Sinthujan Varatharajah English in Berlin

Annotation

In Kreuzberg cafés or Neukölln vintage shops, cosmopolitan Berlin speaks English as a matter of course. But who speaks English in Berlin and who is excluded from it? And weren’t groups stigmatized by the German media as parallel societies just a short while ago who converse in a language other than German? Political geographer Sinthujan Varatharajah and artist Moshtari Hilal explore these questions in an Instagram live conversation, available in this volume in extended form in German and English translation. They uncover the underlying double standards and capital interests of the German majority society, create references to gentrification and asylum policy, and search for forms of just cultural work. Moshtari Hilal is an artist living in Hamburg. Sinthujan Varatharajah is a freelance researcher and essayist living in Berlin. In a live Instagram conversation in 2021, they triggered an intense debate about Nazi traditions after 1945.