Blackboard as separation wall : classrooms, race and the contemporary crisis in Germany

Abstract

This article suggests that racism, construed as a reified and artificial dichotomization of social bodies into acutely hypostatized and opposed identities, can best be understood by placing it within a larger global context of exploitative hierarchies which racism retrospectively legitimizes. The loss of the global perspective and the obscured knowledge of global networks of toxic causalities allow the broader context of racism to remain invisible, thus condemning local anti-racist activism to mitigated success. The article suggests that the classroom as a vital site of education of citizens tends to be isolated from the world; racism can be combatted in the classroom by opening its walls up to the larger global context in which education is a significant factor. A pedagogical practice of interrogative critical assemblages may facilitate the reconstruction of invisible global networks, which in turn may enable us to better understand the workings of micro-racisms within a larger context of global macro-racism.