediterranean — an epistemology that originates from the Black radical tradition and is currently used to discuss African migrants’ routes to Europe — to develop an alternative register for a political theory of the border. The epistemology of the Black Mediterranean is unfolded in three respects: first, it allows for the European border regime to be reconstructed as a racialized politics of borderization; second, it highlights the postcolonial ambivalences and racialized dimensions of a politics of pity and solidarity with refugees; third, it understands refugee movements as resistant political imaginations and practices that reveal the contradictions of hegemonic conceptions of democracy and belonging. Finally, the article suggests that the epistemology of the Black Mediterranean offers a critique of the dominant crisis-of-democracy narrative while enabling self-reflective interrogation of the cognitive limits of political theory itself.
Starting from the American and the French Revolution, the evolution of human rights is commonly represented as a linear development of moral progress revolving around Europe and North America. Complicating this normative account of human rights, the article takes the hitherto silenced Haitian Revolution serious as one of the sites of a transatlantic constitutional revolution and centres it as a powerful moment in the foundation of political modernity. Haiti’s revolutionary constitutions are testimonies of a radical legal critique of racism that have not yet been addressed in political theory. The article analyzes the relation of universalism and racism as dealt with in the Haitian constitutions of 1801 and 1805 and argues that they are more than merely founding documents of a postcolonial state. With their alternative conception of universal human rights, they rather constitute the beginning of anti-colonial political theory. Therefore, the Haitian Revolution is both an important counter-narrative for the pluralization of a Eurocentric canon of political theory and at the same time a starting point for theorizing the persistent contradictions between the rule of law, human rights and racism.
Kerner, Ina: Postkoloniale Theorien zur Einführung, Hamburg 2012.
Mbembe, Achille: Critique de la raison n., Paris 2013.
Spivak, Gayatri C.: An Aesthetic Education in the Era of Globalization, Cambridge (Mass.) / London 2012.
Diese Ausgabe der ZfK untersucht die Figuren des Untoten aus historischer, transkultureller und interdisziplinärer Perspektive – vom ersten karibischen »Zombi«-Text aus dem 17. Jahrhundert bis zu den Zombie-Walks von Occupy Wall Street."
The collection advances discussion of how best to understand women’s political contributions during the period, the place of salon sociability in the political development of Europe, and the interaction between discourses on slavery and those on women’s rights. It will interest scholars and researchers working in women’s intellectual history and Enlightenment thought and serve as a useful adjunct to courses in political theory, women’s studies, the history of feminism, and European history.
The silence of political theory suggests that classical concepts of multiculturalism, republicanism, recognition and justice might be inadequate to tackle the banality of racism in Europe‘s postcolonial and post-fascist societies. Based on this assumption, the workshop aims to widen the field of political theory’s hegemonic canon and concepts. Which theoretical strands and marginalized forms of knowledge are necessary to establish political theory as a ‚race‘ critical theory? Which concepts enable political theory to both grasp and critique racist habits, practices, discourses and institutions in democratic societies? How can political theory confront the legacies and continuities of European colonialisms and racisms that reverberate epistemologically within its own discipline? And finally, what is the responsibility of politically and ethically engaged academics in the light of an ever increasing racism?
This two-day interdisciplinary workshop will gather scholars working in the fields of political theory, legal theory, sociology and philosophy to share their different theoretical perspectives on racism in its interdependency with classism, sexism, homo- and trans*phobia. Besides individual papers, a roundtable discussion will highlight their engagement with bridging the gap between a ‚race‘ critical theory and an anti-racist political practice.
geleistet werden sollten.
Antonio Gramsci
Gefängnisbriefe III
Briefwechsel mit Tatjana Schucht (1931-1935)
Herausgegeben von Ursula Apitzsch,
Peter Kammerer und Aldo Natoli
Argument Verlag, 2014
Weitere Infos unter entknastung.org
January 15 2014
hosted by Felicia Herrschaft, "Axiom"