Dynamics of Antiracist Agency Formation in Germany

Despite a long history of racist ideologies and violence, Germany has long been characterized by a particular reluctance to publicly name and problematize racism. This has started to change in recent years not least due to long-lasting social movement organizing and notably the transnational echoes of the global Black Lives Matter protest wave in 2020. Whereas public awareness to racism as a threat to social cohesion and equal participation in society has grown as a result, research on the dynamics of antiracist agency is still in its infancy. Building upon sociological and social psychological theories of agency, this article explores how personal and mediated experiences of racism are connected to antiracist agency. Antiracist agency manifests in a variety of forms, ranging from individual responses to everyday racism over the creation of spaces of empowerment to the participation in public protest. Drawing from a unique set of 35 biographical in-depth interviews with individuals and families in Germany, who are directly or indirectly affected by racism, our data documents moments of politicization and activation in the life course, highlighting the key role of social embeddedness, collective identities and emotional affectedness for processes of antiracist agency formation. This paper thereby contributes not only to a growing literature on the varied repertoires of antiracist opposition but also to broader debates on opposition to different (intersectional) forms of stigmatization, discrimination and marginalization in the age of polycrisis.