@inbook{17de20f4fefb4b769bc064aa4815e171,
title = "Whiteness and nostalgia: Twenty-First-Century German representations of Techno's beginnings in Berlin and Detroit",
abstract = "This chapter investigates nostalgia for the 1990s as a cultural practice of whiteness in Germany{\textquoteright}s techno scene. While scholarship on Detroit techno focuses on constructions of Blackness, German representations of nostalgia for techno{\textquoteright}s beginnings reveal an unmarked whiteness associated with Germany{\textquoteright}s techno scene. I explore what these representations reveal about the structural effects of whiteness: techno is set apart from more racially marked genres such as hip-hop, and Blackness as envisioned by Detroit techno producers elides the identities and experiences specific to Black musicians and other artists of colour in Germany. I analyse the exhibition nineties.berlin (2018–9) alongside Thomas Meinecke{\textquoteright}s novel 'Hellblau' (2001). These very different representations by white creators explore two contrasting but linked forms of nostalgia: reimagining early techno as a homogenous white movement due to its racially unmarked status, and mourning techno{\textquoteright}s supposedly lost Black past in Detroit. Both forms idealize techno{\textquoteright}s origins and preserve racialized power asymmetries. Yet nineties.berlin and especially 'Hellblau' suggest that emotional attachment to the past can also motivate change, inspiring self-scrutiny and imagination as first steps in marking whiteness and combatting its effects.",
author = "Tom Smith",
year = "2021",
language = "English",
isbn = "9781789976540",
series = "Studies in modern German and Austrian literature",
publisher = "Peter Lang",
pages = "93--114",
editor = "Uwe Sch{\"u}tte",
booktitle = "German pop music in literary and transmedial perspectives",
}