Derealization and Non-Relationality: Racialized Violence in the Postmigrant Situation

The project takes up the notion of the non-relational Other and reassesses its use for the analysis of postmigration Germany. The political assassinations by the NSU between 2000 and 2007 indicate that we need to consider a socio-ontological separation between postmigrant lives and the lives of the majority of the population, not in the racist sense of ‘Parallelgesellschaften’ (alluding to supposedly secluded, criminal migrant milieus), but rather as effect of that very notion. The project examines tropes such as the ‘parallel’ as elements of derealization, a form of violence that precedes and makes physical extinction possible.

Additionally to Judith Butler’s notion of derealization, Michaelsen takes conceptual inspiration from theories of social death and anti-Black violence, as well as local studies of racism. Considering the limitations of the conventional documentary form, Michaelsen turns to the capacity of audiovisual art to capture racialized violence, particularly in its ‘ordinary’ forms and effects. Films and videos by Ayşe Polat, Hito Steyerl, Hiwa K, and others, allow to scrutinize derealization and non-relationality as they impact, and possibly constitute postmigrant lives.