Anti-Kurdish Racism in Germany: Decolonial Perspectives on the German Education System

Educational institutions are places of identity formation and reformation, contributing differently to existing identity politics. In the author's biographical narrative interviews with people who position themselves as Kurds, conducted as part of her PhD project, “Experiences of Racism among Kurds in Germany—Functions and Effects of (Not) Speaking About Anti-Kurdish Racism,” the author frequently encounters instances of devaluation of Kurdish identities due to racialization and everyday invisibilization. The professional demands on educational institutions, on the other hand, require them to give resonance and validity to the multitude of identities and diversity of experiences in society and to make these visible. A critical pedagogy of decolonization involves overcoming colonized perspectives and acquiring alternative forms of knowledge. The author adopts a decolonial perspective to acknowledge and problematize the mechanisms of invisibilization and identity erasure, and thus not only shifts the content of hegemonic orders of knowledge but also enables the recognition of different modes of articulation. This article asks, what characterizes anti-Kurdish racism, and how does it impact Kurdish individuals within the German educational system? Through interview excerpts, the author addresses how these questions can be structurally addressed through biographical clues in Germany.