Selektive Kontextualisierung als Wirklichkeitskonstruktion.

Das Beispiel des postkolonialen Antisemitismus

Abstract

The deconstruction of a quasi-natural social reality and (group) identities that are clearly identifiable is a hallmark of postcolonial but also gender studies. The text presents J. Butler's and G. Spivak's understanding of social reality on the basis of their anti-essentialist theorizing and confronts it with their concept of identity politics, which makes strategic use of essentialism. Using the example of current debates on anti-Semitism in the postcolonial spectrum and Butler's specific text The Compass of mourning (2023), tensions in this theoretical field are highlighted and ultimately the question is asked as to why postcolonialism does not actually make policy with an anti-essentialist understanding of reality?