As Europe finds itself in the midst of profound identity shifts—including a rapidly aging population coupled with increasing migration from non-white, non-Christian nations—the question of who belongs has become more urgent than ever. Indeed, these shifts are not happening without backlash, as previously-fringe authoritarian populist movements are finding great success stoking fear of demographic change to advance their exclusionary and anti-democratic vision. To better understand both how we got here and where we might go next, scholars john a. powell and Hans Kundnani will come together for a timely conversation on identity, racialization, othering and belonging in the European context.
Drawing from Kundnani’s Eurowhiteness: Culture, Empire, and Race in the European Project and powell’s Belonging Without Othering: How We Save Ourselves and the World, this conversation will address the challenges of defining what it means to be "European" in an era where narratives of identity and nationalism are becoming ever more exclusionary. Within a context of rising polarization and mistrust, how can we advance more expansive narratives of European identity rooted in multiplicity, rather than race, religion, or nationality, and without collapsing into false narratives of sameness or artificial colorblindness? How might we advance practices of bridging and belonging even as othering continues to rise—and where is this already happening?
This conversation is jointly hosted by the BMW Foundation Herbert Quandt and the Democracy & Belonging Forum, a program of UC Berkeley’s Othering & Belonging Institute.
Speakers:
Hans Kundnani is an adjunct professor at New York University and a visiting professor in practice at the London School of Economics. He was previously the director of the Europe programme at the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House) in London, a senior Transatlantic fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, and research director at the European Council on Foreign Relations. He has also been a visiting fellow at the Remarque Institute at New York York University and a Bosch Public Policy Fellow at the Transatlantic Academy in Washington, D.C.
Hans is the author of three books: Eurowhiteness. Culture, Empire and Race in the European Project (London: Hurst, 2023); The Paradox of German Power (London/New York: Hurst/Oxford University Press, 2014), which has been translated into German, Italian, Japanese, Korean and Spanish; and Utopia or Auschwitz. Germany’s 1968 Generation and the Holocaust (London/New York: Hurst/Columbia University Press, 2009). He studied German and philosophy at Oxford University and journalism at Columbia University in New York, where he was a Fulbright Scholar. He tweets @hanskundnani.
john a. powell is an internationally recognized expert in the areas of civil rights, civil liberties, structural racism, housing, poverty, and democracy. john is the Director of the Othering & Belonging Institute at the University of California, Berkeley, where he also holds the Robert D. Haas Chancellor’s Chair in Equity and Inclusion and is a Professor of Law, African American Studies, and Ethnic Studies. john has written extensively on a number of issues including structural racism, racial justice, concentrated poverty, opportunity-based housing, voting rights, affirmative action in the US, South Africa and Brazil, racial and ethnic identity, spirituality and social justice, and the needs of citizens in a democratic society. john previously served as the National Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), where he was instrumental in developing educational adequacy theory. Learn more about john.