Ossifizierung – A discursive pattern within knowledge production about East and West Germany

Abstract

The discussion paper presents the concept of Ossifizierung using the example of the media discourse on the Brown East. Ossifizierung is understood as a discursive practice that considers certain (overall) social phenomena, i.e. (extreme) rightwing positions and practices, as specifically and typically East German. Ossifizierung explains and attributes this peculiarity to the GDR and its legacy and/or to the so-called transformation experiences of East Germans since the 1990s. Furthermore, Ossifizierung is introduced as an analytical concept, which takes up impulses from post- and decolonial theory, to enrich an engagement with current East-West German relations. Given that the category East German is understood as a complex and contradictory subject position, identity category as well as categorization, the paper argues for an intersectional analysis and underlines a (self) critique of the hegemonic within Ossifizierung.