Description
Is the decolonial turn more than just another buzzword? In our work examining humanitarian aid relationships between Germany and Cameroon, we have found diverse meanings and decolonizing practices among aid groups and think tanks in both countries. This is, we assert, in considerable part due to a context of an insufficiently explored colonial past. Our paper, based on interviews and a late 2023 workshop bringing together interlocutors from both sides, analyzes these meanings and practices of decolonization for Cameroonian, German and transnational aid interlocutors, as well as the barriers and possibilities they see from related demands. We look at the challenges posed by a specific linkage between colonial and contemporary, post-colonial forms of aid/humanitarianism in the context of a nostalgic invocation of the German colonial past by some Cameroonians on the one hand, and an insufficient reference to the structuring German colonial presence in Cameroon on the German side. Under these conditions, can a common and shared understanding of the terms of decolonization of present relations be constructed? Our paper explores the extant and possible negotiations necessary for constructing such a shared space that accounts for an ever-present past.
