Project Description

      As part of Studiengruppe Informationsdesign’s (SI) WiSe23/24 project “Weltoffene Hochschule?”, our subproject “BURG IS SOOO GERMAN” critically questions the internationality and openness of our school. It is the result of a participatory process, in which international students, and students who are perceived as such, were invited to share their experiences.

      We held weekly conversations, collected their voices, anonymized them, and evaluated the material. Our poster series and the corresponding website serve as a platform to amplify their reports about what it is like to be a student at our institution. The selected quotes reveal the problems of structural exclusion, discrimination, and racism as well as the absence of safe spaces, a culture of critical self-questioning, representation, and sufficient anti-discrimination structures.

      We aim to raise awareness about these problems and about the need for structural change by addressing everyone at our school.

“Discrimination is not about intentions. Something is discriminatory if it has a discriminatory effect. If I don't mean it like that, I should take serious indications about my actions having an effect that doesn’t match my intentions and be prepared to change something about my actions.” - Katharina Debus

      Our project intends to show that exclusion, discrimination, and racism at Burg can not be reduced to single individuals, but that it is a structural issue that needs to be addressed with all urgency and seriousness. We hope to contribute to the conversation around structural change that is finally taking up speed with the recent development at our school.