Gender, race and the (re)production of knowledge in everyday German cultural foreign policy in postcolonial Delhi

This paper researches the (re)production of gendered and racialized knowledge systems in everyday cultural foreign policy spaces against the background of global political developments of the 20th century. As an example, it considers German cultural diplomatic presence in postcolonial Delhi between 1955 and 1999. Focusing on the German School and the cultural institute Max Mueller Bhavan/Goethe Institute, it analyses these as spaces of social reproduction while being intertwined with the politics of non-alignment and bipolarity. It brings together ca. 80 files from the German Federal Foreign Office’s Political Archive with photo-elicitation interviews with Indian and German women who worked or were affiliated with said institutions. With feminist and decolonial approaches to political economy and foreign policy, it traces how, within the everyday of these institutions, generations of employees and students as well as German and Indian authorities reproduced, disrupted and upheld gendered and racialized knowledge systems and practices. The paper demonstrates that the continuation of these systems and practices both ensured social cohesion within the German diplomatic community while contributing to the upholding of India-Germany cultural relations in the aftermath of Indian independence as well as both the emergence and end of bipolarity. By focusing on women’s memory, it brings a feminist decolonial perspective to India-German diplomatic history while also highlighting the importance of informal diplomatic spaces as centers of power.