80 days of erasmus...in 40+ pictures

things that lost me

I fell into this world and lost
my head / my shoes / my bones
                                                  bouncing back
and forth.
                                                  losing  inbetween
my grandfather turn a dead bird
watching memories fly high I

landed back
on my feet.

finding
you
not too big
not too small
to fill the world with words again

Favourite Feminist of the Week - Chimamanda Adichie

I'm really looking forward to introducing some of the most inspirational, interesting people to you; who also happen to have great ideas about social justice.

One of those people is author and activist Chimamanda Adichie. I first learned about her through a friend who is taking a "Race and Ethnicity"-class in my department (American Culture and Literature). She made me watch the video "The danger of a single story" where Chimamanda shares her thoughts on how vulnerable we are in the face of a story. 

The point Chimamanda makes is pretty simple: stories (not only in books but also told by media and our social surrounding) structure what and how we think of ourselves and of others. It gets more complicated though when there is only one story prevalent, when you "show people as one thing. As only one thing. Over and over again. And that is what they will become."

She herself was confronted by such a single story when she went for her studies to the U.S. and realized that among the people brought up in the U.S., there existed a single story on Africa, a single story of "catastrophe". In the context of well established power-structures it becomes crucial how, by whom and how many stories are being told. Drawing from her own experience, Chimamanda explains that because of its political, economical as well as cultural dominance, there are many different stories about the U.S. 

Quite the contrary is the poor presence in the "West" of the diversity of the African continent concerning its different people, countries, classes, religions and conditions. The single story of Africa as well as any other single story therefore is always an incomplete one. It creates stereotypes and thereby robs people of their dignity.

I specifically love this term of the "single story", Chimamanda Adichie coins, because it brings together so many abstract concepts and puts them in an understandable way. She basically de-essentializes our knowledge of "others". And she provides us with a valuable vocabulary to describe how "discourse" or "stories" function in our own societies. 

In White German society, for instance, there exist single stories on so-called integration, on muslims and especially on women wearing a headscarf (for a very clear and islamophobic example look at this Focus report). Unanimously society tells over and over again the same story of women who wear the headscarf as being automatically oppressed. Without ever asking just these women what they think about this issue. The single story obviously takes no interest in proving veracity.  Looking at this particular single story of the oppressed muslim woman from the "outside", from  Turkey, it seems even more ridiculous. Unlike friends telling me that I would probably encounter many "traditional" or "oppressed" women; this is just not the case. Just like in Germany patriarchy is very strong in this society. But that's only one side. I meet strong, open-minded women everyday. No need for a single story.

 

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Also watch Chimamanda Adichies speech on feminism here.

Feminism.... Is that still a thing?

In the last few weeks I had a lot of discussions about feminism. About its implications, the word itself being a kind of slur, and the question whether or not there is even the need for a such a term "feminism" ("It kinda excludes man, don't you think?")

If you asked me two years ago what I understood by the term of "feminism" I would have looked at you with disinterest and probably replied something like "Oh that's this Alice Schwarzer thing; those militant women that make a fuss about nothing."  My path towards a different understanding of feminism(s) started when I first saw Sookee's "One Billion Rising". I was taken aback by this female Berlin-based rap artist who strongly criticizes sexisms and racisms in her songs. Her lyrics started to work in my mind, it changed how I perceived my surrounding and my own position in society. 

 I now know that ideologies operate powerfully in a society or even on a global level precisely because they naturalize themselves. By "naturalizing" I mean that they present themselves as the only possible ideology or say perception of the world (for example concerning bodies, relationships, economy, morality, religion). Let's take for example capitalism: capitalism is an ideology that has emerged as one of many possible economical systems, still it has managed to present itself as the only possible system worldwide that is presumably able to satisfy the needs of the individuals (as consumers) that constitute a society.

The same is true for such an ideology as heteronormativity. Heteronormativity embodies the idea that gender can only be thought of as binary, biologist categories (man-penis and woman-vulva) and that these two sexes (rather than gender) are "naturally" attracted to one another. In this ideology the only "normal" possibility for a woman is to be in love and have sex with a man and vice versa. A heterosexual relationship is therefore considered to be the standard, the "norm", everything else is seen as "unnatural" or even "pathological".  Very often this heteronormativity is also linked to an essentialst, repressive understanding of the social construct "gender", mainly against women* that culminates in mysogony, homo- and transphobia. On a very basic level the gender roles heteronormativity naturalizes imply for women that they are f.ex. the "weaker sex", who belong to the kitchen, who are "better" with children than men, unable of rational thinking and (absurdly enough) to drive cars. No question, such ideas of "what it means to be a woman" are damn scaring and pressuring!!!

And the problem is: these are not only ideas. Oh no, they do come with real-life power. We have parents and teachers telling us how to behave like "a girl" or "a boy". And, oh holy sh*t, we do have media that reflect it back to us again and again. And again. And again. We find ourselves surrounded by media telling us how to fit into gender categories: women's bodies are subjected to a "male gaze", where women are seen as objects that should arouse "male" pleasure (f.ex. sexiness and thinness). Such patriarchal representations of gender culminate in women (and men) being street harassed, in rape culture and slut shaming, only to name some of the effects. 

Racism on a structural as well as individual level very often intersects with heteronormativity. It is another ideology, a system of oppression that shares with heteronormativity a biologist understanding of identity and an objectivication of bodies. And then there is islamophobia. And transphobia. And poverty-shaming. And many other ideologies or powerful systemizations of what is "normal", that often work together in different ways.

Oppression has many faces. And at the same time many people that indirectly benefit from it and therefore consider certain aspects of society as "normal". I think that is why it took me so long to have a different understanding of feminism(s). In my White middle-class bubble I was privileged enough to not see the many shapes oppression takes on and to not acknowledge the many forms of resistance it provokes. Feminism to me is the response to these structures; it is resistance and takes on many different forms. So, I am looking forward to present to you some of my "Favourite Feminists" in the next few weeks.

So, after I just filled your head with terms and terms and concepts. And, hurrah, you made it to the last paragraph. I will therefore release you with this fantastic video of Sarah Jones's - Revolution.

Love to you
xxx

Mapping my world

The perception of time and space is a very tricky thing. It changes unpredictably following the circumstances I find myself in. I perceive the time-space coincidence mostly repetitive and rhythmic (mechanical patterns of structuring my time and the ever-same choice of paths). In the last month my perception of time and space radically changed when I left my beloved environment (kisses to you!) behind and  travelled to a new place: Ankara in Turkey. 

All of a sudden my well-organized world would grow and embrace infinite, unknown territories beyond my possibilities of organizing it back into order. I have to say that I wasn't well prepared for this new step: although I did my best to leave no mess behind, I was unable to really come to terms with what was expecting me here. I didn't speak the language. By the time I arrived I didn't even have a clue of how I could get to the hostel. And I left the airplane wearing two jackets (which was clearly a mistake with 37°C outside temperature). Also, I didn't know a single person in this city. For one week I was wandering through the streets of Ankara feeling displaced and very stupid since I was unable to communicate with almost nobody apart from the receptionist who would put on a slightly hostile look everytime I opened my mouth.

After I moved in on campus of the Bilkent University things would change quickly. My very huge, lonely, desorganized, mute and at the same time very loud world began to shrink so fast, I was almost unable to grasp its transformation. 

The campus is like a small citystate. People are only allowed to enter with a specific document (student ID card). There are clear rules reglementing campus life (for instance a strict seperation of the 'sexes' in the dormitories). There even is a specific 'police' and lots of security cameras. Also, all of the infrastructure is provided on campus: a mall, a shuttle service, hair dressers, sports centers, a post office, a concert hall, cafes, copy centers and a book store. And extensive greens to hang out on. I understood that this private university with all its shiny, polished buidlings is a highly exclusive and priviliged place. With this thought my world became so small, that none of its former mysteries was left unsolved, being violently exposed to plain sunshine.

Shortly after that, my world was temporarily transformed into a small and dark box when I received the message of my grandfather's death. I found myself unable to find the time-space patterns for an adequate mourning.

This was when Bilkent campus somehow became my 'safety bubble'. It is my safe area because here is where I could find people to talk to. And these are not only the exchange students whom I befriended quickly, but also my fellow students at the American Culture Department who asked me to join them for lunch. My fellow students with whom I now start a theater project. Strangers that would begin a conversation with me because of my "still loving feminism"-bag. Strangers who recognize me as a somewhat new person to this place and who therefore politely offer me their help again and again. All these experiences of kindness and openness turned my world back into 'normal'.

So, to come back to my initial thought of a changing perception of time: I'm back there in for routine and smallness.  Probably wandering on the ever-same paths. And probably, for the moment, this is just fine.

The difficulty of being a 'blogger'

The idea of a blog is so simple: you give your opinion about a certain topic you are interested in or about your experiences to the people that are willing to listen to you. 

Yeah, that's in theory.

Now, there are so many processes and even barriers included. As soon as you sit at your desk and want to start writing you ask yourself questions like: 

What in my life could possibly be worth to put online? 

Which of these amazing but second-class stories are compelling to my readership? 

Is there a readership? 

And if there is: In what situation will they be while reading the blog? 

Will they be bored / unhappy / melancholic / homesick / enthusiastic / disturbed / happy? 

Will my best friend be reading it while listening to electronic music? 

And will my mother be in a busy hurry? 

Leaving these questions unanswered and putting them aside because they will lead to more and more questions (Will my neighbour be crying when she reads the blog?), there is only the question of content left. In the search for true inspiration you, in your brilliant disguise as a blogger, will then probably enter the web. You will flick through your favourite feminist and anti-fascist blogs. You will admire their style of writing, the exact placing of words. You realize that they are actually talking about important issues... and that everything you possibly would have wanted to talk of has already been said. You leave their blogs with a bittersweet taste in your mouth and get back to your own text. 

You start to think about yourself. You start to question yourself. 

Why write at all?

This could result in a situation where you feel unable to publish anything at all.

But then you just dress up as blogger, finish the text and publish the sh*t. 


*btw these are some of my favourite blogs, you should check them out:
http://maedchenmannschaft.net/
http://yesmeansyesblog.wordpress.com/
http://polizeiundsexismus.wordpress.com/
http://stoptalk.wordpress.com/
http://www.noahsow.de/
http://riotmango.de/

Let's get started. Yippieee :)

Iyi akşamlar ve hoş geldiniz! Good evening and welcome to my blog!

This is going to be my blog for the time I spend in Ankara and other parts of Turkey. As some of you know I study Cultural Studies and Literature in Dortmund. At Bilkent University in Ankara I'm about to study American Culture for one semester with the help of ERASMUS. I plan to write about my (feminist) perspectives on the studies, art, politics and everything else that creates my experience of searching a 'new home' in Ankara.
Why not start with a Turkish tango? A beautiful one is here.

Hope you enjoy reading! Yakında görüşmek üzere.