Joshua Kwesi Aikins is a political scientist, human rights activist and a PhD candidate at University of Kassel's Department of Development and Postcolonial Studies . His research interests include the interaction between western-style and indigenous political institutions in Ghana, post- and decolonial perspectives on 'development,' cultural and politicalrepresentation of the African Diaspora, coloniality and the politics of memory in Germany. In Germany, he served as an expert member of the Parliamentary Commission of inquiry on Racism and Discrimination in the State of Thuringia from 2017 to 2019. As senior researcher with NGO Vielfalt entscheidet - Diversity in Leadership he co-developed the first differentiated equality data instrument that takes into account all dimensions protected under Germany's Equal Treatment Act. This forms the basis of the just completed Afrozensus.de the first large scale community survey for Black African and Afrodiasporic people in Germany. From 2013 to 2015 he coordinated the writing and finally presented the most comprehensive civil society led parallel report to Germany's state report to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. Aikins serves on the advisory board of Initiative Schwarze Menschen in Deutschland (Initiative Black People in Germany) and is is involved in diaspora empowerment and the ongoing decolonial renaming of Berlin streets as part of a shift from colonial to anti- and decolonial commemoration in and beyond the German capital.
