We are growing! Archana Golla is a psychoanalyst based in Berlin and joins our advisory board. You might wonder why we want to have a psychoanalyst on the board? The reason: We operate in a sensitive area, in a context where we need to make sure that our clients, the craftsmen and women and us treat each other always at eye level. We have to reflect on the history of colonialization and operate in an environment where structural racism in business between African countries and Europe still is the reality. Archana as a psychoanalyst provides us with the skill to look behind our communication. We think this can make us stronger, better and nicer. Processes around “encounters at eye level”, especially in the context of different skin colours, have shaped her work since 2012, mentioned in the publication “From segregation and assimilation to a multicultural society“. In the Urban Change Lab, she pays attention to the places where power disparities unconsciously arise from internalised whiteness and internalised serventality. The conscious confrontation with internalised racism can provide the craftsmen and women with negotiating skills, the client with a broader perspective, the team with an emancipatory (learning from mistakes and avoiding them) approach and a step towards a more socially equal world.
