Common Grounds: Social Justice and Cultural Practice in Shared Places

• Applicant: Dr. Nathalie Aghoro
• Subject Area: European and American Literary and Cultural Studies
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 499280727

The present American studies project explores cultural practices engaging in social justice debates and their relation to shared places at the interdisciplinary intersections of critical ethnic studies, literary and cultural history, and sociology. It builds on the observation that cultural interactions with/in place are closely intertwined with social justice concerns in the United States because of its settler-colonial foundations. Due to the nation’s colonial history of conquest and slavery, cultural relations to place and land strongly correlate with assertions of hegemonial claims to power and resistant contestations by oppressed peoples. This project analyzes practices that seek to foster social justice and establish alternative notions of citizenship in public discourse. It studies literary practices of dialogic exchange, participatory poetics, site-specific interventions in visual culture, and cultural practices related to communal architectures.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants