Africans in academia: Diversity in adversity

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/authors/Grada_Kilomba.jpgGrada Kilomba analyses hierachies of race and gender with respect to the privileging of authority, scholarship and knowledge production. 'Academia is not a neutral location', she says. 'This is a white space where Black people have been denied the privilege to speak... It is not that we have not been speaking; but rather that our voices - through a system of racism - have been systematically disqualified as valid knowledge; or else represented by whites, who ironically become the 'experts' of ourselves. Either way, we are locked in a violent colonial hierarchy.' Derived from her experiences of working in Germany, her comments are widely applicable to debates about academia, identity, power, the centre and the periphery.

Every semester, on the very first day of my seminar, I play a quiz with my students. We first count how many people are in the room in order to see how many of us will be able to answer the questions. I start by asking very simple questions such as: What was the Berlin Conference of 1884-5? Which African countries were colonised by Germany? How many years did German colonisation over the continent of Africa last? I conclude with more specific questions, such as: Who was Queen Nzinga and which role did she play on the struggle against European colonisation? Who wrote Black Skin, White Masks? Who was May Ayim?

Not surprisingly, most of the white students are unable to answer the questions, while the Black students answer most of them successfully. Suddenly, those whose knowledge has been hidden, become visible, while those who have been over-represented become unnoticed and invisible. Those who are usually silent start speaking, while those who always speak become silent. Silent, not because they cannot articulate their voices or tongues, but rather because they do not possess the knowledge.

This exercise makes us understand how the concepts of knowledge and the idea of what scholarship or science is, are intrinsically linked with power and racial authority. What knowledge is being acknowledged as such? And what knowledge is not? Who is acknowledged to have the knowledge? And who is not? And who can teach knowledge? And who cannot? Who is at the centre? And who remains outside, at the margins? So, who can indeed speak in the academy? And who cannot?

Academia is not a neutral location. This is a white space where Black people have been denied the privilege to speak. Historically, this is a space where we have been voiceless, a space we could not enter. Here, white scholars have developed theoretical discourses which formally constructed us as the inferior Other - placing Africans in absolute subordination to the white subject. We were made the objects, but we have rarely been the subjects.

This position of object, which we commonly occupy, does not indicate a lack of resistance or of interest, as it is commonly believed, but rather a lack of access to representation by Blacks themselves. It is not that we have not been speaking; but rather that our voices - through a system of racism - have been systematically disqualified as valid knowledge; or else represented by whites, who ironically become the 'experts' of ourselves. Either way, we are locked in a violent colonial hierarchy.

As a scholar, for instance, I am commonly told that my work is very interesting, but not really scientific; a remark which illustrates the colonial hierarchy in which Black scholars reside: 'you have a very subjective perspective'; 'very personal'; 'very emotional'; 'very specific'; 'are these objective facts?'.

Within such masterful descriptions, the discourses and perspectives of Black scholars remain always at the margins - as deviating, while white discourses occupy the centre. When they speak it is scientific, when we speak it is unscientific.

Universal/specific; objective/subjective; neutral/personal; rational/emotional; impartial/partial; they have facts, we have opinions; they have knowledge, we have experiences.

These are not simple semantic categorisations. They own a dimension of power which maintains hierarchical positions and upheld white supremacy. We are not dealing here with a 'peaceful coexistence' of words, but rather with a violent hierarchy, which defines who can speak.

We have been speaking and producing independent knowledge for a long time. But when groups are unequal in power, they are also unequal in their access to the resources which are necessary to implement their own voices (Collins 2000). And because we lack control over such structures, the articulation of our own perspective outside the group becomes extremely difficult, if not unrealisable.

Moreover, the structures of knowledge validation, which define what true and valid scholarship is, are controlled by white scholars. So, as long as Black people and 'people of colour' are denied positions of authority and command within the academy, the idea of what science and scholarship are, prevails, of course, intact - it remains an exclusive and unquestionable 'property' of whiteness.

So, it is not an objective scientific truth that we encounter in the academy, but rather the result of unequal power race relations, which define what counts as true and in whom to believe. The themes, the paradigms and the methodologies of traditional scholarship - the so called epistemology - reflect nothing but the specific political interests of a white colonial patriarchal society.

Epistemology derives from the Greek words: episteme=knowledge and logos=science, the science of the acquisition of knowledge. It determines, therefore, which questions merit being questioned (themes), how to analyse and explain a phenomenon (paradigms), and how to conduct research to produce knowledge (methods). And in this sense, it defines not only what true scholarship is; but also in whom to believe and trust, because who is defining which questions merit being asked? And who is asking them? Furthermore to whom are the answers directed?

Interesting, but unscientific, but subjective, but personal, but emotional and partial, 'you do over-interpret', said a colleague, 'you must think you are the queen of interpretation'. Such comments, reveal that the endless need to control the Black subject's voice and the longing to govern and to command how we approach and interpret reality. By using these remarks, the white subject is assured of her sense of power, and of her own authority over a group which she is labelling as 'less knowledgeable.'

The last comment, in particular, gives two powerful insights. The first is a form of warning which describes the standpoint of the Black woman as a distortion of the truth, expressed here through the word 'over-interpretation'. The female colleague was warning me that I am over-reading, beyond the norms of traditional epistemology, and therefore, that I am producing invalid knowledge. It seems to me that this idea of over-interpretation addresses the thought that the oppressed is seeing 'something' which should not be seen, and is about to say 'something' which should not be said. 'Something' which should be kept quiet, as a secret - like the secrets of colonialism that most of my students could not answer.

Curiously, in feminist discourses as well, men try to irrationalise the thinking of women, as if such feminist interpretations were nothing but a fabrication of the reality, an illusion, maybe even a female hallucination.

Within this constellation it is the white woman who irrationalises my thinking, and by doing so, she defines to the Black woman what 'real' scholarship is, and how it should be expressed. This reveals how complex the intersection between gender, 'race' and colonial power is, and how the idea of a unitary category of women based on the assumption of an absolute patriarchy which divides the world into powerful men and subordinate women is problematic: for it neglects white women's role as oppressors and the reality of oppression experienced by both Black women and Black men.

In the second instance, she speaks then of hierarchical places, of a queen she fantasises I want to be, but who I cannot become. The queen is an interesting metaphor. It is a metaphor for power. A metaphor, also of the idea that certain bodies belong to certain places: a queen or a king naturally belong to the palace of knowledge, but not the plebeians; they can never achieve the position of royalty. They are sealed in their own subordinate bodies. Such a demarcation of spaces introduces a dynamic in which Blackness signifies 'being outside place'. I am told to be outside my place, for I cannot be the queen, only the plebeian. My body is improper. Within racism, Black bodies are constructed as improper bodies 'outside place', while white bodies are always proper, they are bodies at home, 'in place', bodies which belong. The same way in academia, in which Black scholars are persistently invited to return to 'their place', at the margins, where our bodies are at home and where they are proper.

Such dynamic reveals how dominant scholarship performs a fruitful combination of power, intimidation and control, which succeeds in silencing oppressed voices. Fruitful indeed, for after this last episode I remember I stopped writing for more than a month. I became temporarily voiceless. I had a 'white-out', was waiting for a Black-in.

Speaking about these positions of marginality evokes, of course, pain. They are reminders of the places we can hardly enter. The places we never 'arrive' at or 'can't stay' in (Hooks 1990). Such pain must be spoken and theorised. It must have a place within discourse, because we are not dealing here with 'private information'. Such apparent 'private information' is not private at all. These are not personal stories or intimate complains; but rather, accounts of racism. They mirror the historical, political and social realities of 'race relations' within the academic spaces, and should be articulated in both theory and methodology.

Such experiences confirm that academia is not a neutral space. It is not only a space of knowledge and wisdom, of science and scholarship, but also a space of violence. This violence remains as long as we remain outside at the margins, while white others are inside the centre, speaking in our own name. That is the essence of the violence - the violence of always being placed as the white subject's 'Other', who defines how to speak.

Therefore, I call for an epistemology which includes the personal, the subjective and the emotional. For as I mentioned earlier, there is no neutral, no objective no rational. Only the results of specific political interests of a white colonial patriarchy. Besides, once we find our voices, as Black writers, it is impossible to speak or to write disembodied of such emotions, of such passion or pain, because we are transgressing sorrowful boundaries. We are moving from the margins to the centre.

This is in remembrance of our ancestors.

Grada Kilomba is writer, researcher and psychologist from the West African Islands of Sao Tomé e Príncipe. Having studied clinical psychology and psychoanalysis in Lisbon, she is living and working in Berlin, Germany where she researches and writes within the area of cultural studies.

She is a guest lecturer at the Berlin Humboldt and Freie universities in the gender studies and psychology departments respectively. In her research and teaching, she focuses predominantly on psychoanalysis, slavery, colonialism, trauma and memory.

This article is based on a presentation she gave at an AfricAvenir dialogue-forum in May 2007 at the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Berlin.

References:

Collins, Patricia Hill (2000), Black Feminist Thought. Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. New York: Routledge.
Hooks, Bell (1990), Yearning. Race, Gender and Cultural Politics. Boston: South End Press.

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