New edition of Peripherie
More than 30 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the differences between East and West Germany still seem glaring. Even if living conditions are slowly converging, problems of socioeconomic marginalization continue to be more prevalent in East Germany. Racism, hostility toward migration and right-wing extremist violence, as well as support for völkisch-authoritarian groups and parties also seem to be more virulent there. As post- and decolonial research shows, racist practices point to the persistence and reactualization of colonial power relations. Colonial racist images and ideas have inscribed themselves not only in Western but also in state socialist orders.
PERIPHERIE 165/166 examines how, despite official denial, such patterns of thought and images shaped the policies of state-led anti-imperialism and anti-fascism, while the GDR imagined itself as a more sophisticated, homogeneous, and white socialist society compared to countries in the Global South.