Academic Research

This research project examines the relationship between the coloniality of racism and the manifestation of internalized racism among racially subordinated populations, with particular attention to the historical and contemporary experiences of African and African-descended peoples. The project takes the African continent and its historical role as an ancestral homeland as a central point of departure for understanding the global dispersal of African peoples and the racial hierarchies that have developed through colonialism, slavery, and their enduring legacies.

The research conceptualizes racism as a historically situated and socially organized system that categorizes and hierarchically differentiates racial and ethnic groups, resulting in unequal access to social, political, and economic power, opportunities, and resources. Such systems are embedded in historical relations of power and continue to shape contemporary social institutions and interpersonal relations (Garner, 2010). In the contexts of South Africa and Germany, the project pays particular attention to how colonial histories and their continuing legacies inform contemporary constructions of race and racial inequality. Within this broader framework, the project focuses specifically on internalized racism, a dimension of racism that has received comparatively less sustained scholarly attention. Internalized racism is the process by which individuals and groups subjected to racial domination may internalize, reproduce, or negotiate the racial ideologies and hierarchies imposed upon them.

Drawing on Stuart Hall's (1986) conceptualization of the internalization of racist ideology, the research explores how dominant racial meanings become embedded in individual and collective understandings of identity, worth, beauty, belonging, and social status. A particular focus is the manifestation of internalised racial hierarchies within B(b)lack communities and among people of African descent. The project therefore examines how historically produced racial hierarchies may be reproduced within racially subordinated communities, while also considering the broader structural and historical conditions through which these attitudes emerge. By situating internalized racism within the histories of colonialism and the African diaspora, the research seeks to contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of how racial hierarchies are established, maintained, internalized, and reproduced across different social contexts. A comparative focus on South Africa and Germany offers an opportunity to examine how distinct colonial histories and contemporary social contexts shape experiences and manifestations of racism and internalized racial hierarchies.

Experience with qualitative analysis software is an advantage.