The DDGC Mutual Aid Network and the Praxis of Interconnectedness in German Studies

Nichole Neuman (University of Indiana Indianapolis)

During the 2025 the Diversity, Decolonization, and the German Curriculum (DDGC) conference, held under the theme “Interdependence and Solidarity Formations in German Studies,” the DDGC Mutual Aid (MA) Network shared information about the work they do with and for the collective. The network began as a way to put into practice the DDGC’s commitment to broad support and solidarity. The following blog post is based on the conference presentation. It will outline how we define mutual aid; what work we undertook to create the MA Network; how mutual aid functions in the DDGC collective; and resources for learning about and participating in mutual aid.

Why Mutual Aid?

Our comrades are struggling. Our programs are underfunded and defunded, leading to under-resourced individuals. Where our institutions do not provide the resources we need to navigate—let alone thrive in—academia, our collective commitment to mutual aid allows DDGC to focus on raising up the community, while simultaneously strengthening the collective and building affinity networks. 

Acknowledging the humanity and very real human circumstances that those connected to the discipline of German studies encounter means that the MA Network strives to offer care in any form that our members may need. Understanding that our comrades’ personal and professional lives are interconnected, support extends to both the academic sphere (e.g., editing, power mapping, mentorship, or guest lecture invitations) and the private (e.g., childcare, shelter, transportation, and financial assistance). We understand this work as the foundation to strive for a liberated future.

Mutual Aid in the DDGC

An important touchstone for the MA Network as we worked to define what mutual aid would be and is for us is the work of Dean Spade. Mutual aid means the sharing of resources as a means to support one another and nurture better relations among us, thereby anticipating a better world. Two of Spade’s key points guide us in conceptualizing our mutual aid work. First, mutual aid reframes individual failings as systemic failings (15). Second, Spade argues that mutual aid creates new social spaces, which in turn create new solidarities and which can, at the very least, anticipate new structures of relationality and better futures (8).

Mutual aid rejects hierarchies and privileges the collective. Its very presence is a resistance to existing structures in the academy that do not hold space for collective work. Because of the relentless focus on the individual and their efforts, mutual aid has the potential to critique and dismantle academia’s most toxic logics and functions as an indictment of university structures that simply do not offer the support necessary to succeed in the discipline. Mutual aid means reframing how we think of and relate to one another—a practice of relationality antithetical to the self-promotion prevalent in institutions, disciplinary societies, and granting organizations. 

Mutual aid is a flat, even, and non-hierarchical structure that focuses on continual engagement by all community members. It is always in process, requiring care and attention that participants must continually re-visit, refine, and reflect upon in order to realize its potential. Because of this, mutual aid can immediately attend to areas of concern and to the urgent needs of community members where institutions are unable to pivot and respond in the moment (Spade 8). This flexibility also means that we plan long-term and work to build solidarities amongst not only the DDGC Collective but also other groups engaged in mutual aid work, e.g., the Diversity, Decolonization, and the French Curriculum’s collective efforts.

Creating Mutual Aid for DDGC

Our work to establish the MA Network began in fall 2020 with a reading and discussion group.  We met for several months to determine how we could meet the needs of our collective and what work would be involved in creating a mutual aid group. Beyond developing a philosophy for DDGC mutual aid, we also learned many practical items in order to receive and distribute financial aid surrounding taxes, financing, and achieving a non-profit status for an organization. All of these items took months of discussion and attention, particularly in the bureaucratic paperwork of establishing DDGC as a non-profit organization.

This led to the MA Network beginning to accept requests in July 2021. As we fielded initial requests, we continually engaged in processes of learning and unlearning. We learned, for example, to define our scope: graduate students and professionals actively engaged in (or excluded by) German studies, primarily (though not exclusively) situated in North America. We learned what we can take on, whom we wish to serve, and whose ancestors we want to be. We learned what resource sharing can look like with our community and how it can evolve, even in our short history. We also engaged in processes of unlearning, particularly in relation to traditional charitable models of giving and to what Spade calls “deservingness hierarchies,” i.e., in determining which requests have value and which do not (33–35).

How DDGC Mutual Aid Operates

Giving and receiving mutual aid is a relatively simple process, and more information can be found at the MA Network page. Both begin with filling out the Mutual Aid Offer Form (if you have resources you can share with the collective) or the Mutual Aid Request Form (if you need resource assistance). The MA Network also accepts monetary donations for the collective at that site, too. As detailed above, the list of resources on offer vary widely from the personal to the professional, and the request form allows flexibility in requesting whatever resources needed.

After individuals fill out the offer form, their contact information and resources they can offer are maintained in a spreadsheet so that we can match requestors with those who have relating resources to share. Similarly, once an individual fills out the request form, we work to match their request with our pool of individuals with resources to offer. You can opt in and out of resource offering as your circumstances change, and you can request resources at any time.

Since July 2021, DDGC mutual aid has served 39 individuals and allocated $7,010 to colleagues.  Additional resource allocation has included promotion review, article revision, teaching support, and linguistic and networking support. We encourage you to read more about the network on its webpage and to consider if you can participate in DDGC mutual aid. We also welcome new co-conveners to the MA Network. If you are interested, send an email to the group (mutualaid[at]ddgccollective.org) to find out how you can get involved.

Additional Resources

DDGC Mutual Aid blog post with embedded links that also define mutual aid.

Spade, Dean. Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity during This Crisis (and the Next). Verso Books, 2020.

Stehle, Maria and Helga Thorson, editors. Communi-care, or How to Create Communities of Care in an Uncaring System, special issue of Feminist German Studies, vol. 40, no. 1, spring/summer 2024.