Underground Pedagogy of Hope? : German Punk-Feminist Festivals as Education in Feminist Theories and Actions

Abstract

This article approaches German punk-feminist festivals as underground spaces for informal teaching and learning practices. In doing so, I participate in a discourse of understanding festivals not merely as events where an audience socializes and consumes live music, but also as educational stage. Drawing on former research on grrrl zines activism, I question the influence of bell hooks’ “pedagogy of hope” on punk-feminist movements. In a first approach, I demonstrate how German punk-feminist festivals foster a hopeful activism, which aims to transform both the independent music scenes and the society at large. Yet, in the concluding section of this article, I explore the ways in which these festivals keep centering white people’s experiences, which appears as limiting the forcefulness of their activism.