Naz, whose tongue speaks first

In this episode, Naz reflects on living between worlds, as an Iraqi Kurdish woman raised in Germany, and how those layered identities have shaped her academic work and activism. She discusses the complexities of belonging, the role language plays in identity, and how experiences of marginalization influence the questions she asks as a scholar. Now pursuing a PhD, Al-Windi explores how people living through conflict understand and define violence, challenging dominant Western frameworks. She also reflects on Hamburg’s hidden colonial history and on the balance between scholarship and activism in making sense of the world.