‘VISIONEN VOM IDEALEN GESCHICHTE-SCHREIBEN UND GESCHICHTE-MACHENʼ: EPISTEMIC (IN)JUSTICE AND INSURRECTION IN SHARON DODUA OTOO'S HISTORICAL AND MEMORY ACTIVISM

Abstract

This article explores Sharon Dodua Otoo's historical and memory activism and demonstrates how she challenges epistemic injustices inflicted by dominant models of cultural memory and identity in Germany, particularly in relation to its colonial history. Such epistemic injustice takes two main forms – the ongoing subjugation of subaltern (hi)stories and the under-acknowledgement of grassroots diasporic activism – resulting in multiple levels of marginalisation and sustaining what the philosopher Charles Mills calls ‘the white epistemology of ignorance’. Building on Sarah Colvin's studies of epistemic resistance in Otoo's literary prose, I argue that Otoo's historical and memory activism is an example of what José Medina refers to as ‘epistemic insurrection’. Otoo's self-consciously collaborative interventions in historical and memory politics facilitate the kind of ‘beneficial epistemic friction’ expounded by Medina, which is necessary to prevent dominant forces from co-opting insurgent counter-histories and counter-memories. Otoo invokes a community of activist experts and poets, past and present, whose collective knowledge production offers alternative ways of thinking about history and opportunities to subvert the power dynamics of cultural memory. Her activism reaches across diverse genres, media and public domains, and engages multiperspectivity to contribute to more pluralistic modes of doing history and memory.