On Constructing Black Cultural Citizenship in White Spaces

In the last two years, the Goethe-Institut in Salvador da Bahia's residency program received an influx of Black participants and Black Brazilian artists who worked on different projects centered around topics of the Global South. The Goethe-Institut's choice of topic and collaborators represent an inherent disconnect between how actors of the German state treat their own Black citizens and the perceived celebration of Black persons abroad. A bond between Black people in Germany as well as abroad is denied access to the predominantly white citizenship, which often results in the construction of a Black cultural citizenship. This concept addresses how Black people create their own context-specific citizenship. Due to the fact that the Goethe-Institut is arguably the embodiment of white privilege, it is important to understand why Black artists still work with this institution and how it allows for the emergence of a Black cultural (transcontinental) citizenship. In order to shed light on the connection between Black cultural citizenship and the work of the Black female artists (residents) at the Goethe-Institut in Salvador-Bahia, this research analyzes the theory of Black cultural citizenship through supportive studies and a series of interviews to investigate two important factors and angles. The first is the history of the Goethe-Institut giving space to resistance to dominating power structures (the military and a white-dominated society). Second, it assesses whether there are aspects of Black cultural citizenship linking the different artists themselves.