This paper explores the multi-modal method of Decolonial Flânerie developed by members of the Amo Collective Berlin. Through performative city walks in the imaginary company of 18th century Afro-German scholar Anton Wilhelm Amo, urban space is being read against the grain, shedding light on untold (hi)stories and engaging in collective future-making.
Long abstract
The Institute for European Ethnology (IfEE) of Humboldt University Berlin is located in M*str. A street at the heart of Germany’s capital that has been subject to struggles for renaming for more than 3 decades. These activist-led efforts haven been joined by members of the IfEE in 2019, supporting the call for naming the street after Afro-German Enlightenment scholar Anton Wilhelm Amo. Amo, whose biography clearly illustrates the racist architecture of our society, still inscribed in urban space today, functions as an imaginary companion during performative city walks: Decolonial Flâneries.
This inventive method, developed in the context of the renaming struggles, takes a decolonial turn on the white, male bourgeoise practice of Flânerie (en vogue during Amo’s times) queering it and testing its subversive potentials. Inspired by approaches of Black Flânerie (Hill) and critical fabulation (Hartman) it reads the city against the grain of its colonial inscriptions, reimagining urban space.