The Politics of Cultural Knowledge

The Politics of Cultural Knowledge

Edited by

Njoki Wane, Arlo Kempf and Marlon Simmons
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education,
University of Toronto, Canada

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v
DEDICATION
This book is dedicated to the seekers of alternative forms of knowledge.

vii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgements .................................................................................................. ix
Njoki Wane, Arlo Kempf and Marlon Simmons

Foreword .................................................................................................................. xi
George J. Sefa Dei

1. Introduction: The Politics of Cultural Knowledge .............................................. 1
Njoki Wane and Marlon Simmons

2. African Indigenous Feminist Thought: An Anti-Colonial Project ..................... 7
Njoki Wane

3. Circulating Western Notions: Implicating Myself in the Transnational
Traffic of Progress and Commodities ............................................................. 23
John Catungal

4. The Race to Modernity: Understanding Culture Through the
Diasporic-Self .................................................................................................... 37
Marlon Simmons

5. Remembering the 1947 Partition of India Through the Voices of
Second Generation Punjabi Women ................................................................. 51
Mandeep Kaur Mucina

6. Moving Beyond Neo-Colonialism to Ubuntu Governance............................... 71
Devi Mucina

7. Being Part of the Cultural Chain ....................................................................... 83
Yumiko Kawano

8. North African Knowledges and the Western Classroom: Situating
Selected Literature ............................................................................................. 93
Arlo Kempf

9. What Might We Learn if We Silence the Colonial Voice?: Finding
Our Own Keys ................................................................................................. 111
Donna Outerbridge

10. A Conversation About Conversations: Dialogue Based Methodology
and HIV/AIDS In Southern Africa ................................................................. 121
Imara Ajani Rolston
TABLE OF CONTENTS
viii
11. The Politics of African Development: Conversations with Women
from Rural Kenya ............................................................................................ 137
Njoki Wane

12. Conclusion ....................................................................................................... 155
Arlo Kempf

Notes On Contributors ........................................................................................... 161

ix
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This work emerged from classroom discussions in Njoki Wanes graduate course
SES 3911: Cultural Knowledges, Representation and Colonial Education: Pedago-
gical Implications, at OISE/UT. We thank the students and the contributors for the
many conversations, which informed this writing. We have learned much from this
project, and indeed this work would not have materialized without our spiritual
relations. Arlo and Marlon would like to thank Professor Wane for the opportunity
to co-edit this collection. We are indebted to Amadou for the detailed job and care
with the copyediting. We also like to thank Zafar Shamsi for his thorough work
with the formatting of the manuscript.

Njoki Wane
Arlo Kempf
Marlon Simmons

xi
FOREWORD
Emerging debates about the inclusion of multiple forms of knowledge and the
search for diverse representation of bodies in the academy show hopeful signs. But
we caution that inclusion can be anything but equal. One can be included while still
existing on the margins. For many Indigenous and colonized peoples, the call for
the renewal and affirmation of Indigenous and local cultural knowledge emerges
out of recognizing the value and relevance of such knowledge in their own right.
There continues to be alarming concerns about the general erasure of Indigenous
identities, ideological [mis]representations of the colonized experience and the colonial
encounter that simply enhance on-going colonial and colonizing projects. Coupled
with myths that conveniently either deny or forget the roots of the colonial dis-
possession of Indigenous lands, we see the continuing presence of colonial and
imperial racism today.
Racism has always been a product of colonial and imperial relations. Colonial
tropes and technologies of representation, the normalizing gaze of the colonizer,
disciplining around the borders and boundaries of what constitutes valid knowledge
and how such knowledges should be produced, interrogated, validated and dissemina-
ted are all, in fact, more than Foucauldian forms of institutional surveillance. These
significant acts and practices both reveal and constitute fundamental contestations
about power, representation, and how we come to claim the authenticity of voice
and experience. These acts and contestations also help us recognize the power of
the colonial [racial] dominant irrespective of the intersections of difference or how we
come to terms with the diffused nature of power and/or the asymmetrical relations
of power. Colonial racism has appropriated, and continues to appropriate, Indigenous
lands, languages, and cultural resources. The racism of globalization today can be
found in the commodification of Indigenous cultures and their knowledge ostensibly
to serve the needs of Capital. In effect, the imperial ambitions of Western capital
seem to be running amok but also in a grand style as far as the colonial oppressor
is concerned. Challenging the ideological, material, political and symbolic effects
of erasure and negations of Indigenous histories, identities, experiences and, in
particular, cultural knowledge has come at a huge cost to critical Indigenous and
racialized scholars. We risk losing what it means to be human in the never-ending
battle to contest and lay bare the race, class, gender, [dis]ability, and sexual
domesticizing of spaces.
In current times it is refreshing to see [more so in the academy] the level of
myriad intellectual engagements that are helping to destabilize the complacency and
dominance of particular ways of knowing masquerading as universal. A discussion
of cultural knowledge is important as part of the interrogation of dominant and hege-
monic procedures of knowledge production, validation and dissemination globally.
For someone who has been writing about Indigenous knowledge since the early
1980s, I have come to realize the connections between questions of Indigeneity
and cultural knowledge as powerful and insightful in the politics of intellectual
decolonization. Writing from the North American and Canadian context, I also
FOREWORD
xii
acknowledge that I am able to speak of Indigenous and local cultural knowledge as
a way to pay homage to my ancestral knowledge while acknowledging the context
and politics of my physical location on Aboriginal lands. For many in a similar
situation we speak of Indigenous and cultural knowledge to highlight the relevance
of articulating multiple systems of knowing as a way to challenge the dominance of
Eurocentric ways of knowing. We must welcome and encourage any moment and
politics to claim Indigenousness as a space to subvert hegemonic knowings, and also
to affirm both the particularities and the shared connections of the colonial experiences
among oppressed, colonized and Indigenous peoples everywhere. Consequently,
I have no intellectual appetite in devoting my energies and intellectual capital simply
pointing to the complicities of colonized bodies thus leaving the disaster of Euro-
dominance off the hook. This is not to say I do not welcome such scholarship. It
has its space. I simply have no desire for it and do not crave to undertake it.
Cultural knowledge speaks to the dynamism of cultures, a significance of a
rootedness in place, history and culture. Colonial narratives have long subverted the
power of local cultural knowings. But it is a testament of the power of such know-
ledge that they have survived and continue to offer guidance to human existence.
A critical study of local cultural knowledge systems reveals that they are often
well-woven together with theoretical explorations and they foreground local voices
and the experiential reality. Hence, the study of cultural knowledge entails the under-
standing and writing the experiential into a theory of social existence. It requires
that our analysis become lucid and laced with clearly delineated systems of thought
and not necessarily engaged in a search for definitive answers. The authenticity of
experience and voice implies taking the experiential as an entry into theory.
In naming the acts of resistance and decolonization, a study of cultural knowledge
must pay attention to those moments when acts of resistance simply insert the
oppressed body into colonial, hegemonic spaces and relations. Cultural knowledge
is also about healing and reconnection and so it is also important to note that not
all healing is about resistance or social activism. The experience of knowledge as
healing can be individualized and the challenge for us is to move into an under-
standing of healing as collective politics. We must engage cultural knowledge from
the heart, making the connections of body, mind and soul. Claiming the Indigenous
today must seek to repair the damage caused by colonialism and colonial relations.
Indigenousness concerns a search for holism and the repair of spiritual, emotional,
physical material damage to oppressed communities through colonial practices. We
must focus on commonalities and differences in knowledge production noting that
for example, spirituality is not the same everywhere for all Indigenous communities.
It is important to recognize how power and relations of colonialism and re-colonial
relations have scripted and continue to script us differently.
The anti-colonial presence has been well historicized. These histories tell us the
anti-colonial is about praxis and about being able to self-determine through critical
consciousness. The authors in this collection broach cultural knowledge through an
anti-colonial framework, which works to critique dominant forms of knowledge
that continue to provide an articulating tool to express the emerging conditions
of the human. Such forms of knowledge exert a particular disciplinary pressure on
FOREWORD
xiii
oppressed and colonial subjects by subjugating our different cultural forms and
expressions. The affirming of our cultural knowledge allows us then to offer a
counter-hegemonic reading, which works to disrupt the production and dissemination
of colonial knowledging endemic to civilizing narratives of what it means to be
human. Cultural knowledge positions identity and, by extension, identifications as
historically constituted and laden with politics. Aptly, this collection reminds us
that we can no longer continue to allow identity as constituted through the inter-
sections of race, class, gender, sexuality, ability and religion to be shaped and formed
simply through the contours of economic materialism. The Politics of Cultural Know-
ledge takes up the problematic of colonialism as historically informing the human
condition and searches for ways to work with and outside the constraints of Euro-
modernity. In claiming cultural knowledge the authors are faced with some key
questions, such as: How is difference, heterogeneity, shared experiences and collective
histories understood through our complicated locations? And how might this
reading diverge and converge from contemporary readings of cultural knowledges as a
site for decolonization? Ultimately, The Politics of Cultural Knowledge edited by
Njoki Wane, Arlo Kempf and Marlon Simmons, challenges the mainstream oeuvre
of cultural critique.

George J. Sefa Dei
Toronto, June 2010

N. Wane et al. (eds.), The Politics of Cultural Knowledge, 16.
2011 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.
NJOKI WANE AND MARLON SIMMONS
1. INTRODUCTION
This collection is an outcome of teaching a course on cultural knowledge and colonial
education for eight years. The course has created space for critical dialogical engage-
ments with educators, learners, activists, and students involved in the process of
reclaiming their Indigenous knowledge or making sense of their Indigeneity. A key
to the many dialogues during class discussions has been to move the learning debates
beyond the halls of academe or beyond goals of bringing about change that focus
on issues of cognition, inclusion, discrimination and integration, to an emphasis on
critical self-reflexivity that would allow for the interrogation of individual beliefs,
values, biases and hence, work towards uncolonizing the mind. The dialogues have
taken into account the social, political and cultural changes that impede transfor-
mation, and have called for a rethinking of the dominant seductive ideologies that
serve to marginalize other peoples ways of knowing. The course readings have
pointed to different ways of conceptualizing and engaging in transformative learning
and uncolonizing procedures. The readings attempted to challenge the status quo
and offer alternative ideas and interpretations that allow for the dismantling of the
persistent ambiguous connections between the known and the unknown; the self
and the constructed other.
The terms transformative and uncolonizing have often been assigned
different meanings, which have contributed to the messiness and contradictions
evident in the different discussions on transformation and uncolonizing. One of
such contradictions has to do with the contestations on who should be carrying out
the transformative and uncolonizing work. In the course, we took the position that all
humans are implicated in the process. However, the extent of individuals
involvement differs significantly considering the societal hierarchies and power
structures we find ourselves in. As a result, we argue that transformation is about
creating spaces and possibilities for excluded and oppressed individuals, groups,
and communities to define themselves, create/recreate and claim/reclaim their
taken for granted and appropriated values, meanings, and purposes independent
of any external ideological or cultural impositions. These spaces could be created
through the media, schools, work places, communities, healthcare avenues, ecological
spaces, policy making, etc. This requires that we all consciously and responsibly
reflect on how we make meaning of our world. In Crantons (1996) words, such
transformative learning would entail a rethinking and interrogation of our
preordained assumptions, perspectives and expectations, and working towards
empowering the disempowered.
WANE AND SIMMONS
2
The essays in the reader are informed by experiential knowledge and research
findings. They reflect different perspectives that are informed by diverse histories,
cultures, voices and narratives, which offer a critical interpretation concerning our
understanding of the uncolonizing process and reclaiming ones Indigeneity. This
approach yields significant questions with regard to transformative learning in the
contexts of cultural knowledges; colonial education; spirituality; ecology, feminist
anti-racist and queer pedagogy; popular culture; globalization; critical pedagogy and
cultural studies. As a result, the essays will generate creative tensions that inform,
interrogate and expand our views of what we have come to take for granted as
knowledge and the possibilities of transformation. More importantly, the essays will
acknowledge the divergences and similarities of Indigenous ways of knowing and
help with disentangling the tensions in the different un-colonizing processes. These
connections are important because they challenge us to have dialogue among our-
selves in an effort to understand how to deal with the colonial ethos, post-colonial
or neo-colonial thought.
Although as authors of this reader, we may not have directly experienced the
first way of the colonial past, that of, violence, famine, poverty or genocide yet, we
are aware that colonization never stopped and a discussion of decolonization is a
constant reminder that, we are constantly confronting these realities at our doorsteps,
inside our own homes, and through normate procedures of the media. As a result,
we are confronted with this sense of place and belonging because the self is in-
extricably bound up with these colonial histories that confront us on a day-to-day basis.
We can no longer ignore the violence in distant lands because we are intrinsically
connected. The oppressions taking place in various parts of the world have colonial
and neo-colonial histories. By engaging in critical transformative dialogues with these
histories, we would be encouraged to seek responses, or rework our ways of knowing,
spiritualities and cultures that could contribute to the disrupting of the power and
politics that perpetuate the divide between the we and them; the self and the
other. We, the contributors of this reader, come from different histories and commu-
nities, however we have a common goal, to unlearn and learn from each other and
our communities of learners. We are endeavoring to transform our damaged cultures
and recreate traditions that speak both to our situation as educators. It is important
that we take on the responsibility to assert our knowing and processes of learning and
teaching. Consequently, this reader reflects on important differences in the values,
histories and relationships of the different groups in our society. The book attempts
to draw people together with the hope that such an exercise will be an opening to
individual and institutional transformation. Although some people might argue that
we are moving on and developing; it ought to be remembered that the process of
recolonization persists. For example in Africa, the idea of economic development and
establishment of social conditions conducive for all parties was unanimously supported
by rulers of ex-colonial states without paying attention to the voices from the grass-
roots. These grassroots voices, which were at the forefront during the struggle for
independence, were silenced either through military force or through poverty. For
most African people then, political independence was nothing but a divisive tool
for exclusion and discrimination.
INTRODUCTION
3
As we engage in these dialogues, it is crucial that our engagement is holistic.
We should ask ourselves, what it is that we want to achieve; do we want to engage in
a dialogue as an exercise to stimulate our intellectual abilities, play with words and
discourses or do we want to write a counter-discourse on transformative uncolonial
learning? In the transformative and uncolonial educational thought, our goal is to
search for ways of dismantling both the tangible and intangible forms of colonialism.
We need to find ways of dealing with psychological traumas that have been colonially
imbued. We need to ask ourselves how colonialism as a theory, a project, a praxis,
a discourse has managed to produce itself: politically, socially, culturally, materially
and ideologically? We need to find ways of dealing with spirit injury. And above
all, we need to ask ourselves how we can move beyond further colonial desires that
favor individualistic material gain over community needs. Through multiple inter-
pretive prisms this reader attempts to address these broad questions.
Colonization, oppression and systemic discrimination that disoriented Indigenous
peoples remain a significant challenge today. This trauma, suffering dispossession,
violence, discrimination and pain persist. Colonization has detached Indigenous
peoples from their cultural ways of understanding their experiences. They have been
separated from their spiritual and physical relationships with both humans and nature
(land, water, resource and territories). Such de-linking is further evidenced through the
exclusion, silencing and negation by the educational system of Indigenous peoples.
In this volume, our goal is to respond to the dialogue of transformation through
engaging in learning/living as a process of uncolonizing ones self. The voices and
disparate narratives that have been shaped by colonial and neo-colonial procedures,
whether tangible or intangible, move beyond overworked metaphors of integration,
multiculturation or cohesive living. Together, we explore the various discourses,
theoretical frameworks and ideological proclamations that have been employed to
analyze, critique and also interrogate the everyday assumptions of transformative
learning that enable individuals to un-colonize themselves. We encourage readers to
engage in critical dialogues that will interrogate, challenge and disrupt the power
and politics that perpetuate societal hierarchies and divisions. This broad mapping
points to the diverse ways of dialoguing, evoking, and practicing transformative
learning in multiple contexts.
LOCATION OF ESSAYS
We begin with Njoki Wanes chapter, African Indigenous Feminist Thought: An Anti-
Colonial Project. Wane, in her discussion, questions and identifies some of the
limitations of Western educational thought that did not speak to her lived moments
as an African woman. In doing so, Wane engages with the experience of African
feminism in order to better understand how the lives of African women can be
transformed. Through the context of a feminist discourse, Wanes intention is to make
meaning of the myriad ways dominant relations of power and knowledge come to
govern men and women in our societies.
John Catungals, Circulating Western Notions: Implicating Myself in the Trans-
national Traffic of Progress and Commodities, is concerned with the particular
WANE AND SIMMONS
4
items that immigrant communities in Canada send to their families in other parts
of the world. He discusses the role of these mobile objects in producing cultural
meanings and transnational affective relations. Catungal utilizes autobiographical
stories that he shares with his transnational family as a way to explore how and why
immigrant communities send gift packages, parcels and letters. He is also interested
in how these transactions can inform our understandings of care, culture and commo-
dities. Catungal argues that these stories of transnational circuits have much to tell
us about the role of these transported items in cultural and knowledge productions,
especially in the context of the present fragmented but connected transnational
community formation. He tells us that such stories enable us to interpret how the
circulation of these items among transnational social units functions in a duplicitous
way. In thinking about questions of care and the complexity of cultural meanings in
these transnational stories, Catungal foregrounds how immigrant communities come
to occupy and navigate a difficult space somewhere between transnational modalities
of caring and of complicity.
Marlon Simmons, in his The Race to Modernity: Understanding Culture through
the Diasporic-Self, discusses the experience of the Diaspora and the necessary
communicative strategies for survival. Simmons is concerned with questions of
identity as identity comes to be regulated and simultaneously formed through the
Diaspora. In particular, he is interested in the way Diasporic culture becomes governed
through the socio-historical formations of Euromodernity. The matter of race centers
his discussion to help with disentangling the way space comes to be constituted
through bodies of the Diaspora.
In Remembering the 1947 Partition of India Through The Voices of Second gene-
ration Punjabi Women, Mandeep Kaur Mucina explores the experiences of seven,
second-generation Punjabi women raised in Canada to families that were impacted
by the Partition of India. In doing so, Mucina delves into themes of honor and
everyday resistance in the lives of Punjabi women. She inserts her own stories and
perspective as an insider to the issues explored, and at the same time, Mucina brings
the voices of these women together to speak about identity, intergenerational memory,
and the complexities of growing up in Canada as second generation women. Altoge-
ther, Mucina draws from the myriad ways Punjabi women resisted expectations
placed on them from the private and public spaces of their lives.
Devi Mucinas Moving Beyond Neo-Colonialism to Ubuntu Governance is an
exercise in remembering what is shared common Ubuntu knowledge for an
informed Maseko governance within the Ubuntu worldview. Mucina amplifies the
importance of the land for Ubuntu peoples, and also the way in which Inkatha (unity)
reflects the knowledge formed through the lived experience of Ubuntu peoples. He
is interested in thinking of the Diaspora through Maseko Ngoni identity. His intention
is to find ways in which Ubuntu languages could come to form lived possibilities
for Africans such as Maseko Ngoni. Ultimately, Mucina hopes to regenerate and
revive Maseko political entities and governance through historic-cultural memories
and knowledges that centre the African through Ubuntu identity.
Yumiko Kawanos Being Part of the Cultural Chain locates colonialism in the
context of Japan and points to the different ways in which colonialism comes to be
INTRODUCTION
5
experienced within myriad social geographies of Japan. She makes us aware of the
colonization projects directed at Indigenous groups in Japan and in other geographies
of Asia. She speaks to the various ways whereby Japanese Indigenous knowledges
have been marginalized in public and educational institutions. Yumiko discusses
the ways in which she can re-visit and gather her fragmented history so that she can
reclaim and pass down embodied Indigenous knowledges.
Arlo Kempf s chapter, North African Knowledges and the Western Classroom:
Situating Selected Literature, provides a succinct theoretical framework and rationale
for introducing North African knowledges into high school curricula in the Ontario
context. Kempf s paper surveys some of these North African knowledges in concise
reviews of three key works in critical ancient history: Martin Bernals Black Athena:
The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization, Molefi Asantes The Egyptian Philo-
sophers and Maulana Karengas Maat: The Moral Ideal in Ancient Egypt. Kempf
then presents two sample assignments that integrate critical historical perspectives,
ancient African knowledges and existing government expectations, to be utilized in
upper level secondary philosophy and classical civilizations courses.
Donna Outerbridges chapter, What might we learn if we silence the colonial
voice?: Finding our own Keys, engages with the importance of being responsible
and accountable. Outerbridge queries the governance of colonialism through the
context of education. She identifies the significance of thinking through an anti-
colonial discursive framework to come to understand the denial and erasure of black
identity. Moreover, Outerbridge stresses the importance of not signing off once the
research is completed, that to do so, would be committing the same atrocity as our
Western counterparts. Instead, Outerbridge tells us that we must adapt the principle
of reciprocity and feedback.
Imara Ajani Rolstons A Conversation about Conversations: Dialogue Based
Methodology and HIV/AIDS in Southern Africa speaks about the necessity for dialogue
as a transformative method for social justice. Focused in particular on United Nations
Development Programs (UNDP) and Community Capacity Enhancement Program
(CCEP), Rolston posits that, in discussing the HIV/AIDS pandemic, the approach
must be grounded through the lived experience of the local communities, that commu-
nity based-dialogue can come to transform intra-community dynamics, resist dominant
knowledge paradigms, and create a platform for communities to learn and strategize
for their own empowerment. He draws from different examples in the context of
Southern Africa, with a particular interest in Botswana and South Africa.
Njoki Wane provides us with another chapter in which she is concerned with the
question of development. In The Politics of African Development: Conversations
with women from Rural Kenya, Wane articulates the way in which rural women in
Kenya understand development. She notes that the misconception of African values
on the part of the implementers of the modernization paradigm has destroyed the
very fabric of African cultures, African ways of knowing and any aspect of progress.
Wane searches for alternative ways for meaningful growth by returning to rural
African communities to reclaim local Indigenous voices.
Arlo Kempf, in the Conclusion, engages the historical materialization of
culture and speaks about how these historical specificities present themselves in our
WANE AND SIMMONS
6
contemporary epoch as some accepted given. He reminds us of the need to decolonize
the self within the governing neo-colonial era. He discusses the sociological implica-
tions of coming to know culture through the dominants interpretation and offers
possibilities for a different humanism through alternative ways of knowing culture.
Importantly, Arlo recalls the need for transformation of the curricula by education
through praxis.
REFERENCE
Cranton, P. (1996). Types of group learning. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, 71,
2532.

NJOKI WANE
2. AFRICAN INDIGENOUS FEMINIST THOUGHT
An Anti-Colonial Project
INTRODUCTION
African feminism must be located in the teaching of African spirituality, that is,
African Indigenous ways of knowing and, in particular, on the issue of creation
where Africans are taught that man and woman were created simultaneously;
none came before the other Also the importance of complementary roles
both female and male play in both domestic and public spheresI am not sure
where this superiority of men came from, it does not exist in my culture .
(PW, 2007).
1

African feminism is part and parcel of African womens lived experiences. African
feminism is about African Indigenous ways of knowing which are holistic and not
compartmentalized into neat piles but more fused together. African feminism is not
exclusionary in terms of how gender participates and derives its impetus and
meaning from particular historic-cultural specificities. African feminist thought is
embodied through collectivism and collaboration (Wane, 2002). African feminism
is about decolonization.
The process of decolonizing the self led me to a form of reflexivity where I am
faced with questioning the politics of Western educational thought that did not speak
to my experiences as an African woman. The continued experience of decolonizing
has informed my research work among African women in the Diaspora and among
Embu rural women in Kenya. In this paper, I discuss the meaning of African
feminism and how African feminism translates in the lives of women on a day-to-
day basis. My goal is to better understand how feminist knowledge or lack thereof
impact the lives of women and men and also reveal ways in which relations of
power and knowledge come to intimidate men and women in our societies. African
feminism is complex and difficult to engage. As an educator who teaches Black
feminist thought, I need to work with a body of knowledge that decolonizes the
self, as well as an anti-colonial tool for anchoring my work and my activism res-
pectively. This paper draws from my research among Embu rural women, my
teaching experiences and my community activism as well as my on going work on
African Feminisms. The paper concludes with a discussion on feminist strategies
that may inform culturally specific moments in teaching and researching community
activism.
WANE
8
INDIGENOUS THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK AS AN ANTI-COLONIAL TOOL
There is a need for an approach that is anchored in a retrieval, revitalization or
restoration of the African senses of Indigenousness (Wane, 2005). That is, African
people must reposition their cultural resource knowledge in order to appreciate the
power of collective responsibility to tackle social issues. In this paper, I take an
Indigenous theoretical framework as an entry point for my African feminist dis-
cussion. I argue that Indigenous knowledge is a living, constant experience that is
informed by the ancestral voices, past, present and those to come. This point was
articulated by Gatty, one of the research participants.
I have been treating people of all kinds of diseases. I learnt the trade from my
grandmother. She learnt it from her grandmother. My grandmother emphasized
the importance of not giving up. I remember as a young woman, my friends
would always laugh at me because they said I came from a witchdoctors
family. That is why I dropped out of school, and I do not regret doing that,
because I was able to learn more about herbal medicine. I have assisted many
people who cannot afford to go to hospital. Yes, it was a strugglefrom the
Wazungu (Europeans) to our own people . I do not see this as womens
movement as you are calling it I see it as resistance. My classmates would
laugh at me because of the knowledge that my family had on different cures.
The Wazungus did everything to ensure that the community turned away
from my family and their knowledge that had been passed down generation
after generation, my parents did not condemn me when I dropped out of
school. They were glad that one of their children would carry this knowledge
to the next generation. Today, my grandchild (pointing to Keen) is my doctor.
People have come to believe in her skills . It is a struggle, but my child, we
must resist the temptation to turn our backs to our ways. They are good ways.
George Dei (1999) describes this type of knowledge as Indigenous Knowledge and
a worldview that shapes the communitys relationships with surrounding environ-
ments. It is the product of Indigenous peoples direct experience with nature and its
symbiotic relationship with the social world and, as such, is crucial for community
survival. This knowledge, ancient, proven, and based on cognitive understandings
and interpretations of social, physical and spiritual worlds, encompasses concepts,
beliefs and perceptions of local peoples and their natural human-built environments
(Dei, 1997). Capp and Jorgensen (1997) note that Indigenous knowledge is generally
transmitted orally, experientially, and is not written, but is learned through hands-
on experience and not taught in an abstract context. Its parameters are holistic, non-
linear and reflect a qualitative and intuitive mode of thinking. Rather than rely on
explicit hypotheses, theories and laws, Indigenous knowledge is spiritual, cumulative
and collective knowledge that is constantly renewed. Traditional knowledge tries to
understand systems within a framework of wholeness rather than isolate interacting
parts (Capp, 1997). To put it concisely: Indigenous Knowledge is an Indigenous
cultural synthesis.
I draw from African Indigenous knowledge to build on anti-colonial thought
as conceptualized through African feminism. I draw from African Indigenous
AFRICAN INDIGENOUS FEMINIST THOUGHT
9
knowledge as a strategic tool to articulate different ways of interpreting African
womens ways of knowing, teaching and learning within traditional education
systems. As well as, I engage African Indigenous knowledge to challenge the institu-
tional powers and imperialistic structures that have prevented many African women
from realizing the importance of dismantling the colonial patriarchal structures left
behind by colonizers after the attainment of political independence, and also, to
articulate the historical depth of African feminism as a way of knowing rooted in
historical Indigenous knowledges of African peoples.
HISTORICAL ROOTS OF AFRICAN FEMINISM
In Africa, feminism did not develop in an academic setting, but in the villages where
the inclusion of women was evident in the social, economic, ritual, and political
spheres (Steady, 1989: 58). As noted by Awapa, one of the participants:
African feminism is about people, their children, their work, their day to day
experiences, their stories of the past. Women, in particular, get involved in
every aspect of the community they participate in placing the food on the
table, weddings, political rallys etc. They know their community . Women
carry this knowledge and they share it with all the children. The children
learn from the women how to organize. They are taught at an early age the
importance of being an active member of the communityfor me this is
feminismnot in the sense that you women from those far lands talk about.
The nature of African village life was one of collectivity not autonomy. By virtue
of the collectivity, African feminism developed through the bonds women had with
other women, and this meant feminism emerged as a unified collective thought.
That is, African feminism place value on a sense of communalism and cooperation.
It is also based on survival strategies that women develop over time as frameworks
for self-reliance, self-determination and empowerment. When African women were
oppressed through enslavement or colonialism, they were forced to develop techniques
that ensured their survival. Struggling against oppression was not a singularly,
individualistic task; rather, these women utilized their collective framework for
support. In their struggle to overcome different oppressions, African women were the
original feminists who sought to emancipate themselves from the bonds of servitude,
inequality, and racial discrimination (Steady, 1989: 2021). Raudiraudi explained
how women in her community were supportive of each other:
Women assisting women women being there for each other . Women
uplifting each other women caring for wellbeing of other children they
are my movement When I know Marie will have a good home, a cow for
her childrens milk; utensils with which to serve her food from she can
read and write that is my movement. We do not go very far to look for
things to do to assist other women. We have concentrated contributing some-
thing at the end of the month and give to one person. Wre ten women in this
groupand there are many groups in this place . We agree on what the money
will be used for. We want everyone here to have basic necessities I am not
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a feminist but I like women to have a say in their homes they cannot do
it unless they have something of their own not necessary big properties,
but things around the house some of the groups started with nothing,
today, they own land that is our goal for my group that is my feminism
(laughing).
The roots of African feminism therefore are found in the features of most African
societies that stress the communal, rather than individual, values and the preservation
of a community as a whole. This theory is embedded in Indigenous theoretical frame-
work and captures the complexities of socio-cultural relations of women and their
counterparts. African feminism is a philosophy that comes from the lived experiences
of African women before colonization. This theory, then, is rooted in a long history
that predates other feminisms foreign to the continent. However, during colonialism,
African societies, and in particular African womens lives, changed drastically.
Traditional systems were disrupted, while those reinforcing inequality were culti-
vated. For instance, in Algeria, the colonial administration felt that to destroy the
structure of Algerian society and its capacity for resistance, [they had] first of all to
conquer the women go and find them behind the veil where they hide themselves
and in the houses where the men keep them out of sight (Fanon, 1963). However,
it was this colonialists frenzy to unveil the Algerian woman that provoked the
resistance of the colonized subject. Algerian women, like other African women,
fought side by side with men during the liberation wars. There was a rebirth of a
new kind of African feminism that emerged in the face of oppression (Steady, 1989)
2
.
Susan Ardnt (2002) views this form of feminism as a theory that addresses oppression
and marginalization of women within the African societies. The problem with Ardnts
(2002) articulation of African feminism is that she does not see African women as
agents of change or advocates of their own destiny. The women that participated in
my research saw themselves as holding destiny in their hands and not waiting for
others to rescue them. Anene explained:
I have always been involved with political issues in this village. I organize
for meetings so that the prospective candidates can meet other women. I do
not do it for money, I do it because I want women to hear it from the horses
mouth and decide for themselves . The women from the community are
very smart; they know a good politician from a bad one. Some of the older
women feel cheated by all the governments . Past and present . Their
generation lost a relative, a husband or son during the fight for independence.
These women were very active however, they have not seen any results of
their involvement with politics. That is why my organizing is differentI feel
that if the women are informed, they are in a better position to make decisions
whether to support a politician or not many women go and vote and most
of them feel their vote is being wasted on men who will bring no democracy
or social justice to the country I feel helpless sometimes because although
I am not young, I am young as compared to my parents who are now in their
seventies Oh I learnt organizing skills from my grandmother I would
11
call her a feminist if she were alive today. I am not a feminist myself I would
not call myself that.
There is an assumption that African women are helpless and passive and under the
terror domain of their African men. These arguments about African women and their
feminism fail to reflect the social, ideological and ontological realities of African
people in terms of gender relations and gender roles (Sudarkasa, 1996). In the New
World, African women have taken up activism and resisted exploitation. Their forms
of resistance have taken historical methods as articulated below by Jullie, one of
the participants in this study:
I can still recall like it was yesterday. My father had left us to join the fighters
in the forest, my mother and some other women had left early to go to fetch
nippier grass for the livestock and others to collect water of firewood. How-
ever, on this particular day, the firewood they brought was made of coffee
plantsand there were whispers of we had to do it, we had to dowe cannot
be working for a government that only thinks of themselves and their families
in those far away lands. These women did not call this feminismthey did not
call it any namebut these were acts of defiancethese were their ways of
sabotaging the Colonial economy. These forms of resistance had been passed
down generation from generation; they had to employ the means available to
them, ways that would hurt most . Your question of our benefiting from the
coffee proceedings coffee was not part of our daily food and planting it
had meant we had less land for our family food . Yes, we have used this
strategy again and again even as late as 2001.
During my interaction with the women, I did not go to the rural village and ask
them to describe their anti-colonial movement. Instead, I asked them to explain how
the community participated during the fight for independence as well as during the
hard days of post-independence government. From the above quotation, Jullie, who
was 80 years old, still recalls the strategies the women employed in her community.
These anti-colonial strategies, to some extent, played a key role in driving the
economy of the colonial government at the time as well as some of the governments
that took over from the British in 1964. These arguments are echoed by Steady
(1989) who states that the exploitation of Africans through enslavement and their
appropriation through colonization, imperialism, and apartheid meant that African
women had to fight to ensure the survival of their families, thus giving rise to another
aspect of African feminism within the anti-colonial discoursea discourse that is
grounded in both the contemporary and historical lived experiences of a particular
society or group of people. In this renewed feminist discourse, African women have
called upon their spirituality and self-reliance skills as tools to deal with domination
and exploitation and have continued to play the drums. As an African woman, it
has, therefore become important for me to centre my decolonizing efforts on the
traditional teachings of my grandmothers, which have come to play a great role in
my feminist theorizing.
In almost every African society, a network of relationships connects people. These
connections bring about harmony and well being of the community. This focus on
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community is prevalent in all African societies. This is articulated by Anastasia, a
75 year old participant:
Women in this village gather for every occasion, birth of a child, death,
naming or wedding ceremonies or even whenever there is a crisis of any kind.
We assist each other during harvest, cultivating land or even when we need to
raise money to send a child to schoollike the way we did for your brother
when he was going to America. We also gather for rituals, prayers or even
for tea.
These meetings could be impromptu or they could be structured on a monthly basis
or when the need arises. What was apparent was the fact during a major crisis,
such as when raising money to send a child to school, the women leaders would be
consulted as to how best to go about it, and also these women would have been
identified by community members as elders, or women of counsel. There is evidence
from oral traditions that many female leaders guided their states through periods of
crises. Although it would not be right to generalize the commonalities or differences
of women organizing or community activism, there are some elements that were
quite obvious from written work as well as rural womens voices.
Although the polarities of thought on African feminism by scholars suggest
more differences than commonalities, closer examination reveals the intersections
that traverse the differing perspectives. Theories that intersect provide a firmer
foundation for a collective and united understanding of African feminist thought.
While the titles of the following authors suggest differences, their contents reveal
similarities of thought that serve to merge African feminist thought. Ama Ata Aidoos
The African Woman Today, Juliana Makuchi Nfah-Abbenyis Gender in African
Womens Writing: Identity, Sexuality, and Difference, Molara Ogundipe-Leslies Re-
Creating Ourselves: African Women and Critical Transformations, Zulu Sofolas
Feminism and African Womanhood, and Filomina Chioma Steadys African Femi-
nism: A Worldwide Perspective provide both historical and contemporary context
for the rise and development of African feminism and its emphasis on humanistic
inclusiveness/orientation.
One of the fundamental themes, however, which continuously arises in the
writings, is the multiple oppressions that African women face. Multiple oppressions
of race, sex, class, and culture crush the voice and spirit of African women until
survival becomes their only escape. Race, a socially constructed term, shackles people
as social norms and values are ascribed to a persons skin color or hair texture.
African women, whose race condemned them, became part of enslavement in which
approximately fifteen to twenty million Africans were shipped abroad (Steady,
1989: 9). In Africa, women are the first to be unemployed and given low work
wages (Steady, 1989: 13). Being subjugated to years of exploitive work conditions,
African women identified their struggles and rallied together for support and to
voice their dissension (Steady, 1989: 17).
African feminism identifies the different oppressions, depending on the
context. Many have voiced their discontent and disagreement over the discourse
of feminism. Some African women argue the inadequacy of the term to wholly
13
represent their issues. One argument is the word itself is of foreign importation,
that is, feminism as a discourse comes to be constituted through the lived experiences
of white European women (Aidoo, 1997: 46; Hudson-Weems, 1998; Nfah-Abbenyi,
1997: 9). Accepting the word is tantamount to submitting to imperialistic conquest
(Nfah-Abbenyi, 1997: 9). When appropriated and defined by the west, [feminism]
has too often become a tool of cultural imperialism (Kishwar, as cited in Nfah-
Abbenyi, 1997: 9). These views are captured by Motito who stated:
I am not a feminist; however, I do a lot of work to raise consciousness among
women. For the last 15 years, I have been gathering women in my home so
that we can discuss the issues of HIV/AIDS and how we can care for our
orphans. We have an organization called Self-help Women Group. Most women
here have very little, but we give what we can. We identify those who can
look after the children. We identify those who can be sent to government offices
to request financial support for the children. We identify those women who
can mobilize others to cultivate for grandmothers who are too old to work in
their farm and are looking after their orphaned grandchildren Yes, I am a
primary school teacher, but no one said I am a feminist or even called me a
one I am not sure what this feminism you are talking to me is all about
I am just following my mothers footstep. She was a great community leader,
just like her mother. Both of them are in the spirit world, but their spirits are
with me. Thats why I believe we can overcome this HIV/AIDS challenge.
The oppression experienced by African women cannot be identified within the para-
digm of Western feminism. While Western women struggle against patriarchy and
work equality, Black women are struggling to obtain the most basic needs, such as
water and food, for survival (Emecheta, cited in Nfah-Abbenyi, 1997: 11). Oppression
for these women is not founded upon patriarchy but on the inequality established
by colonialism.
WHAT IS AFRICAN FEMINISM?
I am not a feminist in the way you describe it or the way I hear people talking
about it in the radio. What I know is that I am a healer and a traditionalist. I have
delivered over two hundred children in this community alone. All the young
people who pretend they do not know my name or they have forgotten our
language I have a message for them, what will happen to their children, their
women people without roots what makes us who we are is in us [pointing
to herself]. When you cut us off, how will you know how to respond to our
drumbeats our organizational strategies as women how to respond when
husbands or wives or even politicians are out of step with cultural rhythms? My
generation cannot read and write as you do, but we have much to share with
you. I see some of you young people remove clothes when you protestthose
clothes mean something to you where you come from those straps you wear
around your breast are not part of my culture that is why when you talk of
this movement of womenI cannot relate to it (Rigitari, participant: 2007).
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As I have argued at the beginning of this chapter, as well as elsewhere (Wane,
2002, 2005), African feminism has been conceptualized in various but similar ways.
Filomena Chioma Steady (1989) sees African feminism as an epistemology that
enables African women to theorize their gendered status in society. Steady explains
that African feminism combines racial, sexual, class, and cultural dimensions of
oppression to produce a more inclusive brand of feminism through which women
are viewed first and foremost as human beings rather than sexual beings. She notes
that it is a body of knowledge that encompasses freedom from oppression based on
the political, economic, social and cultural manifestations of racial, cultural, sexual,
and class biases. Nnameaka (1997) views it as an ideology that evokes the power of
African women and their identities amid the obstacles that confront them. Importantly,
one of my participants stated, Feminism should not be reduced to gender binaries.
African feminism is about how African women see the world from their perspective
and those ideas also encapsulate issues that affect men and also women themselves.
African feminism is not about women issues, but about societal issues. Elsewhere
(Wane, 2002) I have indicated that African feminism is a framework that emphasizes
the saliency of colonialism and imperialism and the continued marginalization
of women. It is a framework that can be used to rupture the power embedded in
the bodies that produce and validate knowledge. The framework challenges the
institutional powers and imperial structures that have kept African women and their
Indigenous knowledges buried under the weight of modernity. African feminism
also identifies with womens emancipation struggles from a global perspective.
African feminism broadly defined then, is a struggle for the liberation of women,
and encompasses epistemologies, methodologies, theories, and modes of activism
that seek to bring an end to the oppression and subordination of women by men.
African feminism draws much of its inspiration from historical, anthropological, and
political evidence of African womens leadership, of womens mobilizations, and
of dynamic and disparate gender relations. The conditions giving rise to feminism
in Africa include the history of ancient civilizations as well as colonial rule and
imperialism, womens involvement in nationalist struggles, and contemporary social
movements.
The term African feminism covers a diverse array of politics centered on the pursuit
of more equitable gender relations. However, proper documentation and analysis of
the various manifestations of African feminism and the manner in which these have
changed over time in different African contexts needs to be researched and documen-
ted. As a result, the debate around African feminism and feminism in Africa remains
highly contested and difficult to pin down. Even in the era of nationalism, many
African men and women have rejected the word outright, considering it as un-
African. Others have displayed varying degrees of acceptance and tolerance,
generally around the emancipation and enfranchisement of women, and supporting
the inclusion of women in hitherto male-dominated institutions and development.
However, African women who identify themselves as feminists have devoted
much effort to the reconceptualization of feminism, as evidenced in the plethora of
publications generated under the broad rubric of gender and womens studies carried
out in African contexts since the 1980s. In addition, there has been work that has
15
tried to excavate the histories of womens movements in African societies. African
feminists often draw from the history of African womens leadership in Africa. African
women leaders exercised their authority often in a manner that spanned spiritual,
political and cultural realms, which has worked to inspire feminist ideas not only in
Africa, but all over the world. Womens movements in Africa reflect the traditions
of organizing that have characterized spiritual and material life in Africa as far
back as recorded history goes. Examples of women organizing may be found in
Kenya, where women organized in work parties as well as in various social and
welfare groups. In Nigeria, Igbo women organized around patrilineage and governed
through womens counsel. All through West Africa business has long been conducted
through market womens associations and trading networks, and these were periodi-
cally activated in defense of womens economic interests as well as political ones.
It is, however, important to point out that female leadership does not necessarily
bring about a feminist or egalitarian society. It is also important to note that women,
like men, gained these positions due to their status as members of a certain family.
In other words, the existence of female leadership does not imply individual ordinary
women had equal rights (Mieke Maerten, 2004). Ordinary women gain their status
after their reproductive years are over.
African women have been writing to challenge colonialism. Indeed, generations
of African women writers have built their careers on intimately interrogating the
micro- and macro-effects of colonialism and resistance strategies undertaken within
their communities. For example, Flora Nwapa, through her fiction [see her earlier
novels, Efuru and Idu] depicts the struggles of Nigerian people as they try to make
sense of their exploitation by colonialism and capitalism in the midst of civil war
and authoritarianism. Nwapa, like other women authors, exposes the hegemonic order
in a society wrapped in a history of colonialism and patriarchy. Although Nwapa
repeatedly denied being a feminist, much of her work does address questions of
tradition and transformation for women. Nwapa skillfully weaves together traditional
Igbo folklore stories to provide a complex analysis of women struggling for indepen-
dence in their societies. However, within the confines of patriarchal cultures and an
emphasis on nationalism that limits womens agency, womens voices are fewer
and far between.
Yet African women are the guardians of traditional knowledge and leaders in
resistance struggles. Womens art of traditional teaching through storytelling, riddles,
proverbs and idioms is as ancient as the people themselves. Most African societies
acknowledge the fact that oral traditional teachings facilitate the inculcation of
socially desirable values such as hard work, honesty, thrift, and wisdom (Aliyu, 1997).
Through narration, women pass on knowledges of African cultures and ways of
knowing. For instance, Aliyu provides an excellent analysis of how Hausa women
in Northern Nigeria act as keepers of knowledge despite the disruption, through
colonialism, of traditional ways of teaching. She states that colonialism introduced
money, taxes, and wage employment, which destroyed the traditional infrastructure
and dragged the Hausa community into the dominant capitalist system. Although
there was no specific legislation forbidding traditional ways of teaching, the introduc-
tion of the capitalist systems brought tremendous changes into Hausa societies.
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This, of course, is not unique to Nigeria, but it is very common in colonized societies.
The examples given in this paper demonstrate that despite the efforts of colonizers to
disrupt Indigenous practices, womens role as traditional teachers has never ceased.
They have continued their feminist work in different ways so as to end their silence
and speak their truths, as they know them. African feminism therefore complements
African indigenous knowledge; calls for the acknowledgement of historical and con-
temporary contributions of African women in knowledge production and dissemina-
tion; establishes African a belief system (Badejo, 1998) in restoring African women
socio-cultural standpoint; and serves as a convergence for both men and womens
struggle for emancipation from the colonial yoke.
DECOLONIZATION AND RESISTANCE: THINKING THROUGH A FEMINIST LENS
The women in this community actthey do not sit and watch their children
starve . We have seen how the price for coffee and tea has gone down.
The government does not provide reason for the low pricesthey say it is the
Wazungus. When shall we stop blaming other people? And that is why you
find a lot coffee plots had been cleared. Women who have coffee and tea plots
have cut them down and used the trigs to ignite their morning fire. I support
these women and their mens actions. My husband and I were the first to cut our
coffee trees. The chief was very angry with me; however, when other families
followed suite, he did not know what to do or say. This is my feminism the
movement you keep referring doalthough I would not call myself a feminist
(Faring, participant: 2007).
Amina Mama (1998) makes meaning of the many African feminists who are interro-
gating and reconceptualizing gender relations by situating the discussion in a historical
and social setting. She also emphasizes that we should not lose sight of the fact that
Africa is a collective:
[B]eing conquered by the colonizing powers; being culturally and materially
subjected to a nineteenth-century European racial hierarchy and its gender
politics; being indoctrinated into all-male European administrative systems,
and the insidious paternalism of the new religious and educational systems
has persistently affected all aspects of social, cultural, political, and economic
life in postcolonial African states (Mama, 1998: 47).
Feminism can be approached cross-culturally through time by examining all aspects
of human life and black womens struggles for liberation in such diverse areas as
race, gender, religion, culture, sexuality, and class (Terborg-Penn, 1989). It is a frame-
work that African feminists, such as Ama Ata Aidoo, have drawn from to confront
the problematic representation of Africa and its people:
I grew up knowing that Europeans had dubbed Africa The Dark Continent
That expression was first used in the Nineteenth Century. Since then its ugly
odor has clung to Africa, all things African, Africans and people of African
descent everywhere, and has not faded yet. I am not a psychologist or a
17
psychoanalyst. However, I do know that it has not been easy living with that
burden. Africans have been the subject of consistent and bewildering pseudo-
scholarship, always aimed at proving that they are inferior human beings. Even
when there was genuine knowledge it was handled perniciously: by anthro-
pologists and social engineers, cranial and brain-size scientists, sundry bell-
curvers, doomsday, medical and other experts (Ama Ata Aidoo, 2000).
African women struggling on behalf of themselves and of the wider community are
very much a part of African peoples heritage. Many African feminists such as
Aidoo try to demystify the fallacy of feminism as a Western or borrowed ideology.
They emphasize the centrality of African womens gendered consciousness in
relation to societys liberation and education.
AFRICAN FEMINISM AS ACTIVISM
The African womens movement has been strongly influenced and shaped by
activism against colonial rule as well as the let down by neo-colonial governments.
Although women were highly implicated in the struggle for independence, their
efforts were not rewarded in the same way as the men. After the struggle for indepen-
dence few women were accorded politically responsible positions in the new govern-
ments. In the 1980s, African women understood that they were paying the highest
prize for the political and economic instability in their countries. The rising poverty
and different forms of marginalization within their own countries created a new
feminist consciousness. In the aftermath of UN decade of women, many Women in
Development organizations were founded with both national and regional divisions.
These organizations met with a lot of resistance from their national governments
(Mieke Maerten, 2004).
Therefore, African feminism cannot be discussed separately from the larger
context of repression and exploitation of both men and women. This has given rise
to a renewed feminism and activism aimed at changing social and humanitarian
conditions of both men and women. Women have been paying the price for the failure
of male multiparty politics or state nationalism, the coups, military dictatorships,
economic instability and the pushing of western-steered development programs. The
consequences are quite noticeable in the living conditions of women and children
and especially in rural Africa. A large number of women suffer from malnutrition and
are infected with HIV/AIDS. The women activists, therefore, are caught between
supporting the states in resisting western development paradigms and, at the same
time, fighting the gender hierarchy in these states. However, it is important to note
that, due to the pressure women organizations are placing on their national govern-
ments, male politicians feel pressured to rewrite political agendas that include the
interests and needs of women. The revitalization of African feminism has been the
direct outcome of womens response to political leaders who have attempted to
partially manage recent crises by further limiting and exploiting women. During
economic restructuring and democratization, male politicians sought to convince
women that their interests were served by the current politicians, while at the same
time they would deny any benefits to the women. This is another reason why
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women have been bold in addressing the economic and political elements that
determine and affect their status (Mikell, 1997). Many African feminists have broken
the silence imposed during colonialism and neo-colonialism to speak of their
struggles and their realities and tell the truth not spoken about before. They have
demonstrated against dictatorships, imprisonment of their children without trial. They
have organized macro-enterprises (merry go round, bought buses, cows or goats for
milk) to break the circles of poverty; they have organized to uproot coffee trees
(usually considered a male crop) and instead have planted food crops to feed their
families; they have organized to raise money through a collective effort to send
their children to school. Many of these feminist experiences have not been written
about or even named as feminist efforts.
African feminists and activists as well as writers are astutely aware of advocating a
feminism that speaks to the many specific realities and locations of African women,
thus placing us at the center of analysis. The politics of privilege, power and
especially the power of self-definition and self-determination are fundamental to
our liberation and empowerment. As it is crucial to highlight the specifics of African
feminist consciousness, it is important to note that this theory also espouses the
importance of challenges to each other by being self-reflexive and to acknowledge
our privileges and the sites where we may oppress others who do not possess such
privilege (Wane, 2002: 47).
CONCLUSION
From the voices of the women as well as the literature that has been reviewed, African
feminist theory or approach is quite viable as it lends itself to a historically based
theoretical framework. It is an approach that can be applied to the study of African
womens lives through an analysis of their networks at local, national and continental
levels. It places African women in the centre, a vantage point from which they can
create a web of their lives that takes into consideration their experiences, class,
sexuality, cultural norms and values. It is a tool that is can be used to analyze the
lives of African women today.
African feminism is a contested movement. Almost all the women who participa-
ted in this study indicated that they were not feminists and did not see themselves
as feminists. What this calls for then is that African feminism must revolve around
the necessity of building a movement for African women, which reflects and is
supportive of the diversity of African peoples. African feminist intellectuals need
to create theorizing spaces for African Indigenous women who speak from the grass-
roots. Many African women intellectuals do not share to a large extent the burden
of having to worry about basic necessities of life (food, shelter, health, education).
From the voices of the women in this study, their feminism was action oriented and
was grounded in an Indigenous knowledge framework that emphasized collectivism,
sharing, holism and interdependency with the environment.
African communities, whether current or past ones, are not immune from
patriarchy. Women have played central roles in organizing political rallies as well
as different forms of resistance; yet socially, they occupy very subordinate roles in
19
society. Take for example, the male child versus female child and the centrality of
the male figure in a home speaking out and giving equal treatment to girl child
in a home is bound to be contested by male figures. For instance while carrying
out my research in Kenya among Embu women, it was not uncommon to hear the
following response when a homestead was visited by strangers: There is no one at
homeMany times I would turn round and ask the women after the visitor has left
what do you mean, why do you say, there is no one at home and you are hereand
the response would be: well, baba so and so is not at home (meaning the father
of so and so, that is, the husband is not at home). Women therefore have been
socialized not to call themselves people in their own homes but as property of the
owner of the homeI cannot honestly speak to the root of this practicehowever,
my assumption is saying partly colonialism and partly some cultural practices.
Such practices have inspired African feminists to fight not only for political space or
social space, but for justice that goes right to the core of male egocentrism, the fallacy
of male superiority and female subordination (Marren Akatsa-Bukashi, 2005).
There is a significant number of women researching, writing and theorizing as well
as involved in feminist praxis to conclude that African feminism as it was practiced in
the past is very much part of the lived reality of African peoples. Critical feminists
working within the academy, including Ayesha Imam, Patricia McFadden, Hope
Chigudu, Amina Mama, Bisi have been actively writing and organizing in the last
two decades or more. African feminists have drawn from this theory to show how
the particular constellation of issues affecting them is part of issues affecting womens
emancipation struggles globally. African feminists are dealing with the dilemma
of trying to achieve a consensus among themselves about how to respond to the
persistence of gender hierarchy in ways that are personally liberating as well as
politically constructive. They are seeking to reconceptualize their roles in ways that
allow them a new cultural attuned activism (Mikell, 1997). Finally, I would conclude
by stating that African feminist is alive and well, what is required is the continued
renewal of local cultural knowledge to fecund the lived experiences of African
peoples.
NOTES
1
Quote from research participant interviewed.
2
For more debates on African feminism, refer to Clenora Hudson-Weems, 1997; Aiwa Thiam, 1986;
Amina Mama, 1998; Carlene Dei, 1997; Lisa M. Glazer, 1997; Eryn Scott, 1995.
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From Africa to the Diaspora (pp. 3950). Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press.
Aidoo, A. A. (1994). To be a woman. In R. Morgan (Ed.), Sisterhood is global (pp. 258265). New York:
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JOHN CATUNGAL
3. CIRCULATING WESTERN NOTIONS
Implicating Myself in the Transnational Traffic
of Progress and Commodities
Ang hindi lumingon sa pinanggalingan, di makararating sa paroroonan.
(Traditional Filipino Proverb, in the Tagalog language)
People who do not look back to their origins will not reach their final destina-
tion. (Translation in English)
INTRODUCTION
The establishment of effective and efficient ties of communication is an important
cultural and political process for emigrant Filipinos. This is necessary for a number
of reasons, including a personal and practical one, which is that this process allows
for Filipinos to stay in touch with relatives and friends and to maintain a constant flow
of news, information, moneys and goods between the Philippines and the diasporic
Filipino communities throughout the world. The ties that bind Filipinos across
political border spaces and across oceans are especially strong during the Christmas
season, an important time for the majority Christian Filipino population both at
home and abroad. It is around Christmas time that many phone calls are made to
loved ones back home. It is also around this time that Filipino-style care packages
called balikbayan boxes (literally returnees boxes) are sent home. These are filled
with an assortment of goods ranging from lotions, soaps and magazines to canned
foodstuffs and new and used shoes and clothing.
My family is very much involved in this transnational community building process.
My parents, originally accountants from the Philippines, decided to seek permanent
residence and eventually citizenship in Canada during the 1990s. After a few years
of processing, my fathers legal papers were granted in 1997 and he moved to Canada
in the spring of that year. The rest of the family, including my mother and three
younger sisters, followed him to Canada in 1999. We settled in the Greater Vancouver
area, where some of our relatives (including my maternal aunt) have been living since
the 1980s or earlier. This extended family we have since established in Vancouver is
active in this transnational flow of goods and moneys through the regular sending
of remittances and the seasonal delivery of balikbayan boxes.
Despite being now the senders of these goods and moneys, in the past, my
family was positioned as a privileged recipient of these boxes and remittances from
our relatives in North America, particular those with whom we now share an extended
CATUNGAL
24
family in Vancouver. In this paper, I would like to employ the method of autobio-
graphical story to examine the theoretical, political and personal impacts of my
involvement both as recipient and sender in this transnational commodity and financial
flow. My overall goal is to elucidate the complex and multifarious cultural politics
(Mitchell, 2000) involved within this story, particularly as they relate to the mappings
of meaning and representations (Jackson, 1991) onto cultural objects, including
remittances and commodities. In so doing, I would like to tease out how the traffic
in Western commodities and moneys through such transnational flows as the above
also relate to the transnational exportation of Western ideas of progress and modernity
that are very much at the heart of the colonial process both in the past (Domosh,
2006; McClintock, 1995) and at present.
This paper is guided by one central thesis: that the immigrant communities who
are involved in the traffic of the Western notion of progress through their sending
of commodities and moneys are anxiously positioned subjects, in that the benevolence
and goodwill of their actions are also, at the same time, creating a flow of the idea
of progress that aids in neocolonialism. This anxious positioning, I believe, is
exacerbated by the fact that the possibilities for action are rendered quite limited by
the conditions that are set by colonial and neocolonial regimes. This argument was
inspired in part by McClintocks (1995) analysis of the meaning that soaps acquire
as a technology of colonial subjugation and is forwarded not in order to demonize
and demoralize the actions of these well-meaning diaspora communitiesmy family
is, after all, included in this category. Rather, what I aim to do is situate these actions
within a broader apparatus of neocolonialism that creates a map of the world through
the geographical imaginations of the civilized/savage and the developed/dependent
(Said, 1978).
Having said this, it is important to note that I owe my theoretical foundations to
various post-colonial and anti-racist scholars, particularly Anne McClintock (1995),
Linda Smith (1999) and Sherene Razack (2002). I am particularly inspired by the
ways that these scholars frame the role of socio-spatial knowledge creation in the
voracious though incomplete success of colonialism. These scholars echo Said (1978)
in making clear that the discursive construction of the world as divided between
good/bad and civilized/savage relies upon knowledge productions via the systems
of cartography, the economy, educational institutions and the law. This paper seeks to
both be a contribution to and an engagement with the arguments of these scholars
that deal with the strategies, rationalities and justifications that are mobilized to
construct Western knowledges about the world as superior to other knowledges and
ways of living. As an examination of the role of transnational commodity flows in
the literal circulation of Western notions of progress, this paper is as much a critique
of the tendency of Western knowledges to demoralize non-Western ways of knowing
as it is an opportunity for me to explore what role I play in this process. I use vignettes
from my own personal story as well as the story of my transnational familya kinship
space divided between but connected in a multitude of spaces, from the Philippines
to many parts of Canada and the United Statesto illustrate moments where the
Western idea of progress becomes a central theme in how I understand commodity
flows.
CIRCULATING WESTERN NOTIONS
25
My use of autobiographical vignettes in this paper follows from my belief,
following feminist and anti-racist scholars, that the personal is political. The way
I tell my story from my now privileged position as a Filipino-Canadian academic
reveals how I understand my position in the world, as a member of a transnational
community of Filipino immigrants, as a privileged male academic and as a gay man of
color. It also allows me to ground how I understand political and moral conflicts
about, for instance, which knowledges are considered valid and which ones are
devaluedin my own experiences. In her inspiring book Decolonizing Methodologies,
Linda Smith (1999) writes that storytelling as a method allows us to locate and
claim a space for our own voice (143144), to remember histories and memories of
happiness and pain (145146) and to contribute our own individual narratives in a
re-reading of the West (149). Moreover, critical race theorists have elevated story-
telling as a method to an esteemed political tool in that it can be used by people
of color and other oppressed peoples to analyze the myths, presuppositions and
received wisdoms that make the common culture about race and that invariably render
blacks and other minorities one-down (Delgado and Stefancic, 2000: xvii). It also
allows meusing my own storiesto contribute to the transnationalism literature,
which, while strong, has often missed out on theorizing how immigrants make sense
of their existence as they defy conventional definitions of borders and national
containers (Kelly and Lusis, 2006).
Before I set off to make my case, I would like to return to the quotation with
which I began this paper. Embedded in this quote are particular Indigenous Filipino
ways of making sense of temporality and spatiality. We can see, for instance, how
the interplay between the past (ones origins) and the future (ones final destination) is
mediated by how one acts in the present, and especially how or if one remembers to
look back and reminisce. Ones origins as understood Indigenously are not just
about ones past in the strict sense of a personal history, but, even more importantly,
are about ones locations in a complex web of social relations. That is, ones origins
are determined through being located as, say, a son to immigrant parents or a resident
in a tight-knit community, as in my own story. My origins are determined by my
recognition of the importance of these social relations to how I now understand
myself in relation to others and to how I understand my future to be shaped by these
social relations. So, in many ways, this paper is my attempt to forge connections
between where I want to see myself in the future, how I understand myself in the
present and what I recall from the past.
The rest of this paper goes on in three parts. First, I outline the literatures that
I engage with and contribute to. In this section, I address post-colonial perspectives
on modernity, which is characterized by consumerism and the unfailing belief in
progress and its attendant institutions, and critical race theories on the embeddedness
of racial and neocolonial thinking in these systems. Second, I offer some personal
vignettes that I want to use to jump into a discussion of my role in the transnation-
alized transmission of progress that implicates Filipino diaspora communities. These
include stories about my memories of letters and photographs sent by overseas
relatives, care packages containing shoes and other goods from North America
and my current positioning as a sender of these knowledge forms and commodities.
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I want to use these memories as segue ways into a discussion of the transnational
flows of images, knowledges, myths and meanings about the world and its divisions.
Third, I end by discussing how these transnational flows call to task the following
related themes: (1) the emergence of a new imperialism (Tikly, 2004) and (2) the
difficulty of decolonization. In this section, I look at how the institutionalization and
normalization of these transnational flows of goods and moneys are used to construct
a map of the world that positions the developed world as a space from which the
underdeveloped world can be rescued. Immigrants are anxiously positioned in this
map of the world as they find themselves unwittingly enrolled as new intermediaries
in the production of this global space.
MODERNITY AND POST-COLONIAL PERSPECTIVES
Modernity as an illusory social condition rests in a couple of important pre-
suppositions, both rooted in the Wests belief in its superiority and, concomitantly,
in the inferiority of those who are not of the West. The first of these presuppositions
has to do with the idea of progress. This is the belief, for the lack of a better term,
in the idea that human civilization is in the path of constant betterment towards
enlightenment and moral superiority and towards economic self-capacity. The second
of these presuppositions has to do with the unfailing belief in the role of science,
democracy and liberal institutions such as education, the law and the economy in
fostering subjectivities that are conducive to progress. This second presupposition
elevated the individual as the sole proprietor of knowledge and ideas and therefore
disengaged knowledge production from its rightful social context. Knowledge systems
that are communitarian or shared in nature, as in most Indigenous ways of knowing,
were devalued in favor of institutionalized knowledges in the academy (Smith, 1999).
Science, as a vehicle of progress, supported by the liberal institutions mentioned above,
is particularly key to the normalization of the idea of progress. The evolutionary
stance supported by scientific knowledges have been applied not only to botanical
and zoological systems, but also to social systems in the form of Social Darwinism
and the so-called family tree of man in which the White European male is placed at
the apex (McClintock, 1995).
There are, of course, strident post-colonial critiques of the modernist stance,
particularly in relation to the explicit link between modernity and imperialism.
Of importance to note here is the way progress was accompanied by the physical,
spiritual, material and spatial subjugation of non-White peoples through the linked
Western systems of religion, economy and education. In this vein, Stoler (1995)
puts forward the argument that the making of progressive European bourgeois sub-
jectivities relies, in huge part, on the imperialist activities of European nations and
on the need to construct non-European ways of being and knowing in opposition
to so-called more enlightened knowledges and subjectivities. The representational
project that accompanied the social and political construction of the West as a superior
civilization required also a particular mythmaking strategy that represented such
counter-progressive and abnormal bodies as Sarah Bartmann (the Hottentot Venus)
(Gordon, 1992) and the generalized savage other (Sibley, 1995). The display of
27
these peoples as a comparative trope, a way for the civilized to come to know
him/herself as civilized through the measures of contrast, is a crucial part of the
construction of progress as an ideal. Viewed in these lights, the idea that progress
is a path towards which everyone is headed can be deconstructed as a myth, or
even more strongly, as an illusion or fallacy. Given the way post-colonial critics have
commented on the need for progress to construct savagery and backwardness as a
barometer for the West to understand itself, it becomes clear that progress is a
condition meant to describe only the West (Said, 1978).
There is, of course, also a post-colonial geographical argument to be made outside
of Saids (1978) important notion of geographical imaginations of the Orient. After
all, those who have taken up Saids work have also noted that Orientalism does not
reside only in the realm of imagination and discourse, but that it is accomplished
most effectively through material means. In this vein, it is important to note how such
geographical imagination of the Orient was also accompanied by actual establishment
of imperial centers and colonial peripheries through geographical expeditions, voyages
of so-called discovery and the religious missions in the 1500s and beyond. Viewed
in this light, the construction of the West as an enlightened space can be said to be
accomplished through a markedly military and geopolitical expression, that is, in the
form of such imperial expansionist projects as that of the imperial superpowers
Britain, France and Spain, and to a great extent, also the United States.
There are important material consequences to this spatialization of colonial
modernity. The first has to do with the way that colonial governmentality relies on
changing the very conditions of Indigenous ways of living through the introduction
of foreign knowledges, material cultures and practices (Scott, 1995). For instance, in
Canadian and American contexts, as well as in other spaces of colonial encounter, this
meant the forced material seizure and confiscation of Indigenous lands and resultant
displacement that this entailed a total reconfiguration of the social systems, of
relations between the land and its people and among people (Harris, 2002). Moreover,
this process was also most effectively accomplished through the use of murderous
violence, of Indigenous peoples and their ways of knowing (Smith, 1999). This has
massive implications, for instance, in the way Indigenous conceptions of land and
property were configured and replaced with socio-legal understandings of property
that have its origins in European legal systems (Blomley, 2004). Since the land is
crucial to how knowledges are passed on between generations, this also adversely
affected the intergenerational transmission of Indigenous ways of knowing.
It is important to note that a part of the illusion of colonial modernity has to do
with the performance of colonial benevolence. By this, I am referring to the way
that Western imperialism was often discursively constructed and justified through
the discourse of help and rescue. In alluding to this, I am not, in any way, giving
praise to the imperial project as a moral project. On the contrary, the supposed
benevolence that accompanied imperialist expansionism existed only because of the
ideological construction of the white mans burden (Berger, 1966), which is the so-
called divine-given duty to spread Western progress onto other parts of the world.
This burden had many dimensions, including religious and educational ones, but
also, in the 1800s and the early 1900s, this shifted towards economic expansionism
CATUNGAL
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that relied upon of commodities and their transfer from Europe to the rest of the
world (McClintock, 1995; Domosh, 2006).
The role of commodities and the transfer of economic knowledges and concepts as
part of the imperialist project have been analyzed in some depth by both McClintock
(1995) and Domosh (2006). These scholars have pointed to the way that commo-
dities, including soap in McClintocks analysis and agricultural and domestic techno-
logies such as sewing machines in Domoshs, are attached with particular meanings
relating to the pursuit of Western progress and modernization. Both also deal with
the way commodity cultures restructure gendered relations in colonial peripheries
through the introduction of new understandings of Western domesticity.
Their scholarship has been extremely useful in elucidating the role of shifted
economic geographies and sociologies in the colonial context, though because their
scholarship has been limited to historical time periods, there is a particular paucity
of contemporary forms and impacts of colonialism as manifested through economic
objects and processes. This, right here, is a particularly strong silence in these analyses
and forces us to ask questions about the way modernity, consumption and colonialism
continue to exist in voracious ways today.
There are strands of research that do acknowledge the role of consumerism,
particularly American consumer culture, in globalization (Haugerud et al., 2000),
but these are often limited to critiques of the hegemony of American firms in the
world. I find that what is often missing in these critiques of global consumerism are
two things: (1) there is often a refusal in these works to consider how globalization
and the continued dominance of Western economies are a continuation of the colonial
process, masked in economic terms, but also continuing to reproduce the superiority
of the West as a particular geographical space, and (2) there is also a paucity of post-
colonial analysis that treats transnationalism, as a symptom of globalization, as a
contributor to neocolonial processes, particularly the traffic of the idea of progress.
The rest of this paper considers the limits of the above literatures. I use personal
stories to shed light on the neocolonial geographies that are produced by the global
flows of commodities and finances and the circulation of the idea of Western progress
that accompanies these flows. In the next section, I put forward some stories about
shoes, foodstuffs, moneys and other objects with neocolonial meaning to shed light
on my dual role as an immigrant in the transnational reproduction of the idea of
progress as embodied and located in this cultural objects.
AN IMMIGRANTS STORY:
IMPLICATING MYSELF IN TRANSNATIONAL FLOWS OF PROGRESS
Filipinos have long been involved in what can be considered a state-sanctioned
building of transnational lives, landscapes and livelihoods. This transnationalism is
state-sanctioned insomuch as the previous four presidential regimes have supported
via legislation, government programs, tax exemptions or nationalistic discourse the
export of particularly gendered Philippine labor to other countries, particularly as
domestic workers in Canada and Hong Kong, as oil field laborers in the Middle East
and as immigrants to Canada and the United States (Pratt, 2004). Accompanying this
transnational formation of social and economic relations is an important shift
29
towards a Philippine economy dependent on the entry of foreign moneys and
goods via remittances and care packages. In 2003, Filipinos living overseas sent
over $7.5 billion in cash remittances alone, along with over 300000 balikbayan
boxes containing foreign goods (Ly, 2004). Statistics like these have allowed scholars
like Tolentino (1996) to note, without hyperbole, that [t]ransnational space keeps
the Philippine economy afloat (49).
My family is part of this well-established chain of migration and transnational
space, creating for us a place in an expatriate Filipino community still connected in
various ways to our motherland. I was born in the Philippines in 1984, to two young
start-up accountants who then managed to make a comfortable life for me and
my three younger sisters. All of us children were sent to private Catholic schools
established by the Spanish Dominican Order of Priests, where we acquired both
Catholic spiritual beliefs and a liberal education with English as a primary method of
instruction, owing to the onslaught of American imperial conquest after the Spanish-
American War of 1898. We then moved to Vancouver from the Philippines in 1999,
following relatives who in previous years settled in the city and close by (e.g.,
Seattle). The reasons for our immigration have to do with a particular future that
both my parents desired for their children: a better quality education, economic
standing in an economically and politically stable country and a healthier physical
environment. This short list of reasons already alluded to here refers to a particular
political economy of immigration that includes the role of a political instability and
economic uncertainty in the face of globalization and the realization that the future
in the Philippines for us is not as good as what it could be in North America. There
is, then, already a reproduction of the myth of North America as the land of milk
and honey, which, while true in comparison, serves to mask the structural racisms
that make immigrant living in North America difficult as well as the colonial
discourses and practices that position the West as a superior space to begin with.
Photographs of Progress
Because of our immigration to Canada, we have now positioned ourselves as senders
of goods and finances to relatives back home at least once a year in the case of
Balikbayan boxes, but more often in the case of remittances. Before we moved to
Canada, however, our family was particularly active in the receiving end of the
transnational remittance of goods and moneys from relatives in North America. As
a child of around age 7 to 8, one of my most vivid memories of the existence of my
transnationally-placed family has to do with the sending of photographs by relatives.
One particular photograph that stuck vividly to my mind depicts my now-deceased
Aunt Norie, my fathers first cousin, posed in front of an endless row of red tulips
when she took part in Washington States annual tulip festival in Skagit Valley.
The North American landscape depicting rows of tulips, along with my knowledge
that she is a highly mobile woman who is able to include extensive personal travel
as part of her recreational activities, suggested to me that North American spaces
are beautiful in that they offer encounters with landscapes that are not available,
because of ecology in the Philippines. It also suggested to me that it is her position
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30
as a resident in North America that afforded her the luxury to enjoy these landscapes.
As a middle class citizen in the Philippines, my family was well-to-do enough to
enjoy a comfortable living, certainly in comparison to our neighbors and other
relatives, but not well-to-do enough to travel even to tourist sites in the Philippines,
much less abroad. As a child, I longed to enjoy the landscapes that my aunt in
Vancouver enjoyed. I wanted to partake in her invitation to my parentsand implicit
in the photo captionsto come to Canada to experience what it has to offer.
This invitation, as well the flow of messages and images through the sending of
letters and photographs and the making of telephone calls, are some of the ways that
chains of migration are sustained in transnational spaces. More than that, however,
these forms of transnational linking also situate immigrant Filipinos and those
residing in the Philippines in a global flow of goods and services. The aunt that I refer
to above joined our other relatives in Canada to send those of us in the Philippines
(when we still resided there) goods that continued to portray, as in the photos, just
how structurally better life is in Canadian and American cities. While I recognize
the multiple meanings attached to these lettersthat, in the first instance, they serve
as forms of maintaining kinship ties and family histories, and that they too serve as
a means of transnational financial support in an age of economic riskI also want
to foreground how, from a cultural politics perspective, these transnational flows of
information, goods and moneys carry with them particular world maps that divide
the globe into haves and have-nots and into independent and dependent nations (Said,
1978). What this does is the positioning of immigrant communities, who, while
well-meaning, are also implicated in the circulation of this geographical imagination
of the divided world where North America and Europe are positioned as ideologically
and materially superior to the rest of the world.
In this sense, photographs and letters echo the function of the soap in McClintocks
analysis: they work to disseminate ideas about which subjectivities are conducive
to progress and offer recipes for working towards this subjectivity. My relatives
already residing in Canada were accompanied by their stories, told in the form of
letters and telephone conversations, about the happiness of being able to enjoy travels,
of being able to acquire fresh fruits for cheap, and of being able to enjoy the fresh
air and nature of the Vancouver landscape. As objects of representation not unlike
the texts analyzed by Said (1978) and the National Geographic magazines analyzed
by Luts and Collins (1993), the letters and photographs crossed borders to tell stories
about the superiority of the North American way of life. In a lot of ways, they function
to entice usto seduce us into complicityto buy this representational geography
that puts North American space front and centre and in opposition to the dismal
and uncertain future that the Philippines beheld for us.
Photographs and letters, as cultural objects with meaning and narrative, position
immigrants in an uneasy space. These objects serve pedagogical and kinship
functions: they allow relatives divided across global space to continue to learn about
each others lives and, in so doing, allow diasporic communities to work against the
friction of distance that accompanies the setup of transnational familial relations. They
are about knowledge production insofar as they also contain with them emotional
investments in memory-making and in the transfer of familial knowledges across
31
generations. As a child before my teenage years, I remember the letters and photo-
graphs sent my relatives, those recollections of their own childhood pasts and their
memories of me and of our family when I was still young.
Yet, these texts, as I had shown, also carry with them particular messages that
recreate colonial geographies, positioning the West in a privileged position while,
at the same, disseminating these same messages to those in the colonial peripheries
of the Global South. A common theme that I remember in these letters is the telling
of a particular form of spirit injurythat of helplessnessas a result of the so-called
meltdown of the Philippines economic and political life. Even now, when we in our
extended family in Vancouver try to recall why it was necessary for us to relocate
here, the constant refrain always has to do with the fact that our families were left
with few choices. Emigration as a particular form of insurance for a better future
was and continues to be constructed as the only reasonable trajectory to escape the
dismal conditions of the Philippines. In these texts of recollection, the political eco-
nomy and colonial networks that created these dismal conditionsincluding the rape
of the land in the Philippines as a result of transnational corporations and the American
military presence as well as the problematic economic policies engendered in the deve-
lopment work of such institutions as the IMF and the World Bank (Enloe, 2000)
are rarely, if ever, mentioned. The erasure of these things renders the structural
reasons for the need (rather than the want) to immigrate particularly invisible.
My family still continues to send letters and photographs and make phone calls
to our remaining relatives in the Philippines. We do this out of our desire to maintain
familial relations, to listen to stories about our homeland and to claim our membership
in our Filipino community even as we are far away. We also serve, inadvertently
and perhaps subconsciously, to propagate notions of progress. There are moments
of escape from this transnational traffic of progress, however, and I have seen this
recently in the way my parents communicate to our relatives in the Philippines. They
have begun to voice the difficulties faced by us and other immigrants in our new
homes. They have also started speaking about the discrimination that people of color
face in the Canadian job market as well as in schools and other institutions. In so
doing, they contribute to a disruption of the myth of progress as mapped onto North
American cities.
Branding the Self Through Imported Goods
I had the privilege of attending two prestigious Catholic private schools in the
Philippines: the Espiritu Santo Elementary School and the University of Santo Tomas
High School. Both these schools are run by local chapters of the Dominican Order of
the Roman Catholic Church, an easily recognizable and strong remnant of the days
of Spanish colonialism. In fact, I remember that the University of Santo Tomas
is older than Harvard University and constitutes one of the most successful importa-
tions of Spanish educational institutions to the Philippines in the 1600s.
Attendance to both these schools marked me amongst my peers as a privileged
subject given that private education in the Philippines is prohibitively expensive for
the majority of the population. To add to this, a Catholic education colonized me in
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many senses: after all, colonialism and the spread of Christianity in the Philippines
went hand-in-hand (Rafael, 1993). More than anything, however, my positioning
as part of a privileged few to attend these schools was accompanied by even more
pressures within these spaces to, recalling Butler (1990), perform specific
subjectivities through the marking of the body with particular brands of clothing and
shoes. My classmates, many of whom are connected to transnational and diasporic
networks of capital and money, performed these subjectivities really well because
they were either able to afford these brands or were sent these brands by relatives
from elsewhere. This situation was especially acute during my two years at the
University of Santo Tomas High School, which mandated so-called civilian clothing
on Wednesdays (with other days requiring the use of uniforms). As I recall, either
one wears branded clothing, especially Nike shoes, shirts and accessories, or else
s/he cannot claim membership in the elite group of peers.
I was easily able to partake in what I now see as an extremely elitist and
neocolonial ritual of high school life because of my familys positioning in a trans-
national network of relatives. This worked for me especially after my father left the
Philippines in 1997 to work in Vancouver, two years prior to the rest of the family
joining him in 1999. I was able to grab a toehold on progress by requesting branded
goods from relatives in Canada and the United States. I remember once calling
my father in Vancouver to ask him for a pair of Nike basketball shoes, not because
I played basketball (I, in fact, loathed the sport) but because wearing one would
establish me as a having a particular classed subjectivity. The shoes arrived at around
Christmas that year as part of a balikbayan box that he and my aunts sent our family
back home. My memory of the shoes, as well as the other goods that were included
in these balikbayan boxes, were as much about my childlike fascination with presents
as it is about the fact that these cultural objects were foreign objects, and foreign
goods, particularly Canadian or American ones, are particularly esteemed in the
Philippines because they bestow about the owner particular classed subjectivities.
Yet, it would be unjust to be content with a class analysis of these memories, for
they have as much to do with neocolonial formations. Of particular importance here is
the political work that the esteeming of American brands do to render them markers
of good and moral identify formation. They also symbolize a particular belief in the
notion of progress, which is said to be available through the consumption of particular
Western consumer goods, such as, in my case, Nike shoes. In her analysis of the
role of soap in the shift from scientific racism to commodity racism, McClintock
(1995) notes that the colonizing function of consumption has to do with its ability
to create the illusion that the spaces of the economy levels the playing field between
people, regardless of race. Through the use of consumer goods such as the soap,
one is able to try and become civilized, with try being an operative word. After
all, McClintock (1995) goes on to note that while soaps can offer the illusion of
whiteness through the importation of hygienic practices, they nevertheless failand
imperialists know thisto endow the Other the subjectivity of whiteness.
Returning to my own experiences, my love affair for shoes and other branded
goodssymbols, to me, of my claim to Westernnesswere tied up with my own
positioning as a member of a transnational family. By this, I mean two things.
33
First, the shoes and other goods were, to me, tied up with Western ways of being,
and so my ability to wear them signaled to me that I could, even in a small way,
also garner the respect and high esteem that my peers accord to those who have
claims to Westernness. Secondly, and in relation to the function of photographs
and letters exemplified above, the shoes and goods were made available to me in
huge part through my membershipand their circulationin a transnational flow of
Western cultural objects accomplished through such practices as the remittance of
balikbayan boxes.
In this sense, the consumer goods that come within these balikbayan boxes also
act as geopolitical signifiers, coding the world in ways that elevate the location of
these goodsNorth America and Europeas being in a higher and more important
place than the rest of the world. For it is identification with these white spaces that
accords these goods particular importance. My special request for shoes aside,
the contents of these boxes are actually often ordinary, at least to North American
residents. Ly (2004) notes that balikbayan boxes often contain mundane things such
as microwavable popcorn, jars of instant coffee or inexpensive cosmetics. In my
family, the most commonly sent items include such things as Spam luncheon meats,
canned tuna and corned beef. For most North Americans, there is nothing particularly
extraordinary about these objects; however, for those of us who know the meanings
attached to these goods outside of North America, they are particularly important
symbols of identity and standing. In my experiences on the receiving end of these
boxes, the sight of luncheon meats and toys from the West was most often received
with fanfare because they are both a symbol of the transnationalization of familial
carethe provision of goods becomes hence a transnationalized act and performance
of affectand also a form of representation of the West and its ways of living. Thus,
the act of gift giving as exemplified by balikbayan boxes are uneasily positioned
performances. They are benevolent acts, performances of caring, that continue to
bind families even as they are scattered globally.
At the same time, these acts are also implicated in the circulation of the idea of
progress and of a better Western way of life. Theyand the people who participate
in this transnational flow, including my familyare thus put in a political double
bind where ones act of caring can also lead to the reproduction of a Western-centric
ideologies. The potential role of these acts in reproducing a neocolonial global map
thus needs to be challenged, but whereto shall one go? Does one abandon these trans-
national relations of caring and, in so doing, challenge the embeddedness of colonial
meanings within these commodities?
The circulation of Western embodiments of culture and economy immanent
in these commodities makes for a difficult situation to theorize, because in severely
criticizing it, perhaps one comes too close to demonizing immigrants and blaming
them for the veracity and continuation of the discourse of a superior Western ways of
being. I turn, then, to David Scott (1995) to theorize the role that colonial govern-
mentality plays in the maintenance of a popular geographical imagination that
positions the West as ideologically apart from and superior to the rest of the world.
Scotts (1995) theory of colonial governmentality rests in the idea that one of the
most important methods for the Wests maintenance of its supposed intellectual,
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moral and political superiority is its mobilization of discourses and strategies that
limit the possible courses of action that one might be able to take in order to wriggle
free of the binds of colonialism. This was accomplished in two ways: first, through
the displacement of Indigenous conditions and ways of understanding and connecting
with the land and with the economy, and second, through the replacement of these
ways of being by the inducement of new conditions based on clear, sound and
rational principles (Scott, 1995: 199).
Recalling in the first example of letters and photographs the notion of spirit-
injury in the form of helplessness, one can see how the double bind of immigrant
participants in this transnational flow has a lot to do with the way alternatives to such
things as immigration or to understandings of the cultural meanings of commodities
are oftentimes limited because they have been demonized or displaced by the actions
of colonial and neocolonial institutions such as the above. Moreover, Indigenous
ways of understanding such things as footwear or clothing have been replaced by a
more pervasive understanding of these commodities as conferring upon the owner
a particular status or class.
IMPERIALISMS CONTINUATION AND THE UNEASE OF DECOLONIZATION
Any form of colonialism is bound to leave a mark of some kind. (Wane,
2006: 87)
In this paper, I have drawn from my recollections and experiences to theorize the
role of transnational flows of commodities (such as shoes) and texts (such as photo-
graphs and letters) in the continuation of imperialism and colonialism. I dialogued
with my stories as a first-generation Filipino gay male immigrant living in, and
now a citizen of, Canada to place myself in the constructions of these transnational
spaces of flows. This method is important for me for a couple of reasons. First, in
offering my own stories, I provide myself with an opportunity to reflect on and come
to know my experiences and how these experiences have affected how I under-
stand myself as a person today. It also allows me to see myself in relation to other
people with whom I share my experiences, particularly members of the Filipino
diaspora community. Second, these stories allow me to talk about colonialism and
neocolonialism as lived experiences, as something that happens to people, as some-
thing that is done to people. Part of my impetus and spiritual inspiration for writing
this paper has to do with my frustration at myself for being involved, consciously
and subconsciously, in the subjugation of my peoples cultures and knowledges. In
cataloguing some of my complicities in a somewhat recollectional and confessional
form, I hope to, at the very least, own up to my lived experiences of colonial and neo-
colonial regimes as both a victim of it and perhaps even an unwilling perpetrator of
these processes.
My argument centered on the role of immigrant communities and the transnational
flows of goods and finances of which they are an active part. As a Philippine-born-
and-raised Canadian citizen with relatives still in the motherland, I use my own
experiences as both sender and receiver of these flows to argue that immigrants are
anxiously positioned subjects, caring for their relatives across transnational space
35
while at the same time potentially propagating a world map that locates the West as
a central and privileged space. The examples that I use both have to do with the
construction of the paradigm of helplessness, what I am calling a particular form of
spirit-injury, wherein the possibilities for ones actions are rendered quite limited
by colonial processes.
In the Philippines, the histories of colonialism by both Spanish and American
imperialists are still present in how I came into my personhood, having been taught
in an American-style, English-language liberal educational institution founded by a
Spanish Catholic religious order. This shows, in a very personal way, that the history
of colonial subjugation has never really ended. If anything, the impacts of these
histories are still felt and, to a great degree, even exacerbated by the normalization
and institutionalization of Philippine dependency upon foreign (Western) aid because
of the neocolonial and neoliberal economic policies of the IMF and the World Bank.
This constitutes for Tikly (2004) a new world order in which new imperialism,
characterized by the fusion of global economic interests and state formation, is the
order of the day. These conditions are also some of the conditions that, following
Scotts (1995) notion of colonial governmentality, set limits on what actions are
possible to the colonized.
The need to decolonize is a difficult task, given that limits are set on what is
possible for the colonized. The dependency of the Philippines on foreign remittances
and the governments institutionalization of immigration and labor exportation
as an economic development policy (Pratt, 2004) are some of the limit-conditions
that determine the formation of transnational flows of goods and moneys, as are
such legacies of Philippine-American colonialism as the institutionalization of
English as an official language. The normalization of these colonial and neocolonial
legacies through institutionalization makes difficult the project of decolonization,
for I see in the cities of the Philippines a very successful defamation and erasure
of Philippine ways of knowing. The institutions set up to continue neocolonialism in
the Philippinesincluding legislations, education systems and the heroic, nationalistic
discourse around immigrationcreate a system of constant oppression, where the
possibilities for advancement are seen by many to be accomplishable most effectively
through immigration. My family is one of many to be enticed by the material gains
of immigration. Our uprooting from our homeland is something that I, personally,
do not regret, because my tenacity is something that I have learned from my parents.
The support systems we have for each other, as well as the ties we keep with our
transnational family involving Philippine, Canadian and American locations, constitute
some of our own methods for fighting for the survival of kinship ties and familial
memories.
My story is a long and continuing one, involving first and foremost my own
recognition that my history, my present and my future are tied up in a bigger story
about the world and how it is constituted as a space of difference. It is my hope for
this short reflection to be the start of a longer personal journey for me to come to
understand the processes that constitute my location today. My voice in these stories
may be pained, but it certainly is not hopeless. My telling of stories and my invocation
of memories are some of the ways that I am attempting to claim for myself a voice
CATUNGAL
36
with which to speak, even as this voice is limited by the colonial process. In seeking
to speak and asserting my claim to space, this is my own way of celebrating my
journey and recognizing that this journey towards decolonization maybe be difficult,
constant and without end, but certainly not impossible.
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and education (pp. 87106). Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.

MARLON SIMMONS
4. THE RACE TO MODERNITY
Understanding Culture Through the Diasporic-Self
INTRODUCTION
In the much popularized postmodern context, race has often been framed as complex,
sophisticated, and shifting, making way for the discursive ground of culture, ethnicity,
and Diaspora. Needless to say, within the present globalized transnational epoch,
one is faced with different questions concerning Diasporic identity (Hall, 2005,
2007a, 2007b). Yet race, culture, ethnicity, identity are not distinct moments, rather
they come to be discursively constituted, working in some protean way to form
these different transnational identities. What I am interested in, is the experience
of the Diasporic body concerning these contemporary questions of identity, as they
come to be historically shaped through the social conjunctures of the many cultural
formations of modernity. I am asking: How do Diasporic peoples come to under-
stand their lived public space? How does race, as a way of knowing, form integrative
spaces for Diasporic bodies? And how do Diasporic peoples build a working cultural
register to strategically engage their everyday lived social? These are some of the
burgeoning questions that I am thinking through as I engage this discussion. So, in
what is to follow, I will talk about race, culture, Diaspora and identity in the context of
modernity with the intention of opening up what I think are spaces to help disentangle
some of these soundly hidden dominantsubordinate relations. My intention is to
bring critical discernment concerning the ways in which space independent of bodies
comes to be reified through race, keeping in mind space is always already constituted
through bodies. In that, I would like us to think through culture to understand how
colonizing spaces of Euromodernity become localized to a particular Diasporic body.
From the outset, let me say that the purpose of the discussion is not to challenge the
way in which this category of Diaspora has been historically conceptualized, that
is to say, what constitutes some valid displacement, dispersion, exile, exodus, or
movement of a given people. I am more concerned with the socialization processes
through different Diasporic bodies, to understand the communicative strategies and
contemporary mannerisms, the particular modes of interacting that facilitate the
everyday engagement of peoples in a new place. When I speak about Diaspora, I do
not mean in a sum total way, dislocation of a people, though in some sense dis-
location is what is experienced, nor am I speaking about a totalizing experience of
exile, though these are all part and parcel of the Diasporic experience. In a sense
then, I am not speaking about the Diaspora as a sum classifying system, while at
the same time I am. Yet with working with these entangled overtones, I am more
SIMMONS
38
thinking of the movement of people to different geographies, a movement whereby
people come to know themselves through the margins of their contemporary public
sphere. I am more concerned about identity, citizenry and the relationship with the
state and in what way this sense of nationalism is approached through the Diasporiza-
tion of peoples. I am less occupied with what constitutes a legitimate Diaspora,
or to historically trace the trajectory of movement of particular peoples, or why one
moves to a different geography, nor will I attempt to pin down the Diaspora to a
historic time frame, space, geography or to some body. Instead, I am more speaking
from my lived experiences with the intention of engaging in a self-reflexive dialogue
in which Diasporic bodies can come to interpret their respective experiences.
CITIZENSHIP AND HUMANISM
I begin at March/11/2008, Glossop Road, Sheffield, England. It was the designated
reading week for most graduate schools here in Ontario. I had the opportunity to
listen to a thesis defense at one of the academic institutions in Sheffield. But while
in Sheffield, what got my attention was what was the popular debate in the mass
media public sphere (Habermas, 1991; Appadurai, 1996; Fraser, 1992; Brantlinger,
1990). From newspapers to television, what was shoved in my face was the question
of Britishness. Some of the headlines were, What does it mean to be British? Is
allegiance to the Queen enough to be British? And is Britishness, Englishness? I was
a bit taken back with these conversations, in particular the way in which the question
of citizenry, and what constitutes the authentic citizen were still troubling ingredients
for public sphere talk. The conversations I felt were in some collective way, hooked
on some fixed category of identity. In fact what was being invoked into these mass
media debates was how to inject more Britishness into British. Much of the debate
was centered on the question of: In this globalised society how do we begin to think of
what it means to be British? And is pledging allegiance to the Queen and country
sufficient to produce citizenry? But for me, concerning here from Glossop road, is
the question of Diasporic citizenry, insofar as how this particular form of humanism
comes to be constituted in the interest of nation-state, through the surveillance
of mass media public sphere (Shapiro, 2005; Gilliom, 2005; Brantlinger, 1990). My
interest concerns the way in which cultural conditions form and re-form themselves
through the governance of what I call Enlightened subjectivities. I am querying
how this newly everyday Diasporic citizenry rewrites the cosmopolitan through
these colonially imbued Enlightened subjectivities (Horkheimer and Adorno 2002).
From Glossop road, I was experiencing Diasporic citizenry not to say forming
itself as some new counterpublic (Dawson, 1995; Gregory, 1995), but Diasporic
citizenry as being located in a way whereby the Diasporic-self had to conform or
adapt to the particular historic colonial conditions of citizenry. So from the beginning
the Diasporic self was always already presupposed as being outside the realm of
what it means to be a British citizen within the Euro-Anglo context. More so too,
there was a particular push and pull activity happening, and if I can articulate this
moment as being the turbulence formed when the primacy of cultural knowledges
as an ontological raw resource of the African Diaspora interacts with the cultural
THE RACE TO MODERNITY
39
register of modernity (Foster, 2007; Everett, 2002), allowing for a shift and at the
same time stabilizing these inherently pure, singular categories of let us say British,
English or Canadian. For me, Glossop road brought up some of the tensions the
Diasporic-self experiences when communicating within Euromodernity. Glossop road
reminded me of ways in which racialised bodies come to be discursively positioned
and interpreted in conversations. Glossop road moved me to think about how the
lived experiences of the Diasporic-self come to be nuanced, through some of these
historic-colonial narratives. What Glossop road did, was really to push me to
think about what it means to communicate in a public space with multiple historic
specificities or multiple modernities (Habermas, 1998), Glossop road pushed me
to think about the way in which difference comes to organize around, if I can say,
a particular fixed singular triumphed form of origin, while at the same time being
grounded to a certain historical primacy. Britishness then in a sense, as circum-
scribed through the colonial scripting of the body, coalesces with emerging Diasporic
modernities. Central to this debate concerning Britishness is pondering whether to
include or not to include, to defend or not to defend the colonial will of British
modernity.
THEORIZING CULTURE, DIASPORA AND KNOWLEDGE FORMATION
Glossop road speaks to the ways in which not only how Diasporized bodies and
Diasporic geographies come to be encoded and textualized but also the aestheticiza-
tion of these cartographies that produced what Fanon (Fanon, 1967: 11) calls the
epidermalization of inferiority, a culturally inscribed schema, which operationalizes
scaffold imbued relations onto society. So we have relations being formed where
culture now becomes starting points for conversations. wa Thiongo tells us that
culture carries the values, ethical, moral and aesthetic by which people conceptualize
or see themselves and their place in history and the universe, that these values
are the basis of a societys consciousness and outlook (wa Thiongo, 1993: 77).
Diasporic culture then as formed through these particular knowledges, and as posited
in overdeveloped countries cites itself in ways whereby it is always speaking in
relation to colonial narratives of the past and present alike. I say past and present
for there is this ongoing re-shaping and re-writing of historic colonial narratives as
it is experienced through the Diasporic-self. But what is this re-shaping and re-writing
of colonial narratives by the Diasporic-self ? Is it not the capacity for the Diasporic-
self to experience other ways of knowing, other values, customs, practices, and
knowingly or unknowingly participate in its everydayness? More so, experiential
knowledge, embodied as ones own by the Diasporic-self, might be taken up in a
synchronic way, as in the now, disconnected from histories, time and space. Or in
another context, some of the experiences of the Diasporic-self might be engaged with
the conscious knowing of colonial histories. For though culture can be understood
through space and time, we still experience culture through its embodiment. In that,
bodies do not operate in vacuums, they form relations, compartmentalized or bound;
culture then has the capacity to traverse through these once impermeable membranes.
Incommensurable as it were, culture is very much dependent on the body, which
has caused all sorts of problems for contemporary debates concerning citizenry.
SIMMONS
40
Diasporic culture as it reveals itself through bodies of difference, comes to converge
and diverge at different moments, such that the identity of the Diasporic-self is
revealed and marked in ways where meaning and experience are understood through
this omnipresent historic colonial narrative. Grand and ontologised as it were, and
popularized through the chosen image, the Diasporic-self is invited to participate in
certain spaces through spontaneous performances in order to strategically maneuver
nation-state imperatives, imperatives that more so give guidelines on how race,
gender, space and time ought to be engaged (Goldberg, 2002; Balibar, 2002; Dei,
2006; Collins, 2000; Wane, 2007). Time here though accompanies itself with this
cultural register of modernity (Habermas, 1998), which continuously updates itself
with particular currencies on the re-marked Diasporic-self. Importantly then for the
Diasporic-self as located in the contemporary West is identifying marked spaces
where the colonial aesthetic come to reside, that is, being cognizant of the dominant
encoded currency within ones governing social space. In that, the Diasporic-self
becomes encoded in a way that accords mobility through the myriad interintra
cultural relations. Difference, in a sense then, form de-symmetric relations operating
tangential to these colonial inscribed meanings as popularized by mass media. Fluid,
dynamic, transformative as it were, culture, though spatial, comes to be represented
through the Diasporic-self. Culture has these transformative and mutable components,
resulting in the ever-transcendental Diasporic-self. Transcendental as they may be,
identities are neither separated nor fixed to particular historical domains. Difference-
sameness of culture, at times, is more so negotiating, or cognizant of each others
anachronistic spatio-temporal (see also Horkheimer & Adorno 2002: 20), that is,
those moments of coming to recognize or placing the different geographies of
historical mannerisms and expressions on ones cultural register. So as difference
emerges through multiple historical geo-domains, the Diasporic-self then comes into a
social reality, where continuously meaning, as constituted through difference, trans-
forms itself in ways that there is no fixed historical locus. But the Diasporic-self is
not independent of history, that there is always already some lineage to a particular
time, space and geography. On the same note, it is not that these histories are bringing
a fixed homogenous reading onto the Diasporic-self, for within these histories, hetero-
geneity is very much central to the experiences of the Diasporic-self. What we are left
with is that culture now has slowly shifted from the manner in which it were accorded
currency through the Enlightenment knowledge of modernity (Horkheimer & Adorno
2002; Foucault 2007), not that it has disengaged with the prototypical colonial
production, but it is this colonial edifice that has re-shaped and re-formed itself in
order to be congruent with the neo-colonial/globalized particularities of our cultural
present.
ETHNICITY AND QUESTIONS CONCERNING CULTURAL RESOURCES
OF THE DIASPORA
Here in Canada, there is also this pledge of allegiance to the Queen for Canadianness.
Canadianness has become a major terminal for Diasporic communities to take up the
designated position of Enlightenment. But taking up the oath of allegiance has its own
41
complicity. I often think of: What does it mean for one to have come from a land that
has been historically colonized, to a space where one is in a position to benefit from
nation-state violence, that is, how does one negotiate these unfreedoms, that of citi-
zenry, nation-state and Diasporic subjectivity? (Hall, 2007b; Wynter, 2001; Walcott,
2003; McKittrick, 2006). So if Diasporic subjectivities come to culminate with
proximity to modernitys Enlightened subject, what does it say then for the African
Diasporic community that have been historically determined through colonialism?
How does the Diasporic-self that emerged from a colonized geography, one placed
within the heart of the supposed Enlightened space, work with these debasing
histories as a raw resource? In that, immanent to Diasporic movement, movement that
ought to supposedly bring this better way of life, there is a particular performance
by Diasporized bodies, one that attaches itself to modernity and simultaneously
distancing itself from those spaces assigned as less than to colonial geographies. This
lived experience of Diasporized peoples as determined through colonial inscribed
sub-human categories and spaces has become the omnipresent reminder for African
Diasporic consciousness, the omnipresent determinant for post-human relations
(Weheliye, 2002). In a sense then, Diasporic bodies always already have to be const-
antly glancing back to make sure the sub-human does not catch up or is not too close.
But even this glance back by Diasporic bodies to confirm progress is to understand
that this sub-human distancing is part and parcel of the post-human. The question
of injecting more Britishness in British, in a sense though, can be positioned as a
determining act of coming up with different ways to inculcate this Enlightened
humanism. How Britishness is taken up in the public sphere, is as if, collectively by
natures plan, we had a shared understanding of what is authentic Britishness.
So then, if for now we can think of Britishness as historically determined through
particular knowledges, State formation and legitimized violence, we can begin to
problematize this singular pure authentic origin of Britishness. We can also push back
with questions concerning how Britishness comes to be marked through the African
Diaspora.
Yet, within our governing epoch, ethnicity has come to be discursively deployed
in a way that works to situate, and at the same time stabilize, the Diasporic-self
through particular historical conjunctures. What then does it mean to talk about British
as being ethnic? If then, from the racialized Other to the black spatio-temporal, one
is forever ethnic, what then are the constitutive determinants of ethnicity? Let us
for the moment think through the discourse of Canadianness to understand the loci
of particular bodies, think about what it means to be Canadian in the context of
nation-state, Diaspora and transnationalism (Walcott, 2003; Appadurai, 1996), think
about the historical social formations and the ensuing trope of Canadianism as
contextualized through the interstices of ethnicity. Where then are the spaces for
black Diaspora, spaces that have come to be written out of the institutionalized text?
What I am struggling with is the manner in which the discourse of difference, and
at the same time the discourse of ethnicity, comes to be invoked within the civic
sphere of public life. From the dominant location, from State to media, ethnicity
extends across the horizon of the Diasporized Other to those outside the construct
of Britishness (Hall, 2007a). But within black geographies there is talk about ethnicity
SIMMONS
42
from the dominant position, but also within blackness there is talk about difference
from within, which I think, at times, could be troubling, that there is a particular danger
we need to tease out, in that, historically, alterity as a material good, as embedded
through time, through particular social categories, worked to organize the conditions
for colonial relations. In the contemporary setting of the West, these colonial relations
very much languish in everyday conversations concerning identity, difference and
Other. As these conversations come to be discursively framed and represented
through particular media images and different locations of ethnicity, there exists
this localized mobility within the discursive terrain of the Diasporized Other. Let
us for the moment think about blackness as homogenously conceptualized through
hegemonic relations of Canadianness, let us for the moment think about blackness
as a fixed reducing reading on a particular body that has been rooted historically to
colonization, that this reading forms the conditions of existence, that this reading
forms the conditions of limitations and possibility for the Diasporized-body. We also
need to talk about the body as geography as well, to consider how the archipelago
that we come to know as the Caribbean, comes to be determined through different
bodies lumped as the Other. What are the implications for the Diasporic body as
located in the Caribbean and as being co-determined through this historical collective
conjuncture of ethnicity? The question of blackness has discursively moved itself from
the Negro of plantation life, to the contemporary people of color, to the politically
correct racialized minoritised, the African Canadian, the African American and black
British. Inserting self into the ethnic terrain is the brown discursive, becoming
particularly vibrant within the North American context, though for the most part in
Britain, the black discursive has historically engulfed the body of the Other, be it
Asian, South-Asian, African or Moslem. Given then the different histories that
are spatially steeped in colonialism and shared dialogues of resistance, what is the
experience of resistance when, let us say, in the context of the West, the mobilization
of racialized peoples comes through particular moments, such that these shared
experiences of colonial histories separate itself as distinct or singular moments within
the classification of the Other? What then are the consequences for the different
voices of the oppressed when the politics of identification, the politics of ethnicity
work to dissipate the voice of shared colonial histories? How might we speak about
ethnicity, difference and culture, and not dilute the responsibility of speaking about
racism? (Dei, 2009; hooks, 1992; Opini and Wane 2007). At the same time, we
need to speak about ethnic difference beyond the racialised Other, to include the
dominant body as ethnic, to ask new questions concerning power and privilege (Hall,
2000; Dei, 2008). Ultimately, these questions reside along the lines of citizenry,
nation-state representation and the contingencies of globalization.
MASS MEDIA SURVEILLANCE OF THE DIASPORA
Concerning the flotsam of modernity, the question that continues itself here is that
of: How do we dialogue with each other and come to understand different ways of
knowing in order to move beyond tolerance or a practiced partitioned form of
respect? Yet as the African Diaspora move towards emancipating its public sphere
realities (Everett, 2002; Gregory, 1995), communicating then calls for the ability to
43
read the governing domain of statements, that is, the mutable yet fixed regulating
group of statements that circumscribe the body. So understanding space here is
important, for it is not as if these bodies come to know themselves or come to form
relations in a vacuum. Public sphere has this temporality of socio-historic specific
constituents that come to mark identity, that come to give ones way of knowing,
that is, our communicating capacities thrust and direction. Be it Britishness or
Canadianness, I think African Diasporic communities are surveilled (Shapiro, 2005;
Gilliom, 2005), not only from the State, but also by self, from within the local
communities. See, the glance back by the Diasporic-self allows one to be aware of
the previous sub-human experience, an awareness that culminates in this constant
inventory check on life structures from earlier geo-historical settings. So the aligning
and distancing of each other within the African Diaspora come to be nuanced in ways
which might not necessarily fragment Diasporic communities in a sum totalizing
way because yes, there exist heterogeneity, that the Diaspora is constituted through
different bodies, different identities, different experiences. What I am arguing
for, however, is that if we are talking about the African Diaspora, then we ought
to acknowledge shared histories of enslavement and a particular shared racial
experience, so this is not some prescription for some homogenous or fixed experience,
but more so I am saying that the aligning and distancing which situate itself
through Diasporic exchanges work to bring a particular tangentiality within local
Diasporic relations. But it seems to me, as I locate myself as a body of the Diaspora,
that this knowledge production through the everyday surveillance of that which comes
to be designated as sub-humanism, that the particular way in which this knowledge
comes to govern the lived Diasporic experience, lend to mark spaces of freedom
and unfreedom for Diasporic peoples. So what happens here is that the discursive
geo-project of modernity becomes propertized by local Diasporic communities, be
it intentional or not, when Diasporic bodies come to distance or align themselves
with each other, this interaction works to re-write the discourse of what it means to
be this Enlightened subject. For me it seems like I can never extricate myself from
the Fanon question: How do we extricate ourselves? (Fanon, 1967: 10).
Yet with the need for Diasporic peoples to constantly have to glance back, I think it
is not only about Diasporic peoples attempting to stay ahead of plantation life, I think
it is also about the everyday question of what to retrieve from the past, more so too is
the sense of how ones daily Diasporic journey comes into some sort of dialogue
with this omnipresent flotsam of plantation life, that is, being conversant with cultural
artifacts and expressions as a particularized way of life and as historically determined
through plantation procedures. What comes up here is the question of: What are the
ways in which plantation life reveals itself today in this Diasporic contemporary,
where disenfranchisement has reconfigured itself within contemporary globalized
geographies through everyday spaces of freedoms and unfreedoms? Also, as these
everyday spaces of freedom and unfreedom come to mark the determining limits of
Diasporic social interaction, the challenge here then is in utilizing these same said
limits to transform the Diasporic-self and at the same time not be bound to some
historic pre-configuration of the Diasporic body. What I have experienced, in a sense,
that is, through remembrance, I have always had this longing for home beyond the
SIMMONS
44
physicality of some fixed geographic location. I have had to find ways in which to
inscribe my everyday social space, or let us say introduce particular modes, ways
of communicating within Diasporic public sphere life (Appadurai, 1996), where I can
still centre my experiences through which I come to know myself. With this in mind,
I am thinking more of enunciation, diction as it emerged from plantation life as an
Indigenous sensibility, where I think in a very strategic way, enunciation comes to
be a tool for communicating through Diasporic public sphere life, Diasporic life
which has been burdened with histories entangled in colonial violence, through let
us say, the dominant/subordinated coordinates of Enlightenment. But what is this
Enlightenment and modernity that so many scholars have dwelled on? Understanding
these classifications is a continuous process. One of my interests is trying to under-
stand the experience of the African Diaspora, through the variable social approaches
toward modernity as it plays out within the social reality of the Western cosmo-
politan. But for the moment I want to think through some of the intertextual
experiences concerning modernity and the Enlightenment.
MODERNITY AND THE GOVERNANCE OF ENLIGHTENED SUBJECTIVITIES
So Foucault refers to the Enlightenment as:
An event, or a set of events and complex historical processes, that is located
at a certain point in the development of European societies. As such, it includes
elements of social transformation, types of political institutions, forms of
knowledge, projects of rationalization of knowledge and practices, techno-
logical mutations that are very difficult to sum up in a word . (Foucault,
2007: 111).
He also talks about the attitude of modernity:
Modernity is often spoken of as an epoch, or at least as a set of features
characteristic of an epoch; situated on a calendar, it would be preceded by
a more or less nave or archaic premodernity, and followed by an enigmatic
and troubling postmodernity. And then we find ourselves asking whether
modernity constitutes the sequel to the Enlightenment and its development, or
whether we are to see it as a rupture or a deviation with respect to the basic
principles of the eighteenth century (Foucault, 2007: 105).
For me, presently the local public sphere is that of Toronto. At the moment it is
scripted as cosmopolitan, officially categorized as multicultural by the State. But if
Foucault positions the Enlightenment as the set of events and historical processes
located at certain points in the development of European societies, I then would like
to mark these moments to think about formations and transformations of enslavement,
Indentureship, plantation life, the archipelago known as the Caribbean and let us
say, the historic monstrosity of a relationship formed through Africa, the supposed
New World and the Anglo-Euro continents. I am more interested in forms of thinking,
that is: How do Diasporic peoples historically determined through colonialism come
to make sense of their lived reality? I am more interested in how the myriad cultural
45
expressions come to be embodied differently in order to negotiate the newness of
Diasporic realities. And how is communicating within Diasporic public sphere
vectored through this vestigial memory of colonization? (Hall, 2007b; Appadurai,
1996). Concerning here too, is how this vestigial memory of colonization comes to
be this ubiquitous signpost of Diasporic freedoms and unfreedoms. It is almost
another form of electronic surveillance, instead more so too, the surveillance itself
becomes self-regulated in and through the said Diasporic-self. What comes out of
this relationship, is this regulation of cultural memory, a type of governance imbued
specifically through the Diasporic cultural register. With this Diasporic cultural
register, much needed here, is familiarity with the cultural discourse in practice
within the contemporaneous public sphere life, only then can one take up a strategic
position of communicating. With Diasporic peoples forming strategic positions of
communicating, what ought to be understood, is to say how cultural currency cir-
culates through particular powerknowledge points, that is in an overarching way
through race, class, gender, and sexuality and ableism, and also, how these colonial
categories come to be positioned by particular structures and institutions in framing
the popular discourse of public sphere talk.
Yet aligning and distancing from Europe and plantation life by Diasporic peoples
as a form of resistance and survival is very much real. I mean we could talk about
people not being appreciative of their Diasporic Indigenous culture, or thinking their
Diasporic culture as less than, that it warrants a shift away from the minoritized
cultural space, or we could talk about the recognition by particular groups of their
cultural currency and the strategic investments within this cultural space. See, what
happens here is that Diasporic culture in a sense becomes commodified/marketized,
and mobilized within this popularized cultural space allowing for what I am calling,
communities of compartmentalized solidarity. So if for the moment we were to think
of this public sphere space as the property of modernitys Enlightened subject where
difference come to coalesce through collective histories and shared experiences, we
could then understand the way in which plantation governmentalities (Scott, 1995)
play out in present day experiences of African Diasporic peoples. We could more
or less think of the mutability of plantocracy governance within Diasporic public
sphere in order to understand how the social transformation of Diasporic bodies
come to organize and mobilize their everyday social reality through the limitations
of these same said historically determined plantation governmentalities.
Another interest of mine is to think of modernity through the governing historical
process of plantation enslavement in relation to the development of European
societies, in particular, the subject formation as located to the geographies of freedom
and unfreedom, and also the nuances coming out here with that of nation-state,
nationalism and citizenry in this neo-colonial globalized epoch. So to return to Glossop
Road, to the mass media debate over the question of Britishness, I think what was
absent with public sphere talk here, were the delimiting historical determinants where
race formed the constitutive elements of this geography of freedom which we come
to know as English. Culture, as it reshapes itself through Diasporic relations, has
very much re-written the national discursive. In the past, to think of being British,
English or Canadian would have conjured up Anglo-Euro images. But globalization
SIMMONS
46
and the ensuing transnational currents have shifted the cosmopolitan schema thereby
troubling Euro-modernity nation state discourse. Yet, I am more concerned with
the forms of thinking immanent to Diasporic communities when it comes to culture,
and how this thinking becomes the raw resource to make meaning and engage public
sphere dialogue. So in returning to Glossop road, no longer is there this one authentic
Truth citizenry constituting nation-state. Instead what we have are multiple subjecti-
vities, which in and of itself, work to contest this imperial nation-state narrative.
But how does this play out in a mass media public sphere where what it means
to be British always already ought to propagate the dominant narrative of Euro-
modernity? If we think about belonging, then this brings a host of problems for
Diasporic communities, for in relation to the historic nation state-discourse, we
find a counter-public citizenry discursively forming itself, resulting more so in the
transformation of what it means to be let us say be this British or Canadian.
Yet, implicit in the question of what it means to be British is this homogenous
orientation to the cryptic script of nation-state citizenry. To belong then for the
Diasporic-self, means to take up particular codes as endowed through Euro-modernity
and perform them as ones own. But there is a complexity here for the Diasporic-
self, in that, culture and self are continuously transforming. Is not to say that the
Diasporic-self can choose cultural closure, for even in this closed state culture
has already reshaped itself as governed by that space and time. How then does the
Diasporic-self come to negotiate with the culture of modernity and simultaneously
negotiate with the culture of Diasporic Indigenous history? This is a bit complex here,
that is teasing out the intersections and points of departure of these cultural spaces.
I think very much here it is important to have a conversation about modernity and
the Enlightenment in relation to enslavement, plantation life and Diasporic movement,
in a sense, to understand the historical processes which constitute the Other as
sub-human and at the same time transforming Anglo-Euro geographies into what we
come to know as the human. If presupposed to the Diaspora is social transformation,
then Diasporic cultural knowledges be it counterpublic or not, ought to inform this
debate of Britishness. But the national narrative concerning British citizenry is very
much controlled through the nation-state discursive formations (Hall, 2000, 2007a,
2007b). To communicate ones sense of citizenry, of what it means to belong to a
particular time and place within mass media public sphere, is more so vectored
through Anglo-Euro modernitys discursive search for this subject of Enlightenment.
What then is the place for Diasporic cultural knowledges in rewriting its own
citizenry, on its own terms within the governing mass media public sphere spaces?
And how can this counterpublic cultural knowledging work to invoke a sense of
the posthuman for Diasporic peoples within contemporary cosmopolitan tropes of
nation-state?
If we are thinking social transformation here, then from a knowledging position
Diasporic culture as an important raw resource more or less ruptures modernitys
Enlightenment. So when Foucault asks if modernity is the sequel to Enlightenment,
as mentioned before, I am more understanding this as part and parcel of each other,
as constitutive, as operating in continuum, whereby these Diasporic cultural know-
ledging bring the much needed, what Foucault calls deviations with respect to the
47
basic principles of the eighteenth century (Foucault, 2007: 105). Much of this basic
eighteenth century principles relied on the stitching together of Scientific positivism
and the development of States (Foucault, 2007: 50). Here, with this relationship of
Scientific positivism and the State, I am pondering how through this relationship
the Enlightened subject was rationalized into being, that is, how is it that positivism
and the State organizing procedures come to formulate what it means to be human?
And how this understanding of the human legitimized the inscription of particular
bodies as this universal citizen?
PERMANENCE AND FLUX: THE EBB OF TRANSNATIONAL CULTURE
As Diasporic culture continues to shift and reshape itself, and as it moves through
the time and space of the West, I think there is this constant negotiation with self,
that is, the Diasporic-self constantly asks what historic ways of life, aesthetic forms,
expressions, diction, food and music to name some, could come to provide some
form of currency to take up the challenges of communicating within this governing
mass media public sphere. For some Diasporic peoples, all culture as it emerged
from lands that were colonized were knowingly forgotten, moreover it was an act
of forgetting which really ought to usher in Enlightened subjectivities. Instead what
was utilized, as a substitute, was the Enlightenment culture of modernity. For some
Diasporic peoples, it was important to not only maintain their culture but to actively
pursue the Diasporic Indigenous ways of doing things, a manner that can be inter-
preted as being pure, absolutist or even close. For some peoples of the Diaspora,
much depends on the flux of the present, that is, culture as it forms itself today and
differs the next day, wherein one can decide, to say choose which form of expression
to take up as ones own. However regarding this choice, I think what is coming out
of these geo-positions that situate themselves within Diasporic communities, is the
need for a strategic engagement of their transnational globalized epoch. We can
ask then: How do Diasporic peoples come to align themselves through the politics
of culture to engage their daily lived social? And how often does the cultural register
of modernity called upon, when dialogue concerning these Diasporic raw resources,
tacitly mediate conversations? The thought of Diasporic peoples constantly ongoing,
as an everyday surveillance method, that is, the glancing back and forth to the cultural
registrar of modernity is real. From cultural representations, to institutionalized
knowledging, to the popularized public sphere mass media discourse, we seem to
all at some point in time become experts in understanding how the space and time
dynamics of the West come to universally culturally encode our lived reality. Indeed,
the Diaspora today has brought some complexity to this cultural register of modernity.
Universalized Self and Other classifications allowed for compartmentalized geo-
graphies of solidarity, where the phenotype of the Diasporic-self comes to be per-
petually bound to particular geographic locations. Out of this classification came,
what I would like to call the geo-subject, where bodies in a discursively totalizing
way were organized and inscribed as inferior knowledge. So this omnipresent cultural
register of modernity (see also Foster, 2007) now tangling with a public sphere
whereby the Diaspora is not to say centered, but has shifted its locus from the
SIMMONS
48
margins, has to more or less, let us say, recalibrate its coordinates for difference.
Imagine the difficulty here; for the Diasporic-self has fluidity, it is not, for the most
part, contained in this permanent rigid category. So the way we come to know bodies,
geographies, and citizenry pushes against histories of colonial singular classifications.
See I think this here is the struggle at Glossop Road. And I think it concerns the
relationship with knowing what it means to be British through these permanent
homogenous categories of citizenry and nation-state. So it is no longer an easy check
off mark for Britishness when it comes to the cultural register of modernity. Diaspora
has ushered in a cosmopolitanism where public sphere talk, be it through mass
media or not, has to now take up the nuances with difference, culture and citizenry
(Habermas, 1991). Is it then, that in rekindling the debate about Britishness with
questions concerning to pledge or not to pledge allegiance to the Queen, a means,
or an attempt to return to a colonial, singular, pure origin of nationalism? Or is it that
Diasporic communities that come to form itself as a counterpublic, more so now
in a material way, seriously opening up spaces for pluralism within this fabric of
Englishness? This becomes a bit of a worry here, when we hear the Western world
resides supposedly in the time of a democracy, as trumpeted through the governing
neo-liberal humanitarian discourse. Yet as the counterpublic challenges this space of
freedom and unfreedom, that of Britishness, and as the cultural register of modernity
discursively recalibrates itself to re-mark the illiberalness of Diasporic communities,
I think my concern here, is with how Enlightened subjectivities come to reshape
itself as it embodies the Diaspora, and how so this reshaping come to be mobilized
through what were previously illiberal spaces for the Diasporic-self. So coming out
of this entangled relationship with Diasporic communities and Enlightened subjects,
is this sense of flux where permanent spaces of freedom and unfreedom are now
reclassified, not so much by the State or mass media public sphere, but more so now
by the residing Diasporic counterpublic, which materializes through its own dis-
cursive growth and finds itself now being taken up by the same mass media public
sphere as their own, as always already belonging in some pure Enlightened form to
the State.
CONCLUSION
Returning to Glossop Road, we notice as the Diasporic counterpublic tries to
ensconce itself within Euro-modernity, the emerging rumble here concerns the newly
reconfigured permanence and flux of what it means to be a British citizen. I think
some of the problematic that the Diasporic-self is bringing, is that of: How can
modernity will itself to new forms of citizenry and simultaneously secure the trope
of Enlightenment? How can Britishness retain its Englishness and still allow for
Diasporic communities to have voice? The cry though to maintain allegiance to the
Queen, the historical cord to Enlightenment subjectivities, I think, allows for a post
human, where pre-supposed, is the liberal harmony of the Enlightened subject and
Diasporic communities, all in the name of continuing the will of modernity. But as
the State and mass media work in tandem to secure its hold on historical formations
of citizenry, and as the Diasporic counterpublic reshapes itself through cultural
49
ways of knowing and newly found Enlightened subjectivities, what we have then is
a relationship in which the colonial encodings of British citizenry come to engage the
protean presence of the Diasporic-self. Materially then, what does this relationship
reveal itself as? Is it that as Foucault reminds us, we need to look at those events
with complex historical process that are difficult to some up in words, those with
technological mutations, those which include social transformations, those that locate
themselves within political institutions, those projects of rationalization of know-
ledge and practices? (see Foucault, 2007: 111). So be it the Diasporic body pledges
allegiance to the Queen, or as we question the classification of Britishness and
Englishness, and as the Diasporic posthuman takes up its newly found place in the
West, I think what Glossop Road gives us then, is more so, a means to question how
we come to know and understand the ensuing humanism of the Diasporized-self.
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MANDEEP KAUR MUCINA
5. REMEMBERING THE 1947 PARTITION
OF INDIA THROUGH THE VOICES OF SECOND
GENERATION PUNJABI WOMEN
INTRODUCTION HISTORY, MYSTORY, OURSTORY
Partition is a word that I grew up knowing so little about, yet enough to understand
that when it was spoken in my family, a daunting wall of silence would materialize
and the discussion would quickly shift or be further silenced. I learned to recognize
that this word carried a great deal of baggage that was not to be unpacked, as the
material inside would bring about feelings of shame for the storyteller, as well
as the listener. Yet those rare moments when my grandmother, father, or mother
would take on this far off look and reminisce about stories before Partition or after
Partition, I would hold my breath hoping to hear just a little bit more, knowing
that moment could end instantly.
As a young woman I learned quickly how to understand what could and could
not be spoken in my household. Stories of the Partition were one of these topics,
along with female sexuality and anything related to the opposite sex, particularly
with men outside of my racial and ethnic community. If I were to raise these taboo
themes, the word Izzat (honor) would be thrust forward, as an explanation for what
one could lose if these boundaries were crossed and the silence broken. These
topics and stories accumulated into a list that I carried with me everyday, knowing
that they were not to be discussed and as a woman understanding that there was
much significance in the silence surrounding them, without ever knowing the details
or questioning why. As curious as I was, periodically I would peruse this list in my
head, daring to question these truths and searching for answers that would resolve
all the silence in my family. These questions could not be broached to others without
feelings of shame and guilt in doing so. Furthermore, much of this knowledge was
passed down through symbolic messages spoken in metaphors; somehow I knew
how to read these messages and translated them as territory I was not to enter. It was
only recently that I began to connect all the stories and themes compiled in this list
and understand the silence that surrounded them, which occurred when I launched
into researching the history of my family and community. For the first time in my
life I re-encountered historical stories of the Partition.
Upon my journeys into Partition narratives I came across the writings of Urvashi
Butalia, Ananya Jahanara Kabir, Ritu Menon and Kamla Bhasin. These writings were
separated from the politically driven, patriarchal writings that dominated Partition
history. These esteemed, South Asian, feminist scholars were the pioneers to
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uncovering a feminist historiography of Indias Partition and shed light on the
stories of the women that had been silenced in the collective memory of the nation.
As I began exploring the marginalized history of the women, children, and the Dalit
1

community, I was confounded by what little I knew of this side of the Partition, but
also haunted by how much I was impacted by this literature on a personal level. The
most influential element of these readings were the narratives of the women and
the analysis that accompanied it, which illuminated how women were symbolized
in representing the Izzat of their family, community, and nation. As a result of this
symbolizing, womens bodies became the site of violence that ensued during the
Partition. Women were brutally raped by rival groups; young girls and their mothers
were forced to commit martyr suicide for the sake of family honor; numerous
women were abandoned by families after being brutally raped and forced to marry
the perpetrators of their assaults; and many of the children were displaced, kidnapped
and sold to brothels and landowners (Butalia, 1998; Menon & Bhasin, 1998). One of
the first passages I came across that exemplified womens reality during the Partition,
was by Kabir (2005) who articulated, as in other moments of collective violence,
it was in the systemic rape of women that trauma and body were most obviously
linked. Women were raped and mutilated during the mayhem of partition because
their female bodies provided a space over which the competitive games of men were
played out (Das, 1995) (p. 179). These games and the violence perpetuated on
women were many times in the name of Izzat, (or honor) the same word that I so
often heard being used in my family, a word that I had embodied into my identity
so far back I could not recall the very origins of when and where I first heard it.
The word Izzat can be loosely translated in English to mean honor, reputation,
and/or the responsibility of an individual to his/her community, family, and at times
their nation. As a second-generation Punjabi Sikh woman I grew up hearing the word
Izzat to refer to how my actions are read by my family and community; how my
body is read by others and the implications of this for myself and my family;
how the community responds to my familys choices; and even when speaking to
the honor of our ancestral nation, India. The words of my mother, grandmother, and
aunties ring in my ears when I think of Izzat and how the word and its complex
meanings were passed down to me as I was growing up: Ghar dhi Izzat kuri dha
nhar rahndhi hai (The Izzat of the household sits with the daughter of that house-
hold). As we will see later on in this essay, these words ring true for not only my
upbringing, but for that of many other South Asian women.
As I read stories of the partition I was triggered. I felt the womens stories so deep
inside my soul that I could not distinguish whether I was in sorrow for the women
I was reading about, or for myself. Images and stories of my own upbringing re-
surfaced, but in different shapes, distinct colors and the memories took on different
meanings. Linkages were being made to ideas I had not thought about before. I was
connecting to these womens narratives, because many of the values and beliefs that
led up to the violence that was perpetuated on their bodies, including the concepts
of Izzat, are still evident in my family and community within the Diaspora
2
today.
As a result the following questions emerged, suggesting a necessary area of
research that warranted attention: What are the experiences of second-generation
REMEMBERING THE 1947 PARTITION OF INDIA
53
South Asian women, living in the Diaspora, who were born and raised in homes
that survived the 1947 Partition of India? Layering this question emerged thoughts
of how the traumas of the Partition have been transmitted into our identities? This
stimulated specific themes primarily from my own experiences, such as Izzat and
values of sexuality, questioning how have these values been passed down to us and
how have they remained preserved in the Diaspora? Trying to understand what impact
they have had on our identity and relationship to the spaces in which we negotiate
daily? Finally, getting to questions of survival in the everyday world and under-
standing how, as second-generation women, we are resisting and balancing the legacy
of the Partition with the conflicting, many times racist, environments in which we
are raised? These questions lead me to the ultimate endeavor, which is to explore
the effects of the Partition on the second generation of South Asian women born in
the Diaspora, by understanding how the legacy of Partition has impacted their identity
and sense of self.
This paper is a result of my Masters thesis research, where I conducted interviews
with seven second generation South Asian women living in the Diaspora, whose
families migrated from Northern India. During our time together, we explored their
family stories of migration, stories of the Partition, stories of growing up in their
home and outside environment, and most importantly the stories of negotiation
in everyday life spaces. Essentially this paper will be divided into three parts. First
I will be speaking to my location in this research, this paper, and the importance of
reflecting on my insider voice. The second part will explore some of the narratives
of the women I interviewed, and begin looking at Izzat, a cultural knowledge that
played a distinct role in the lives of women during the partition, as well as today,
connecting the past and the present through their voices. Finally, in the third part, we
will be exploring how women are resisting and reclaiming for themselves what it
means to be second generation and the negotiations they make in their everyday lives
in order to survive.
As a woman of color, as an insider to my community, and as an individual who
sits in a chasm between two cultures, my social location is integral to this research;
therefore in the next section I will be reflecting this as well as the complexities of
speaking about this topic in my community and in the Western world, and how this
research can be taken up in both worlds.
PART I CONTENDING WITH THE INSIDER VOICE
Insiders have to live with the consequences of their processes on a day-to-
day basis for ever more, and so do their families and communities. (Linda
Tuhiwahi Smith, 1999, p. 137)
Mind and heart full of light, this is the literal translation of my name, which is a
combination of two Punjabi wordsMun (passion, mind, heart) and deep (light,
candle). Kaur is my middle name, which translates into princess and was bestowed
on me and to my Sikh sisters who come before and after me, by our Guru Gobind
Singh-ji, who said, You are my beloved princesses, my daughters. You must be
respected. How can this world be without you? reminding us of the honor we hold
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in our community with this name.
3
My name is a part of who I am and reminds me
of my Sikh Punjabi identity and was given to me by my parents who were both born
and raised in Himachal Pradesh, India, until they migrated to Canada, where my
siblings and I were born. I am a part of the Sikh Punjabi, North Indian community,
as well a part of what is considered the South Asian Diaspora. As a researcher and
someone who is personally connected to this research, I see myself as an insider to
these communities. Insider research is a term used by Linda Tuhiwahi Smith (1999)
and supported by feminist researcher methodologies, to describe someone conducting
research from within the community. The contrast from insider to outsider creates a
distinct environment for the research and the researcher. As an insider I am con-
fronted with the research outcomes and implications in divergent ways to that of an
outsider, ways that connect my personal to the political. As an insider, every word
that I write connects me to my ancestral country, to the land on which I was born
and raised, to my Punjabi community, to my family, and to myself. With the power of
the written word comes great responsibility to these communities that I am privileged
to be a part of, and with this power comes great risks.
From the beginning of this research, I struggled with the challenges and possible
consequences of conducting research that involved my family, community, and
people. Smith (1999) speaks to how research is embedded in a colonial history
that most colonized countries have a devastating relationship to, since those who
have been researched have usually been seen and described as the native other.
Generally, a researcher is accountable for providing ethical, respectful, critical,
reflexive research to the community being researched, as well as the larger institutions
to which they are representing (Creswell, 1998). Yet, for an insider researcher, who
may be an Indigenous person and/or person of color, there are many more challenges
to conducting research that meets the above criteria and addresses the complicated
ways our research can be taken up or interpreted in dominant Western discourses. My
accountability goes beyond that of the academic institution, it is to my community,
our culture and values, our history, and to my own identity and voice. The challenges
that I am proposing involve a history of colonization of my people, they involve the
dominant discourses that currently speak as expert voices about my community,
and they involve my social location and relationship to my community. Pioneers
such as Edward Said (2003), who wrote the renowned book Orientalism, spoke
to these expert voices as the Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having
authority of the Orient (p. 3). Through these discourses that situate strong counter
distinctions between the East and West, the people, customs, and identities of
anyone who is different from the Western body, become defined as the Other. In
this section, I highlight the complexities of doing research that has the risk of being
taken up in destructive ways. I also focus on creating knowledge and undertaking
research that does not perpetuate colonial mindsets and perceptions of my family,
community, and people.
As an insider, I am faced with the challenge of writing about South Asian
womens experiences in the Diaspora. Research that speaks to the experiences of
South Asian women living in the Diaspora, as well as women in South Asia itself,
depicts a strong binary between the values of the East as being barbaric, repressive,
55
usually religious views, that are generally understood as significantly more oppressive
than the values of the West. In contrast, the West portrays itself in opposition to
this, as inhabiting feminist, egalitarian ideals and values that treat women as equal
to men. Therefore, South Asian women are defined as victims to their culture and
religion and they are seen as needing to be saved from the clutches of this barbaric
culture and its influences. This sentiment has been articulated by Puar (1994) when
she describes the most common portrayal of second generation identity is an either/
or approach where the woman is portrayed as inhabiting polarized identities, she
is either repressed by her patriarchal culture or co-opted by a racist white society
into benefiting from the so-called freedom of the west, despite the loss of familial
support and protection. (p. 26). These dichotomies are taken up through various
forms of media and academia to further marginalize immigrant communities and
support the ideas of assimilation when it comes to the adjustment of immigrant
children to Canada (Handa, 1997). Therefore, as a researcher, I am challenged by
these current perceptions, yet I can begin to resist these discourses by giving space
for the women to speak to their experiences, and to begin breaking down these
dichotomies so that we can begin defining ourselves, with our own voices.
As an insider I am faced with the challenge of writing about universal yet contested
topics, such as violence against women and patriarchy, in the same breath as South
Asian women. By doing so, I run the risk of these subjects becoming a symptom of
my culture concerning issues that are specific to the Punjabi people. Paola Bacchetta
(2000) articulates the risks of researching a topic that is so opinion laden with stereo-
types in the West. In her writings, Bacchetta suggests that books, such as those
written by Menon, Bhasin and Butalia, confront controversial topics of violence,
religion, and how the lives of South Asian women during the Partition were impacted
by values of patriarchy. The challenge of writing these important texts is that many
uninformed Western audiences may interpret them in reductive ways, thereby running
the risk of creating stories that become essentialized and seen in binary terms. Further-
more, these ideas are thought of as coming from the culture, rather being understood
as universal issues that women experience globally, regardless of which culture we
are examining, including the West. Topics of violence against women are associa-
ted strongly with particular cultures and religions, yet very rarely understood as
global issues that are perpetuated by power and control, which is so evident in the
patriarchy that exists in a majority of the world. Therefore, it is important that we
recognize that the themes of violence, patriarchy, power and control are not a
symptom of the Punjabi culture or of South Asian people, but are a part of a global
issue. Menon and Bhasin (1998) effectively support this claim in the following
quote, when they begin to address the challenges of resurrecting topics of violence
in the South Asian community:
As Pradeep Jegananthan writing on ethnic violence in urban Sri Lanka says,
the form and content of the extraordinary is deeply embedded in the history of
the everyday, but nevertheless also stands outside the everyday. So, moments
of rupture and extreme dislocation, extraordinary as they are, underscore the
more daily doses of violence against women and enable us to see them as part of
the continuumand despite the shudder of horror, part of the consensus. (p. 60)
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In this research, I am exploring how the issue of violence against women has
historically impacted my community and the way this has impacted the second-
generation Punjabi women in Canada, because this is an important topic our commu-
nity is currently experiencing and requires dialogue from within. Yet, my aim is not to
define violence as being a part of my culture, but focusing more on how we can begin
to dialogue about these issues within our community, without fear of the larger
dominating Western perspective understanding it as a cultural issue that is only
unique to our religion and nation.
As an insider, when untangling and addressing the issues embedded within my
community, while engaging in a discussion about second generation South Asian
identity, not only do I run the risk of supporting the claims of the dominant orientalist
discourses, but may also be questioned on my legitimacy and authenticity as a
researcher. This position has been supported by the writings of Smith (1999) when
she states, the notion of authentic is highly contested when applied to, or by
Indigenous peoples, authorities and outside experts are often called in to verify,
comment upon, and give judgments about the validity of Indigenous claims to cultural
beliefs, values, ways of knowing and historical accounts (p. 72). The questioning
of authenticity serves to legitimize dominant views of the larger society (i.e. Canada,
or North America), or those in power within the community being researched (i.e.
Elders or politicians in the Punjabi, Sikh community). The result is a silencing of
marginalized voices in both the larger societal perspective and the community itself
(i.e. Women and children during the Partition). Researchers such as Potts and Brown
(2005) speak to the privilege an insider researcher holds, that is the privilege insiders
have since they have lived experience of the issue under study (p. 264) and how
this privilege opens space for an insider that outsiders are not privy to. Therefore,
as a woman, who has endeavored to research my community, I am aware that my
privileges embedded in my social location, have opened access for me to conduct
this research. In addition, as an insider I have an understanding of the issue that goes
beyond the political into the personal and perhaps the access I have to my community
outsiders are not privy to. Yet it is vital for me to identify that my experiences and
interpretations do not represent all the women from the Punjabi community. Further-
more, I am aware of the power and control the researcher role can confer, particularly
in the world of academia where my words may be taken up either as expert know-
ledge, or can be interpreted as challenging the status quo, therefore questioned
on their legitimacy. Hence it is essential that I am clear at the outset that my inten-
tions for doing this research were to give voice to Punjabi women and to discuss
our experiences, our oppressions, our identities through our own voices, rather than
through the expert voices of the powerful and privileged inside and outside our
community.
As may be apparent, my voice is central to the entire paper and I have taken the
liberty to speak in an inclusive voice throughout the entire piece by using the term
we and our to define the struggles and everyday realities of second generation
South Asian women. As I have spoken to, in the discussion on insider research, I am
embedded in the community that I speak about; not only have I researched pheno-
mena that impact my generation, but I live these phenomena everyday, as much as
57
the seven women I have interviewed. Therefore, when I began the writing process
I could not extricate myself from it, and if I did I would be not only insulting my own
sense of integrity, but also my community. By not including my own story, I question
then from what position I would be informing this research. Therefore, I have spoken
unconventionally for second-generation Punjabi women in this research and have
made it explicit throughout the written piece.
This research is the beginning process of speaking to concepts and a history that
our community has silenced for a long time. It is about uncovering realities that are
uncomfortable and require change in order for second-generation South Asian women
to be heard and understood. When I step forward to create a dialogue amongst
my community, I am a much stronger voice when I have women who have similar
experiences behind my voice and we are speaking together; otherwise in my commu-
nitys eyes, I am just another academic who wants to change her people and
customsessentially regarded as an unwelcome voice. Thus, the use of the word we
and our is encompassing not only the seven women who are in this study, but it
is also unifying other second-generation Punjabi women who may be living these
realities in their everyday lives and through the process of doing this, I hope that
this study will encourage more South Asian women to speak out and be a part of
creating change from inside our communities.
Therefore, before continuing on, it is important to highlight that this research is
for second-generation Punjabi women who live in the Diaspora to have the space to
speak about their experiences openly. It is for readers, who may or may not be
social workers and academics to begin listening to these voices. It is for the women
of the Partition whose stories and lives have yet to be mourned. It is for our grand-
mothers who have memories of the Partition that they carry with them, many times
in silence. It is for our families, who have a history of displacement and questions
of belonging that started in 1947 and continued into their migrations to Canada and
live in their children today. Finally, this research is intended to begin shedding
light into the depths of my own identity and life experiences and perhaps through
that process impact many other women who have similar experiences so they can
be a part of the telling of my story.
PART II OUR VOICES
Our Understanding of Izzat
The word Izzat, in all its abundance, can be found in most languages spoken in
Northern India including Urdu, Punjabi, and Hindi. The English translation of the
word has often been referred to as the honor or reputation of a person, organization or
institution (Nayer, 2004). However, this translation is limiting, as it does not encapsu-
late the layers of significance this word holds for a South Asian household. Many
South Asian women would recognize hearing the phrase, Ghar dhi Izzat kuri nar
rhandhi hai (The honor of the home lives with the daughters), from their mothers,
grandmothers or aunties; however it is not through these words that we first learn of
Izzat. The memories of Izzat are so profound that we cannot locate when it first
entered our awareness; there is a sense that it has always been present. The memory of
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Izzat is not only strongly embedded in the identity of many South Asian women,
but is also a value we are expected to uphold by the family, community and as we
saw during the Partition, by the nation. Evidence of the way Izzat became a destructive
force can be found as far back as the Partition and has become a frequent occurrence
in the media here in Canada. Similarly, the function Izzat has in the lives of South
Asian women in India and Canada also has a varied history.
Many of our sisters have been highlighted in the media in recent time, with
pictures and stories of women being killed by their fathers, husbands, mothers, all
in the name of honor. Stories of domestic violence having an inevitable end. Stories of
the new generations confusion with who they are and where they belong. Yet, the
way that Izzat is portrayed in the media and in the literature is contrary to how we
understand it and live with it. The many layers of Izzat that we have memories of
and live in our everyday lives are much more complex. Many themes emerged in
the greater research; however in this section of this paper, I will be focusing on how
women were constructed as symbols of their family, community, and at crucial times,
the nation during the Partition and in the Diaspora today. For this theme I will be
connecting stories and narratives of the Partition, taken from Butalia (1998) and
Menon & Bhasin (1998), to narratives of the seven women I interviewed, ending
with memories triggered of my own life that connect with both Partition history
and the narratives of the women.
Honorably Dead then and Now
We descend to my dads room again and help him wrap the weapon away. It
is smooth and cool to touch, as death must be.
Then, with his hand on my head, he tells my brother, If the Muslims come
and your sister is in danger, you must shoot her rather than let her fall into
their hands.
My breath comes fast when I hear this, and I feel his hand on my head like
the kukri must have felt the chicken-sellers pudgy gentle hand reaching into
her cage. I look at my brother.
But my brother looks only at my father and he says, I will.
I want to shout at themI am your daughter. I am your sister. But my tongue
has turned slow, slow as a monsoon slug I once saw Inder flick from our scrap
of garden into the dust of the street. I look at my aunt Chandinis miniature
face and then at my fathers. The small face of a woman whose name is never
mentioned, and the set face of a man who has upheld his familys honor. A
plane roars over the house and, for the first time, I feel no rush of fear; far
more is the danger from those within . (Baldwin, 1999, p. 26)
I open with this excerpt from the short story, Family Ties by Shauna Singh Baldwin,
as the story is depicted from the eyes of a young girl, who in a moment that may
have lasted five minutes faced a multitude of emotion. The shock of hearing her
father order her brother to kill her in the name of his honor, bewilderment of her
59
brothers unquestioning response, and newfound fear of the men in her life that are
dearest to her. This story is set in India during Bangladeshs struggle for Indepen-
dence from Pakistan, essentially the second Partition of India, with similar bloodshed
and trauma, yet located in Eastern India. It was during this time that memories of
the Partition became real again for those who survived it in 1947. These memories
brought back the same defensive mentality that led to the mass killing, and rapes,
abductions, and what has been termed martyr suicides, of the 1947 Partition.
Many of the communities of Sikhs, Muslims and Hindus, lived amongst each
other in harmony before rumblings of Partition occurred; however each community
particularly in the rural areashad a minority, whether they were the Sikhs, Muslims,
or Hindus. As minorities, the fear of being outnumbered by a local enemy, who days
before was more like a son or brother, led communities of Sikhs to make communal
decisions about their Izzat that had dire consequences on the women. One method
in which the men of the Sikh Punjabi community resisted this foreseeable attack
was to kill, or as it is termed in our community martyr, the daughters and young
women of their family or community. There is a strong memory of these women as
martyrs who understood the importance of their family and communitys honor and
offered themselves for the killing. The voices of these women have become
silenced even in their deaths, due to this collective memory.
As we see in the opening quote taken from Baldwins story, the author has elected
to challenge the view that young women were obediently willing to martyr them
selves in the name of their family and community honor during the Partition. Just by
questioning the trust the young girl in the story has of her father and brother, suggests
that this decision was not made in isolation from doubt. Ultimately, we begin to
question whether the women had any choice in the decisions made on their bodies.
Butalia (1998) and Menon and Bhasin (1998) go further to explore the realities
of these killings from the perspective of the women and came across stories of women
who choose not to jump into the wells, or choose to run away from their families
when these killings were going on, or choose to defend themselves in the migration to
the new and independent India, regardless of what came in their paths. The stigma
they lived with or received from the community was just as difficult as the decision
to walk away from the choices placed on them from their families and community.
These stories began to ring a similar tone here in Canada, with stories of women
of my generation, who had the potential for dishonoring their family through the
choices they were making on their own bodies. We see parallel ideas in our commu-
nity of women sacrificing their choices for the sake of their family honor. How is it
possible that even today we are asking our daughters to martyr themselves, whether
in literal or symbolic ways, for the honor of their family? Leave him or else we
will disown you. You cannot leave the home from this day forward. You are
dishonoring our family if you pursue this decision. These words and phrases ring
true even in my own life story. Is it possible that others are hearing the same
statements, and if so is this a memory of that bleak time in our history?
Discussing our relationship to Izzat, we emerged onto the shores of honor killings
and how we understood this in relation to our history and our own lives. One of the
women in particular spoke to stories of the Partition in her family that had been
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passed down to her by her aunt. The way she began retelling the story exemplified
how the memories of this sacrifice have been crystallized in her family memory:
The funny story that I would like to share is actually my Phua-ji my dads
younger sister, her father-in-law, actually shot his wife (laughs). Because at
that time, somehow it started off that one Muslim guy maybe had raped one
girl. Im just predicting what might have happened, and you know the Punjabi
people thought, all Muslim people are doing it, so lets retaliate, lets start
taking their girls and torturing them, and its just this whole all out warfare.
And at that time what his wife said was rather than me being disgraced like
that or dishonored like that, Id rather have you kill me than have to go through
that, so he took his shot gun and shot her and killed her. (Dalwinder)
The use of the word funny to describe this tragic event was a shocking moment,
I was taken aback by this descriptive word to describe such a horrific event, yet
wondered if the use of laughter generally followed the telling of this story. I began
to question the way this womans sacrifice was remembered and why. Could it be
that those who have maintained the story are the men in her family? Is it possible the
story does not stop there and in order to remember it less as a tragedy and more as
a minor event, laughter and humor was utilized in the telling? However, as we carried
on in the conversation we begin to see the impacts this story has to Dalwinders
understanding of herself and what Izzat can lead a community and person to do:
It just makes me think if you were in that situation how could you make that
decision that I want to die rather than the possibility of being raped. Okay,
its not necessary that you were going to be raped, because my Dadi [grandma]
wasnt, she walked over, and nothing happened to her, so nothing could have
happened to her too right? What state of mind could that lady have been in to
decide okay I just want to die, she didnt even know that this was definitely
going to happen to her right, scary thought for her to make that decision
I dont think it was just her own decision, I think people said certain things
that made her decide that, it could have been people were pressuring her and
saying it is such a burden for you to be there we have so much other crap
to deal with, why do we have to deal with you, bringing you over For me
I think the woman was not considered a person that was worthy enough for
them to fight for. Why did they have to decide okay lets shoot her. For the
husband to actually shoot her thats a big deal too, because hes committing
murder, so for him to do that just on the possibility that she will be dishonored,
doesnt really make sense to me Its very hard to understand that and its
very hard to understand why she couldnt just fight for her rights, but if I was
in that situation maybe hearing what other people have to say or hearing the
stories going around, maybe I would have decided otherwise too its
difficult .
As Dalwinder described her understanding of this womans story, I could hear in
her voice and see that she could relate so effectively to this womans predicament.
This was so inherent in many of the womens stories when they spoke of Izzat then
61
and now. Izzat is so deeply engrained in our minds and bodies that the language
of it is so well understood. Therefore, placing our selves in those situations is easy.
These moments are happening on smaller, many times symbolic levels in our
experiences today.
The most impacting discussions about honor killings came about when the
women articulated the relevance these stories have to the lives we live here and now.
When we carry these memories of honor killings, particularly in the ways women
are remembered in these tragic stories, we see the women connecting to Izzat in a
distinct way. The way the community and family remembers those who were honor
killed for their Izzat, does not always fit with how we conceptualize Izzat for our-
selves. Thus, a fear of how this can transpire in our own lives becomes real, as is so
eloquently expressed by Amrita:
Then to be honest there is also a sense of fear. Like, looking at my brother
and father and my cousins, if this situation were to come up how would that
play out now, because they still carry those things in different ways, its muted
in the way that it might have played out in the Partition and its changed
given our cultural circumstances, but the underlying premise is still there. So
what does that mean for me? And what does that mean when if I transgress
those boundaries where Im allowedthe spaces that Im allowed to gowhat
does that mean for the way that they understand me. So yeah theres definitely
that element of fear an edge of fear with men in general but it was
different to feel it in this particular way with my brothers and my father.
Many of the women related to these moments by contemplating what actions their
fathers or brothers would take with them if these moments were to transpire for them
here and now. Harbinder spoke about a particular conversation she had with her
father, testing to see how he would respond:
I find it interesting because I read some stories on how fathers were forcing their
daughters to throw themselves in the well, even like feeding them poison
I think we were watching a Hindi movie called Pinjar, I dont know if you
have seen it, but theres a part when she goes back home and they wouldnt
accept her and it really got to me, it was really emotional, and I was like dad
thats disgusting did that actually happen? And he was like oh yeah, that is
why women killed themselves, and I was like would you ever do that to me,
would you accept me if we were in that circumstance? and my dad was like,
I dont care what society thinks thats disgusting and I trust him because
he grew up in that environment and he can say, I know what it was like but
regardless I would accept you as you are.
In this story, Harbinder was very confident that her father would not express the
same perspective that the generation of men before him did, however as we carried
on in the conversation I asked her how her mother would have responded to the
same question she posed to her father:
Thats interesting because you know what I would never ask her that, Im
sure if I were to ask her now, clearly she would be like I would accept you.
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The way my mom is now shes so strict even with me. She says dont go out
because I dont want it to effect your future Rishtays (marriage prospects)
and stuff. So based on that shes so concerned about what people think and
how late I stay out, Im sure she would also care what society thought of her
daughter coming home after three days of being with a Muslim so I dont
want to bad mouth my mom, right, just because of her views, but she does
care about what people think, she does care about what society has to say about
her, so I think if we were in that position with my mom, I dont think she
would, which is very interesting well you never know maybe she might have.
One of the first questions that formed in my mind when we had this discussion,
was why would a woman agree to honor killing more than a man? Why would she
believe her mother was a stronger enforcer of her Izzat than her father? However,
I began to realize that during the Partition women were first hand witnesses of the
potential atrocities that a woman could experience at the hands of a man and
therefore become stronger enforcers of Izzat and boundaries surrounding their
daughters, as can be seen in the Baljits story:
I remember when I was going out to play, I was about 10, and my nani said,
enu bhar kali na shadi (dont leave her outside by herself) my mom said ehay
bhar kalun-e jandi-ha (but she always goes outside by herself ) she said nay
(no) mom said ehay shoti ji tha hage enu ke hona? Kethay dhur tha jan nay
lage (but she is young, what is going to happen to her) ma said nay enu nay
pajana, enu ki shoti nu wi kathay nay pajana, apne aka, nazar nu na chaday
(no we are not sending her, even if she is young, we will not let her out of our
sight) and her face, I didnt understand at that time what she was talking about,
later I found out she had watched children being raped and this is why when
you get that protective of children around men, theres that sense of whats
appropriate, its only people who are aware of having seen that, that you
develop that sense and my grandmother definitely had it, she was very, very,
very careful in a way that she wouldnt have been with children that young.
I could see that in her eyes and recognize it for what it was years later, that
she had watched children being raped, but that was something she had never
talked about, never .
The memory of this moment and other moments that Baljit shared, where her grand-
mothers fears impacted her upbringing and instilled a sense of fear in men and
their potential for harm, is very real in this story. Yet, this fear was not only of strange
men, it was of all men and what they could do with their power over our Izzat.
Stories of honor killings in Canada began to emerge as well; one in particular
dominated all the stories of the women. The story of Jassi Sidhu,
4
a 25 year old
woman that was murdered by her family when she chose to marry a man they did not
approve of. This story was broadcast all across Canada and India and most recently
a movie was made based on the events that led up to Jassis death.
5
Jassis death
has been termed as modern day honor killing and is a story that all Punjabi South
Asian women can relate to and connect to the events that led up to her death. The
boundaries that we are given and allowed to cross are distinctly dictated to us by
63
our familys sense of Izzat and the consequences of crossing these boundaries or
spaces is demonstrated on the bodies of women. As eloquently described by Amrita,
these themes are still expressed in our communities today:
To a lesser degree its practiced in every family, like women who are punished
if they transgress the boundaries, if they break the rules, those killings are
extreme examples of norms we all abide by, are unspoken, and also verbally
spoken of in terms of you are not allowed to go out without my permission and
you have to tell me where you are, so much so that younger brothers can impose
that on their sisters, their older sisters.
All of the women had a relationship to the destructive side of Izzat and spoke to
how this has impacted their own identity and life. Most of their responses to these
events have instigated an instinctual desire to create distance from this side of Izzat,
such as in Amritas narrative:
I dont know how to, its really hard for me to sort of take that in, because on
one hand I look at these men that I love and respect in my family and again
that sense of could this happen to me? theres an edge of that. I remember
reading that story of that woman who was killed by her father a couple of years
ago he had killed her because she had run away with her White boyfriend
there was just this complete sense of I dont want to buy into this, I dont
want to participate in supporting this in anyway, so if my parents have to
suck it up and deal with the fact that I want to live my life the way I do, then
theyre going to have to, because even by me abiding by things marks my
complacency in it. So abiding by societal rules and norms that my parents
place on me, who I marry, when I get married, what I can do with my life, what
are acceptable professions, you know just things like that. I just remember
feeling this sense of fuck it, I dont want to participate in this in any sense or
way because were dying, were being killed and its acceptable and to that
extreme form theres this sense of outrage but I mean it happens in relation-
ships between spouses and thats accepted. Parents are like, he beats her, but
oh well theyre married. So Im really torn, like I feel on one hand this desire
for complete rejection of anything that has to do with supporting that frame-
work, that structure, on the other hand seeing the beautiful parts of it, the
beautiful elements of it, the beautiful people, and this sort of back and forth
internal struggle of where do I find my path along with that. (Amrita)
The most profound element in Amritas story was the element of hate and love that
were strongly embedded in many of these narratives, as well as a strong awareness
of where these ideas and beliefs come from. As much as this value and essence of
our culture and community has the potential for becoming a destructive force in
our lives, they are still our families and communities. It is in between these lines
that we begin to see the resisting elements embedded in the womens stories, where
the multidimensional sides of Izzat are truly exposed and expressed. It is here that
we begin to challenge how we choose to have Izzat become a part of our lives. We
begin to hear about stories of survival where a negotiation of space becomes the
instrumental tool in the struggle to find a fine balance between hope and despair.
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Claiming Space for Our Intersecting Identities
The last theme I have chosen to include in this paper focuses on how the women
described finding a sense of agency in their life, while balancing the responsibilities
of Izzat, family and community as a part of their identity. We begin to see how women
continue to survive and thrive, while not compromising their family, community or
their selves and, most importantly, challenging the pressures of choosing between
their ethnic identities and communities, and the wider mainstream society, which
promotes (or advocates for) an independence and a freedom that is misleading.
We begin this discussion with the concept of living a double life.
Living a Double Life
Many of the women described living in many worlds, when speaking about their
sense of self and the balancing of responsibilities, and many times this came down
to learning to fit into each of the worlds we enter. This living in many worlds was
an experience that all seven women could identify with and describe it as an everyday
reality, as articulated by Inderjeet:
I dont know, I guess you learn to, like the story of a lot of South Asians; you
learn to have two kinds of lives. Because when youre at home its all about
speaking Punjabi and that whole culture, the etiquette everything, and you
learn thats not always the most appropriate outside of the home, so you learn
to fit in outside of the home.
Living in two worlds is how we are able to negotiate for ourselves which part of
our identity is allowed to emerge and which to suppress, for every distinct space or
time we move in and out of. Many times the negotiations and compromises that are
made to keep these lives distant from each other involve keeping certain aspects of
our identity a secret, or lying to our parents in order to save what our parents believe
encompasses their Izzat, which the following narrative illustrates:
... Its two different worlds, its like youre living a split personality. Its not
like I dont act the same way I do at school as I am at home, but Im not as
open about what is going on in my life, to this day we dont ever have dinner
together, so its never that conversation oh so how was your day honey?
(Laughs). Its just like they assume that shes just at university so she must be
in class studying and hopefully not doing other things. But my dad says some-
times, hell say things like you should only go to school for classes, not beyond
that, because I know some kids do that he doesnt say openly, oh I know
you do that too, but Ill just be like okay, I dont do that dad, dont worry.
This need to keep certain worlds a secret from our parents has as much to do with
protecting them, as with protecting ourselves. The spaces we occupy in the Diaspora
are fraught with contradictory messages from the private sphere of the home, to the
public sphere of society. Keeping these secrets come with their own consequences.
The sense of responsibility to maintain the rules of Izzat is so strong; guilt is a very
common feeling that the women identified experiencing.
65
The guilt comes in and it is difficult, but you learn to live with it and you
learn to deal with it and you dont always think about it. Its there, its in the
back of your head, but its not in the forefront where youre always thinking
about it. This is what is expected of me but Ill still go and do something
stupid that they wouldnt approve of, but its not considered stupid in our
culturethe generation were brought up inbut to them it is stupid, so Im just
like hey whatever, if they think its stupid, then its stupid, I just wont tell them.
This sense of lying can also be understood as a form of passing,
6
where the women
integrate and choose to express certain elements of their identity in each space.
This becomes a form of survival that allows for the women to navigate through their
intersecting identities and to live in the many worlds that they appreciate and respect,
even if these worlds are unaware of each other. Furthermore, in the process of
keeping these worlds apart, there is the underlying fear of all these worlds colliding
and the impact this has for our families and communities.
Many times when we compare the family spaces and the outside spaces of the
womens lives, there is this underlying belief that the outside space, which many
times encapsulates the North American value system, is the one that women are
drawn to and the one that brings the greatest source of freedom. However, some
of the women spoke about experiencing oppression and racism and the lack of
belonging in those spaces, and having as many complexities as the family space.
Many times this involves defending our cultures and the people and having to
explain the actions of our family and community to the wider society:
So I represent Punjabi-ness for people, and their understanding of what Punjabi
culture is, so I become the spokesperson and/or mouthpiece unwittingly for
so many people . So having to play that role, and the role that women of
color often play having to support and protect their men in a really racist,
xenophobic society, where theyre only allowed in certain spaces and places to
succeed and theyre not seen as whole men or given the power to succeed in
the same way you would if you were White Canadian. So the role we have as
women to play and support men and look and recognize their issues around
their struggle around that, but not necessarily having them play that same role
with us. So that role we women end up playing definitely is a second-generation
piece of it.
All the women had ideas of how they have resisted, how they have carved out spaces
for their selves in the many worlds they maneuver in and out of. As Inderjeet
alludes to in this narrative, going to school and moving out are the ways that she
sees herself finding the space to allow certain aspects of her identity that she has
hidden from her parents, to emerge. All the women spoke to similar tactics and
choices that they used to find a sense of agency over their identities. As Dalwinder
states in the following narrative, by having the space to exercise parts of herself
that are suppressed in the home, she is able to think more positively about herself
and her family:
Because taking so many blows to your self esteem, thinking that youre not
independent is not a good thing, you have to try to find ways, because
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even though parents think theyre doing things for the best, theyre saying no
for good reasons or whatever, it does hurt the child, right. You start thinking,
okay whats wrong with me that I, especially in my household, since my brother
is allowed to do everything and Im not, you start questioning, okay just
because Im a girl all of these things are being thrown on me and if you keep
thinking that way, my thought is you go into depression. So the best thing
you can do is to find ways to deal with it or run away.
There is a story of survival and negotiation that is so clearly a part of the womens
everyday world. Carving themselves the spaces to allow for their intersecting
identities to emerge becomes a way to resist the patriarchy and control that comes
from their family, community and from the wider mainstream society. These particular
elements of control in their lives have certain expectations that when they come
together, a collision of all their worlds occurs. However, living in these different
worlds as separated from each other is a way to exercise a sense of agency and
control, yet doing so has the potential to create a sense of disengagement from either
world. So, as much as this is a form of survival, it comes with its own challenges.
So, how are the women carving out their spaces, and why? What do they get from
these worlds that allow them to carry on holding tight to these ideals? How are they
able to live in these contradicting worlds and the values that charge them? We begin
to see through the voices of the women in the next section, how they are creating
spaces for their selves in both worlds and beginning to challenge the way they are
defined in all these spaces, and by doing so, asserting their agency and control over
their identities and, in essence, redefining and reclaiming Izzat.
Finding a Balance: Respecting Our Parents and Reclaiming Izzat
When I first set out to explore how women were resisting against the patriarchal
forces in their lives, I realized even within myself that resistance and everyday
survival are not always the same thing. Many times the resistance comes through
compromising certain aspects of the self, but always staying true to the core of ones
self. The women spoke a lot to moments in their lives where they were challenging
everything and anything their parents wanted from them, and resisting against their
culture and practices, believing that the other sidethat being Western values that
dominate the public culturewas better. However, upon reflection, these binaries only
create a sense of dissonance from within, which is effectively illustrated by Amrita
in the following passage:
When I was younger I used to think of it in those terms. I used to think of
White culture and Canadian culture (Canadian meaning White), and Punjabi
culture, and my family culture, and I dont see it that way anymore. My
exposure to alternative ways of being in the mantle of Indian-ness, the mantle
of Desi (Punjabi) has really exploded that and I want to challenge that. Those
are the constructions that have been imposed on us that Indian people control
their women, that Indian people do this, that Punjabi people are like this, you
know. Even within India, there is this understanding of what Punjabi people
are like and how they are. I do think that its different values systems, but I think
67
its important for me to make a distinction of how those value systems come
across. Its a part of capitalism, the way that patriarchy works there could
be Punjabi families that are trying to challenge those systems and its few and
far between, but its like that everywhere, few and far between families that
are trying to challenge that system altogether. So I do see it as a different
sense of values, but I do see it as creating a binary of Canadian-ness and
Indian-ness or Punjabi culture.
Achieving the appropriate balance at the end of the day is about taking the aspect
of your identity that comes from the family, community and culture, and balancing
that with living and breathing in a world that is drastically different from the one of
our parents. The balance is about respecting the elements of our identity that come
from all the intersecting worlds we are a part of and then finding ways to carve out
spaces for our selves that reflect our sense of self. As Jaswant states, these elements of
your self are important and the fear of losing that is just like losing a part of our
identity:
But at the end of the day I try to make the best balance that I can, like I still
go to all the family functions, I still go to the Gurudwara once in awhile, not
all the time. A part of me worries that if I move out Ill lose all my connections
and become completely Whitewashed, you know, if I do, theres a lot of issues
there, Im barely connected to the Indian side, my parents are that connection
and if I leave them behind do I lose that connection?
The fear of losing her Indian side is clearly just as important to her, as it creates
challenges for her. Therefore, it is unfair to think that choosing becomes the easier
road, since both worlds encompass a part of our selves.
It was also a matter of understanding where our parents are coming from, the
values that are very important to them and the transitions that they have had to make
to come to a new country and raise children. Many of the women spoke to coming
to this understanding later on and knowing that there are certain things they just
cannot expect from their parents that Western society suggests they should expect:
In a sense it seems like a double life, not really, its just, my family
coming here, the fact that they came here since 78 and even longer than that,
doesnt mean they are fully immersed in the western culture. So me being the
person that I am, I am in the middle of two cultures, now Ive embraced both,
but I still have to think about even though I have embraced both, where do
I find the balance and my sense of that balance is to make sure I dont come
home and say to my mom oh mom why dont you become like that White
mom over there! I dont go home and make her change, Ill try to respect where
they are coming from. Ill try to respect when theyre making that decision
they are taking into consideration all the knowledge that they have. They are
making that decision to the best of their abilities, right, so I wont go in and
impose my own views on them. So thats what I try to do, but sometimes you
have to rebel because it goes beyond your threshold of resistance, then
sometimes you have to just blow up. (Dalwinder)
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In essence, we are finding ways to resist but also finding ways to survive, while
still respecting our selves and our families and communities. Embedded in our
relationships with our family and community is a sense of our identity. Within this
identity is the embodiment of Izzat, in the multidimensional ways it lives in our
lives, yet it is still a part of who we are and with this part of ourselves comes great
responsibility. As the women have stated here, we may have attempted to cast away
this part of ourselves, but the history of Izzat goes back farther than we can imagine
and our memory of Izzat is so deeply engrained in our family and community and
selves that we always come back. Always working to strike a balance within our
selves is a way to move beyond the belief that these aspects of our culture and
community are wrong, and to also embrace the aspects of our identity that are
unique to being born in the Canadian Diaspora. The following words of Dalwinder
encapsulate this eloquently:
Be respectful of yourself and be respectful of your parents and meeting that
balance for your self is difficult because your sense of respect for yourself is
different from how your parents perceive it, but if you find that balance, it
will make you happier in life, I guess.
CONCLUSION
Throughout this paper, I have explored how the concepts of Izzat became an
integral part of womens existence during the Partition. When exploring narratives
of South Asian women in the Diaspora, we see evidence of the legacy and memory
of Izzat. This legacy can be observed in the everyday life of second generation South
Asian women; it has even been demonstrated in extreme cases that have appeared
in Canadian media; and it has been used as a tool to include and exclude women on
a community level. All such examples identify the importance of exploring Izzat
for Punjabi women and their community. As we see in the voices of the women, the
way we are surviving and living our everyday life in the Diaspora becomes about
resisting the expectations to be contained in one culture and identity, reclaiming
our values of Izzat for ourselves, and selectively choosing which elements of each
culture we take in and which we resist. Even though these are the pieces that emerged
from the findings that can be concluded as being the significant element to this
research, the most valuable message that I hoped to portray and express is the element
of voice. As much as it was important for me to have the womens voices central to
this research, my voice was as much a part of this, and I merged in and out of the
research, as an insider, an outsider, a story gatherer, and story teller. In my efforts
to convey the impact the stories of the Partition had on my understanding of my
self and of my community, I shared my story and the struggles I have experienced
in life thus far. My reasoning for doing so was threefold. First, I wanted the reader
to join me on the journey of researching, writing and exploring elements of second-
generation South Asian identity and stories of the Partition, and understand this on
an intimate level. Second, I wanted to convey how vital it was for me to do research
as an insider to my community and, in effect, encourage further research to come
from inside our community to issues that impact us personally. Finally, I carry with
69
me memories of the Partition, memories of violence, and memories of survival.
When I think about the experiences I have had in my life so far, I cannot extricate
these memories from my story. The act of doing this research has allowed me to not
only write a chapter of my life, but to close that chapter and start the many new
ones that are to come. In this process I have mourned for the martyred women of
the Partition, I have mourned for my grandmother who has experienced so much loss
in her life, and I have mourned for my personal losses that came as a result choosing
to place my understanding of Izzat before any others. Therefore, I am encouraged
that perhaps our history, the stories of the women and my story may impact other
second generation South Asian women who are struggling, surviving and living their
everyday lives in the Canadian Diaspora.
NOTES
1
In the Indian caste system, the Dalit community is referring to the scheduled casts, or untouchables,
also termed as Harijans, who are considered the lowest of the caste system, according to Hindu religion
(Butalia, 1998).
2
By using the word Diaspora, I am following the work of Avtar Brah (1996), who defines it as dis-
persion from the centre of a home. This term is originally associated with Jews after the Babylonian
exile. Brah goes on to dissect the word and its use by various ethnic communities today. In his analysis
Brah suggests that one needs to consider questions of who, when, how and what circumstances
led to the dispersion from home? What socio-economic political, and cultural conditions mark the
trajectories of a specific Diaspora? What regimes of power inscribe the formation of a specific
Diaspora? (p. 182), when using the word in relation to a group of people. For this thesis, I have elected
to use this word to define the Punjabi, or South Asian community that lives in Canada, as a Diaspora,
since these questions are a part of the story of the immigrant South Asian journey to Canada.
3
The history embedded in this name can be traced back to when the Sikh Punjabi community was
struggling with social inequalities, particularly on the basis of a class and gender hierarchies present
in the social systems at that time (17
th
Century). Guru Gobind Singh-ji used the name Kaur to create
solidarity and equality between males and females. Because a womans surname was given to her by
her father at birth and her husband when she was married, Guru Gobind Singh stated, You dont have to
take anybody elses name. You are an individual, you are a princess, and you keep Kaur as your last
name. Therefore, women are encouraged by the Sikh faith to use Kaur as ones surname, in effect
moving towards the abolishment of the caste system. However, as is apparent in my own name,
parents generally give their daughters the name Kaur as a middle name.
4
Website dedicated to the memory of Jassi Kaur Sidhu, which has all media articles included: www.
justiceforjassi.com
5
Murder Unveiled (2005).
6
Passing is a concept explored by scholars such as Sara Ahmed in her article Shell wake up one of
these days and find shes turned into a Nigger: Passing through Hybridity (1999). Ahmed examines
racial narratives of passing for a White person, when in fact Black. The notion of passing that I am
alluding to here speaks to the idea of passing off one identity for another, which becomes about
lying to those who we are trying to preserve our identities to, such as the family, or peers.
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Sobt, K. (1979). Zindagnm. Nay Dill: Rjakamala Prakana.

DEVI MUCINA
6. MOVING BEYOND NEO-COLONIALISM
TO UBUNTU GOVERNANCE
I have even come upon a small revelation-and as I proceed daily to recall and
reflect, and lay out on the page, it is with an increasing conviction of its truth,
that if more of us told our stories to each other, where I come from, we would
be a far happier and less nervous people.
M. G. Vassanji, The In-Between World of Vikram Lall (2003 p. 1).
INTRODUCTION
My telling of our Maseko Ngoni
1
stories through an Ubuntu perspective is an effort
in decolonization, that is, to come to understand the self beyond historical colonial
values and beliefs which undermine my culturally informed sensibilities and practices
about being Maseko Ngoni. I do not want our future generations to know Africa
through the forced accumulation of colonial spirituality, governance and dominant
forms of education. It is only through the telling of our stories that we gain a sense
of self, which is rooted in our local histories. Any other way of being will only allow
us to be consumers of foreign modernities and this phenomenon never allows us
to have creative and reflective time for the creation of our own modernity. Yet, my
storytelling only gives us one story from a possible many stories. My single story
invites engagement from multiple Maseko Ngoni perspectives and arguably this
could be the strength of Ngoni oral history. This is so in that it allows for each
speakers context and position to be highlighted with equal merit and respect. The
diversity of oral history has always created intense discourse and debate as it high-
lights the complexities and contradictions of being human among other humans.
The aim of this chapter is to highlight how we, Maseko Ngoni, can dialogue with a
shared knowledge from our collective past to find solutions to our mutual contem-
porary present. I argue that we regenerate Maseko Inkatha (which loosely translates
to unity, strength and arguably nationhood), that Maseko Ngoni as represented
through the Inkatha, can resuscitate our cultural customs of unity. Maseko Inkatha
comes from sharing our memories (knowledge) about how to live an informed Ngoni
life that is nested within the larger Ubuntu context. Reviving our memories reminds
us of a fecund oral tradition of Ubuntu cultural histories, which invites social
harmonization towards the Maseko Ngoni people as a whole. I articulate these
moments through chingoni (as being inclusive and as based on care for land and
people). I hope this sharing of cultural historical knowledge will work to foster a
better understanding of how our Ubuntu ways of knowing are relevant for addressing
our future.
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TOWARDS UBUNTU INDIGENOUS PHILOSOPHIES
We, the Maseko Ngoni, have been forced to abandon our local knowledge of inter-
acting with our environment and ourselves through the imposition of colonialism
(Mutwa, 1969 and Alfred, 2005). We must understand colonialism so that we do
not perpetuate its diversionary procedures against our own Ubuntu peoples. Colonial
governance has its own masters, who long ago established that their objective was
to destroy all that is Ubuntu (Conrad, 1995; Hochschild, 2002 and Gourevitch, 1998).
Colonialism and its institutions are about conquest and exploitation. Liberatory
practices must be informed through traditional actions of empowerment and gover-
nance. Thus, for us, revitalizing and regenerating all that is respectful and caring,
for all that is Maseko Ngoni, without undermining or disempowering all that is
Ubuntu, is about working towards giving voice for reviving actions to decolonize
colonial procedures deeply embedded within the lives of Ubuntu peoples. I value
that other Ubuntus may not share my approaches when trying to attain the Ubuntu
philosophy of preserving life; hence I do not impose my approaches on other
Ubuntus. I only hope to inspire them, as I have been inspired to stand for that which
historically speaks to us as Ubuntu. Invariably, my actions as well as the actions of
other Ubuntus will affect all of us, as we are all interconnected to all that is Ubuntu
through our lands. The land has a tacit way of reminding us that as Ubuntu we
share in a collective history.
Maseko Ngoni have been interpreted through theories of nationalism. Benedict
Andersons Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nation-
alism (1983) conceptualizes the nation-state as an imagined political community
and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign. Indigenous Ubuntu philo-
sophy speaks about Maseko Ngoni governance as not based on imagined political
communities, but rather our political cultures are buttressed within Ubuntu lived
experience, that is, within a set place/space while dialoguing through Ubuntu
languages to encode meaning. Inkatha reflects the Ubuntu knowledge that has been
formed through the land and the lived experience of the Ubuntu. The key is with
breaking the colonially imposed silence on local Ubuntu knowledge. Yet as Anderson
reminds us of the Euro-centric definitions of nationalism, Maseko Ngoni in particular
invites a subversive reading to the dominant perception of nationalism. Almost
always, nationalism in Africa has been studied in relation to European colonialism.
Ania Loomba (1998: 158159) captures very powerfully the problem of borrowed
Western theories of nationalism when she quotes Chatterjees Nation and Its
Fragment. He argues thus:
If nationalisms in the rest of the world have to choose their imagined
community from certain modular forms already made available to them by
Europe and the Americans, what do they have left to imagine? History, it would
seem, has decreed that we in the postcolonial world shall only be perpetual
consumers of modernity. Europe and the Americas, the only true subjects of
history, have thought out on our behalf not only the script of colonial enlight-
enment and exploitation, but also that of our anticolonial resistant and post-
colonial misery. Even our imaginations must remain forever colonized (1993: 5).
MOVING BEYOND NEO-COLONIALISM
73
With the growth of Diaspora studies we face the question of: Is Maseko Ngoni
constitutive of a Diaspora? Gabriel Sheffer in Diaspora Politics: At Home Abroad
(2003: 9) informs us that:
Among those who are aware of the origin of the term, [Diaspora] it is widely
believed that the term first appeared in the Greek translation of the book of
Deuteronomy in the Old Testament, with reference to the situation of the Jewish
peoplethou shalt be a diaspora in all kingdoms of the earth (Deut. 28, 25).
Sheffer in the same book identifies what he terms as Problematics of Diaspora.
Interestingly, he points out how Indigenous peoples do not fit in his diaspora. By
his own admission, he states:
In this context it is essential to note that although the entities dealt with here
are of ethnic origin, not all dispersed ethnic minorities and groups constitute
diasporas in the sense proposed in this book. Thus, not discussed here are
native nations and other indigenous ethnic tribes and the groups who, after
their permanent settlement in the territory that they came to regard as their
homeland, did not migrate to other territories (2003: 13).
Sheffer notes that the Ubuntu cannot be a Diaspora because we have never left our
homelands, we have just moved around our lands. So how do we engage our own
Ubuntu knowledge? Here are some fragments of Ubuntu knowledges that I am
engaging as I journey through my decolonization process. I hope my discussing
here can inspire us to share our individual action of living an informed Ubuntu life.
OUR SPIRITUALITY, OUR RITUALS, OUR CUSTOMS AND TRADITIONS
Maseko Ngoni spirituality encompasses the knowledge of Umkulumqango (The
Great Deviser or The Great Spirit), Unkulunkulu (The Greatest of All) or Umnikazi
we Zinto Zonke (The Owner of All Things) (Mutwa, 1969; Nwaezeigwe, 1997;
Lugg, 1975 and Read, 1970). Maseko Ngoni do not believe that human beings can
commune with Unkulunkulu because we believe that individuals cannot understand
or comprehend Unkulunkulu (Mutwa, 1969). We believe that the Maseko Ngoni
that died long ago, but are still remembered by us, are the ones that commune with
Unkulunkulu. We therefore pray to the amadlozi (our ancestors who are beyond the
living realm as we understand it) to act as go-betweens with Unkulunkulu, the
source of power, health, rains, victory, and protection against plagues. The oldest
remembered amadlozi is the closest to Unkulunkulu but all amadlozi are seen as
guardians who can assist in times of epidemic natural disasters and during great
warfare (Nwaezeigwe, 1997).
Certain life-forms for Ubuntu cannot be harmed as these creatures represent the
amadlozi (spirit) of our ancestors and as we say a person cannot harm a creature or
natural object that is his/her totem or namesake. Baba always said to me:
If a creature or natural object is your namesake than it is your duty to protect
it, just as the amadlozi protect us. Because we believe that were in a cycle of
MUCINA
74
reincarnation, the way we treat other creatures may revisit us in one of our
other life form stages (Baba, Personal Communication, 2003).
Thus, the Maseko Ngoni have knowledge and respect for the environment, but
through the imposition of colonialism, we are forgetting this relational knowledge
which helps maintain the balance of our interdependence for a sustainable future.
Unfortunately most of our people are no longer using Maseko Ngoni rituals and
practices. The memories of Baba show how important our ways are for fostering our
Ngoni identity:
I remember the circumcision ritual; it was not a pleasant experience, yet I feel
a sense of pride for having overcome it. There was something good in knowing
that all the boys and girls in my age set shared this experience with me. To
this day, I cannot explain the ways we are all connected. Besides I cannot tell
you the secrets of our experience, you just have to live it. When you recognize a
face that shared this fate with you, there is no need for words; just laughter
will do (Baba, Personal Communication, June 2003).
Baba conveys a sense of community based on a bond of shared age set experiences
as the common denominator for building strong unity among the Maseko Ngoni.
The circumcision itself seems unimportant and arguably can be seen as the tool for
encoding unity based on shared experiences.
Ubuntu life would not be life without the guidance of our amadlozi (ancestral
spirits); they guide every facet of our life from politics, religious ceremonies, social
interaction, economic activities and the practice of medicine. Nothing can be done
without first communing with our amadlozi. One can commune with ones amadlozi
at any time and in any place.
The contemporary changes of Ngoni life and rituals are reflected in the dialogue
I have with Baba, which speaks to the small shifts that take place when we engage
each other:
Baba: We have lost the fighting spirit, no one wants war, we only want to
make money and hear the word of God.
Devi: I thought we only waged war as an effort to preserve life when all else
had failed?
B: You have spoken well and there is truth in what you say, our ways of life
extend much more beyond the wars.
D: I hear Christians lump your work of nyanga yemithi (medicine man or
herbalist) as evil witchcraft practice. Does this mean you have stopped your
work?
B: Hear me well, I am not a nyanga yemithi, I help where I can, using the
knowledge of our ancestors and I have never asked to know what I know.
Sometimes I dream of a plant, I am told where the plant is, what time to
approach it, how to use it and before or after I get it someone arrives needing its
services. I never question it because this is our ancestors at work but I believe
God guides this work as well. All Ubuntu Christians understand this.
75
D: I have stopped being a Christian and only pray to our ancestors.
B: I understand that but I will still pray for you to find your way back.
D: Could it be possible you are lost in this one area.
B: Remember your place; I am your father (Personal Communication, June
2003).
For me the above dialogue exemplifies that even Baba who lives an immersed
Maseko Ngoni life has been colonized, meaning that, in our own family, we all need
to do some form of decolonizing. We must resist foreign forms of spirituality because
they undermine our own forms of spirituality. Christianity will always undermine
Ubuntu spirituality because it has been presented as the only viable civilized way
forward (Chanock, 1985; Fraser, 1914 and Elmslie, 1899). Thus, Ubuntu cannot
be Christians without being co-opted and colonized. Colonialism is all encompassing;
hence, our resistance must be all encompassing. Yet it is also important to acknow-
ledge that for the most part, Babas actions reflect historic Maseko Ngoni know-
ledge, which can benefit all Ubuntu. Baba speaks, Zulu, Nyanja, Shona, Africaans,
English and other local Ubuntu languages, without receiving formal schooling. His
knowledge of ancestral Ubuntu history and world contemporary issues is impressive
to say the least. His competence with Ubuntu cultures always leads people to assume
that he was born in their community. This is the kind of knowledge we ought to
welcome, local knowledge that brings a sense of cohesiveness to Ubuntu peoples.
OUR LANGUAGE
It is also important to understand that Maseko philosophy occurs within an Ubuntu
worldview. Therefore, Maseko perception-shaping experience must be understood
within the context of Ubuntu languages and symbols that first encoded meaning onto
the local experience. Through the study of Linguistics, we know that some important
concepts do not translate from one language to another without losing meaning
(Waters, 2004). This does not begin to account for cultural difference between
religion, values, geographical location and sacred historical senses (Waters, 2004).
Even when a non-Ubuntu learns Ubuntu languages they may still not understand
the Maseko philosophy because they lack experience within the Maseko cultural
context, which in its fullest expression is Ubuntu. The Maseko individual therefore
makes sense of herself in relation to land and community. Voice comes from the
shared experience of relationship as established within the boundaries of community.
This Ubuntu interaction leads to the development of shared symbols as a way to
convey meaning within the boundaries of place. This triangular relationship of voice,
place and symbols creates individual identity, which is interpreted and understood
from within the community (Waters, 2004). Without a shared community to confirm
our identity, existence would be meaningless and unexplainable, thus the diversity
and commonality of Ubuntu languages is essential for Maseko identity and survival.
In 1998, the Revival Association was established and its objectives were as follow:
to revive the language which is not being passed on from their forefathers to
younger generations;
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to bring unity to the Ngoni from both central and northern regions;
to foster Ngoni identity (Kishindo, 2002: 10).
The Ngoni Revival Associations efforts to save Ngoni identity and language
has not grown as expected, for the Maseko Ngoni situation is complex and when
we take in consideration the issue of an Indigenous tongue this already complicated
situation is further compromised because historical readings tells us that the mothers
of most if not all Maseko Ngoni children were from different ethnicities and spoke
little to nothing of the Chingoni languages. Pachai in The Early History of Malawi
notes: The Chewa collaboration of this theme is the often heard statement we
defeated them with our women (1972: 247). One of the dilemmas that the Ngoni
Revival Association faces is that we, as Ngoni, have multiple identities. Thus, can
we highlight one identity without sacrificing our other identities? But even bigger
than this is the fear of our other Ubuntu sisters and brothers. They surely must be
questioning what it means when some Ngoni choose to stand distinctly on their
own. Do we wish to threaten the Ubuntu unity that exists within Malawi? Pascal
J. Kishindos (2002) Flogging the Dead Cow: The Revival of Malawian Chingoni
speaks to this position but, arguably, it also serves to reassure the other Ubuntu that
there is no chance that the Ngoni will again change the social fabric of our
Malawian Ubuntu family.
So in response to these concerns and others we state: Yes, we are continuing
on from where Ngoni Revival Association left off. Yet, we should make it clear
that the revival of Chingoni need not be seen as a threat to replace other Indigenous
languages. On the contrary, the efforts to revive Chingoni tell us that all Indigenous
languages are important to the acquisition of specific Indigenous knowledge as created
in those languages. This knowledge is important for the regeneration of Ubuntu
ways. The Chingoni language has the ability to express our ancestral knowledge of
cultural traditions and practices. If it is true that language carries the symbols to
express meaning, then without our languages we have lost some meanings of our
world (Avruch and Black, 1993). Our goal is to help our community reclaim our
ancestral language through educating the self, which for us means communicating
through the Ngoni language as the primary language of early schooling (grades
1 to 7). In order to generate interest and sustainability, I think it is necessary to
schedule a day of the week like every Friday afternoon as story telling time; this
must be done by an elder who tells the story in Chingoni. All Ngoni ceremonies must
also be performed in Chingoni. We are aware that Zigwe pano nzatonse (Whatever
happens here will affect us all) and we are sure that social unity will arise from this
exercise for all.
HOW MASEKO GOVERNANCE ADDRESS CONTEMPORARY LIFE
I am advocating a self-conscious traditionalism, an intellectual, social, and
political movement that will reinvigorate those values, principals and other
cultural elements that are best suited to the larger contemporary political and
economic reality (Alfred, 1999, xviii).
77
Maseko Ngoni governance allows for genuine Maseko Ngoni participation. Genuine
participation gives us the drive to promote local governance for future generations.
We believe that our ancestors provided a living legacy of good governance. We
believe that they offer spiritual guidance from the world beyond about how to
create institutions that will serve us best (Baba. Personal communication, 2003).
The Maseko Ngoni struggle for traditional governance is dependent on embracing
our past, and understanding our present as a guide for the future. Our ancestors
governed with us in mind and in death they guide us. We need then to find ways to
speak with and listen to them. We are the next generations amadlozi in the same way
our ancestors are our amadlozi. The way we govern now is the history we leave for
our future generation. To ensure these traditional ways are carried forward, we need
to educate the Maseko Ngoni regarding how our traditional governance can serve
us while honoring all our relations. Maseko Ngoni governance satisfies the needs
of the people through five principles, which are based on collective power:
It depends on the active participation of individuals;
It balances many layers of equal power;
It is dispersed;
It is situational;
It respects diversity (Alfred, 1999: 2627).
In the Ngoni context the practice of collective power is exercised by individuals
who identify as being Maseko while also actively participating in Maseko Ngoni
governance. An important part of this is respecting all Ubuntu spiritual ways, as the
beliefs and practices of other Ubuntu, allows us to understand that power resides in
many places and things. We therefore acknowledged that power could manifest itself
in many ways and through many things. For example, when trying to grow crops,
the arrival of rain is not within our power, nor are natural disasters. These events and
other happenings inform us that there are different forms of powers all functioning
in different contextual settings. Hence, we, as Maseko Ngoni, believe that power is
situational. We have also learned that place teaches different people different things.
Baba puts it this way: All Nguni are related but we do some things differently in
our lands (Personal communication, 2003). The words of Baba remind us to be
respectful of the diversity within the Ubuntu philosophy because it reflects the
elements that connect us all as Ubuntu while also validating our unique identity as
Maseko (Mutwa, 1969).
Invariably, the participation in colonial governance perpetuates the fragmentation
of our Ubuntu languages, our Ubuntu identities and our Ubuntu customs as colo-
nialism reduces us to beasts of burden, neo-slaves, whose only use is being instru-
ments of labor. We need to abandon these colonial institutions and embrace our
responsibility to regenerate informed local Maseko governance. Inkosi ya Makosi
Gomani II illustrates the importance of local education for the future of Maseko
Ngoni through his exchange with two Ngoni teachers.
How is your school?
The classes are full and the children are learning well, Inkosi.
How do they behave?
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Like Ngoni children, Inkosi.
What do they learn?
They learn reading, writing, arithmetic, scripture, geography and drill, Inkosi.
Is that education?
It is education, Inkosi.
No! No! No! Education is very broad, very deep. It is not only books, it is
learning how to live. I am an old man now. When I was a boy I went with the
Ngoni Army to the war against the Bemba. Then the mission came and I went
to school. I became a teacher. Then I was chief. Then the government came.
I have seen our country change, and now there are many schools and many
young men go away to work to find money. I tell you that Ngoni children
must learn how to live and how to build up our land, not only how to work
and earn money. Do you hear?
Yebo, Inkosi. (Yes, O Chief ) (Recorded by Read, 1968: 23)
UNDERSTANDING WHY WE MUST LEAVE COLONIALISM
Frantz Fanon (1963) conceptualized colonialism as a foreign people or government,
which imposes its will on the original inhabitants. Other writers (Conrad, 1995;
Chanock, 1985; Fraser, 1914; Hochschild, 2002; and Meredith, 1979) describe how
the colonizers established their business of colonization: through force (gunpowder)
and later through religion which created spiritual fear; both worked to enslave the
Maseko Ngoni physically and mentally. The colonizer was seeking the interest of
Indigenous resources, lands, spiritual control and dominance through what they
termed European development and civilization (Achebe, 1971). Colonialism/neo-
colonialism have worked to disarticulate historical memories of Maseko Ngoni.
Problematically, the African effort to correct this injustice was called the fight
for independence. In present times we call it the fight for democratic reform yet all
this fighting is done within the colonial structures. Audre Lordes reminds us that
the masters tools can only lead to the creation of the masters house. Similarly,
colonial structures will only lead to the creation of neo-colonialism. This means in
Maseko Ngoni geographies where colonial British power structures remain intact,
we are allowing Western colonial masters to exercise indirect rule through the
collaborators of the African elite.
CONCLUSION
Using traditional philosophy as the foundation of the new movement for
Indigenous governance will help us restore the lost harmony between the
Indigenous peoples social and political cultures. If political legitimacy flows
from harmony between a communitys cultural values and the values imbedded
within its political institutions, than this deep traditionalism is the key to
79
overcoming the divisions and fractionalization that characterizes Native politics
today (Alfred, 1999, 44).
To engage in Ngoni Inkatha we must eradicate the neo-colonial forms of governance
and instead replace them with our local forms of Indigenous governance. The neo-
colonial and Euro-centric forms of governance promote the exclusion of Ubuntu
peoples, while Ubuntu forms of Indigenous governance are augured in inclusivity.
Part of reclaiming Ubuntu heritage is dependent upon centering Ubuntu Indigenous
philosophies within the everyday lives of local peoples. The Maseko Ngoni of
amaZulu, Swazis and baSotho were synonymous with political protests when historic
ways of the local society were colonially violated. Forms of protest included the
readiness to articulate Ubuntu beliefs, or migration to a distant land; this was designed
to protect the values of the local society and to enable the collective to reproduce
itself peacefully and amicably. Our personal and collective memories are important
ways to nurture oral tradition. Our liberation is in our history and we can only access
it through sharing our Ubuntu teachings. Baba Mukulo conceptualizes Ubuntu
philosophy as the act of preserving and respecting all life. Yet when our ability to
practice our Ubuntu ways of living are undermined and forcibly stifled through
exclusion based on race as created by the colonial powers, then we are forced to
create local practices as an oppositional knowledge to that which tries to annihilate
us. We posit that it is time to revive our shared collective memory of action. If the
Maseko Ngoni heart knows the local Indigenous ways, can we afford to ignore it,
and if we do what does that say about us as a people? All that needs to be said has
been said, but all that needs to be done has yet to bear fruit.
NOTES
1
Concerning Maseko Ngoni, I am speaking about the Ubuntu ethnic people, who have a memory of
being in northern Africa, central Africa, and are presently in southern Africa. In this work, I am
focusing on the Ngoni who are in present day Lizulu in Malawi.
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X, Malcolm (1967). Malcolm X on Afro-American history (1st ed.). New York: Merit Publishers.

YUMIKO KAWANO
7. BEING PART OF THE CULTURAL CHAIN
INTRODUCTION
Though European countries did not colonize Japan, Eurocentrism has been imposed
through the educational system and has actively worked to negate Indigenous
knowledges of Japan and those of racialized minoritized groups. In particular, since
the Meiji period (18681912), there has been a certain intensification of whiteness
within the governing socio-cultural fabric of Japan. This intensification has located
Indigenous peoples of Japan tangentially to the cultural fabric, in that many of us
are unable to transmit local Indigenous knowledges within our governing commu-
nities. Eurocentric ways of knowing within the educational system, language, daily
practices, the calendar system, foods, and medicine have gained prominence and
perpetuate the dominant notions of cultural superiority and inferiority. In this paper,
I will trace the historical conditions of the Meiji period to understand the ways in
which the educational system, come to be governed through colonial ideologies of
whiteness. I also discuss how Indigenous knowledges such as language and ethno-
medicine have been silenced in the educational system, but have played an important
part with my understanding of the self.
ANTI-COLONIALISM AND INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGES IN EDUCATION
Since the Meiji period, educational institutions have been one of the central sites
where Eurocentric ways of knowing have come to be reproduced and, at the same
time, Indigenous ways of knowing have come to be devalued and marginalized. This
procedure has been led by the Japanese political and academic elites. With the idea
of social Darwinism, Europeans labeled the peoples of Japan as the half-civilized
yellow race (Kowner, 2000). The experience of colonialism in the context of Japan
intersects with colonialism as materializing within Africa, in that, the Japanese
tried to improve the race in order to overcome this sense of racial inferiority
and achieve the same intellectual level as Western countries by mimicking their
political, economical, cultural and educational styles. Moreover, as Wane (2006) states,
decolonizing the self is a difficult process due to the fact that most Indigenous
people subjected to Western education come to be the ones to reproduce Western
ideology. Japan is not the exception.
While various scholars write on the influence of whiteness on Japanese political,
economical, cultural and educational practices, few discuss whiteness through an anti-
colonial perspective. In fact, the terms that are usually favored are westernization
or modernization. I am also emphasizing that Japan is one of the countries which
KAWANO
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have never been a part of European colony (Fieldhouse, 1989). It might be said that
the imposition of European ideology since the Meiji period in social, political,
economical, and educational aspects is imperialism rather than colonialism in that, as
Young (2001) describes, imperialism is an ideology and colonialism a practice, or,
as Loomba (1998) mentions, imperialism can function without formal colonies (as
in the United States imperialism today) but colonialism cannot. (p. 12) However, she
also states the distinction between them is defined differently depending on their
historical mutations (p. 11). Moreover, she alerts readers that the different under-
standing of colonialism and imperialism complicates the term post-colonialism.
In addition to Loomba, Dei (2006) problematizes the term, which suggests that
colonialism is over and thus ignores the ongoing struggles of oppressed people.
Moreover, Dei (2006) states:
[a]nti-colonial is defined as an approach to theorizing colonial and re-colonial
relations and the implications of imperial structures on the processes of
knowledge production and validation, the understanding of Indigeneity, and
the pursuit of agency, resistance and subjective politics. (p. 2)
In thinking through an integrative anticolonial framework, I understand the imperial
and the colonial as being constitutive, as being part and parcel of each other, as
not being disjointed or fragmented. The challenge for the anti-colonial thinker is
extricating these socio-historical conjunctures. Thus, by querying the imposition of
Eurocentric ways of knowing in Japan within the anti-colonial framework, I am
able to engage the discussion concerning marginalized Indigenous knowledges in
the Japanese educational system and the role of Japanese colonialism regarding
other Indigenous communities within Japan and other geographies of Asia.
As a colonizing procedure, it was necessary for Western countries to firstly control
the Japanese mind. wa Thiongo (1986) states that economic and political control
can never be complete or effective without mental control. Dei (2008b) notes that
colonialism cannot exist without imperialism supporting it politically, militarily,
culturally, and economically. Eurocentric values have been imposed on Japanese
Indigenous knowledges at the individual, institutional and systematic levels with the
support of Japanese elites. It is difficult to draw lines between individual, institu-
tional, and systematic colonialism, due to the fact that these levels are interconnected
for the purpose of economic and political benefits. Systemic imperialism is difficult to
dismantle. As argued by many anti-colonial scholars who examine decolonization of
education such as Dei and Kempf (2006), Wane (2006), Smith (1999), wa Thiongo
(1986), I understand the ongoing colonialism in the educational system as re-
producing the colonial imprint and perpetuating whiteness, that colonialism prevents
the learner from critically engaging in the process of decolonization. I recognize
my complicity within the governing colonial process.
Within an integrative anti-colonial discursive framework, Indigenous knowledges
play an important role for decolonization. According to Robert (1998), Indigenous
knowledges are accumulated by groups of people, not necessarily Indigenous, who
by centuries of unbroken residence develop an in-depth understanding of their
particular place in their particular world. They have been passed down from
BEING PART OF THE CULTURAL CHAIN
85
generation to generation in the form of proverbs, stories, myths that contain wisdom
and experiences of our ancestors (p. 59). As Wane (2006) states in colonial education,
Indigenous knowledges have been marked as primitive and inferior compared to
Western ways of knowing. Moreover, the notions are internalized into peoples mind.
As Dei (2008a) notes, claiming Indigenous knowledge in the western academy is
an anti-colonial struggle for independence from exploitative relations of schooling
and knowledge production. (p. 10) Thus part and parcel of the decolonizing project
is to position Indigenous knowledges within conventional schooling.
IMPACT OF WESTERN IDEOLOGIES IN JAPAN
Japan today is often described as a world-leading, modernized, or developed
society in terms of material development such as medical technologies, economy,
and science. Despite these developments, there are increasingly serious problems
such as environmental destructions. It is often said that the Meiji period and post
World War II were turning points of Japan in terms of modernized progress and
westernization both internally and in terms of foreign relationships. During the Meiji
period, modernization was equated with westernization. The minds of Japanese
political and academic elites were consumed with Western colonial ideologies. Re-
forming policies regarding education, womens rights, private business, and agri-
culture needs were embedded with imperial Western tropes. Moreover, the inhumanity
of the colonial endeavors, which subjugated the Japanese were imposed onto different
Asian people and Ainu people in Japan (Yaguchi, 2000; Knapp & Hauptman, 1980).
Ching (1998) has commented that the successful adaptation of the Japanese to
Western ideology was more successful than that of people in other Asian countries,
and that this adaptation therefore justified the imperialism in those countries. In fact,
the Japanese elites and intellectuals started labeling other Asians as un-civilized
while the Japanese as a group were labeled by Europeans as half-civilized. Accord-
ing to Ching, it was when the yellow Japanese made their anomalous imperialistic
entry into the world of colonizers that they were positioned in between the margins
of white and black, and the colonizer and the colonized. At this point, for
the Japanese elites, protecting other Asian countries from Western imperialism and
other perceived threats was the mission of their superior race. Ching (1998) notes,
caught between the contradictory positionality of non-white, not quite, and yet-alike,
Japans domineering gaze towards its colonial subjects in the East had to always
invariably redirect itself, somewhat ambivalently, to the imperialist glare of the
West (p .66).
While there were elites who advocated Westernization as a way of surviving the
world capitalist system, there were some Japanese scholars who reconsidered
Japanese traditional culture. However, their reconsideration led to ultra-nationalism,
which was exclusive in that the diversities of other cultures were not considered but
the superiority of Japanese culture within and outside of Japan was emphasized.
Therefore, both groups of elites, who were either caught by Western ideologies or
who advocated a nationalist Japanese traditional culture, were still caught in the
dominant notions of superiority and inferiority (Kawano, 2010).
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THE CHARACTERISTIC OF JAPANESE INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE
Japanese traditional knowledge is embedded in the worldview that everything has a
soul or spirit, and emphasizes living with oneself, others, other creatures, nature,
and the universe in harmony, often called animism, as E. B. Tylor originally coined.
He suggests that animism contains the core of spiritualistic philosophy and that this is
the primitive form of religious. However, his naming, categorizing, and defining
of the belief might be problematic. His perspectives ignore the complexities and
diversity within the worldview. It is not a primitive form of religion. This Indige-
nous worldview is embodied in our daily life as ecology. These knowledges as afore-
mentioned are accumulated within a particular space for a long time, and passed
down from the ancestors to the next generations. People also gain these knowledges
not only from interactions with human-beings, but also through the observation or
communication with animals and plants, and dreams. There are also similarities
between Indigenous worldviews of Japan and the other Indigenous communities all
over the world. Battiste and Henderson (2000) describe the belief system of First
Nations communities in Canada: Indigenous peoples worldviews are cognitive
maps of a particular ecosystem (p. 40).
In relation to the Japanese Indigenous worldview, Shinto (way to the Creator)
as a belief system, is often interpreted, as a form of religion by many scholars today.
However, a systematized and bureaucratized States Shinto was strategically brought
in the Meiji period. In the late nineteenth century, as the Meiji restoration started,
the Japanese government imposed restrictions upon the localized and diversified
forms of Shinto known as Ko-shinto (old Shinto or folk Shinto) and Shrine Shinto,
expressed and seen, for example, in the various local festivals, arts, forms of healings
and so on. According to Clammer (2000), the Japanese government sought to unify
peoples consciousness in order to aid their fight towards global competitiveness,
socially, politically and economically. Thus, a belief system was used to create the
national collective identity.
LANGUAGE AS A POWERFUL TOOL OF COLONIZATION
Language is about history, experiences, and relationships with others, nature, and
the universe. Language is about spirituality and communicating and carrying culture.
People understand themselves in relation to their social, cultural, and natural
environment (wa Thiongo, 1986). In relation to language and colonialism, Fanon
(2007) also states that a man who has a language consequently possesses the
world expressed and implied by that language (p. 18). According to wa Thiongo,
for the colonizer, controlling language is crucial in order to be able to dominate the
mental universe of the colonized and thereby control the tools of self-definition. Thus
colonialism led to the destruction or defamation of the Indigenous culture and the
conscious elevation of the language of the colonizer.
But how has language played a role in the context of Western imposition in
Japan, given that although Japanese were racialized for political and economical
exploitation, Japanese were not forced to lose their language? While many colonized
countries have been forced to abandon their own languages, the Japanese language
87
has not been replaced with European languages such as English, French or Spanish. In
the Meiji period, Some Japanese elites including the Minister of Education suggested
abolishing Japanese completely and adopting English in the educational system.
The minister of education at the time, Ainori Mori stated:
The spoken language of Japan being inadequate to the growing necessities of
the people of that Empire, and too poor to be made, by a phonetic alphabet,
sufficiently useful as a written language, the idea prevails among us that, if
we would keep pace with the age, we must adopt a copious and expanding
European language. The necessity for this arises mainly out of the fact that
Japan is a commercial nation; and also that, if we do not adopt a language like
that of the English, which is quite predominant in Asia, as well as elsewhere
in the commercial world, the progress of Japanese civilization is evidently
impossible (p. 5152).
The minister was concerned that the peoples of Japan could not consume the sophis-
ticated cultures through the medium of Japanese language; because Japanese writing
and spoken system were very complex, it was thought of as being difficult to trans-
form into a communicative tool (Coulmas, 1990). Coulmas cites Nishis (1874)
explanation about Japanese language:
In our letters at present it is improper for us to write as we speak as well as
improper to speak as we write since the grammars of speech and writing in
our language are different (p. 74).
However, there was quite an outburst from scholars including Westerners against
the ministers suggestion. In addition, Japanese scholars could deal with the transition
from spoken language into a writing system. Thus, the Japanese language, especially
as a carrier of culture, seems to remain without much damage. Furthermore, the
Japanese government also utilized the Japanese language as a colonial tool to govern
Indigenous communities within and outside of Japan, in particular this governance
materialized by way of the Japanese elites learning and implementing colonial
policies from European countries.
However, concerning language, despite the fact that Japanese has remained widely
spoken in Japan, English particularly came to be more important and a fashionable
marker of status, bearing dominant notions of inferiority and superiority. For example,
people who can speak English are seen as cool or fashionable, particularly
among younger generations. Further, cultural capital of the English language gives
rewards and punishment. Those who have the capital have better opportunities to
higher education and the possibility of getting a better job in Japan. My experiences
as an international student at two Canadian post secondary institutions, particularly in
terms of language ability, have reinforced my unconscious notions of the superiority
of whiteness and the inferiority of the other. For example, language, specifically
English, came to be more than a communication tool for me. It became instead a tool
for evaluating myself, through my abilities to speak that language. In my obsession to
use English fluently, I came to internalize notions of who was inferior and superior.
Just as Fanon (2007) describes, mine is a clear example of how those who want to be
white will become whiter as they gain mastery of the cultural tool, that is language.
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POWER OF WORDS AND THOUGHTS
It is emotionally difficult for me to affirm my language heritage in Canada, and
importantly, concerning the power of words, Japanese Indigenous knowledge helps
me with embracing my local Japanese language to acknowledge the self. There is a
particular Japanese Indigenous knowledge called Kototama, in which the ancestors
in relation to our everyday lives come to be understood as the spirit of words. But
Kototama is not only about the spirit of words, it is also a cosmology and belief that
Kototama, with its 50 rhythms (the vowels, and their combination with consonants),
produces life (Shimada, 1993, 1995).
Before spending some time with Kototama, I will briefly talk about how this
knowledge relates to the existence of Japanese Shinto Shrine and the notion of the
Creator. Ancient Japanese people considered words as the creator, which produces
life. In fact, a bell in a Japanese shrine is often said to be the instrument used to call
for or get the attention of the creator and any divine heroes. The other role of a bell
and the other reasons why the bell exists in shrines, however, are not often explored.
Shimada (1993) explains that it is related to Kototama. The shape of a bell is the
shape when we open our mouth. When we shake a bell, the sounds come out of the
mouth of the bell. When we open our mouth to say something, we, like a bell,
produce a vibrating energy, which in turn produces life. Our words, and bells like
those found in Shinto Shrines, represent the mechanism of Kototama. In relation to
the notions of the creator, there is a mirror set in every shrine in Japan. The reflection
of the individual looking into the mirror is believed to represent the creator. In
other words, the creator is you. A creator is not something to be apart from you, but
it is indeed yourself. The mirror in Japanese is called a ka-ga-mi. When ga
(translated as ego in English) is taken away from the rest of the letters, ka-mi
is left. Kami translated into English means the Creator. It is not something that
we could learn at school today. While many younger generations today have not
learned why we call a mirror Kagami in Japanese, this complex language system
and relationship with our ancestors worldview is something that I could connect to
and learn from my ancestors.
According to Emoto (2005), Kototama is the sounds and the energy we are
always producing, such as a form of speaking and thinking. In other words, the
material world is the manifestation of vibrating energies. Vibration is also called
Shindo in Japanese. Emoto (2004) asserts that the original meaning of the word
Shindo ) is Shinto (), the ways of the Creator; Tou () can be also
called do ) depending on its combination with other words. In other words,
ancient Japanese believed that everything begins with vibration; vibration is a life
itself. These vibrations include both the heard and unheard sounds and the energy
we produce by speaking and thinking. The ancestors knew the power of written and
spoken words with their dynamic relationship with our thoughts. In the experiment
by a Japanese researcher, Emoto Masaru, water crystals were shown to change
depending on what one said or thought towards the water, which captures some
of the characteristics of Kototama. In fact, his experiments show the difference
between languages. As wa Thiongo (1986) emphasizes, a language itself is an
89
expression, a history, and a relationship with others; moreover, these others include
animals, nature and universe. For example, Arigatou in Japanese can be translated
into Thank you in English. However in his experiments, each word creates differ-
ently shaped crystals. In my experience, while some of my generation call parents
Mama (Mom) Papa (Dad) because of the influence of English it has made it
fashionable, my parents did not allow me to refer to them in that way. I was
taught to call them Okaasan (mother), and Otousan (father) in Japanese because
they knew that language and words make a difference. Because it is known that
fifty five to seventy percent of the human body is composed of water, a spoken and
typed word with its vibration can influence our body, feeling, way of thinking,
mind and soul. Japanese elders know and understand the power of words and the
different methods of healing. Some scholars disagree and argue that Emotos study
is not acceptable; they reject the interconnectedness between human beings and the
ecosystem. Battiste and Henderson (2000) also emphasize, that eurocentrism rejects
the idea that the human mind can understand ecology (p. 36). Scholars insist that
water cannot be affected by our words and mind, which to me seems to be a
limiting condition of reading Indigenous ways of knowing through a materialist
point of view.
ETHNOMEDICINE
Japanese Indigenous knowledges have been forever devalued. However, the
knowledges are not completely gone; they are still alive and passed down through
generations by family members. My Indigenous knowledge is, as Wane (2006) notes,
an outcome of interactions that occurs among families and communities and is alive
and holistic (p. 99). Concerning my experience with Indigenous healing methods,
I was raised by parents who taught me the importance of understanding illnesses
holistically; not only perceiving the symptom but also its context, the healing
power of nature, and the traditional ways of healing. They believe that there is a
reason when one gets ill, and that one should pay attentions to the roots of an illness
holistically. As much as possible, they kept me from using the western medicine that
many doctors recommend today. For example, I have been struggling with eczema
since I was a child. As a child, I dont know why my parents did not allow me to use
western medicine, which could release me from itchiness at the moment. They knew
that it has a quick effect but it would also cause harmful side effects in the long
run. Instead of using western medicine, we preferred using such remedies as Japanese
vegetables, fruits, Japanese or Chinese herbs, Kikou (Qigong), and acupuncture.
I also realize almost all of us younger generations today go to see a doctor
trained with Western medical knowledges because we believe it is the only effective
treatment. What I am concerned with here, is to what extent is this the result of
internalizing and reproducing the dominant notions of inferiority and superiority?
Even when one can deal with an illness using Indigenous knowledge, he/she might
go to see a doctor due to his/her anxiety or uncertainty about the symptoms.
In addition, when I have used traditional ways of healing rather than Western medical
methods, some of my friends have viewed it as old fashioned or not cool or
KAWANO
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even weird. Traditional healing often comes to be considered not reliable and
only used for less serious illnesses or injuries. I came to realize that I was living in
a contradiction. Even though I knew that I was comfortable using traditional ways
of healing illness, cold or injury using my inner ability with the help from food,
tea, and plants that my parents passed down to me, I started hesitating to use and
talk about these methods outside of home because I was worried about what others
thought. I did not want to be a minority in my school and be bullied by my friends.
I played different roles in different places in strategic ways to survive in the school
system and the society. Even when the commercialized traditional medicine or
healing methods that I knew came to be popular or people talked about these methods
in public, I still pretended that I did not know about these methods. At the same
time, I wondered why people were so surprised as though something new had been
discovered. Throughout those experiences of schooling and education and outside
of my home, I knew what I could and could not talk about in order to manage
everyday life.
CONCLUSION
Some of the Indigenous knowledge that my ancestors passed down to me is alive
without losing the historic-specific meaning. It is my responsibility to be a part of
the cultural fabric to guide subsequent generations. In the Mikmaw community, an
Indigenous community in North America, adults are responsible for other children.
When someone notices something happening, the person cannot walk away with
the thought they arent my children but rather that person has the responsibility
to intervene (Battiste and Henderson, 2000, p. 54). Similar to the principle of the
community, there was a time when community members raised children together in
Japan; adults had a responsibility to educate and guide the youth, independent of
official guardianship. Notably, if elders found childrens behavior to be problematic,
they addressed these moments through Indigenity with respect and care for the youth.
People understand their world through relationships with others by way of the
social and cultural interactions. Many Japanese families today are nuclear families.
During the era when extended families were the most prevalent family unit, family
and communities were the central way for knowledge to be passed down to younger
generations. However, I wonder, in present-day Japan how youth can find ways of
accessing the knowledge from elders on a daily basis. I am asking then: How can
we centre the body of the Elder within schooling and education to retrieve embodied
knowledges?
This work has significant meaning to me. It is based on collections of my
fragmented story. It speaks to my journey, the search for my culture, history, and my
family. It speaks to the search for the self. Through recalling and unpacking my local
history, I have come to know and understand the importance of personal narratives
as voiced through my Elders as an embodiment of knowledge. I understand em-
bodied knowledge as central to the decolonizing process. In resisting systemic forms
of colonialism as imbued through schooling and education, I wish to share my
experiences with all who, in solidarity, take up the myriad challenges of social
91
justice work. I seek to extricate and reclaim the space and time where Elders are
positioned as part and parcel of the knowledge systems within contemporary
schooling and education. Through local Indigenous knowledges as located within the
geography of Japan, I write for social transformation. I write through an Indigenous
voice to come to know and understand the self, to make sense of my lived experiences
as historically governed through colonialism. Through writing to decolonize the self,
I hope to open up possible spaces for Indigenous knowledges of Japan within
conventional schooling.
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ARLO KEMPF
8. NORTH AFRICAN KNOWLEDGES AND
THE WESTERN CLASSROOM
Situating Selected Literature
INTRODUCTION
Although anti-colonial readings of history, as well as peoples histories (see
Anderson 2007, Spivak 1996, Rodney 1972, Zinn 1999, Parenti 2003, Kempf 2009,
and many others) have begun to bring to light the inaccuracies of dominant history
as well as the cultural, racial and political-economic motivations underlying these
inaccuracies, very little information from these suppressed and marginalized histories
and knowledges has made its way into Canadian classrooms. A knowledge gap
persists (and is maintained) between the prevailing narratives that dominate the
Eurocentric Canadian educational system, and the actual histories of the peoples
who populate Canadian classrooms and communities. It is crucial to ask whose stories
are absent from our curricula? Whose ancestors are remembered and how? Who
speaks for Canada as we remember the national past? How are the brutal stories of
genocide and conquest, which underwrite Canadas nation building project told or
not told to our children? What do our children learn of the thriving trade of enslaved
people whose cessation was resisted so vehemently by the early elites? What are
the formal and informal limits of tolerance, inclusion and multiculturalism as
articulated by our teachers who are the nations front line cultural workers?
The quick and popular answer to these questions is that despite being the combined-
majority people of color, women, working class communities, people with disabilities
and those with non-dominant sexual identifications have been marginalized within
formal schooling in Ontario specifically and Canada more broadly. Although there
are increasingly exceptions to this marginalization, the story of Canada is too often
a celebration of a dominant minority group and its narratives: of wealthy European
men situated within a heteronormative structure of colonial and family relations.
Although it is key to sustain a criticism of this bundle of strategic omissions (which
we might for convenience term colonial Eurocentric hetero-patriarchy), it is also
important to engage with alternative, multicentric approaches to understanding the
past, present and future. While history is better understood as a dialogue than as a
monologue (Kempf, 2006), as an interrogation rather than a rhetorical polemic, the
results of the interrogation must materialize as actual history curricula, not simply
as critical historiography. Such theory must not be understood as a companion to
history, but as constituent of history itself. Although the task of critical and revisionist
historians is ongoing, the revelations of non-dominant and indeed resistant knowledges
KEMPF
94
must, where possible, be centralized within various current curricula. This chapter
offers an examination of Martin Bernals Black Athena: the Afroasiatic Roots of
Classical Civilization; Molefi Asantes The Egyptian Philosophers and Maulana
Karengas Maat: The Moral Ideal in Ancient Egypt in service of a multicentric
approach to curriculum design, implementation and delivery. This is neither a
comprehensive examination of these texts nor a rigorous look at all of the possible
applications of these works to the Ontario schooling context. It is instead an attempt to
situate these works for subsequent curricular integration and investigation.
This chapter works from an anti-colonial framework, conceptualizing the colonial
as anything imposed or dominating (Dei, 2006), and the anti-colonial as all resistance
to imposition which centers notions of accountability; knowledge production and
legitimization; and the de-operationalization of race, class, gender, sexuality, ability,
religion, ethnicity, language and geography as sites of oppression and/or privilege.
Formal education is among the key mechanisms through which colonial epistemic
programs proceed. Mainstream schooling socializes and indeed formalizes inequitable
relations along lines of race, gender, ability, language, anti/religion, class, sexual
orientation and geographic status (see Apple, 1978, Willinsky, 1998, hooks, 2003,
Kempf, 2009 and others on education and domination). Critical historiography has
an important role to play in the anti-colonial approach. Many academic and activist
investigations of ancient knowledges have focused on the appropriation, mis-
representation and discrediting of the people and ideas in question (see Bernal, 1985,
Olela, 1998, Said, 1979, James, 1990 and others). Such work is critical as an entry
point for contestation, recognition and reconnection it is a crucial first step. Other
works have taken this further and have, with great respect, provided a detailed
explication of many suppressed histories and knowledgesnot for the sake of contrast
or conflict with dominant histories but to bring these important knowings into view
(see Asante, 2000, Sardar, 1989, Dewdney, 1975, Dickason, 2002, Wright, 1992 and
others). It is now incumbent upon educators, curriculum writers and parents to bring
these knowledges (not just these contestations) into the classroom and its resources.
As a response to many (but not all) of the colonial and impositional elements of
formal schooling, multicentric curriculum design is best understood as a process of
decolonization.
Why do students and classrooms need these knowledges? The obvious response
to this question is accuracy. An equally important answer is strategy. In Ontario, like
many colonial contexts, education is simultaneously arresting and transformative.
For many students, it serves to both stifle and suppress non-dominant cultural know-
ledge (while celebrating and universalizing dominant cultural knowledge) and at
the same time floods students with Eurocentric epistemological and axiological
norms. The dominant has, for centuries, written the dominated out of the historical
material process. The works of leading European thinkers (like Bacon, Descartes,
Hume, Rousseau, Kant, Smith, Ricardo and others) from a variety of fields (such as
politics, mathematics, science, philosophy, economics and others) serve as a modern
foundation and prescription for the suppression and delegitmization of non-dominant
knowledges and peoples (see Shiva, 1997, Wolff, 2000, Bishop, 1990, Joseph, 1987
and others). The effects of such thinkers are present in educational practices in
NORTH AFRICAN KNOWLEDGES AND THE WESTERN CLASSROOM
95
many colonial contexts. Educational imperialism is a crucial element of colonialism,
with profound effects on the colonized and colonizer.
Introducing students to the deeper roots of many so-called European knowledges
(like philosophy, mathematics, psychology and others) serves at least three crucial
purposes. First, it contributes to a more accurate, complete and varied story of human
history. As individuals, we are driven to our paststhis journey should be assisted
for dominant and non-dominant bodies alike in our educational systems. Second,
it reconnects many students to their past (and therefore present and future). When
students do not see themselves or their histories reflected in their education,
disengagement understandably follows (see the work of Dei, et al., 1997). Easy
self-location within ones education can facilitate engagement. Third, given the
Eurocentric underpinnings of our educational systems, such presentations and rep-
resentations of history can serve to rupture the colonization-in-progress with which
we are all faced. In Decolonizing Methodologies, Smith (1999) writes: (s)chooling
is directly implicated in this process [of colonization]. Through the curriculum and
its underlying theories of knowledge schools redefined the world and where
people were positioned within the world (p. 33). In many cases, non-dominant
people have been located outside of the world deemed worthy of study. It is thus
incumbent on educators to integrate both critical histories and the many suppressed
ancient knowledges into classrooms and curricula. While the texts discussed here are
important for the decolonizing of education, they are not the only tools appropriate to
this task. The works discussed here are a beginning sample of the myriad possibilities
for anti-colonial curricular integrationresistance based multicentric curricula.
ON LOCATION ...
I am a white educator in Ontario, currently teaching in a pre-service teacher educa-
tion program and a sociology department at two universities in Southern Ontario.
Before teaching at the post-secondary level, I was a high school teacher for six
years. As a social sciences teacher and department head, I was asked to teach a
colonizers history. I was educated in Ontario and Quebecinundated with the tauto-
logy of Canadas multiculturalism while taught the glories of only certain peoples
ideas, struggles, epistemologies and ontological perspectives. My own children sit
daily in Ontario classrooms with (in the Toronto District Schools Boards tribute to
empire) a picture of Englands queen, always in view. They come home with the
discovery stories of early colonial invaders and tell me about the Underground
Railroad. When I told my daughter that a great many African-Americans went back
to the US after finding Canadian racism intolerable, she found it hard to believe
me. To contest dominant history is for me, a professional, personal, academic and
family undertaking.
Most of my time as a high school teacher was spent teaching philosophy and Greek
and Roman history. In both the grade 12 Philosophy (HZT4U) and the Grade 12
Classical Civilizations (LLV4U)
1
courses offered in Ontario, the government-
mandated curricula exclude ancient African peoples and ideas. In the case of the
philosophy course, which focuses heavily on early Greek as well as modern European
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ideas and thinkers, the omission is glaring, as such philosophy pulls both directly
and indirectly from East, North and West African ideas. The curriculum identifies
Greece as the birthplace of philosophy and the Socratic Method as the quintessential
epistemological principle upon which European thought has developed. Europe is
understood as the oven in which philosophy was baked to perfection. The official
Ontario Ministry of Education Expectations for Grade 12 Philosophy make over
forty-five references to philosophers, only five of these are to non-Europeans, and
none are to African thinkers (Ministry of Education 2002, pp. 188125).
The Classical Civilizations course excludes Africans almost altogether, despite the
broad designation inferred by the courses title. It focuses entirely on ancient
Greece and Rome, ignoring not only Afro-Asiatic contributions to these societies
(despite the overwhelming evidence that such contributions are abundant) but also
omitting African and Asian societies as a whole (as well as the peoples of the
Americas and elsewhere). The few mentions made to non-Europeans refer to
Asians (Persians) and Africans (Carthaginians) as the unworthy casualties of the
Greek and Roman marches to civilization (Ontario Ministry of Education 2000a,
pp. 2732). Obviously a strategic diversity of perspectives is needed.
To facilitate a concurrent interrogation and refashioning of these histories and
ideas, both critical analytical and explicatory approaches are necessary. A critical
approach to our interrogation of history cannot be limited to the European context.
The fact that the ancient wisdoms discussed here are African does not make them
good. Indeed a close reading of ancient Egypt requires the same scrutiny as that of
ancient Athens, with oppression no more justifiable in one than the other. In place
of idealized retellings of any society and its ideas, we need accurate history which
considers the historiography involved in its traditional transmission, and which offers
the most accurate possible information to our students in support of their critical
thinking. With this in mind, this chapter reviews Martin Bernals Black Athena:
The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization, Molefi Asantes The Egyptian Philo-
sophers: Ancient African Voices from Imhotep to Akhenaten and Maulana Karengas
Maat: The Moral Ideal in Ancient EgyptA Study in Classical African Ethics. It is
my hope that teachers and students will be among the first to ask the challenging
and critical questions of the ideas presented in these important books. Each of these
works takes a decidedly political and strategic look at ancient African histories and
knowledges.
This chapter then offers two sample assignments that integrate critical historical
perspectives, ancient African knowledges and existing curriculum expectations to
be used in the grade 12 Philosophy and Classical Civilizations courses. A short
conclusion follows.
MARTIN BERNALS BLACK ATHENA
Martin Bernals Black Athena: the Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilizations,
Volumes One (1987), Two (1996) and Three (2006) are controversial works which,
for many thinkers, revolutionized modern conceptions of classical civilizations
(understood here as the study of the ancient Egyptian, Greek and Roman civiliza-
tions). Bernals claims led to an international debate, numerous journal articles
97
(and special editions) for and against the piece, a book entitled Black Athena Revisited
edited by Lefkowitz and Rogers (1996), and numerous documentary films dealing
with the work and the controversy surrounding it. Although works such as Jamess
Stolen Legacy (1990) and Meyerss The Oldest Books in the World (1900), have
argued successfully that Greek civilization both learned from and appropriated
North African cultures, Bernal goes further, recasting a demographic theory long
denied by Eurocentric scholars.
As its title implies, Bernals Black Athena Volume One, argues the Mediterraneans
first conquerors, as well as those responsible for that regions cultural renaissance,
were Egyptian and Phoenician. This view, which he terms the Ancient Model,
stands in stark contrast to the Aryan Model, popularized in the 18
th
and 19
th

centuries by European scholars. The Ancient Model argues that the Aegeans first
inhabitants were the Pelasgian Peoples alongside various other ethnic groups. These
groups, Bernal argues, were civilized by the Egyptian and Phoenicians who invaded
and settled the area during the Heroic Age (Bernal, 1987: 56). The Aryan Model on
the other hand, argues that civilization in and around the Aegean was the result of a
variety of cultures assimilating after the invasion and conquest of Northern Indo-
European (early Greeks) in the pre-Hellenic period. Bernal argues that the Ancient
Model dominated most scholarship (in Northern Africa, Greece, Egypt, and other
places) until the mid-eighteenth century. The Aryan Model was popularized by
scholars working under the ethnic principle of science (Bernal, 1996: 9). He writes:
For [eighteenth century scholars] the Ancient Model was a delusion. Just as
scientific historians had to discount all Greek references to centaurs, sirens
and other mythical creatures that offended against the laws of natural history,
the Ancients view of Greece as having been civilised by Egyptians and
Phoenicians had to be removed because it offended against the laws of racial
science (1996, p. 10).
Bernals analysis walks the reader convincingly through intricate historical evidence
supporting his propositions. Volume One of Black Athena is an important example of
critical historiography in that a great deal of the work is devoted to the racist historical
misappropriation that since the 1700s has dominated the study of classical civiliza-
tions. For students of history and philosophy, Bernals work provides both fresh
historical accounts, and an analysis of the ways in which Eurocentric academics
have suppressed these histories and accounts.
In Volumes Two and Three of Black Athena, (originally there were to be four
volumes in total) Bernal provides detailed archaeological and linguistic evidence to
support his claims about ancient history from Volume One. In a new introduction,
he argues that additional research has further validated his original claims. Bernal
also reflects on the international response to Volume One, saying that his work has
been well received by scholars and activists of color. He adds that of all the refuta-
tions of Black Athena, few have questioned Bernals characterization of European
scholars as racist and thus biased. This, he argues, was adequate justification for
continuing with the project. The research presented in Volumes Two and Three
constitutes a powerful empirical addition to, and extension of, the critical historio-
graphical investigation begun in Volume One. For example, Volume Two draws
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conclusions from archaeological evidence on the island of Crete. The island has
long been considered an appropriate starting point for the high school course on
Ancient Greece. Bernal argues that beginning in the Neolithic period (approximately
10700 to 9400 BCE) contact had taken place between people on Crete, and people
in Africa and Asia. Bernal demonstrates that the famed architectural achievements
from the period were modeled on Near Eastern buildings elsewhere. Indeed the famed
Palace at Knossos (studied in the Ontario classical civilizations course) was likely
reflective of concurrent Egyptian architecture. Crete, the jewel of early Greece, was
likely so remarkable because of African influences (Bernal, 1996: 56). Bernal traces
the Egyptian influence on Boeotia and the Peloponnese, touching on among other
things, farming, religion, land management, social and political structures and
literature. His work details a broad spectrum of connections, contacts and influences
between African Peoples and early Greeks. Bernal outlines the achievements of
African and Middle Eastern Peoples in areas as disparate as commerce, religion,
military strategy, art, politics and architecture. Bernal assembles nearly 1500 pages
of evidence for his important contribution to critical historiography.
In sum, Bernal argues that African knowledges and culture have been dis-
placed within the European historical record. Through the academic formalization
of classical studies, African and Semitic culture and knowledges have been distanced
from the European epistemic project. Bernal argues that for centuries the relationship
between Greece and Egypt (the former influenced, connected to, and inspired by
the latter) was widely understood as part of historical trajectory, which recognized
none of todays continental boundaries. In the 18
th
and 19
th
centuries however, the
emergence of classical studies as an academic discipline revolved in part around the
notion that Greece had not relied on Africa (neither the Egyptians nor the Phoenicians)
and had instead produced discreet early European culture, philosophy, architecture,
mythology and art independent of any influence from African civilizations. As
mainstream history moved from the first model to the second, this represented the
substitution of Greece for Egypt as the source of European civilization. For Bernal,
the dominance of the latter Aryan Model follows the emerging epistemological
doctrine of white supremacy, which underpinned the development and content of the
European university. For students and teachers of ancient history and philosophy,
this line of argument is crucial to anti-colonial conceptions of civilization and
knowledge production.
Additionally, the evidence presented in volumes two and three constitutes an
argument in and of itself: African history is knowable, and this knowledge does not
rely on Eurocentric understandings and conceptions of civilization. The sheer breadth
and depth of the research suggests that where Edward Said (1979) and others may
have implied that the other is unknowable and un-representable, Bernal attempts
a documentation and thus representation of North African culture which answers
and counters the misconceptions of the other to which Said was responding.
Bernals work is by no means objective, it has a clear and identified political
project (the re-visioning suggested by its title) and this is perhaps as close as an
author can ever come to an objective place from which to write. Further, his
politics are grounded in a quest for historical accuracy in the face of dominant
99
mischaracterizations of the past. So, while he does not escape the trap of politicized
narrative, he attempts a representation and documentation of the other which seek
to value previously marginalized knowledges and culture, and which simultaneously
seek to rupture dominant epistemological approaches to these histories.
Although Bernal does not claim to be addressing questions of colonialism (or to
be taking up an anti-colonial or post-colonial project) his analysis of the development
and disciplining of European conceptions of African knowledges and their relation-
ship to Europe supports the idea that dominant historical understandings of Europe
and Africa are indeed forms of colonial discourse. His attempts at a more accurate
historical understanding, as well as an unearthing of the race politics of mainstream
scholarship are thus anti-colonial in posture and represent an important achievement
within the historical record which recognizes the interconnected and multicultural
nature of ancient culture and philosophy. The continued reliance upon Greek philo-
sophical traditions and ideas offers an important entry point for teachers to begin a
critical conversation about race, colonialism and power within the confines of the
required curriculum.
Before moving on, it is relevant to mention briefly the work of Cheikh Anta Diop
(19231986). Scholar, historian, and activist, Diop was a Senegalese writer best
known for his early Afrocentric research into the history of Egypt. He was the first
to argue academically that ancient Egyptians had actually been Black. Although his
thesis was rejected for almost a decade, it was eventually accepted by much of the
academic community. Diop was one of the first writers to identify the racism and
bias in mainstream presentations of African history and culture. Although his research
continues to be controversial, mounting evidence supports his numerous claims.
Bernal extends the work and discursive project of Diop, and indeed the tremendous
controversy surrounding his work (few history books are made into movies which
centre the author) are testament to the race politics of African history and Egyptology
(a problematic distinction in itself ). Bernals work has from the onset been challenged
by mainstream Egyptologists. The fact that work which dares to point to a rich
intellectual and knowable African history continues to be viewed with an asterisk
beside it in the annals of history, speaks to the Eurocentric underpinnings of how
we understand the past.
2
At a recent exhibit of King Tut in Toronto, the 30 minute
guided tour made no mention of Africa, while of the six maps on display, only two
identified Egypt within a labeled African context. An IMAX 3D film did, however,
tell of heroic European explorers (who were guided to sites by locals) saving Egyptian
history from local robbers and thugs. This extra-curricular site of formal learning
(the Art Gallery of Ontario) serves as a powerful corollary to the in-school curriculum
described abovereaffirming the absence of Africa, African knowledges and non-
dominant agency.
MOLEFI ASANTES THE EGYPTIAN PHILOSOPHERS
The Egyptian Philosophers: Ancient African Voices From Imhotep to Akhenaten,
by Molefi Asante (2000), provides a detailed and accessible guide to many ancient
African philosophers, philosophies and histories. Asante is the founder of the theory
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of Afrocentricity and is Professor, Department of African American Studies at
Temple University. Although Asante points to the powerful role that the revelation
of these knowledges can play in contesting dominant history, this is not his intention.
This book instead aims to bring these knowledges to the forefront so that students
of philosophy, when introduced to the subjects founders, meet the Africans whose
theories and practices provide the worlds earliest philosophy. Asante writes:
[M]y purpose is not to prove any point except to introduce the reader to the
wonderful joys of knowing ancient Egyptian philosophers so that their names
will become as familiar as the names of Socrates, Plato, Confucius, Aristotle,
and Mencius. (2000, preface)
The Egyptian Philosophers begins with a chronology of ancient philosophers from
around the worldstretching from Imhotep (2700 BCE) to Tzu (298). The author
goes on to elucidate the notion of the African minda framework which was at one
time not only unique to Africa but widespread across the cultural multiplex of the
continent (2000, p. 2). The philosophies of the African mind, which underlie human
interaction with reality, are described by Asante as: the practicality of holism, the
prevalence of poly-consciousness, the idea of inclusiveness, the unity of worlds, and
the value of personal relationships. It is not trite for the African to say everything is
everything (2000, 2). This includes the important notion of an origin: a beginning
for and to all things, to which everyone is linked. The beginning is characterized
as the First Occasion, during which (among other things) God emerged. The First
Occasion is also to be understood as a guiding archetype for behavior in which good
triumphs over evil. These ideas guided, and still guide, many of the ethical, episte-
mological, metaphysical and political theories and practices of some African
peoples (2000, pp. 36).
Through fourteen detailed chapters, Asante outlines the beginning of philosophy.
The early scientific endeavors of North African Peoples represent the birth of science
as it is understood today, incorporating ideas of water and land management, human
impact assessment, and social practice as related to the environment (within the
Ontario philosophy course these are often credited to early Greek philosophers).
Egyptian cosmology was similarly advanced, with philosophers as early as 1000 B.C.
postulating four constituent elements in the universe: earth, mist, fire and water (a
similar approach to that often attributed to the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius).
From their investigations into the sky above and the earth below, African thinkers
were able to recognize various natural systems and cycles, understanding the spiritual
and practical significances thereof as intrinsically related (processes attributed
to Greek philosophers such as Thales). Almost 2000 years before Nietzsche and
Kierkegaard, Egyptian philosophers were contemplating the meanings of life and
existence. They also theorized the embryonic development process, speaking in
poetry about the transformation of one into two and two into four (2000, p. 19).
Asante also traces the birth of reason, through Imhotep, the worlds first multi-
dimensional personality [whose] achievements stand at the very dawn of reason and
science in the service of human society (2000, p. 21). Imhotep, in addition to
being an expert builder, pioneered medical science and worked (as would Socrates
101
almost a thousand years later) to integrate the inner and outer human realmsthe
mind and the world around us. All of these examples provide important opportunities
for teachable moments wherein teachers can use these comparisons as entry points
into multicentric discussions of ancient philosophy (the starting point for many
instructors in the province).
The Egyptian Philosophers describes important scholarship by such thinkers as
Ptahhotep, around class and class politics, applicable to questions of social and
political philosophy in both the classical studies and philosophy courses. Another
important idea is that of the tri-part societal structure, comprised by three categories
of citizens: a) the spectators, or those charged with directing the state; b) the athletes,
or soldiers and c) the peddlers, or laborers and artisans articulated in the work of
Ptahhotep. This idea re-appears centuries later as the basis for one of Platos most
important ideas, the tri-part state/tri-part soul in which three groups of people were
also identified: a) the philosopher kings, b) the soldiers and c) the artisans or general
population. (Guthrie, 1960, pp. 8285). Asante discusses a number of other ethical
propositions which were not only valued and practiced, but also debated and revised
in Ancient Egypt which are highly relevant to ethics portions of the philosophy
curriculum.
Asante outlines numerous theories of rhetoric, epistemology, ethics, class politics,
and gender debates that still represent crucial locations for philosophical study.
Particularly interesting here is the great degree to which these areas are related. In
the Ancient Egyptian context, we cannot speak of science, epistemology or ethics,
without looking at spirituality and reason, simultaneously. These knowledges, as
well as the ways in which they were practiced and understood, have a lot to offer
anti-colonial education in which addressing the intersectionality of histories, sites
of oppression and experiences is paramount. Indeed the fusion of spiritual and
religious belief with the social sciences and the humanities is common in western
contexts, as demonstrated by the Christian underwriting of much of the western
philosophical and legal canons.
3
Finally, the utility of this work is not purely political.
Teaching contestations, challenging dominant histories and indeed addressing what
most teachers understand as the need to work across discrete strands of the curri-
culum (i.e. ethics and epistemology are difficult to fully separate) will support a
stronger pedagogy and a more engaged student response.
MAULANA KARENGAS MAAT: THE MORAL IDEAL
Maulana Karengas Maat: The Moral Ideal in Ancient EgyptA Study in Classical
African Ethics (2004), provides a detailed explication of the complex ethical theories
and applications of Maat, the Ancient Egyptian moral code. Like Asantes work
discussed above, Maat: the Moral Ideal is not written in direct reaction or reference to
European knowledges, intellectual appropriation, or history. Professor Karenga is
an ethicist and a Seba Maat (moral teacher of the recovered tradition of Maatian
ethics). He offers Maat: the Moral Ideal in order to enrich existing dialogues around
classical African cultures and knowledges. Karenga views the Maatian philosophy
as instructive in the academic realm, where ethics is an increasingly prominent
field, a trend reflected in an increased emphasis on ethics at the secondary level.
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Although working with the findings produced by Egyptologists, Karenga challenges
Egyptology itself as a discipline for having participated in what some have called
the decapitation of Africa, whereby Egypt has been epistemologically situated as
Euro-Asian rather than African. He also criticizes the focus within Egyptology on
the archaeological aspects of Egypt and the degree to which this focus reads the
ethical, religious and political systems of the region as pre-historical myth rather
than legitimate historical phenomena. He writes, In such a framework, ancient
Egyptian culture is seen as principally a focus of archaeological study rather than a
suitable subject for modern religious and ethical discourse (Karenga, 2004, p. 13).
In the Ontario context, the formal exclusion of Egypt as a whole from the classical
studies panel as well as the exclusion of Egyptian philosophy specifically from the
philosophy curriculum extends this pattern of discourse regulation, through manifest
omission of non-European ideas (despite evidence from Bernal and others that
Europe learned a great deal from Africa).
The powerful survey of Maatian ethics provided by Karenga is philosophically
and historically instructive. The book incorporates cultural theory, literature, philo-
logy and politics among other things. The work is definitive and as accessible as
any other primary source text used for senior secondary level ethics instruction.
Karenga begins by describing the Maatian ideal. Drawing from Declarations of
Innocence in the New Kingdom text, the Book of Coming Forth by Day, and other
key ethical texts, Karenga provides a conceptual framework for understanding
Maat as a moral ontological system (ibid 2004, p. 3). Etymologically Maat is traced to
notions of straightness and evenness. Drawing from a substantial literature on Maat,
Karenga reveals its meaning as one signifying a guiding force, a cosmic order, truth,
ideal wisdom, a metaphysical ideal and an epistemological ideal. As a wide-ranging
concept, it expresses itself in four domains: 1) the universalthe totality of ordered
existence; 2) the political domainregulating justice and injustice; 3) the social
domainrelationships and duty in the context of community; and, 4) the personal
domain in which following the rules and principles of Maat is to realize con-
cretely the universal order in oneself (ibid 2004, p. 7). Chapters Two and Three
of Maat, The Moral Ideal in Ancient Egypt, trace the important historical role of
the Maatian ideal within the Old Kingdom (26502152 BCE) and New Kingdom
(15391069 BCE) of Egypt, and within the subsequent Late Period (664380 BCE).
While Maat was a guiding force during some of the most important cultural develop-
ment in world history over a period spanning two millennia, it gets no mention
within a survey of ancient philosophy and civilizations in the Ontario curriculum.
Chapter Four focuses on Maats theological elements, and provides, among other
things, a list of translated maxims, which outline the Declarations of Innocence, of
Maats followers (ibid 2004, pp. 143145). Karenga demonstrates the importance of
the notion of judgment in Maat, with its two corollaries, justification and immortality
(ibid 2004, p. 170). Chapter Five analyses the metaphysical implications of Maat,
by focusing on Maatian ontology. Karenga discusses the power of being as a central
Maatian idea. The discussion naturally relates to the cosmological investigations of
the timemany of which would later be attributed to Greek philosophers such as
Thales as mentioned above. Chapter Six, in perhaps the most fascinating section of
103
the book, analyses the anthropological practices and theories of Maat. In it, Karenga
highlights the relationship between free will and African cultural practices and
knowledges (ibid 2004, p. 247). These provide relevant parallels (and precursor by
hundreds of years) to the works of Kant, Bentham, Rousseau, Locke and others
studied in the Ontario curriculum. Karenga also discusses the vital epistemological
consequences of Maatian proverbs and archetypes, such as The Wise Person and
the Fool (ibid 2004, p. 237). Chapters Seven, Eight and Nine illuminate the notion
of worthiness as a way of life (Chapter Seven), as a way of relating to those
around you (Chapter Eight), and as a way of interacting and living well in time and
nature (Chapter Nine). This last chapter addresses the notions of shared heritage,
recovery and restoration (ibid 2004, pp. 393397).
Karengas literary curation (chapter selection, sequence and design) provides an
applied biography of the notion of Maat which is accessible, clear, and presented in a
way that allows for easy application to various school curricula. Although Karenga
surely intends a holistic reading of the concept, time and curricular freedom may
prohibit a complete reading of the work, in place of which subject-specific selections
may be more realistic in primary and secondary schooling contexts. A selective reading
is all that teachers are likely to afford any philosophical text or approach. Accepting
that total Maatian ethical training is well beyond the scope of a high school teachers
work (and education), like Asantes work described above, there are some easily
identified curricular entry points in Maat: The Moral Ideal in Ancient Egypt.
With regard to political philosophy and the philosophy of governance, Karenga
outlines the role of the indifferent civil servant who advises the chief ruler, following
the principles of social justice as envisioned through Maat (ibid 2004, pp. 3435).
The focus on social responsibility is reminiscent of Kantian ethics and the idea of
humans as ends-in-themselves. Indeed this notion would powerfully inform studies
of Roman governance as outlined in the classical civilizations course. The book
of Khunanpu, described by Karenga, offers the Story of the Eloquent Peasant as a
moral narrative with regard to the distribution of wealth. The story features a peasant
publicly confronting a wealthy businessman and winning his challenge. Karenga
points out that such stories are meant as public correctives against exploitation
of common people (ibid 2004, pp. 7071). Narratives as moral teachings would be
found in the Christian bible centuries later. Further, the political implications of
such stories work powerfully alongside the study of Marx, and political economy
in general. Karenga offers an analysis of gender inequality in ancient Egypt and
identifies many of the misconceptions sustained by Egyptologists about the sub-
jugation of women in ancient Egypt (ibid 2004, pp. 356358). While by no means
an equitable society, when placed in comparative and chronological context, ancient
Egypt brings a great deal to the discussion of gender in the ancient world, specifically
with regard to labor, property rights and marriage. In a final example, the Maatian
conception of the human being as capable of understanding and practicing social
harmony in her everyday life works powerfully with Platonic and Aristotelian
conceptions of the human virtue and Telos or purpose (ibid 2004, pp. 215216).
Karenga provides a fecund source for relevant knowledge in support of multicentric
(and subject appropriate) teaching and learning.
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These are important historically and currently for the study and practice of Maata
complex philosophical system that has been largely ignored and suppressed in
western philosophical discourse. Karenga has written and documented an important
philosophical text that we should by no means confuse with Egyptology. In the finest
African tradition, this is contemplative and practical philosophy, which must be
understood as such. Karengas work is intentionally African-centered and aims to
challenge not only dominant historical wisdom (such as the myth of Greek invention
of formal ethics) but also dominant Judeo-Christian historiography. Karenga thus
brings an anti-colonial approach to an anti-colonial analysis of knowledge and know-
ledge production.
The preceding sections have outlined a handful of historical moments, concepts
and approaches which are of significant potential use to the creation of a multi-
centric approach to teaching both history and philosophy. The following section
introduces and provides two sample assignments which attempt to formalize the
curricular multicentrism described.
ENGAGING ANCIENT KNOWLEDGES: ASSIGNING THE WORK
Below are two assignments that correspond (respectively) to the Philosophy:
Questions and Theories, Grade 12 courses, and to the Classical Civilizations,
Grade 12 courses. The official Ontario Ministry of Education expectations to which
each corresponds are identified at the bottom of each assignment. The aim of including
these is to recognize the need for accessible strategies for multicentric pedagogy
which work within existing frameworks and which thus do not require inordinate
amounts of extra timesomething teachers do not have. The aim of these assignments
is to facilitate an engagement with some of the African knowledges described above.
This is an entry point for a decolonizing synthesis, wherein educators can bring
marginalized knowledges into the colonial classroom. The notion of synthesis is
precarious however, and must be undertaken respectfully. Non-dominant knowledge,
as Sardar (1999) writes needs to be acknowledged and appreciated on its own
terms (1999, p. 53). With this in mind, I have attempted to demonstrate the ways
in which a handful of African knowledges can be introduced under and within
existing Ontario Ministry of Education guidelines in a fashion that respects the
importance and agency of the histories and peoples involved. These assignments can
serve as examples for educators and as actual assignments available for immediate
use. Each would of course be preceded by the necessary scaffolding to prepare
students for the work assigned, as well as with clear explanations of evaluation criteria
and strategy. This would include introduction and discussion of key concepts,
questions and applications of the topics under study.
Sample Assignment #1
Classical Civilizations (LVV4U)
Egyptian Architecture and the Palace at Knossos
105
Description
In this activity, students are required to explore the structure of the Palace at
Knossus as well as the artifacts found nearby, and compare them to contem-
porary architecture and art in Egypt from the same period. Students may wish
to use Martin Bernals Black Athena, Volumes One and Two, as well as other
resources.
Research should be summarized in a 600700 word essay, accompanied by
a visual component. The essay should address the following: the specific
architectural and artistic trends found in Egypt around 20001500 BCE; the
degree to which the Palace at Knossus is modeled on these structures; and
finally, any possible conclusions to be drawn from this important cultural inter-
section. The essay should also discuss why Crete is considered European
rather than African or Asian, given its near equidistance to each.
The visual component should consist of either 45 color sketches, or 1 three-
dimensional model, through which the student is able to convey the similarities
between Egyptian architecture and art, and Cretan architecture and art.
Corresponding Ontario Ministry of Education Expectations
4

identify a variety of styles and features in art and architecture;
apply knowledge gained through the study of archaeological findings;
identify correctly different architectural features and explain their functions;
define architectural terms;
demonstrate knowledge of some of the ways in which classical architect-
ture influenced later building styles and engineering developments;
describe various pottery styles;
apply knowledge of history and geography to the materials studied in class;
demonstrate an understanding of classical history and geography;
demonstrate an awareness of cultures that were contemporary with those
of ancient Greece and Rome;
explain the impact of historical developments on culture; and
show the relationship between the societies of ancient Greece and Rome and
the societies of other ancient civilizations (e.g., Egyptian, Hebrew, Chinese,
Mayan, and Indian societies) in a variety of projects.
Sample Assignment #2
Philosophy 12 (HZT4U)
Adding up your Ethical Inheritance
Description
In this activity, students are required to investigate the ethics of one of their
parents or guardians. Although our peer group is often our greatest environ-
mental influence, our parents and guardians teach us a great deal and often
KEMPF
106
shape our ethics. This assignment seeks to discover and evaluate students
ethical heritage. In many families, parents are not primary caregivers. If a
grandparent, aunt, uncle, or other family or community member better fits the
role, the student may choose to interview him or her instead of a parent or
guardian.
In Part One, the student will research the following ethical systems: the
Egyptian Maat, the Yoruba ethical tradition, English Utilitarianism, and Kants
central ethical propositions. This research should be summarized in a 500600
word essay, which briefly explains the key maxims of each system.
In Part Two, the student will interview his or her parent/guardian about the
parents/guardians ethics. Students will create 1520 questions designed to
establish the ethical principles in which the parent/guardian believes and
which guide his/her actions. After the interview, the student will evaluate the
parents/guardians ethics in order to determine which system (from the four
reviewed in Part One) best matches the parents/guardians ethics. The
student should then state, in her or his opinion, whether or not the parent
achieves the ethical standards (or is missing anything) from the selected ethical
system. What might the parent/guardian learn from the other three ethical
systems? Students can present their findings and thoughts in a 500600 word
essay detailing their evaluation and conclusions regarding the ethical
positions of the parent or guardian.
Corresponding Ontario Ministry of Education Expectations
5

demonstrate an understanding of the main questions, concepts, and theories
of ethics;
evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of responses to ethical questions
and moral problems defended by some major philosophers and schools of
philosophy;
illustrate the relevance of philosophical theories of ethics to concrete moral
problems in everyday life;
identify the main questions of ethics (e.g., What are good and evil? What
is the good life? What is virtue? Why be moral? What obligations do
people have to one another?);
evaluate the responses given by some of the major philosophers and major
schools of ethics to some of the main ethical questions;
use critical and logical thinking skills to defend their own ideas about ethical
issues (e.g., the nature of the good life) and to anticipate counter-arguments
to their ideas;
demonstrate how the moral problems and dilemmas that occur in everyday
contexts (e.g., in medicine, business, law, the media) can be effectively
analyzed using a variety of different philosophical theories (e.g., virtue
ethics, social-contract theory);
describe how problems in ethics and the theories that address them may be
illustrated in novels and drama, and in religious stories and parables;
107
describe instances in which philosophical problems of knowledge occur in
everyday contexts;
demonstrate an understanding of some of the main questions in metaphysics
(e.g., What are the ultimate constituents of reality? Does God exist? What
is Being? What is the relation of mind to matter? What is the self ? What is
personal identity? Are human actions free? What is the meaning of life?);
and
formulate their own clear and cogent responses to some of the fundamental
questions of metaphysics (e.g., What is the meaning of life?).
6

CONCLUSION
The importance of cultural knowledges in and out of the classroom cannot be over-
estimated in colonial contexts. The introduction of such marginalized knowledges
to students is an act that embraces both accuracy (as so much has been misappro-
priated and omitted) and holism (as students can begin to locate themselves and
their histories in their education). The teachings offered by the literature reviewed
above offer the reader, the student and the teacher a chance to connect and/or re-
connect to those who have come before us. To truly knock the legs out from under
that which has come to constitute dominant history we must decenter our under-
standing of history itself (Hanlon, 2003: 29). This means looking to new/old locations
for knowledge as well as validating sources often ignored by teachers, curriculum
writers and other officials on the subject. David Hanlon writes:
History, it seems to me, can be sung, danced, chanted, spoken, carved, woven,
painted, sculpted and rapped as well as written primacy must be given to
local epistemologies and the ways in which knowing and being in various
locales differ from the pragmatic, logical and rational assumptions that
western science makes about the world. (2003, p. 30)
This paper is only a beginning. Related areas which warrant further study, but which
fall outside of the scope of this paper include but are not limited to: work being
done (and not being done) at the provincial level to change, enhance and improve
related curricula; related work being done (and not being done) in pre-service teacher
training across Canada; the role of oral histories in Ontario classrooms; educational
self determination of cultural groups; the re-conception of history as an element
within a continuumneither locked in the past nor unconnected to the present and
the future; relevant curriculum integration projects in progress in Canada and else-
where; and finally, the responsibility of teachers to go beyond the curriculum to
find and use some of the wonderful resources which do exist.
NOTES
1
Each of these courses are University Preparation level courses (the most academic of such deter-
minations) and neither are compulsory for grade 12 students. The philosophy has a prerequisite
grade 11 course, which follows the same Eurocentrism as the grade 12. The classical civilization

KEMPF
108

course has no specific prerequisite, but requires students to have taken a senior English or senior
social science course.
2
This has implications for understandings of contemporary Africa and the Diaspora. A recent New York
Times editorial by Henry Louis Gates Jr., argues against reparations on the partial basis that a clarifica-
tion of African history is needed before a clear idea of culpability can emerge (Gates 2010).
3
Ren Descartes famous cogito ergo sum argument was, for example, part of a larger work in which
he sought to establish unequivocally the existence of a/the Christian god.
4
From: Public District School Board Writing Partnership. (2002). Course Profile, Classical Civilization,
Grade 12, University Preparation, LVV4U (pp. 2425). Toronto: Queenss Printer for Ontario.
5
From: Public District School Board Writing Partnership. (2002) Course Profile, Philosophy: Questions
and Theories, Grade 12, University Preparation, HZT4U (pp. 1618). Toronto: Queens Printer for
Ontario.
6
Public District School Board Writing Partnership. 2002 Course Profile, Philosophy: Questions and
Theories, Grade 12, University Preparation, HZT4U. Queens Printer for Ontario. (1618.)
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DONNA OUTERBRIDGE
9. WHAT MIGHT WE LEARN IF WE SILENCE
THE COLONIAL VOICE?
Finding Our Own Keys
INTRODUCTION
In this chapter, I discuss the importance of being responsible and accountable for
the work we produce. I engage with the ways in which colonialism works through
the educational system. I identify the importance of thinking through an anti-colonial
discursive framework in order to understand the denial and erasure of black identity,
by critically interpreting the colonial relations that have been, and continue to be,
oppressive to specific groups of people. In addition, this chapter utilizes Indigenous
knowledges which ground the discussion by way of holistic forms of living and
learning that is non-linear and offer strategies for cultural resistance. Moreover,
I recall Smiths (1999) point of not signing off once the research is completed. To
do so, would be committing the same atrocity as our Western counterparts, instead
I am suggesting we must adapt the principle of reciprocity and feedback.
As a body subjected to Eurocentric ways of knowing, I have reached a stage in
my life where I have begun to purge myself from colonial particles, colonial ways of
knowing, doing and conceptualizing. I am, according to Western texts, a discovery
story; my Bermudian history was built on erasure of culture, language and identity,
a people with no history prior to colonization. This journey has been quite difficult.
Bermudas colonial educational system, I posit, has de-culturalized Bermudian people
by usurping our history and replacing it with a colonial history, leaving us culturally,
emotionally and spiritually ruined. Similarly to Kaylynn Sullivans Two Trees,
I locate myself at the crossroads of understanding, that:
[by] birth, education and experience, my identity is shaped by a life spent at the
crossroadsthe place where cultures, ideas and beliefs collide and find both
dissonance and resonance. I am most comfortable with those explorers and
cartographers whose passion and life is the crossroads. There, at any given
moment, what is alternative and what is standard, shifts places depending on
where I stand.
We are all on a journey of some kind; my journey is about making sense of my
identity and to be mindful of my contribution to research. Enrolling in the course
Cultural Knowledges, Representation and Colonial Education: Pedagogical Implica-
tions was very instrumental to my personal and academic development. Prof posed
two very thought-provoking questions at the beginning of the class: What are we
OUTERBRIDGE
112
seeking and why? While we were meditating on these questions for a moment she
presented another equally important question: Why do we need to pay attention to
cultures of the world? These questions were not unreasonable but rather helpful as
I began to consider my own research topic, The Social Construction of Young Black
Bermudian Males Identity. The insight that I have gleaned from this course far
surpassed my expectations; it opened up the proverbial door for me to begin a soul
searching identity journey. With each new subtitle another door was opened, a new
key was found. I began to envision a different kind of research, one that encompasses
a holistic approach.
My analysis will focus on the synthesis of course readings and how they have
been influential in guiding me through the process of becoming more aware of my
own positionality. It is from this location that I have chosen to re-visit three themes
that spoke to my personal and academic development within the classroom: Cultural
Representation and Resistance: Epistemological Issues; The Color of Theory, Know-
ledge and Colonial Education; and Decolonialization: Whose Project should it be?
Towards a Liberating Pedagogy.
CULTURAL REPRESENTATION AND RESISTANCE:
EPISTEMOLOGICAL ISSUES
In preparation for my research, Smith (1999) has made me acutely aware that the
term research is considered problematic, unquestionably linked with European
imperialism and colonialism. Smith (1999) notes that scientific research has been
implicated as imposition of power that offends the deepest sense of humanity for
many of the worlds peoples who have been colonized. Like Smith (1999), I shared
the same contempt for Western researchers and intellectuals continuous assump-
tions about knowing everything based on a brief encounter with some of us (p. 1).
According to Smith (1999) (and I concur), Westerners have made every Indigenous
face a statement of social imperfection, inferiority, and have blatantly misrepresented
the Indigenous culture.
I support Smiths (1999) concept of researching back. It is synonymous with
Dr. Asantes 2007 speech The Process of Freedom where he emphasized the
importance of reclaiming our own history. Smith (1999) alludes to the process, stating
that it is a knowingness of the colonizer and a recovery of ourselves, an analysis
of colonialism, and a struggle for self-determination (p. 7). The fact that Smiths
(1999) article was written eight years ago, and that we are still having the same
conversation shows we have much work to do. In my own work, I will research
back by looking at Bermudas course curriculum and how it constructs young Black
Bermudian males identity. I will look for alternative ways of knowing that will
facilitate the process of re-shaping and re-claiming the identity of these young Black
males. My goal is to interrogate how education has played a major part in their social
construction and how this has possibly been the underpinning problem with respect
to their socioeconomic attainment and subsequent status.
Accountability in researching back is equally important. Smith (1999) raised a
key point about researchers when she stated, that we need to do more than meet the
academic requirements; we must adhere to cultural protocols, values and behaviors.
WE LEARN IF WE SILENCE THE COLONIAL VOICE
113
As suggested by Smith (1999), we must report back and share the knowledge we
acquired with people who have contributed to our research. Most importantly,
research should produce solutions, foster empowerment and ultimately improve the
quality of life. Therefore, in our research, not only should we question imperialism
and look at the effects of colonialization, but we should also interrogate our history
so we can understand the truth. Smith (1999) sums it up when she stated that [to]
acquiesce is to lose ourselves entirely and implicitly agree with all that has been
said about us (p. 4).
While I found Smiths article insightful, I believe that she could have elaborated
on her vision of decolonizing methodologies. She pointed out that Indigenous
researchers cannot rely on colonial language and thoughts to define their reality and
that decolonization does not mean a total rejection of all theory, research and Western
knowledge, but she stopped short of telling us how we should proceed. The question
remains: is decolonization possible? How do we proceed?
Decolonization is possible and the process I was able to surmise was a combina-
tion of hope that I glean from both Smiths (1999) article and a recent Ghanas
Golden Jubilee celebration that I attended. Guest speaker Molefi Kete Asante pro-
posed that we should know and understand theory and research from our own
perspectives and for our own purpose; that the first step toward decolonization begins
with self, we must decolonize our minds. We need vision based on fundamental
belief of African people. Our language must change. We must interrogate our own
history for morals and values. In addition, when Indigenous people become the
researcher and not solely the researched, the activity of research is transformed.
As I digest Asantes assertion, I am reminded of Peter Hanohanos (1999)
struggles with the plethora of literature about Native education being inferior and
focusing on what was wrong with Native people, despite Native people [being]
known to have a strong sense of identity with a profound connection to their land,
language and culture (p. 1). Hanohanos (1999) concerns spoke directly to my dis-
quietness of how I struggle with the representation of racialized peoples and my
colonial education. In the midst of his questioning, Hanohano (1999) reached an
conclusion that his purpose [was] not to replace the present educational system,
but to introduce another perspective on how we may better relate to each other as
human beings, to our Mother Earth, and to other creatures of this planet (p. 2).
In addition, Hanohano (1999) spoke of his experience of feeling alone and
set adrift from the cultural moorings of his culture and community which also
spoke to my own unsettledness. I was able to identify with his state of loneliness
in the academe. I knew all too well how the academy has the propensity to silently
reduce ones passion while relegating them to a place of insignificance and devoid
of intellect, a space I both despised yet welcomed. It was in my moment of unrest
that I began to better understand what young Black Bermudian males may be experi-
encing when being constructed as failures. This feeling of failure academically and
personally can have an adverse affect on an individuals morale thereby creating a
crisis in education.
Makris (2001) builds on Hanohano (1999) and Purpels (1989) claims about
education by taking it a step further to include the intellectuals who are in the position
OUTERBRIDGE
114
to effect change within the educational system. She emphasizes that the commonly
accepted belief of postcolonial studies is that the British educational system is seen
as a double edged sword. It provides a level of respect and admiration for British
values and culture that were essential for the smooth maintenance of a vast overseas
empire while simultaneously providing Britains colonies with small group of
native intellectuals with the knowledge and confidence to challenge British colonial
policies that will eventual assist in the de-colonization of their countries. (p. 1).
Being reflexive on my research project, I recognize my taken for granted views of
my colonial history. The literature chosen for my class course and the conversations
within and outside the classroom have confirmed the importance of knowing my
history and to recognize the temporality of my displacement and the subsequent
displacement of the young Black Bermudian males.
I am further reminded of my homeland Bermuda, and the fact that we are still
colonized. Bermuda is Britains oldest self-governing colony, having been established
since 1612. As Bermudians, I posit that some of us have not questioned our limited
control for fear of the unknown. Some of us take comfort in knowing that we are
still connected to Britain; it provides a safety net, a source of superficial protection,
thereby exhibiting the same level of respect and admiration for British values and
culture that Makris (2001) mentioned. Some of us (Bermudians) embrace the
colonial educational system unquestionably causing me to wonder why we still
engage in this pseudo-romance with Britain. Has fear diminished our ability to be
independent thinkers devoid of Britains influence?
Makris (2001) extends her double-edged analogy of the colonial educational
system by demonstrating how it introduced students to the rich heritage of English
literature and simultaneously relegated them to the margin of that heritage ,
resulting in their feelings of truly belonging nowhere (p. 1). This lack of sense of
belonging, I believe, is part of the problem affecting young Black Bermudian males,
particularly when there is no positive representation of them in the textbooks used.
I asked my son what he recalled learning about his Bermudian identity when he
was in primary school. He paused and stated that he remembered being taught that
Bermuda was discovered in 1503 by a Spanish captain Juan de Bermudez who first
sighted the uninhabited island that was eventually named after him. Beyond this
sparse information, he did not recall being giving details about the colonists
culture or their place of origin prior to being brought to Bermuda. His limited
recollections intensify my curiosity to search the internet to see how Bermuda is
being represented. The Bermuda4u website states that in 1609:
a fleet of 9 ships owned by the Virginia Company of London sailed from
Plymouth, England with fresh supplies and additional colonists for the new
British settlement at Jamestown, Virginia. The fleet [was] commanded by
Admiral Sir George Somers onboard the flagship, the Sea Venture. During a
vicious storm the Sea Venture strays from the fleet and flounders on Bermudas
reefs. Somers manages to land all 150 crew and colonists onshore without the
loss of a single life. Somers and his crew manage to construct not one but
two new ships; the Deliverance and Patience. The 2 ships set sail for Virginia
leaving behind a couple of men to stake a claim to the island. On arrival in
115
Jamestown they find the colony decimated by starvation, illness and attacks
by Indians. The supplies they bring from Bermuda save the colonists. Somers
returns to Bermuda on the Patience to collect new supplies. Unfortunately, he
falls ill and dies on his second visit to the island. The Virginia Company sends
a party of 60 settlers to Bermuda under the command of Governor Thomas
Moore and lays claim to the island (http://www.bermuda4u.com/Essential/
bermuda_history.html)
I venture to say that the online information is not unlike the information found in
the history text books used in Bermudas school system. This mini-narrative on how
Bermuda was discovered calls attention to the missing narrative of the people who
were brought to Bermuda and points to the erasure of their/our culture; they were
nameless and ascribed the title colonists. In the past, I would not have questioned
the missing pieces or even found it peculiar that these colonists had no names or
history; however, the many conversations I had with Prof about my homeland and
my feeling of fragmentation have prompted me to know and ask more. For instance,
how was it that the crew was capable of building two ships and were able to supply
other colonists when there was no mention of previous inhabitants? How do current
Black Bermudians males see themselves in relation to their home and their white
Bermudian counterparts. I have come to understand the importance of looking to
my elders for the missing pieces and not relying solely on written text that either
distorts or conveniently omit pertinent information.
THE COLOR OF THEORY, KNOWLEDGE AND COLONIAL EDUCATION
Cherrie Moraga and Gloria Anzaldua in Theory in the Flesh: Towards an Endarkened
Epistemology, speak specifically to the issue of relying on theory only at a time when
women of color struggled to find a space in United States academe, particularly on
the intellectual landscape. They rebelled against the existing paradigms that imposed
an erasure of their lived experience in order for them to be accepted as intellectuals
both personally and publicly. Instead of conceding they fought back and trans-
gressed boundaries of genres, of methods, of content and of disciplines (see Hurtado,
2003, p. 215). I admire their tenacity for fighting for what they believed in and for
providing an alternative option to written theory: For example, Moraga and Anzaldua
stated that [t]heory should not come from written text only, but from the
collective experience of the oppressed, especially that of women of Color (Hurtado,
2003, p. 215). Furthermore, theory, is for the purpose of ultimately accom-
plishing social justice that will lead to liberation. Theory should emanate from what
we live, breathe, and experience in our everyday lives and it is only in breaking
boundaries, crossing borders, claiming fragmentation and hybridity that theory will
finally be useful for liberation (Hurtado, 2003, pp. 215216).
I can relate to Moraga and Anzalduas reasons for transgressing boundaries and
their unwillingness to be bound by existing paradigm that seek to erase their lived
experience and identity as invaluable to the academe. It reminded me of my first
week of graduate classes. I felt like an outsider, displaced by the color of my skin
in a room filled with my white dominant counterparts. I felt nervous, inept and a bit
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frazzled. I wondered if I could really do this, and survive graduate school. I recalled
one particular professors academic dialect overwhelming me, not because I did not
understand the meanings but because of the precedent being set for highfalutin
words, an indication that I had entered a different realm. My academic vernacular
needed fine-tuning to fit into such a setting. My lived experiences seemed displaced,
I had no long list of completed research, thesis or journal articles to speak of.
Gripped with fear of inadequacy, I panicked. What do I boast about? What were
my accomplishments other than making it to this point despite the odds; being a
black single female with a child. When I reflect on my personal account in relation
with the accounts of Purpel, Makris, Moraga and Anzaldua, I understand my experi-
ences and feelings are similar to them. There is still a calling to disrupt existing
paradigms that stands to discount our lived experiences and voices. In turn, I must
remain committed to the long-term process of liberation, to be actively involved in
the plan to conceptualize a future that will incorporate all peoples of the world.
We need to disseminate knowledge beyond the academe. Our focus as intellectuals
needs to shift, we need to de-academize theory and to connect the community to
the academy (Hurtado, 2003, p. 219). There is validity to finding theories that
include the collective experience of the oppressed, that will rewrite histories using
race, class, gender and ethnicity as categories of analysis, theories that cross borders
that blur boundaries new kind of theories with new theorizing methods .
(Hurtado, 2003, p. 219). When we are engaging in high theory, what are our
intentions? Who are our audiences? In order to reach the masses, we must give up
the notion that there is a correct way to write theory (Hurtado, 2003, p. 219). In other
words, the information should be attainable to a diverse group of people. Some of
us get caught up in trying to impress our peers and lose focus of the real matter at
hand: change and liberation. I take solace in knowing that our claims are beginning
to be whispered into major scholarly outlets (Hurtado, 2003, p. 216). However,
time has come to turn the volume up. Let our voices be heard, loud and clear.
In the song entitled Get Up Stand Up, Bob Marley encourages us to stand up for
what we think is right, to speak our voice in situations of both adversity and conflict.
His song makes the claim that Life is your right. We cant give up the fight. This
reinforces that we have the power to change our way of thinking, we are no longer
bound by physical shackles; we need to liberate our minds. In his most powerful song,
Bob Marley gives us the remedy: emancipate [ourselves] from mental slavery;
none but ourselves can free our minds. Bob Marley sung about equal rights, justice
and liberation. He was a revolutionary artist and an anti-colonial thinker.
Ngg wa Thiongo (1986) provided another means of claiming the self when he
shared his remedy for survival that came from stories told in Gikuyu mainly about
animals while sitting around the fireplace. Stories were told about the [h]are being
small, and weak but full of innovation wit and cunning, was [his] hero (p. 10). These
stories were filled with messages about struggles, victories and the ability of the
apparent weak to outwit the strong. Just as wa Thiongo (1986) learned to value words
of the storytellers for both their meanings and nuances, I learned to appreciate Bob
Marleys lyrics that carried strong messages of de-colonialization and liberation.
His words have suggestive power beyond the immediate and lexical meanings. In his
117
song War based on a speech Haile Selassie gave to the United Nations in 1963, he
spoke about the contention between the races and its ramification proclaiming that:
until the philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior, is finally
and permanently discredited and abandoned everywhere is war, me say war, that
until there is no longer first class and second class citizens of any nation, until the
color of a mans skin is of no more significant than the color of his eyes, me say
war, that until the basic human rights are equally guaranteed to all, without regards
to race, dis a war (Marley, 1976). Bob Marleys Rastafarian culture was a source
of freedom that allowed him to speak out for past generations and make known the
issues of injustice. His music was a product of his culture, beliefs, and experiences.
Marley reached out through his lyrics to help people realize the harsh reality of
prejudice in the world. Marley believed that when our differences are accepted and
overcome, we could all sing songs of freedom. He spoke of two freedoms; us as
individuals and us as a complete entirety.
DECOLONIALIZATION: WHOSE PROJECT SHOULD IT BE?
TOWARDS A LIBERATING PEDAGOGY
wa Thiongo (1986) addresses the same issue of war in Decolonizing the Mind
stating: The physical violence of the battlefield was followed by the psycho-
logical violence of the classroom. the former was visibly brutal, the latter visibly
gentle (p. 9). I would like to draw from wa Thiongos (1986) concept of violence
to suggest that the reason the latter may have been visibly gentle was because it
gave people the illusion of hope. Education was fashioned in a way to make us
believe that we were included; we were one of them, on equal footing. So we brought
into the conspiracy of the school fascinating the soul (p. 9). As I have demonstrated
in this section, language is powerful: it can be seen as a source of liberation in
Marleys lyrics or a means of the spiritual subjugation in wa Thiongos (1986)
account of his educational experience. Accordingly, language is not a mere string
of words, it was the most important vehicle through which that power fascinated
and held the soul prisoner (p. 9).
This psychological imprisonment has produced two different outcomes important
for my research: the continuous struggle of the Black man to find himself, his
voice, his place in a white-dominated world and his forced assimilation. Some of
white mens quests have been to discredit Black achievement, to rob Blacks of their
history by creating a pseudo representation of who they really are. Thus, Blacks
worth and contribution to the world has been negated and falsified. Evident of this
negation and falsification can be seen in the textbooks. According to wa Thiongo
(1986), [l]anguage and literature has taken us further from ourselves to other
selves, from our world to other worlds (p. 12).
This psychosocial and political battle has been ongoing despite the Black mans
resistance to forced assimilation into the dominant European world that still rejects
him no matter how refined he has become. He is still considered unequal to his
European oppressor. Time has come to question the fate imposed upon us by the
colonizer. The most important area of domination was the mental universe of the
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colonized, the control, through culture, of how people perceived themselves and
their relationship to the world (wa Thiongo, 1985, p. 16). By acknowledging our
history through course curriculum, we will begin to stake our rightful place in the
world and only then will the process of mental freedom and liberation begin.
I want to draw from Aim Csaires (1983) poem, Notebook of a Return to the
Native Land, which called for Black people to acknowledge their history and challenge
their future with Black pride. The poem stresses the necessity of questioning the
colonial reading on the body imposed by the colonizer and the fact that we have
every right to be here. This message is conveyed in the following stanza:
For it is not true that the work of man is done,
That we have no business being on earth
That we parasite the world
That it is enough for us to heel to the world
Whereas the work has only begun
And man still must overcome all the interdictions wedged in the recesses of his
fervor and no race has a monopoly on beauty, on intelligence, on strength (p. 7)
The political implications for Csaire (1983) were that colonialism had to be over-
thrown and replaced by a new culture, a culture that embraced anti-colonial traditions,
while encompassing the best that modernity has to offer. He engaged his poetry as
an instrument to shape and critique many of the major ideologies and movements
of the modern world, which seemed to fall short when it came to envisioning a
genuinely emancipatory future for Blacks. Frantz Fanon (1967), similarly to Csaire
(1983) declared that A man who has a language consequently possesses the world
expressed and implied by that language Mastery of language affords remarkable
power (p. 18).
In my research, I want to address the language in Bermudas textbooks and how
it depicts young Black males. According to Fanon (1967),
[e]very colonized people . every people in whose soul an inferiority complex
has been created by the death and burial of its local cultural originality
finds itself face to face with the language of the civilizing nation; that is, with
the culture of the mother country. The colonized is elevated above the jungle
status in proportion to his adoption of the mother countrys cultural standards.
He becomes whiter as he renounces his blackness, his jungle (p. 18).
wa Thiongos (1986) personal account coincides with Fanons (1967) when he
talked about his colonial education, and how it tried to force him to see the world
from the colonial perspective. He further stated that the objective of the colonizer
was to catch them young; so that the images of the world and their place in it would
be firmly cemented in the minds, thereby taking years to eradicate, if at all (p. 17).
Chandra Talpade Mohanty (1990) adds that the central issue for her is not one
of merely acknowledging differences; rather the more difficult question concerns
119
the kind of difference that is acknowledged and engaged. Mohanty (1990) empha-
sized that differences seen as benign variation (diversity), for instance rather than
as conflict, struggle, or the threat of disruptions, bypasse power as well as history
to suggest a harmonious, empty pluralism (p. 364). Mohantys (1990) comment was
made in the context of her feminist project concerned with revolutionary social
change. However, her insight is relevant to my impending research where I will
be looking at how young Black Bermudian males are being constructed and sub-
sequently represented. It is not enough to acknowledge their differences; but how
are their differences being addressed in the course curriculum? The point Mohanty
(1990) made about knowledge being the very act of knowing, [and how it] is related
to the power of self-definition (p. 366) is important. This act of knowing, I believe,
requires these young Black Bermudian males to know the historical conditions of
their identity, and to understand how they come to be represented in History and
English literature text books.
CONCLUSION
My journey to self has been necessary and at times painful. This journey has caused
me to disrupt my colonial ways of thinking, to ask questions such as: what are the
ways in which to think about the social construction of young Black Bermudian
males identity that will be empowering and not confrontational? What is my starting
point? What theoretical frameworks will provide vantage points? I have learned the
importance of re-writing from my own location as I understand and research the
self. I understand the complexity of interrogating Bermudas educational system
and the need to offer alternative texts that do not subjugate or discriminate against
other people but rather texts that de-colonialize their mind and create new ways to
merge lived experiences with formal education, thus evoking alternative ways of
doing education and fostering social growth. To reiterate my opening, remark taking
the course Cultural Knowledges, Representation and Colonial Education: Pedago-
gical Implications was instrumental in connecting questions about my identity
to the larger questions about how young Black Bermudian males identities are
constructed. The class discussions and readings propelled me to ask more related
questions, such as: Why is identity important in peoples lives? How much input do
we have over shaping our own identities? Are we more certain about our identities
now than in the past? Do gender, class and ethnicity offer some stability and security
about who we are, or are there other structures that constrain our freedom to choose
our own identities? Is it possible to forge new identities in these changing times?
With the help of Indigenous knowledges, anti-colonial and de-colonizing discursive
frameworks, I believe such a venture is possible, it has allowed me the opportunity
to continue to decolonize the self through dialogue, to no longer give homage to
colonial education that has been the impetus behind my fragmented self.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
In closing, I give homage to anti-colonial thinkers before us, who lived and died for
what they believe in, who envisioned a different way of knowing and living; people
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120
like Bob Marley for Redemption Song, Martin Luther King Jr., for his powerful
speech I Have a Dream, Malcolm X, for advocating Black pride, economic self-
reliance and identity politics, Aim Csaire, for Notebook of a Return to the Native
Land and last but not least, anti-colonial thinker Professor Wane.
REFERENCES
Csaire, A. (1993). Notebook of a return to the native land. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.
Dei, G. J. S., & Kempf, A. (Eds.). (2006). Anti-colonialism and education: The politics of resistance.
Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.
Fanon, F. (1967). Black skin, white mask. New York: Grove Press, Inc.
Hanohano, P. (1999). The spiritual imperative of native epistemology: Restoring harmony and balance
in education. Canadian Journal of Native Education, 23(2), 206219.
Hurtado, A. (2003). Theory in the flesh: Toward an endarkened epistemology. International Journal of
Qualitative Studies in Education, 16(2), 215225.
Marley, B. (1986). Rebel. Music Album.
Marley, B. (1984). Legend: The best of Bob Marley and the Wailers. Music Album.
Makris, P. (2001). Beyond the classics: Legacies of colonialism in C. L. R. James and Derek Walcott.
Revista/Review Interamericana, XXXI(14), 117.
Mohanty, C. T. (1990). On race and voice: Challenges for liberal education in the 1990s. Cultural
Critique: The Construction of Gender and Modes of Social Division II, 14, 179208.
Purpel, D. E. (1989). Moral and spiritual crisis in education: A curriculum for justice and compassion
in education. New York: Bergin and Garvey Publishers.
Scott, N. (2006, November 20). Commissioning named advisor on black males to the Premier. The Royal
Gazette.
Smith, L. (1999). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and Indigenous peoples. New York: Zed Books.
Trott, T. (2007, March 14). Whites need to be made uncomfortable. The Royal Gazette.
wa Thiongo, N. (1986). Decolonizing the mind. Kenya: East African Educational Publishers.

IMARA AJANI ROLSTON
10. A CONVERSATION ABOUT CONVERSATIONS
Dialogue Based Methodology and HIV/AIDS in Southern Africa
INTRODUCTION
This is a conversation about conversation. Conversation, voice, dialogue have arguably
been at the center of all great social change and transformation. Present at the roots
of resistance, social movements, political struggle, and grassroots mobilization are
ideas born of conversation and dialogue. This conversation is about the power of
conversation. There are countless articles, books, and journals that discuss numerous
models and offer various explanations for the prevalence of HIV/AIDS in Sub-
Saharan Africa. From each explanation, each model spring forth intervention projects
and programs. Ultimately, the means to fight AIDS is grounded in the way the
experience of AIDS is conceptualized. While approaches have differed in structure
and process, many intervention schemes remain anchored to their theoretical
beginnings, and even more importantly, geographical origins. As Catherine Campbell
puts forth:
Too often, the language of HIV-prevention has become the language of
western science and western policy approaches, not mediated by an appreciation
of the extent to which these are inappropriate for local conditions.
1

Ruled by bio-medicine, cognitive psychology, and championed by international
development agencies and donors, the discourse surrounding HIV/AIDS was
originally dominated by those outside of the direct experience of the Sub-Saharan
pandemic. The dominance of the western discourse was not happenstance, and was in
fact, amongst other things, a byproduct of the historical imbalance between know-
ledge systems. This historical imbalance ultimately shaped who was deemed an expert
and who was not. Who was qualified to suggest and in many cases prescribe change
modalities and methodologies and those who would receive the suggested and,
often times prescribed, change. The perceived validity of a knowledge system shaped
whose voice would be heard and whose voice would not. The result has been HIV/
AIDs interventions paradigms that reflect this imbalance. Limiting HIV/AIDS inter-
vention approaches is the result of the dominated discourse. Communities and the
people that are most infected and affected by HIV/AIDS stand as mere recipients
of projects shaped by the above mentioned contextprojects and programs that have
for the most part proven unsuccessful.
2
Spoken at and rarely heard, the voice of
people infected and affected by HIV/AIDS is barely audible within the discourse.
ROLSTON
122
Community knowledge remains subservient to the knowledge of international institu-
tions and the knowledge systems they emerge from.
This conversation is about a mode of intervention, and more importantly a mode
of social change that moves beyond the limitations of traditional HIV/AIDS inter-
vention. I intend to focus in particular, on a component of United Nations Develop-
ment Programs (UNDP), Community Capacity Enhancement Program (CCEP).
At the center of CCEP is the Community Conversations methodology. The core
thought of this paper is that HIV/AIDS has never been just about sexual behavior,
choice, and interpersonal relationships. HIV/AIDS is about an intricately connected
structure of violence that historically contributed, and continues to contribute, to
HIV/AIDS prevalence in Sub-Saharan Africa. Any attempt to engage and militate
against the pandemic must be grounded in an approach that begins with detailed
and in depth knowledge of the lived reality of HIV/AIDS. This knowledge and detail
resides within communities. I would argue that community based-dialogue can in fact
provide the needed break with common practice and, in turn, challenge not only the
dominant discourse but provide an expansive and detailed understanding of the
pandemic. My conceptual exploration of the dialogical method intends to bear wit-
ness to its potential, from its ability to transform intra-community dynamics, resist
dominant knowledge paradigms, and finally create a platform for communities to
learn and strategize for their own empowerment. While the Community Conversa-
tions methodology began in Senegal and Zambia, through UNDP and other inter-
national organizations it is now present in numerous communities throughout the
continent. This paper will draw from various examples in Southern Africa with a
particular focus on Botswana and South Africa.
STRUCTURAL VIOLENCE AND INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIOR CHANGE
For the purposes of our discussion, beyond Southern African facts and figures,
structural violence is one of the most important considerations where context is
concerned. Structural violence is an extremely important framework of thought
when applied to HIV/AIDS. While structural violence was developed in the field
of peace and reconciliation, it speaks directly to an epidemic that has drastically
impacted peoples and communities dedicated to the margins by histories of oppression.
Turray (2000) writes:
Structural violence has been defined as social personal violence arising from
unjust, repressive and oppressive national and international political and social
structures. According to this view, a system that generates repression, abject
poverty, malnutrition, and starvation for some members of a society while other
members enjoy opulence and unbridled power, inflicts covert violence with
the ability to destroy life as much as overt violence, except that its does it in a
more subtle way.
In the context of HIV/AIDS in Southern Africa it is important to understand that
the lattice work of structural violence is an intricate framework. It suits our conver-
sation to imagine the structure as a pyramid with macro and micro levels of
A CONVERSATION ABOUT CONVERSATIONS
123
lattice work. At the macro level, policies and global imbalance create and reinforce
violence via poverty and powerlessness in the lives of people throughout the region.
The direct experience of violence via unbalanced and strained social dynamics is a
result of the micro lattice work. In many cases these social dynamics are born and
evolve within poverty. Within the framework of structural violence the bio-medical,
behavioral model of intervention dangerously ignores context and ascribes AIDS
prevalence rates to choice. The use of a condom, sexual health knowledge, and
reduction of partners become the tools to battle the pandemic. While biomedical and
behavioral analysis most certainly have their place, it is clear that the forces shaping
sexual behavior are far more complex than individual rational decisions based on
simple factual knowledge about health risks, and the availability of medical services.
3

Often associated with structural violence, neo-liberal policies and their contribution
to the pandemic provide a full illustration of the interplay between macro and micro
lattice work, neo-liberal policies being the macro, and the micro, the poverty of
communities and social dynamics it recreates. Basu (2003) writes:
HIV transmission is a background of neo-liberalism, a context where the
rapid movement of capital is privileged over long-term investment and the
ability of persons to secure their own livelihoods. Increases in forced migration
are strongly correlated with some of the most significant increases in HIV
transmission across Southern Africa, East Asia, East Europe and Latin America
(although few members of the public health community have addressed this
fact) and such migration most often occurs when rural agricultural sectors are
destroyed after the liberalization of markets and the subsequent drop in primary
commodity prices, which leads (mostly male) laborers to find work in urban
centers and leave their families behind. (p. 13)
In the gold mining region of Summer town South Africa, approximately 70 000 male
migrant workers leave their homes and travel for miles to work in mines for unseemly
pay and extremely dangerous circumstances. Migrant work and the mining of gold
are a means to earn a wage and to support their families. Within the all male setting, a
strong and rooted commercial sex work industry has expanded greatly. Women
migrate to town to escape poverty. They erect shanty settlements and sell sex and
alcohol to men in order to survive (Ibid: p. 12). HIV rates among the mineworkers
were estimated at 22%, ultimately meaning that prevalence rates for women may in
fact be much higher. HIV/AIDS prevention projects funded by international donors
identified peer-education, condom distribution, and treatment and care as priority
areas. While these are most certainly initiatives worth funding, they are funded at
the behest of larger and more telling indicators related to prevalence. Never are
the roots of poverty and migration addressed. The miners position in the larger
economic environment reshaped their lives placing them ultimately in a high-risk
environment. Even more important are the women whom in order to escape poverty,
with almost no options, venture away from their homes to sell sex. In the case of
Summertown, the micro-lattice work manifested through poverty and gender
inequity is supported and strengthened through the macro-lattice work of national
and global economic inequality. Yet individual behavior change remains the focus
ROLSTON
124
of prevention. Where systems of economic inequality clearly contribute to prevalence
rates, prevention programs remain problematically focused on the micro lattice work
of a much larger structure. Within a framework of neo-liberal thought, the violence
of market mechanisms and consolidated capital are ignored and the complexity of
prevalence is lost.
PROFESSIONAL INSTITUTIONS AND INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIOR CHANGE
The understanding of AIDS in Africa lies in a complex mix of bio-medicine,
behaviorism, a wider moral and political agenda, and the development, security,
and human rights discourses of the past decades. (OManique, 2004: p. 17)
The words of Colleen OManique are telling. HIV/AIDS within Sub-Saharan Africa
was initially researched and conceptualized within environments far removed from
the lived experience of those infected and affected by the virus. Western medical
science and more specifically, the field of bio-medicine dominated the response to
HIV/AIDS ultimately shaping policy, practice, and research focus. Bio-medical
enquiry and its bedfellow cognitive psychology launched individual behavior change
intervention to the forefront of the fight as a status-quo/best practice. The place-
ment of individual behavior change at the forefront of HIV/AIDS prevention inter-
nationally has a great deal to do with the power of professional institutions, and
medically based expertise as western forms of knowledge production. Very few
disciplines rival medical science in their ability to assemble a body of knowledge
established through text, journal articles, and clinical studies (Ibid: p. 18). The power
of the professional institutions as sites for knowledge production is an important
component in this discussion. Set against the potential contributions of community
based knowledge and experience, western based medical science has an over-
powering presence in the lives of people infected and affected by HIV/AIDS. It has
become the lens through which the pandemic is viewed. Billboards, t-shirts, and
banners with the letters ABCs (Abstinence, Be Faithful, Condomise) stand as an
overt simplification of a much more complex issue. These sorts of simplifications
can directly be attributed to historical assumptions and hegemonic power dynamics.
While bio-medicine has offered a great deal to the understanding of HIV/AIDS
what is of great concern is the power-laden relationship between localized knowledge
systems and the knowledge systems of western medical science.
In 1944, Gunnar Myrdal put forth that cultural influences have set up the assump-
tions with which we pose the questions we ask; influence the facts we seek;
and determine the interpretation we give the facts,
4
and by the beginning of the
HIV/AIDS pandemic in the 1980s, science was widely recognized as a socially
embedded activity (Stillwaggon, 2006: p. 133). The role of professional institutions,
expertise and the knowledge they have produced in the global effort is embedded
in a historically hegemonic position of western knowledge systems. Linda Tuhiwai
Smith writes about knowledge production in the context of education systems, but
her discussion is very relevant:
Knowledge systems however were informed by a much more comprehensive
system of knowledge which linked universities, scholarly societies and imperial
125
views of culture. Hierarchies of knowledge and theories which had rapidly
developed to account for the discoveries of the new world were legitimated at
the centre . Underpinning all of what is taught is the belief in the concept
of science as the all-embracing method for gaining and understanding of the
world.
5

Through histories of oppression, western medical science has stood dominant to all
forms of Indigenous belief, knowledge, research, and experience. The historical power
imbalance of knowledge systems was erected in the colonial period and continues
to thrive within institutions that have not yet moved to make radical breaks with
the past. Sub-Saharan Africa continues to be the laboratory for western science.
6

When the pandemic began, the responses throughout Sub-Saharan Africa were greatly
influenced by international professional institutions and their local institutional
counterparts. The World Bank, UNAIDS, and WHO all provided technical assistance
in the development of National HIV/AIDS Programs and strategic frameworks. Many
of these institutions already stood as dominant figures in Sub-Saharan Africas post-
independence period, ostensibly deconstructing social welfare systems through
Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) and poverty reduction initiatives grounded
in neo-liberal philosophy.
7
The creation of knowledge in relation to AIDS prevention
was generated at the center of these institutions only to be marginally amended
with the input of local governments and civil society.
The dominance of western medical science as a socially embedded paradigm
rooted in histories of hegemony is most obviously apparent in international policy
on HIV/AIDS prevention and its focus on individual behavior change. Eileen
Stillwaggon engages in an expansive discussion that illustrates the way racial meta-
phor shaped the HIV/AIDS prevention paradigm. The most important aspect of
Stillwaggons discussion is the examination of ways in which Caldwells and
Caldwells early studies on fertility and sexuality in various parts of Sub-Saharan
Africa served to influence contemporary institutional policy documents. John Caldwell
and Pat Caldwell of the Australian National University wrote the articles widely cited
in Africa AIDS social science and policy literature. In the 1980s the Caldwells
published articles that attempted to illustrate the way African religious values
impeded the aims of population control programs. Caldwell and Caldwell while
cautioning against value judgment, put forth that The African system tends to
increase the number of sexual partners and is vulnerable to attack by all coital-related
disorders.
8
The observations of the Caldwells remained rooted in a racialist view-
point that insinuates an orientation of thought based on a generalized construction
of African systems of sexuality that somehow significantly differ from European
systems of sexuality. The words of Caldwell and Caldwell stood as influential works
that informed the development of western based AIDS knowledge in the context
of Sub-Saharan Africa. In 1989 Quiggin used the Caldwell articles to illustrate the
social context of AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa. Ultimately the African fertility dis-
course of the Caldwells influenced one of the most influential policy documents
of the 1990s, the World Banks Confronting AIDS: Public Priorities in a Global
Epidemic (1997). Despite recognition that many sources discounted the relevance
of behavioral explanations for prevalence rates, the documents overall plan was
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126
greatly focused on the behavioral approach.
9
The documents rationale for a focus
on the behavioral approach in confronting AIDS specifically cites Caldwell et al.
(1989).
As professional institutions and their house experts developed global partnerships,
they were not able to escape the social and historical contexts from which they
came. A history of hegemonic knowledge systems and their grounding in racialist
thinking ultimately created responses that, in their narrow view, reproduced the
features of the structures of violence that influenced the explosion of AIDS in
Sub-Saharan Africa. Within this phenomenon, the voices, beliefs, and knowledge
of communities based in various regions of the continent became subjugated to the
machinations of western medical science, the institutions and experts that championed
these systems of knowing. Proponents of individual behavior change, using their
power, developed HIV/AIDS prevention initiatives that viewed community members
as objects of change. The paradigm from which these initiatives sprang forth
indicted a generalized African sexuality as a culturally unique determinant that
greatly contributed to prevalence rates. This conception suggested that AIDS was
self-inflicted, and not a result of oppression as expressed through structural violence.
10

The greatest issue was deemed to be a lack of knowledge, lack of skills, and an overall
lack of sexual discipline. From this perspective, the contributions of people infected
and affected by HIV/AIDS at the grassroots were marginal in comparison to the
superior knowledge of professional institutions and bodies. As a result, the role
of communities has vacillated between that of mere recipients and more recently
that of participants in change.
COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION & PARTICIPATORY APPROACHES
Contemporary views of HIV/AIDS prevention have begun to place a great emphasis
on health-enabling communities. This is evident in the international professional
institutions attempt at developing policy and intervention that seek to impact the
social and community context.
11
As a result, community participation and commu-
nity mobilization have become common intervention practices in prevention efforts.
Often, terms such as empowerment, social inclusion, and even, in some cases, eman-
cipation are concepts and potential outcomes closely associated with participa-
tion. While these approaches indicate a shift in thinking, they may still remain
confined by the frameworks professional institutions create. Participation, as defined
by professional institutions, provides an opportunity to examine the philosophical
underpinnings of participatory interventions. The World Bank Participation Source
Book was developed through the banks learning group on participatory development.
The definition the Bank subscribes to is as follows:
Participation is a process through which stakeholders influence and share
control over development initiatives and the decisions and resources which
affect you.
12

In comparison, the United Nations Research institute for Social Development defines
participatory development as a capacity for influencing decision making processes
127
at all levels of societal organization. The UN Definition specifically goes on to
evoke terms such as empowerment, social capital, capacity building, and social move-
ments. These two approaches serve to illustrate the role of professional institutions
in their construction of community members as either objects or agents of social
change. Through the creation of frameworks for participation, institutions and experts
become the gate keepers, so to speak. The sheer ability to create definitions for
participation at the level of the professional institution is an action that expresses
a complete and absolute power over the social change process. In the realm of
participatory approach, communities find themselves placed along a gradation between
object and agent. In many cases, it is the professional institution that dictates where
the community falls as partners in the development process. While erecting these
poles of object and agent may seem simplistic, it stands as an important considera-
tion in light of the fact that many participatory initiatives speak of empowerment
and emancipation.
The historical power, privilege, and social context from which international
institutions like the World Bank, USAID, and even the UN originate requires that
concepts of participation as social change be critically problematized to ensure that
mechanisms for change do not become frameworks for bondage that stand quietly
in line with histories of oppression. In the realm of AIDS prevention, participatory
approaches may be particularly problematic because communities are empowered
to participate and mobilize within an already established hegemonic knowledge
systems. In the case of USAID, a powerful partner in the global AIDS effort, the
complexities of power and participation are very apparent. Family Health Inter-
national has stood as one of the primary beneficiaries of USAID HIV/AIDS inter-
vention funding and operates in numerous countries throughout Sub-Saharan Africa.
The AVERT model, developed by Family Health International is a behavior change
model that is quite reflective of conventional approaches. As Stillwaggon puts forth:
None of the transmission models used by major organizations in the AIDS
field takes into account ecologic factors or in any way reflects the population
health of the regions under study. They assume very few factors in HIV trans-
mission, all related to individual behavior change, and consequently incorporate
only behavioral-intervention variables. (2006: p. 165)
The AVERT model itself has extremely narrow population variables: occupation,
type of partner, gender, partner gender, and HIV prevalence. Even more concerning
are intervention variables: the average number of sex partners, average number of
sex acts, prevalence of STDs, and condom use. These variables are considered to
affect transmission. Programs with these population and intervention variables are
considered to be targeted interventions that are cost-effective. An intervention such
as this would consider condom promotion amongst commercial sex workers as
viable and a highly targeted intervention. Organizations like FHI place community
participation and community mobilization at the center of their programming. Parti-
cipation, in this case, is defined as communities participating in the final stages of
intervention. The program is already planned, packaged and researched before it
reaches the grassroots.
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128
In an account of the Summertown Project based in a mining community just
outside of Johannesburg South Africa, Catherine Campbell identifies the limitations
of participation as defined by professional institutions. Although community parti-
cipation is deemed to be an important part of the project, participation in the project
level was confined to peer education. Community participants served as conveyors
of knowledge and mobilizers of a project designed and developed far outside of the
context of Summertown:
In retrospect, having an outsider write the proposal was less than ideal for a
number of reasons. The first was that it meant that local stakeholders had a
limited sense of ownership of the original ideas of the Project. Although there
was some consultation between the external consultant and some Summertown
stakeholders in the development of the proposal, this appears to have been
fairly superficial (Campbell, 2003: p. 39).
Consequently, the projects internationally based funding agency commissioned a
London-based consultancy company to develop the Project proposal. Such accounts
stand as clear examples that participatory approaches in the realm of HIV/AIDS
prevention still remain within the control of the professional institutions that define
these approaches. Within this approach, community members remain objects of
change as distant ponds to be played on the landscape of AIDS prevention. Grassroots
movements remain locked within the confines of dominant knowledge systems that
negate the experience and knowledge of communities, functionally robbing commu-
nities of their power while speaking of empowerment and emancipation. As Michael
Woost states:
The poor (are allowed to) participate in development, but only in so far as
they do not attempt to change the rules of the game (It is like) riding a top-
down vehicle of development whose wheels are greased with a vocabulary of
the bottom-up discourse (Woost, 1997: p. 249).
COMMUNITY CONVERSATIONS: A BREAK WITH CONVENTION
Community Conversations are a central piece in the United Nations Community
Capacity Enhancement Program (CCEP), a program designed to encourage and
cultivate grassroots leadership. The Community Conversations (CC) methodology
was initially developed by Thebisa Chaava from Zambia and Daouda Diouf from
Senegal in 1990s.
13
They both endeavored to develop forms of intervention that
would lend to the communal African context of closely knit community, kinship
networks, and collective decision making. Created within the context of civil society
and community, the CC methodology inspired great change in their respective
localities and offered a distinctly different approach to intervention. As they put forth:
Communities immediately began to recognize for themselves the values and
actions that would have to change . Such awareness came about through
community conversations. This series of facilitated dialogues stands in contrast
to conventional approaches in which people are grouped together for awareness
129
raising lectures, often accompanied by the distribution of pamphlets or posters.
Such approaches often leave communities with bleak, prescriptive messages
that deny them the benefits of dialogue on how the community could be
affected. Communities are often times overwhelmed and feel a sense of hope-
lessness following such events.
14

In 2004, the UNDP launched the community conversations in Botswana as a part
of the newly developed CCEP program.
15
Our conversation about CCs potential
begins here, with a focus on what CC may in fact mean to Botswana and HIV/AIDS
intervention on whole. While the conversation will be mostly conceptual in nature
Botswana will form the backdrop against which we explore dialogue as methodo-
logical practice.
The purpose of dialogue, as it is defined in this context of CC, is a process that
through facilitation shifts power relations, strengthen ownership and responsibility
for change, and mobilize local capacity and resources. The process is intended to
help reshape relationships in line with the transformation dialogues prompts. As a
mechanism for larger national intervention strategies, the process generates data
that is channeled into national strategic development plans. According the Chaava,
Diouf, Gueye, and Tiomkin:
Linking this data, and the community decisions that result from it, to these
plans is critical to ensure that financial resources and infrastructure will be
available and accessible to communities in a way that is institutionalized.
Linking Community Conversations to these national processes does not mean
that they will become bureaucratized.
16

While this raises further questions our focus, is not on these data channels.
17
Rather
it is on the possibilities that dialogue holds for the communities besieged by AIDS
and its contextual violence. The central question is how we can understand the power
of dialogue, not only as a methodology for social change, but as methodology
for empowerment within the struggle for health and equality? As a methodological
practice, we can view the power of dialogue through three distinct and interlocking
discoursesIntergroup dialogue, dialogue as resistance, and ultimately dialogue as
empowerment.
INTERGROUP DIALOGUE AND SOCIAL CAPITALS
Within the context of Community Conversations, an integral component of the metho-
dology is relationship building, not only for the reinforcement of healthy behavior,
but overall social change. Sexual behavior has always existed within the context of
relationships, which are shaped by environment, power relations, and a myriad of
social and economic factors. While behavioral interventions streamlined gender dis-
course into their frameworks, they still remain delimited by their approach. Gender,
like sex, is a relational component of interpersonal and societal relationships. Power
imbalance cannot be simply swept away. As Adeokum puts forth, the process
of negotiation between men and women, is often not sex but power.
18
Most
important is Adeokums use of the words negotiation and power. An important
ROLSTON
130
part of dialogue is that it creates a space for negotiation. It is the space in which all
relationships are tested and challenged through the voicing of competing perspectives
and experience. Dialogue is the space where differences meet for the purpose of
reconciliation. From the perspective of intergroup dialogue theory, dialogue, as a
methodology, is intended to achieve just this. Nagda states:
We can conceive of a learning community about and across differences that
captures motivations to co-learn, fosters intentions to bridge intergroup
differences and leads to reflection and reappraisal of the groups research
specifically on intergroup dialogue shows that [participants] break down
ignorance and stereotypes, think more about their social group membership
and build skills for communication and working across difference. (Nagda,
p. 5)
Intergroup dialogue engages communities members and learners in a learning
community collectively bound by a desire to see social change. The negotiation of
relationships and the power-laden differences that shape them, can only be fully and
competently understood by the community themselves. Within conversation across
difference participants critically examine and negotiate power relations and the
way they are manifested in daily interactions.
Lent to the context of HIV/AIDS intervention, this learning model is an important
consideration specifically for adults. For the adult learner, the capacity to reason
requires a less didactic relationship between teacher and learner. More preferable is
a dialogical process that draws on the learners knowledge base. According to Preece
and Ntseane, adult learning is typically context specific and accepts contradictions.
19

This argument is based on the idea that adult life is infinitely complex. As a result,
adults are capable of creating multiple solutions and reflecting critically on their
actions and belief systems. Intergroup dialogue offers community members engaged
in conversation, the opportunity to generate solutions and meet challenges based
on locally shared knowledge and experience. Rather than recipients in waiting,
community members through dialogue negotiate their own social change through
the reconciliation of differences.
Communities are the site for the negotiation of social and sexual lives and
identities. Forming the local context, they play a key role in enabling or restraining
people from taking control over their health.
20
The negotiation of relationships for
the purposes of health enlists a communitys social capital in the fight against AIDS.
Bourdieu places emphasis on the role various capitals play in the reproduction
of unequal power relations (Bourdieu, 1986: 251). He argues that unequal social
relations are maintained through a range of social processes that generate social
inequalities through the phenomena of political, cultural, economic and social capital.
From this perspective, social capital can conversely be harnessed for the purposes of
mutually beneficial social networks. Through intergroup dialogue and the sub-
sequent negotiation of relationships, social processes that maintain inequality can
be transformed and enlisted in a positive process of social change that creates equality.
Enacted social capital results in greater connectedness and mutual responsibility of
the community to mobilize against HIV/AIDS.
131
Within the Botswana context the relevance of social capital and intergroup
dialogue is of great relevance. Bagele Chillisa states:
Most African communities, with particular reference to Bantu people of
Southern Africa for instance, view human existence in relation to the existence
of others. Among views of being for instance is the conception that nthu,
nthu ne banwe (a person is because of others) or I am because we are. This
is in direct contrast to Western views that emphasize individualism: I think
therefore I am. Most African worldviews emphasize belongingness.
Chillisa suggests a radical break with Western bio-medicine and psychology and
the placement of Setswana traditional beliefs and knowledge as the foundation
for intervention practice instead.
21
According to Chillisa, within the Kgotlathe
traditional governance system based on dialogue and consensusan open space
system of communication is encouraged through the saying mmua lebe oa bo a
bua la gagwe or every voice must be heard. Through this communication process,
conclusions are reached through consensus. Within this context, intergroup dialogue
and its influence on social capital may be considered a social technology that has a
longstanding presence in the socio-cultural fabric of Botswana. This is an important
consideration given the limitations of individual behavior change and the context
from which it originates. Chillisas critique provides an important perspective on
HIV/AIDS and the origins of intervention knowledge and practice. While dialogue
expands the perspective of intervention and enlists communities in interpersonal
negotiations that transforms social dynamics, so does it also create a platform for
the creation of knowledge that is Indigenous and relevant to peoples experience.
DIALOGUE AS RESISTANCE
As a place for community voices, dialogue provides an alternative space that
radically challenges the Western knowledge paradigms. The dialogical methodology
harnesses long standing traditions of Orality. Botswana, like many South African
communities, evolved out of highly complex oral traditions that shaped knowledge
and served to transmit and shape social dynamics within the community. Dei writes:
Elders utilized the medium of (oral tradition) storytelling to bring families
together to share historic and cultural information and to transmit the values
of social responsibility and community services to youth traditional
education reflected the cultural knowledge and individual understanding
dialogue consensus and co-operation, and egalitarian interactions were en-
couraged among members of the community. (Dei, 1995: 154)
In her writings, Chillisa specifically connects the failure of HIV/AIDS programs
to their grounding in colonial practice and thought. Within this context, any approach
that would further subjugate Indigenous knowledge would find little success in
the Botswana context. With this in mind, any form of intervention must validate
African resistance to neo-colonial techniques such as ABC (Abstinence, Be Faithful,
Condomise) and find messages that emanate from within the African voice.
22

ROLSTON
132
The connection between dialogue as a methodology and oral tradition creates space
in Conversations where communities may bring their Indigenous selves to the fore.
As a result, community members may be more inclined to contribute to the process.
This is what bell hooks would call coming to voice, the point at which subjugated
peoples begin to speak to power.
23
The generation of knowledge that dialogue
prompts forms a basis for resistance in communities that have been inundated by
HIV interventions rooted in Western knowledge traditions. Initially ignored or not
fully valued in terms of consent or consultation, the voices of community members
find space to create understandings that value traditions and beliefs. Ultimately, the
creation of new formations of Indigenous knowledge through dialogue may be
viewed as resistance against what Ngg wa Thiongo calls the culture bomb:
The biggest weapon wielded and actually daily unleashed by imperialism
against that collective defiance is the cultural bomb. The effect of a cultural
bomb is to annihilate a peoples belief in their names, in their languages, in their
environments, in their heritage of struggle, in their unity, in their capacities
and ultimately in themselves. It makes them see their past as one wasteland
of non-achievement and it even plants serious doubts about the moral
righteousness of the struggle.
24

Dialogue becomes a means of creating knowledge about the communal experience
of HIV/AIDS while it is written on and before it written over by western know-
ledge systems. It is in fact, an act of liberation.
DIALOGUE AND EMPOWERMENT
Sandra Jovchelovitch suggests, power is not just phenomena to be explained through
intrinsic negativity but a space for possible action where community members strive
for social change (Jovchelovitch, 1996: 19). This is an important space in that when-
ever communities and community members enter this space on their own volition,
they in fact enact their own power. Dialogue, as it relates to HIV/AIDS, is an exercise
in power so far as it exists within, challenges structures of violence, and resists
western intervention paradigms and expertise in the name of self-determination and
liberation.
The simple act of moving from being recipients of knowledge to creators of
knowledge for personal movement and social change is powerful. Freire suggests
that true social change cannot be achieved through depositing ideas into the mind
of others. This is what he calls banking education, a learning process that holds
people as objects of oppressive frameworks:
Because dialogue is an encounter among men (people) who name the world,
it must not be a situation where some men (people) name on behalf of others. It
is an act of creation; it does not serve as a crafty instrument for the domination
of one man by another. The domination implicit in dialogue is that of the
world by the dialoguers; it is conquest of the world for the liberation of men
(people).
25

133
Within the structure of violence, dialogue that is created through the participation
of multiple voices at the grassroots may in fact articulate the sprawling complexities
of HIV/AIDS and its determinants. Using such a methodology, various experiences of
illness are illustrated through story and sharing. Some story may in fact identify
issues that were not previously connected to HIV/AIDS.
In a review of the outcomes of Community Conversations training of trainers in
2004, a number of HIV/AIDS related issues were brought up that may have, within
traditional intervention practice, been considered unrelated:
Disintegration of Setswana values
Lack of youth interest in Kgotla (traditional governance system) meetings
Migration of youth to the cities
Shebeens (bars) scattered around the village
26

Within individual behavior change intervention, issues such of these may in fact
have been lost. Through the process of naming the world for themselves, commu-
nities, through community conversations, may in fact create their own power, and
in turn, become empowered. On a large scale, a number of the outcomes of discussion
point to larger structural issues. The migration of youth to cities is a global issue.
Rural flight has ultimately seen numerous young people throughout Southern Africa
migrate to urban centers in search of jobs. Employment is often scarce in urban
spaces, and young people are vulnerable and at greater risk of contracting the virus.
The rural urban divide and the migratory patterns they encourage relate to neo-liberal
policies that strangle rural areas in the interest of urban expansion. The disintegration
of Setswana values relates to our earlier discussion of resistance and the domination
of Indigenous knowledge systems. Such examples provide strong evidence of the
importance of community voices in their role as leaders in HIV/AIDS intervention.
Beyond the realm of interpersonal relationships and sexual behavior, the experience
of communities speaks to HIV/AIDS and the responsibility of the world. If, as
Freire suggests, naming is a means of liberation, then the naming that occurs within
dialogue can in fact be the first step to dismantling the lattice work that has kept
structural violence erect and present in the lives of people in Botswana and through-
out Southern Africa.
CONCLUSION
Throughout this discussion, there are many questions I have asked myself. I recognize
that despite the promise of dialogue, more often than not, it is the way the conver-
sation is shaped and the context within which it happens that may in fact dictate
the outcome. I am by no means mystified by some of the potential limitations of
Community Conversations as they are conceived within the context of the UNDP.
If the shape and nature of UNDP stands in tandem with structural violence by
way of salary rewards, flawed participatory practice, or simply the influence on
the supports the methodology receives then, this in fact places the process in great
jeopardy. I have indeed asked myself numerous questions, but the fact remains that
this was a conversation about conversations. This was a paper about the potential of
dialogue and the unquestionable power of voice. The AIDS pandemic has evolved
ROLSTON
134
within the context of structural violence. Poverty and malnutrition both related to
neo-liberal policy and international practices are complicit in this reality. Therefore,
any intervention that attempts to stem the pandemic must, by philosophy and function,
stand in radical opposition to these structures. Individual Behavior Change inter-
ventions are reliant on western knowledge systems, and have required minimal
participation of the people infected and affected by AIDS. As a result this metho-
dology has been limited in its ability to impact the pandemic. With a focus on the
negotiation of relationships and Indigenous knowledge systems, Community Conver-
sations have the potential to signal a dramatic change in the way HIV/AIDS inter-
vention is done. Community members are arguably the most powerful source for
change at both the micro and macro level. Beyond the local context the contents of
dialogues have already begun to identify issues that are rooted in global imbalances.
While there may not be a direct connection made between the micro and macro
lattice work of structural violence in the literature, it by no means indicates that
these connections have not been made. Importantly, the power of dialogue has the
potential to inspire and create whole new approaches to intervention. Through the
sharing of Indigenous knowledge as it relates to HIV/AIDS and its coupling with
local experience, dialogical methods hold the potential to inspire intervention
programming that is truly holistic in scope. As dialogue comes into voice, and as
voice disseminates knowledge, we may in fact see even more enlivened and em-
boldened South African grassroots that are self-empowered and free to fight AIDS
on their own terms.
NOTES
1
Campbell, Catherine. 2003. Pg. 5.
2
Farmer, Paul. 2005; Campbell, Catherine. 2003; OManique, Colleen. 2004; Katz, Allison. 2002;
Stillwaggon, Aileen. 2006. All suggest that a great deal of internationally generated HIV/AIDS inter-
vention focusing on individual behavior change failed to address the root causes of HIV/AIDS and
in turn have had little impact on prevalence rates.
3
4
Myrdal, Gunnar.1944. Pg. 92.
5
Smith, Linda Tuhiwai. 1999. Pg. 65.
6
Ibid.
7
Consequently, the deconstruction of social welfare systems in the period of SAPs and the rise of the
IMF and the World Bank meant that expenditures channeled to health and education were drastically
cut in favor a neo-liberal framework that sought to integrate African markets (albeit at diminished
and subjugated level) into international world market. (Katz, Allison. 2002. Pg. 128)
8
Caldwell, Pat; Caldwell, John. 1989. Pg. 187.
9
Stillwaggon, Eilleen. 2006. Pg. 155.
10
Kidd, Ross; Kumar Krishna. 1981. Pg. 29.
11
Campbell, Catherine 2003. Pg. 11.
12
World Bank. (n.d).
13
Chaava Thebisa; Diouf, Daouda; Gueye, Moustapha, Tiomkin David. 2005. Pg. 1.
14
Ibid. Pg. 2.
15
Before 2004 the community conversations were evolving within their original local context. In Zambia
Thebisa Chaava worked as a part of the Salvation Army Zambia. The Salvation Army worked to
implement frontline HIV/AIDS programs. Therefore the CCs shift from civil society to the UNDP

135

has most likely impacted the evolution of the methodology. Both Chaava and Diouf stood as consultants
and lead facilitators in the roll out the reframed UNDP CCEP program. While there are important
questions to ask where this transition is concerned they would detour the direction and focus of the
paper.
16
Chaava Thebisa; Diouf, Daouda; Gueye, Moustapha, Tiomkin David. 2005. Pg. 3.
17
One major question is what information (data) is channeled up into the UNDP and national strategic
framework. Arguably UNDP and governments still have the power to choose what information they
take up or ignore. These powerful bodies may in fact shape how the voice of communities influences
national policy and intervention. This is very serious consideration to be taken up in a more technical
exploration of the community conversations process itself.
18
Adeokum, L.A. 1994. Pg. 33.
19
Preece, Julia; Ntseane, Gabo. 2004. Pg. 8.
20
21
Chillisa, Bagele. 2005. Pg. 660.
22
Reece, Julia; Ntseane, Gabo. 2005. Pg. 19.
23
hooks, bell. 2003. Pg. 234.
24
wa Thiongo, Ngg. 1981. Pg. 3.
25
Freire, Paulo. 1973. Pg. 77.
26
UNDP Botswana. 2004. Pg. 60.
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NJOKI WANE
11. THE POLITICS OF AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT
Conversations with Women from Rural Kenya
INTRODUCTION
Africa needs fundamental change and transformation, not just adjustment.
The change and transformation required are not just narrow, economic and
mechanical ones. They are the broader and fundamental changes that will bring
about, over time, the new Africa of our vision where there is development and
economic justice, not just growth; where there is democracy and accountability,
not despotism, authoritarianism and kleptocracy; and where the governed and
their governments are moving hand-in-hand in the promotion of the common
good, and where [it is] the will of the people rather than the wishes of one
person or a group of persons, however powerful, that prevail (Adedeji, 1990: 37).
This chapter is based on an on-going research project concerning the role of rural
Embu women in development. In this chapter, I seek to understand what constitutes
development as conceptualized by rural women in Kenya. I engage in a broad dis-
cussion of African development. I broach the political context from which the
ethos of development emerged by way of specific examples from rural Kenya.
I also situate the meaning of development as articulated through rural Embu
women in Kenya. This chapter will focus on the research question posed to the
participants: How do you come to know and understand development? I am asking:
Has there been a transformation that promotes growth in all sectors of African
peoples lives, such as education, socio-economics, health, and governance? Is
there accountability and equitable distribution of resources? Is there local
community participation in decision making when it comes to development? Could
we sit back and say, there is accountability and democracy within the nation states of
Africa? Are the voices of the community reflective of all members or only the select
fewthe elite? Have community-based and community-driven development projects
implemented by the World Bank been effective?
Beginning in 1957, dozens of African nations, achieved independence from
colonial powers. While each of these African nations celebrated its new status,
many serious problemspolitical, social, and economicfollowed the departure of
the colonial powers. Many African states were in no position to mobilize people,
generate capital, promote productivity, or effectively participate in international
affairs or trade. Africans had been relegated for too long to the periphery of global
power and production. Despite having gained independence, African states still
found themselves dependent on Western countries for technology, foreign aid, and
markets in which to sell their raw materials.
WANE
138
In response to this situation, many Western countries (the United States as well
as most of the earlier colonizers), in conjunction with various international organiza-
tions (such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the United Nations)
proposed a variety of development models intended to lift up Africa to the level
of the industrialized nations. For example, in the 1980s the World Bank introduced
Structural Adjustment Programs to facilitate measurable development in many deve-
loping countries of the world. To many Africans, most of what was being introduced
by international organizations constituted neocolonialism (Rodney, 1972; Dei, 2000;
Wilmer, 1993; Ogundipe-Leslie, 1994). Reflecting on these issues almost fifty years
after the political independence of many African countries, some studies reveal that
development based on World Bank community-driven poverty reduction models
has not benefitted all the targeted members ((Pozzoni & Kumar, 2005). This
argument is supported by a report published in 2002 and highlighted in a study
by McPeak et al. (2009). Other studies (Sherburne-Benz, et al., (2005) and Rawlings
(2005) argue differently by stating that there has been noticeable progress among
impoverished communities of Africa.
Over the past two decades, development scholars have recognized the need to
employ local knowledges in addressing the question of African development (Dei,
2000). They have further argued that without such local input, African countries
become increasingly vulnerable to decisions generated from outside their continent,
especially decisions that result in situations that are detrimental to the well being of
their populations. Scholars such as McPeak et al. (2009) have even engaged with
local communities in Kenya and Ethiopia to find out whether there is congruency
in development priorities among various stakeholders such as governments and
local communities.
THE ARTICULATION OF DEVELOPMENT BY RURAL
EMBU WOMEN IN KENYA
In the 1990s and 2000s, community-based models of development dominated rural
projects in Kenya. The government policies have emphasized decentralization and
community participation. Funds have been deployed to all constituencies in Kenya
for the members of parliament to allocate depending on community needs.
However, there is little evidence that much has been done for the people. Many
women that I talked to were very skeptical of both the meaning of development, its
intent and the government policies that address community projects. When asked
to comment on development, a Kenyan rural woman interviewed by Pala Achola
(1976) explained:
During the anti-colonial campaigns we were told that development would
mean better living conditions. Several years have gone by, and all we see are
people coming from the capital to write about us. For me, the hoe and the water
pot which served my grandmother still remain my source of livelihood. When
I work on the land and fetch water from the river, I know I can eat. But this
development which you talk about has yet to be seen in this village (Achola,
1976: 13).
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139
These words are supported by McPeaks et al. (2009) study that reveals there is no
systematic evidence by community members of accrued benefits of development
projects in arid regions in Kenya and Ethiopia. This was also echoed by Muiru (an
80 year old woman and a participant in my research) when she said:
Maendeleo [development in Swahili] [means] having enough food to feed
my family, good roads, respectable children and a good government. Maendeleo
should have some meaning for us, such as clean drinking water, more schools
for our children otherwise development will only make sense to you young
peopleit may be development to you, but not to us (Interview with Muiru,
1994).
As far as Achola and Muriu are concerned, development must focus on the
satisfaction of day-to-day needs. However, these needs are only a very small aspect
of what a community requires for meaningful growth. As Ogundipe-Leslie
comments:
When peasants or workers are excluded from all responsibilities in the
production system, when scientific research is subjected to profit, when educa-
tion patterns are imposed that make school children or students strangers to
their own culture and mere instruments to the production process, when protest
is reduced to silence by force and political prisoners are tortured, can it be
thought that these practices do not hinder the goals of development and that
they do not inflict an injury on society? (Ogundipe-Leslie, 1994: 102).
Echoing the words of the rural Kenyan women, Ogundipe-Leslie argues that it is not
necessary for Third World countries to imitate institutions, models, and structures
that are characteristic of Western countries. I would also add that the misconception
of African values on the part of the implementers of the modernization paradigm
has destroyed the very fabric of African cultures.
These voices further resonate with that of Ciarunji, a woman participant in her
sixties:
In the seventies and eighties nineties our communities came together in
the spirit of Harambee [Swahili word for let us pull together] and raised
money for hospitals and schools. The propaganda was, if you raise the initial
capital for these projects, the government will step in and assist you and
complement your efforts. I am sure you have seen the number of incomplete
and abandoned buildings as you drive around carrying out your research. In
addition we sent delegations to our local member of parliament to do something
about our impassable roads to no avail. We have to wait for many hours for
transportation and many of our children have no access to education. Our needs
are obvious We require water, education, clinical services, good roads
(interview with Ciarunji, 1996).
As weve seen, each participant comments not only on the lack of the essential
needs such as food and water, but also about the absence of adequate infrastructure.
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HOLISTIC INDIGENOUS MODELS OF DEVELOPMENT
The section below features the voices of the women who were interviewed in
relation to inclusive and holistic Indigenous models of development. It is important
to note that many women felt that development, as it is conceptualized by those
outside their community, cannot be understood as Indigenous to the location. Also,
many noted that rural development projects do not translate to meeting the needs of
the people. They explained that the result is that the outsiders draw the plans, provide
the funds and try to implement what they think the community members require.
Most of the women who participated in my study agree that Western development
approaches need to be more inclusive and holistic in order to ensure a sustainable
future, both for local peoples and the global environment. Many women were willing
to meet with outside development planners in order to improve their Indigenous
technologies. Njura, a participant in the study, explained:
the Indigenous practices are time consuming and tedious while modern
technologies made work easier we become lazy and dependent it is
important we sit and talk about technologies that are affordable, Indigenous
and modern something we are familiar with. That is, something from both
worlds something that makes sense to us and to you (interview with Njura,
1993).
The challenge is to come up with a technology that is Indigenous, affordable, sustain-
able and efficient. What is important is to ensure that a technology is developed accor-
ding to the needs of a community. As I have argued elsewhere (Wane, 2000, 2005),
Indigenous technology is not static; it evolves and changes with communal needs.
According to Gwendolyn Mikell (1997), women have sustained their commu-
nities despite their lower educational levels, subsistence agricultural activities, and
high maternal and infant mortality rates. Women have evoked their traditional
collectivism to address the scarcity of resources. Mikell, who advocates revisiting
African traditions in order to mobilize womens strengths and capabilities, also
recognizes African womens collective strength. Mikell (1997) provides an example
of Kikuyu womens interregional trading activities during the nineteenth century.
According to Mikell, African people and their alliances need to redefine develop-
ment using a cultural model that acknowledges that individuals are part of many
interdependent human relations in a supernaturally ordained fashion. For Mikell,
the goal of these cultural models is to maintain the harmony and well being of the
social group rather than that of the individual. This model is common to most African
societies; however, the operating mechanisms vary from society to society.
Kothari (1987) notes that hope for the transformation of the world lies in Third
World countries rather than in the industrialized nations of the West, with the im-
poverished rather than with the rich, with women more so than with men. Kothari
understands societies that have had little exposure to Western civilization as societies
with the greatest hope for transformation. These new paradigms must be people
centered and work in harmony with nature. She disagrees with the idea of un-
necessary professional specialization, as this inevitably leads to knowledge being
held in the hands of a powerful few.
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In an earlier work (Wane, 2000), I supported Kotharis perspectives, agreeing
that women, particularly Third World women, are a source of hope and optimism
for our global future. I assert that modern women can learn a great deal from rural
Third World women. These women endure an immense amount of hardship, yet they
survive because of their wisdom. They have superb survival skills, both emotional
and economic. I suggest that formal historical accounts of Third World womens
experiences would not shift the powerful positions within the political and economic
spheres of society, but also inform strategies for change. If this project were realized,
transformative strategies might be found in traditional knowledge systems as well
as capitalism, socialism, or Marxist theory (Nontobeka, 1990 in Nathani, 1996).
According to Wilmer, When social systems and cultures are destroyed, people
are destroyed, whether through direct or indirect means, whether by public or private
violence, whether at the hands of others or self-destructing resulting from anomie
(Wilmer, 1993: xi). Thus, modernization, from the perspectives of Indigenous people,
is an ideology that rationalizes their destruction because it destroys their social
systems. In order to reverse this destructive trend, it is necessary to revisit the
Indigenous systems that held societies together and whose knowledges were passed
down through local peoples (Dei, 2000; Wane, 2000; Agrawal, 1995; Wilmer, 1993).
With reference to a formal African-centered education system, Dei (1996, 2000)
believes that the spiritual and psychological aspects of teaching and the promotion
of the social and emotional growth [of students is necessary] (114). Dei (1993a)
recommends Indigenous knowledges as one way of confronting obstacles to sustain-
ability. He asserts that Indigenous knowledge and skills have historically upheld
the ideologies of sustainability. He argues that modern societies have a great deal
to learn from Indigenous communities, and calls for a renewal and revitalization
of local Indigenous knowledge and traditions for social development (Dei, 1993a:
105). Dei also states that development initiatives must be led by socially responsible
local facilitators who can best articulate locally defined needs and aspirations (108).
Dei (1993a) advances the theory that participation and Indigenization are the
primary elements of sustainable development. He advocates an African centered
development, explaining, If a new wave of theorizing on sustainable development
issues in Africa is to be helpful in addressing human problems, it must be situated
in an appropriate social context that provides practical and social meaning to the
African actors as subjects of a development discourse (97). Dei (1993a, 2000)
further suggests that the African-centered approach is holistic. Social, spiritual,
cultural, economic, political, and cosmological aspects are critical to African centered
sustainable development. I support Deis contention that sustainable development
is an all embracing global project. In another paper, I posit that there are several
benefits, including the ability to attain ones basic needs, self reliance, the
promotion of human resource development, environmental protection, local control
of resources, and progressive state programs that promote social justice.
PATRIARCHY IN AFRICA
Ogundipe-Leslie argues that development discourse in Africa has traditionally been
characterized by highly masculinized language. This was confirmed during my
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research among Embu rural women. For example, it was not uncommon for women
to say, No one is at home when my research assistants and I asked to interview a
member of the family. On reflection, I realized that such a response was the result
of many years in which husbands, fathers, and brothers, sons, and government
officials were making women to feel invisible. To illustrate, the husband of one of
my participants explained:
My wives are children, because they belong to me. I control what they do and
where they go. They cannot speak on behalf of the family because they are
children children cannot speak on your behalf (interview with Leman, 1993).
He went on to describe how he controlled everything in the home, including the
animals, insects, and even the air. For me, this represented ultimate patriarchal
control. His words chilled me to the bone. Worse still, his wife saw fit to confirm
his statement, explaining:
It is true; everything here belongs to Leman. When I came to this home I did
not have children although I am not a child, that is the way women are
treated here, like children although we control the foods, we work on the
land these men do nothing, but sit with their friends and talk (interview
with Siangiki, 1993).
Another participant said:
When I got married, my husband used to refer to me as his child, until I asked
him why he did that. His response was that women and children are referred
to as children, it is not meant to be an insult (interview with Nashibai, 1993).
Challenging the social internalization of female marginality must become an
important part of meaningful development. According to Ogundipe-Leslie (1994):
Women are shackled by their own negative self-image, by centuries of
interiorization of the ideologies of patriarchy and gender hierarchy . Women
react with fear, dependency and complexes and attitudes to please and cajole
where more self-assertive actions are needed programs are needed to educate
women about their positions, the true causes of their plight, and possible
modalities for effecting change both men and women need conscientization
and this is an area where the UN and other bodies can be very useful (114).
Ogundipe-Leslie argues for the need to decolonize the mind, particularly the mind of
a woman because women, historically, have been placed upon pedestals as goddesses,
have been romanticized in literature and lyrics and yet have been imprisoned by
domestic injustice as well as commercialized in life (Ogundipe-Leslie, 1994: 27).
Ogundipe-Leslie concludes her argument by stating
One might say that the African woman has six mountains on her back: one is
oppression outside ; the second is from traditional structures, feudal, slave-
based, communal ; the third is her backwardness ; the fourth is man; the
fifth is her color, her race; and the sixth is herself (28).
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Ogundipe-Leslie (1994) further notes that development should be critiqued not only in
terms of the cultural imperialism and ethnocentrism it evokes, but also on the basis
of the social cost of its effects upon individuals and communities.
After years of being subjected to Western development initiatives, the plight
of many Africans continues to deteriorate. As wryly noted by George Dei (1993b),
thanks to development practices, the poor are developing the rich. Similarly,
Galeano (1997), Ferguson (1997) and Wane (2000) argue that the poor are prog-
rammed to be sacrificial lambs on the altar of productivity. There is ample evidence
that illiteracy is wide spread among many rural communities. My research revealed
that violence against nature is such that womens survival is threatened. In addition,
recent efforts by donor agencies to integrate women into mainstream development
theory and practice have constituted a serious threat to much of what the womens
struggle for freedom and dignity has represented (Simmons, 1997).
Cucu, one of the participants in my research, explained:
So much has changed, so much has been destroyed and there is so much
that is foreign, that you should be the one telling me why we never get enough
rains, and if we do, so much of it pours that it takes away the little food that
was left. You are the one who has gone to school, how can we explain all
this? By the time you are my age the world will be completely destroyed
your generation needs to halt or slow down the pace of destruction (Interview
with Cucu, 1994).
Cucus reference to environmental degradation, to poverty, and to the severed
relationship between people and nature emphasizes the consequences of destroying
the earth under the guise of development. Her analysis is grounded in the practical
knowledge she has acquired as a result of her everyday experiences. When Cucu
looked at me and asked for an explanation as to why the world around hersocial,
economic and politicalwas disintegrating, I could not answer. Her question was
not directed to me in particular but to my generation, particularly those who have
taken up the responsibility to develop the world. Her contention, that you have all
the education you are supposed to know all this, underlined the current crisis in
modern paradigms of development and the urgent need to redefine development
models. Cucu had witnessed the destruction of the virgin forests; she has seen projects
being built on top of graveyards and sacred trees being cut down. Her perception of
these various changes might not make sense to those who promote Western models
of development, but in Africa her analysis speaks to the destruction of the environ-
ment and the creation of imbalances in the world (Wane, 2000). Should Africans
try to go back to their traditional social systems? The damage is so enormous that
this no longer seems feasible; nor is it productive to romanticize the past and live
under the illusion that returning Africa to its unspoiled state would resolve the
present development crisis.
Numerous scholars from Africa have reacted to this reality by re-examining
conventional development and pursuing viable alternatives. In the classic How Europe
Underdeveloped Africa, Walter Rodney (1972) envisioned a kind of holistic develop-
ment that would involve both the individual and social groups. According to Rodney,
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development ought to help individuals increase their skill as well as capacity to
achieve greater freedom, creativity, self-discipline, responsibility, and material well-
being. At the level of social groups, he also maintains that development should
increase the capacity to regulate both internal and external relationships (Rodney,
1972: 34).
It is quite evident that Western development models have not responded
effectively to the impoverished masses whose needs they have failed to meet. In
addition, the exploitative power system, which is largely based in the industrialized
world and its annexes in Africas ruling elite have contributed to the failure of the
modernization theory. The ownership of the means of production in one country by
citizens of another has resulted in the wealth of Africa flowing outwards and into
the hands of foreigners (Ogundipe-Leslie, 1994 & Wilmer, 1993). Development can-
not therefore take place when production strategies are influenced by the demands
of a world market that is determined almost exclusively by a pattern of production
and consumption set in the West.
The failure to take into consideration the views of the targeted population has
resulted in numerous unsuccessful development projects. For example, the introduc-
tion into rural Africa of electric stoves that use solar energy seemed to be a great
innovation, but this innovation has proved to be incompatible with the life patterns
of many rural African women. Some of the participants in my study questioned the
authenticity of a cooking stove that used solar energy. For instance, Wachiuma
commented:
This is a box standing up, and at the top, the fire comes out. How would I warm
my legs! How can you use a standing box for cooking? How would I roast
my yams, sweet potatoes? The fire [pointing to the three-stone fire/space],
keeps me warm. When my grandchildren come to visit me, they sit there or
where you are seated. They tell me about school and I tell them stories about
our clan, our culture. Everything happens around the fire (interview with
Wachiuma, 1993).
The concept of a modern stove ignores such factors. Modern stoves that have been
introduced into certain areas in Kenya and Sudan have failed because important
variables have been overlooked. For example, stoves utilizing solar energy fail to
account for the fact that women cannot leave their farm work to go home and cook
in the middle of the day. Women do not reject such innovations out of ignorance
but because they are unsuitable or impractical. In most cases, these innovations are
also not affordable for rural families. As Rwamba puts it,
I am not against modern technology or modern [innovation], or the new
learning what I am opposed to is the total rejection of the past without
understanding what the past had to offer [the young] generation. We should
learn from [them] and [they] should learn from us (interview with Rwamba,
1993).
An unsuccessful literacy program offered to women in rural Kenya also serves
to illustrate how wrong outside experts can be. The program in question was
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unsuccessful largely because the classes were offered at times when most women
either were busy working in their farms, or were engaged in one of their many
domestic chores. Rather than recognizing the time constraints of these women that
arose from their numerous responsibilities, the planners believed that the women were
rejecting a free service. Waitherero, one of the participants in my study, explained
the situation as follows:
The government sends teachers to teach us how to read and write, but then
they do it at the wrong time. Last year, two young people were here during the
planting season. Many women could not attend for fear that they may be late
in planting. When the government representative came to check the progress,
he was disappointed and blamed us for refusing to take advantage of govern-
ment programs. His final word was, women will never advance, and they
will remain backward and primitive. They just spring us with these classes,
and when we do not turn up, they think we are hopeless (interview with
Waitherero, 1994).
The failure of development projects is marked by the ruined remains of development
sites across Africa. For instance, in Kenya, there are abandoned and broken genera-
tors, vehicles, irrigation machinery, and incomplete buildings. Colleges or hospitals
that received initial funding have been closed, owing to either the lack of resources
or the withdrawal of Western experts who had been sent to launch and implement
the project. The women who participated in my research also complained about the
insensitivity of development workers. Many women did not see the sense of initiating
a project that had no cultural relevance for the people it aimed to benefit. They also
questioned the validity of initiating projects that were obliged to rely upon outside
expertise. Many women also felt that had they been consulted before implementa-
tion, many development failures could have been avoided.
PERCEPTIONS OF DEVELOPMENT
Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, modernization theories dominated development
discourse and, to some extent, continue to do so. The modernization paradigm
assumes that less developed countries are at an initial stage of development, and
that they must therefore pass through subsequent stages of development a view is
supported by appealing to European and North American history. But the reality is
that these countries did not follow any of these stages of development. As mentioned
by Seyoum,
Bauer also contents that todays developed countries did not develop by
handouts. Rather than being dependent on foreign aid, development relies
on peoples attributes, attitudes, motivation, and political arrangements in-
volving voluntary change in the conduct, codes and motivation of millions of
individuals (Seyoum, 2001: 97).
Chambua (1994) asserts that modernization theory identifies, as the goal of develop-
ment, what modern society has already achieved. It insists that Western values
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and ideals must be imitated globally. Then, by implication, it overlooks and dis-
misses alternative societal models. It can be argued that modernization theories
have spearheaded neocolonialism by insisting on the integration of Third World
economies with dominant capitalist economies.
As many development scholars have pointed out, Western development has
been a major contributor to the current development crisis in Africa. Simply put, it
considered income per capita as the chief indicator of a countrys rate of progress.
The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is also used as a conventional tool to measure
rates of growth. Such measures, however, are misleading given that economic deve-
lopment involves far more than GDP growth for it to include both social stability
and social welfare. Such limited concepts of development have raised questions
about the nature, causes, and objectives of development, its theoretical adequacy,
empirical validity and the basis of its assumptions and models (Asante, 1991). In
short, in its earlier form, the term development was used exclusively in an economic
sense, the justification being that a countrys economy was a valid and reliable
index of those other social features (Rodney, 1972).
To-date, mainstream Western paradigms of economic growth that dominated deve-
lopment discourse throughout the 20
th
Century have failed to engender sustainable
human and environmental development in Africa. While the World Bank, Inter-
national Monetary Fund, and other international development agencies have advocated
their various approaches, the question of economic growth in Africa is yet to be
resolved. Moreover, despite the fact that such issues as social justice, gender equality,
environmental protection, power relations, and a more equitable distribution of
wealth within societies are traditionally posited as key components in sustainable
development, Africa still has not advanced in its struggle to improve the quality of
life of its people.
DISCUSSION
Development, as a concept, as a theoretical discourse, has been so widely accepted
that it has become the taken-for-granted organizing principle for how we see, know,
think, and talk about our world (Wane, 2000; Dei, 2000; Rahnema, 1997; 1996;
Parpart, 1995; and Mueller, 1987). Over the past thirty years, land transformation in
rural Kenya, resulting from development projects, has had a remarkable impact on the
landscape. Most of the forests have been cleared because of various development
plans. However, in certain so-called undeveloped areas, the land is bare, with little
vegetation, and is marked by dry riverbeds. Women and children must carry loads of
firewood and waterpots on their heads over long distances, since development
pushes people further and further away from wood fuel and water sources.
For the multinationals and the educated elite, the plantations that have replaced
some forests are an indication of development. But does development mean giving
up land for cash crop production or for industrial development? Does development
have to entail the sacrifice of the well being of ordinary people in order that multi-
national corporations and local entrepreneurs can meet their forecasted production
targets in the global market? It has been stated frequently that development as a
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process will only be meaningful for the African people when it is perceived, executed,
and implemented by Africans. However, I argue that to have a meaningful develop-
ment, there has to be a shared vision among all the parties implicated in the
development process.
Many scholars have argued that development is a loaded word, and in their
opinion, is doomed to extinction and that development, as it has been implemented
to-date, has unleashed every kind of pestilence and has condemned two thirds of
the world (including all of Africa) to subordination, discrimination, and subjugation.
In addition, the exploitation and manipulation that have come to be associated with
neocolonialism have distorted the original meaning of development (Dei, 2000;
Shiva, 2000; Wane, 2000; Ogundipe-Leslie, 1994).
Like Ominde (1988), I maintain that the term development in relation to
Africa is a misnomer. I would argue that the development discourse has been mis-
represented to such an extent that the term should be replaced by a more appro-
priate terminology that would denote progress, prosperity, growth, and meaningful
change. Clearly one of the problems in using the term development is that its
referent is ambiguous, since different interest groups define it in radically different
ways. Consequently, recommendation for how development is to be implemented
also differs significantly. In the context of this discussion, I am obliged to use the
same term. Most African people are never provided with an opportunity to explore
the question of development, despite the fact that they experience the direct effects
of various development models. Molara Ogundipe-Leslie (1994) explains that the
voices of local peoples, workers, women, and children are particularly unlikely to
be taken into account in the development process.
It is quite imperative to recognize that the major obstacles to sustainable develop-
ment are power issues, lack of resources, and political leadership. Power imbalances
between the industrialized and Third World nations, the detrimental policies of
foreign aid agencies, and undemocratic political leadership have all been identified
as major deterrents to development. Thus, the continuing impoverishment of the
African peoples can be attributed to the economic practices of industrialized countries
and their African collaborators in the ruling classes (Ogundipe-Leslie, 1994).
The politics of who controls and validates knowledge and technology, support
power differentials between the industrialized and Third World nations. Dei (2000),
Wane, (2000), among others, critique the Wests manipulation of knowledge produc-
tion, and the manner in which this knowledge has been used to marginalize the so-
called developing world. They argue that while Western scientific knowledge is
promoted as the only legitimate form of knowledge on a global level, and in many
cases local level, it is often irrelevant to Indigenous peoples basic needs (see also
Pettigrew, 1992). In addition, Western technological innovations are rapidly trans-
forming society. Many Westerners regard these technological changes as positive,
accepting the consequential societal transformations without question. Vandana
Shiva (1995) identifies the current technocratic state as completely at odds with
struggles from sustainability, particularly in Third World nations. Shiva confirms
the earlier critique of development, equating development with modernization and
Westernization. She also identifies a fundamental defect in the process of global
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Westernization, namely the exploitation of resources in the South for the sole benefit
of the North. Shiva notes that while underdevelopment is associated with the absence
of Western science and technology, underdevelopment is actually a precondition of
Western science and technology. Industrialization simultaneously creates poverty
and underdevelopment for one party, and wealth and development for the other.
Dei (2000) and Shiva (1995) identify the centralization of resources and
decision making power as problematic to development. The increased exploitation
of the forests, mines, and seas by transnational companies has simultaneously
victimized local people amid mass destruction. Furthermore, their share in profits
is marginal at best. Money, resources, and power flow from the weaker developing
countries to the developed stronger ones and from poor to rich people. Because
women are among the poorest, and hold the least amount of power within most
societies, these dominant systems have worked further to exploit and victimize
them. I believe that the consistent and steady devaluation of womens
contributions to society can be attributed to a universal ideological framework
that regards women as inferior and which defines their work as the property of
men (Nathani, 1996: 40). The marginalization of women was worsened when
Structural Adjustments Programs were introduced in African in the 1980s.
The Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) imposed by the World Bank and
the IMF posed a major obstacle to womens progress and development as a whole.
Dei (1993a) views SAPs economic approach to development as non people centered.
He asserts that the West and its agencies are preoccupied with capitalism and thus
continue to promote underdevelopment through exploitative practices toward Third
World countries. This process of underdevelopment has been sustained through trade
and ownership of the means of production. In the case of the exploitative relationship
between SAPs and Third World countries, the West, in a manner that entirely serves
its own needs, sets the terms of trade (Rodney, 1972; Amin, 1975, 1990). Asante
sums up the effects of the SAPs as follows,
The programs fail to lay the foundations for long-term development or to re-
orient African economies away from the colonial era-structures that, because
they were designed to benefit European economies, work to the disadvantage
of Africa (Asante, 1991: 171).
SAPs are not only exploitative, but also place the heaviest burden on women. For
example, women have had to compensate for the loss of government services,
especially in the areas of health and education brought by SAPs. (Asante, 1991)
A documentary film and a manual produced by the Intercoalition Church of
Africa and entitled, To be a Woman (Njoki Kipusi and Susan Riid 1991), identifies
some of the strategies that can be used to counteract the effects of SAPs. The manual
is written in accessible language and contains detailed role-play scripts appropriate
for all players participating in the development discourse. It also provides examples of
some of the tragedies that resulted from development. I have used both the film and
the manual in graduate and undergraduate courses, and the students typically re-
commend that these materials be made available to people interested in addressing
the development question. Although the film paints a bleak picture of the African
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situation, the exercises in the manual provide a point of entry for discussion,
analysis, and the creation of hypothetical development strategies. Most notably, the
exercises reveal the flaws inherent in both the African and Western development
models.
The question of political leadership is another issue that needs to be critically
examined. Over the past three decades, African states have been subjected to corrupt,
power-hungry, male-dominated political leadership. The dictatorial rule that has
characterized most states has been subjected to coups, the establishment of military
regimes, genocide, unstable national economies, and imposition of controversial
Western-mediated programs. The Western-mediated programs are implemented
through the support of the elite or petty bourgeois who are frequently members of
the same ethnic group that were favored by the colonial administrators (Wilmer,
1993: 52). In addition to the aforementioned challenges, the undemocratic policies
pursued by most political leaders in Africa present another major obstacle to sustain-
able development. Ake (1996: 77) states that [some in Africa have] failed because
of corruption [and] [because] the political elite tended to see such projects not so
much in terms of the compelling need for national development as in terms of
accumulation, patronage, and power. This kind of leadership has disempowered
the local people and prohibited national development. The challenge is to
transform the African leadership crisis. Would the transformation bring desired
development for communities? Who are the role models in Africa today? When
I carried out my research in Kenya, many women from rural Kenya felt there was
no democracy in Kenya. The women felt the leaders had failed them they promised
us free electionsbut would you call it free elections when people are getting killed
if they oppose those in leadership? Again, how can we talk of democracy when
99% of our leaders are male.
In June 2007, I visited rural Kenya to make sense of the ways in which local
women understand how the new government (coalition) was approaching the question
of rural development. Many women hoped the new government would have space
for rural womens views on development. They stated that getting rid of KANU
and NARC governments were steps towards democracy and meaningful develop-
ment. Many rural women are optimistic that real development is going to take
place. Others have an attitude of wait and see. However, many women did indicate
to me that, this time round, they would not let their male counterparts or outsiders
dictate their development. They would like to participate in decision making for
any community project.
The United Nations (UN) has recognized the need to concentrate on infrastructure
in order to promote development in Africa. The UN advocates the improvement of
transportation in order to promote social and economic cooperation both within and
outside the African continent (United Nations, 2000). In addition, the UN has taken
steps to address the issue of poverty in Africa. For example, to deal with this issue,
it has initiated a program aimed at empowering the civil society in Sub-Sahara Africa
by promoting dialogue between the civil society and national decision-makers. This
program is intended to be implemented through observation, exchange between local
peoples and womens organizations, the raising of awareness, and the training of
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decision-makers in government, cooperative agencies, and the media. It is hoped
that this approach will empower grassroot organizations to define their agendas and
priorities, and to improve both the micro and macro dimensions of development
(United Nations, 2000, 1995). While this is a commendable initiative, it is unclear
how the UN agencies will ensure that the voices of local women will not be muted
by the voices of men and women who are currently at the forefront of development
in Africa. Having said this, I fully support Ogundipe-Leslies statement that it is
necessary for the UN to de-masculinize development and to find more androgynous
and generic terms to discuss what concerns both men and women in society.
CONCLUSION
There is hope for Africa. But first the development question needs to address the
impoverishment that continues to be experienced by African people whose needs
have not yet been met. Also, it is necessary to address the exploitative power structure
of African ruling elite. The democratization of society is a necessary prerequisite
for the development process. Asante quotes Adedejs words on this as follows,
For as Adedeji put it, the foundations of progress lie with the people, and that
until the destiny of Africa is assured to be in the hands of the African people
through the democratization of the African society and the mobilization of
popular participation in the development processeconomic progress will
continue to elude Africa and even recovery will prove a will-of-the-wisp
(Asante, 1991: 176).
For any meaningful change to take place, it is necessary to democratize international
trade. It would also be ideal if world economic reforms, especially those that directly
affect the African continent, are discussed in an international forum where all the
players are given equal charge to formulate and implement their development models.
Finally, Africa requires fundamental change and transformation. For this to take place,
it is important to promote renewed commitment from all players in the development
paradigm. It is also imperative that all parties respect the space, views, know-
ledge and expertise of others in relation to the development issue. It is imperative to
recognize the invaluable contribution made by local expertise from the outset of this
process. As emphasized throughout this chapter, womens input is also crucial
when it comes to assessing needs, and designing and implementing development
models (Asante, 1991: 12). The challenge is to provide a model that will meet the
basic social and cultural needs of all members of a given society. In other words, we
must create a model that is progressive, that speaks to individual and communal needs
and that addresses the effect of colonization. The model should also acknowledge the
importance of locals, and their centrality in creating a development.
A sustainable model of development has to be holistic, Indigenous and prog-
ressive. It has to be inclusive, culturally sensitive and transformative in nature as
proposed by Adedeji (Asante, 1991: 177). The model suggestedAfrican Alternative
Frameworkcan serve as a beginning and its fundamentals include: (1) a more
vigorous pursuit of human-centered self-sustaining development strategy and process;
151
(2) a greater encouragement of production activitiesin other words, a transformation
of Africa from a primary exchange economy to a production economy; (3) a greater
democratization of the development process and greater accountability by policy-
makers and public officials; (4) an effective mobilization of social and economic
institutions for the task of adjustment and transformation; (5) a renewed effort
to accelerate the process of economic co-operation and integration. In my opinion,
sustainable development should not be in relation to other development models or
measured in relation to other peoples needs. The ideal model should be concept-
ualized in relation to the needs of a particular community and should, at the same
time, reflect a meaningful technological knowhow for local communities.
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ARLO KEMPF
12. CONCLUSION
All knowledge is embedded within cultural ways of knowing. The act of naming
culture as such too often signifies difference, and a location of the cultural form in
question as separate from mainstream, normal and unremarkable cultural forms.
The familiar colonial refrain In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue is a form
of cultural knowledge. The US catchphrase Lincoln freed the slaves is cultural
knowledge. Dr. Martin Luther Kings famous words I have a dream are a form of
cultural knowledge as is the slogan off the pigs popularized by some early members
of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defence. Our selection and solicitation of heroes
and truths for our children are expressions of cultural knowledge. As Haraway (1988)
and others have argued, knowledge is situated and contested in particular ways and
places, and what constitutes dominant versus non-dominant knowledge changes over
time as a result of these situations and contestations. The capitalist notion of a market-
place of ideas is as mythical as the freedom implied by the notion of the free market.
Within most societies, and in particular in Euro/North American contexts, dominant
truths and narratives are produced and reproduced to the exclusion of knowledges
and cultural forms generated by and within marginalized cultural spaces and
communities.
Our mythical supermarket of ideas has categories of products with some ideas at
the unremarkable centre and some at the named periphery. This is the case at my
local supermarket, which sells both food and international food. So too at my local
toy store, which sells among other things, two sets of dolls marked as family and
ethnic family respectively. The dolls identified only as family are white and the
ethnic family is brown. This same story of centre and periphery is told in countless
ways in our educational systems through multicultural food nights, welcome wagon
programs teaching integration to newcomer families and ethnic dress-up days to
name a few. The distinctions produced and reproduced in these processes are all
too familiar and are indeed a constituent part of the common sense of colonial
epistemology. Within formal learning contexts, the required curriculum delineates the
centre, whose truths are fixed, whose morals are unquestionable and whose lessons
are universal. At the same time, non-dominant knowledge and culture are often
reduced to special interest positions, and treated as concerns to be addressed or
problems to be solved. Diversity initiatives, equity committees, social justice clubs, etc,
stand in for inclusive mandatory curriculum in which the histories and expressions
of women, racialized peoples, the working class, our queer and trans communities,
people with disabilities and other marginalized groups are taught not as add-ons
but as core material (in the regular food aisle).
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The marketplace of ideas is a stacked deck of constrained choice, and formal
education is only one expression of this domination. For example, most European
and British Commonwealth countries celebrate some form of annual military
remembrance, and Canada is no exception. On November 11 each year, at 11:11 am,
students are asked to be quiet for sixty seconds, and people are asked to take the
moment for reflection. Although a more solemn occasion than the daily frozen tag
ritual assigned to the listening to and playing of the national anthem, the idea is
much the samethis is a holy moment in our Christian secularist society. Teachers
are expected to wear poppies to honor the dead, and society as a whole is implicitly
expected to feel the same way about our collective holy silence.
Last Remembrance Day, I was at a park in Toronto with my son when five
bright yellow WWII era planes flew overhead in a skilful aerial display. I pointed
them out to a friend of mine and his daughters, and we all watched for a moment.
This was a little after 11amright about the time designated for our prescribed Jungian
moment of reflection on war, peace and memory. This piece of airborne public
pedagogy drew the attention of everyone at the park. While the planes may have
meant different things to different people (unnecessary pollution, a demonstration of
skill, military prowess, something cool to look at, etc.) they were certainly intended
to conjure specific public memories of specific events, informed by common unde-
rstanding and common morality. Message one: The Second World War (and to a
lesser degree its predecessor) was a tragic event in which evil (someone elses evil),
after a brief success, was overcome by good (our good). Message two: although
necessary sometimes, war is hell and we should all keep that in mind (at least one
day a year). Message three: there are some other wars in which people died and if
we have a minute these should be duly noted.
For me, the planes were caricatures. They were yellow but they might as well have
been in black and white, or sepia-toned. Although many Canadians experience the
great European wars through relatives who served, many others (if not most) under-
stand them through the projects of public memory and official histories. Within these
narratives of villains and heroes, the complexity of domination and Euro/North
American imperialism is lost. Indeed big, important pieces of information are lost
(such as Canadas anti-Semitic immigration policy which turned away Jewish
refugees fleeing the very genocide we credit ourselves as having helped stop).
While thinking about war (and about specific wars) is certainly important, the pretty
planes neither pose questions about war nor inspire new interrogations of important
histories.
For me the planes are a total package meant to trigger a public tuning-in, where-
by we logon/login to a particular colonial body of knowledge. The moment we
see the planes, we know the official storywe know who the bad and good people
were/ are, we know which violence were supposed to remember. And, we know
we are supposed to remember, actively... but not too actively. Not so much so that we
connect land claims in Canada to European racism, not so much so that we connect
the rise of Islamophobia in Europe to the very transhistorical factors that fuelled
the success of Nazism, not so much so that we understand European colonialism as
genocide. As France recognized the 11
th
day of the 11 month, its official history
CONCLUSION
157
books were freshly scrubbed of any negative descriptions of its invasion, occupation
and massacre of Algeria. Memory and education have their considered limits and
indeed the moment of silence is often as much an act of strategic forgetting and
unlearning as it is one of remembrance.
That dominant cultural moments such as Remembrance Day provide more
answers, rules, and discursive regulations than they do questions, complications and
inquiry is troubling but not surprising. At the moment I pointed to the planes in the
sky, Canadian military pilots (real ones) were no doubt somewhere in the air over
Afghanistan in armed military aircraft (real ones). If were looking at the pretty yellow
planes, struck by the sepia tone feelings theyre meant to conjure, then well not be
looking at Canadas colonial efforts in Southern Asia and the Middle East. Just what is
the marketplace of memory implied by these mainstream affirmations of dominant
narratives? Just what kinds of questions and memories does Remembrance Day
demand and permit? Does it demand or permit students and teachers to question the
actions of Canadas soldiers in the field? Does it demand or permit a powerful
opportunity for open dialogue on Canadian military policy? Is Remembrance Day a
good day for a Tamil child to stand up in a Canadian school assembly and reflect on
the murder of his mother at hands of a Canadian supported Sri Lankan military effort?
Is it a good day to cry for, and talk about, children tortured at the hands of Canadian
troops in Somalia? Is it a good day to look at Canadas military role (currently and
historically) in the destabilization of Haiti? Anyone who has endured a mainstream
public school or secondary Remembrance Day assembly knows that these are usually
not the stories or questions the school has gathered so solemnly together to hear.
The colonial narrative of the Canadian project that emerges from these and other
critical readings of history are not what the planes are meant to signify. The peda-
gogical value of the planes is instead that we remember incredible and moving des-
criptions and stories from certain veterans who understand war far better than non-
veterans ever will. We are meant to be moved by the planes, poppies and paratroopers
who tell the stories of the great wars. To where, however, should we be moved?
In what interrogation of war are we thereafter to engage (and by war I mean the
making of war by individuals and systems rather than the execution of it by those
trained to take orders)? Should we critique the confluence of race, class and religion
that gives rise to violence around the world today as it did in Europe in the 30s and
40s? In our contemplation of the European genocide of the 1930s and 1940s, how
are we encouraged (or not) to connect and relate these devastating atrocities to other
European genocides including that of some 20,000,000 Indigenous people who
died at the hands of the colonial effort in North America?
Like multicultural food nights, international food aisles and ethnic doll families,
the marketplace of memory is informed by constrained choice with some memories
legitimate and centered (the British empire) and others illegitimate and marginalized
(those murdered by the British empire). The preceding chapters of this work attempt a
rupture of these strictures; a resistance based reading of the past, present and future
which rejects the colonial underpinning of the way we know ourselves and each
other. Frantz Fanon (1952/1967), as well as Ngugi wa Thiongo (1986) identify both
latent and manifest forms of colonial discourse. Colonial discourse is a key theme
KEMPF
158
of this work, and indeed the notion of manifest versus latent forms of the colonial
conversation is particularly relevant for the educational context.
Education is by no means confined to formal schooling or even to formal
learning. Although a binary of latent versus manifest discourses might be limiting
(the notion of an interconnected and mutually reliant continuum may be more useful),
the ideas run parallel to the notions of overt versus hidden curriculum as identified
by thinkers as early as Dewey (1916) and more recently by Apple and King (1983),
Giroux and Penna (1983) Contenta (1993) and others. The hidden curriculum refers to
the moral and political content of our educational systems which may not appear
overtly in curriculum documents but which socializes students (thus shaping society)
in the service of particular political projects. The colonial aspects of schooling
therefore involve manifest and latent (formal and hidden) curricular expressions.
Anti-colonial education must thus attempt to rupture and resist both formal and
informal oppression within education. This book explicates, analyses and situates a
host of marginalized cultural knowledges in the service of a multifaceted anti-
colonial re-visioning of educational content at the manifest and latent levels.
The chapters by Mandeep Kaur Mucina (Remembering the 1947 Partition), Njoki
Wane (African Indigenous Feminist Thought and The Politics of African Develop-
ment), Devi Mucina (Moving beyond Neo-Colonialism), Imara Ajani Rolston (A
Conversation about Conversations), and Arlo Kempf (North African Knowledges
and the Western Classroom) provide a set of analytic raw materials for multicentric
approaches to curriculum and indeed for richer understandings of our world. The
chapters by Marlon Simmons (The Race to Modernity), John Catungal (Circulating
Western Notions), Donna Outerbridge (What Might we Learn if we Silence the
Colonial Voice?), and Yumiko Kawano (Being Part of the Cultural Chain) offer
critical understandings of the relationship between self and the socio-political world,
revealing the connections between identity and community, identity and self, as well
as the implications of social location for resistance and rupture of colonial regulations
of individuals and communities.
These offerings reveal, among other things, the need for a two-pronged approach
to decolonization which involves upsetting and displacing the hierarchy of knowledge
legitimization which privileges dominant teachings on one hand, and decolonizing
the self (for both dominant and non-dominant bodies) in the pursuit of resistance
based subjective politics on the other. The marginalized cultural knowledges offer
the basis for formal or manifest re-visioning of curricula and knowledge production
in general, while the discussions regarding the decolonization of self offer a look
at the sometimes invisible or latent struggles that are needed within anti-colonial
projects. This work offers dual resistance to the dual-track (latent and manifest)
terrain in pursuit of an anti-colonial discourse which ruptures and works to correct
dominant discourse, both formal and informal, within education. Additionally,
the various contributions to this work provide, almost as an aside, an emerging
archaeology of the colonial present, whereby colonial sites and processes are better
understood through the cultural knowledge-based responses and ruptures suggested
in this work. Understanding colonialism as a host of present-day phenolmena
which are linked to the past and the future, multicentric cultural knowledges
CONCLUSION
159
possess a liberatory potential as tools for empowerment in the face of colonial
epistemic hegemony.
The works collected here have taken into account the social, political and cultural
change that impede transformation, and together call for a rethinking of the dominant
seductive ideologies that serve to marginalize other peoples ways of knowing. This
book points to different ways of conceptualizing and engaging in transformative
learning and decolonizing processes. We have attempted to challenge the status quo
and offer alternative ideas and interpretations that allow for the dismantling of the
persistent divide between the known and the unknown; the constructed self and the
constructed other. Despite these contributions, the question of how to move from the
experiences, findings and analysis offered here to the implementation of these
knowledges to formal educational contexts remains a challenging one. Indeed, the ideas
contained in this book do not matter simply because we as authors say so. We know
that despite our arguments here and elsewhere, particular bodies will be positioned as
the leading voice on African development while Indigenous peoples from the conti-
nent will continue to have their voices largely unheard. We know that teachers will for
the most part continue to teach Greece as the birth place of European civilization. In
sum, we know that dominant and non-dominant forms of knowledge and knowledge
production will persist in the global South and the overdeveloped North.
We also know, however, that the politics of knowledge are not static and that
things change. We have seen the destabilization and rupture of many key narratives in
Euro/North American contexts (e.g. Columbus discovery myths). We are now seeing
an increase in the primacy of local Indigenous knowledges in the environmentalism
movement in the new Latin American left. In the Canadian context, we are seeing
curriculum development that challenges imperialist international narratives about
genocide, aid and poverty. It is my belief that colonial narratives are facing a crisis
of legitimacy, evidenced by knee jerk nativism such as that seen in Texas with the
conservative textbook revisions, as well as Arizona with the states refusal to fund
educational programs which teach counter narratives to the dominant story. In each
case stories of resistance and oppression are being suppressed by political and
educational authorities in a battening down of the hatches of the dominant discursive
vehicle, precipitated by a rising anti-colonial storm. The centering of cultural know-
ledges within anti-colonial educational projects is a chance to pick up where the
destabilization of dominant narratives leaves off. While we should certainly fan
the flames of the legitimacy crisis of our dominant narratives, we must at the same
time situate marginalized knowledge (which constitutes the vast majority of all know-
ledge) to supplant the crumbling colonial chronicles, which have for too long told
the worlds stories through the dominants interpretation. The Politics of Cultural
Knowledge is a small step in this long journey.
REFERENCES
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H. Giroux & D. Purpel (Eds.), The hidden curriculum and moral education (pp. 8299). Berkeley,
CA: McCutchan Publishing Corporation.
Contenta, S. (1993). Rituals of failure: What schools really teach. Toronto: Between the Lines.
KEMPF
160
Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and education: An introduction to the philosophy of education (1966 ed.)
New York: Free Press.
Fanon, F. (1952/1967). Black skin, white masks. New York: Grove Press.
Giroux, H., & Penna, A. (1983). Social education in the classroom: The dynamics of the hidden curriculum.
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CA: McCutchan Publishing Corporation.
Haraway, D. (1988). Situated knowledges: The science question in feminism and the privilege of partial
perspectives. Feminist Studies, 14(3), 575599.
wa Thiongo, N. (1986). Decolonizing the mind: The politics of language in African literature. Oxford:
James Currey Publishers.
Young, R. J. C. (1994). Egypt in America: Black Athena, racism and colonial discourse. In A. Rattansi &
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NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
John Paul Catungal was born in Manila, Philippines and grew up in suburban
Vancouver BC, where he did his undergraduate degree at Simon Fraser University.
He is currently a PhD candidate in Geography at the University of Toronto, where
he also completed his MA. He is broadly interested in the intensely spatial organiza-
tion of social differentiation and inequality. His research is in three strands. The
first theorizes the relationship between racial and sexual politics through an in-depth
study of the emergence of ethno-specific HIV/AIDS social service organizations in
Toronto. The second explores the politics of immigrant belonging in multicultural
contexts through research on Filipino lives in major Canadian cities. The third
examines the social exclusions of new policy and governance arrangements relating to
Torontos urban cultural economy. His publications on these topics have appeared in
Social and Cultural Geography, Geoforum, Urban Studies and Environment and
Planning A.

Yumiko Kawano is presently working towards a PhD in the Department of Socio-
logy and Equity Studies in Education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education
of the University of Toronto. Her research interest includes Indigenous knowledges,
anticolonial thought, antiracism, and education. Yumiko recently published Fanons
Psychology of the Mind, the Yellow Colonizer and the Racialized Minoritized in
Japan, in Fanon and the Counterinsurgency of Education (2010) edited by George.
J. Sefa Dei.

Arlo Kempf holds a PhD in Sociology of Education and currently teaches at the
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto. His research
interests include anti-colonialism and anti-racism in education as well as equity and
equality in teacher education. His previous books include the edited collections
Breaching the Colonial Contract: Anti-Colonialism in the US and Canada (Springer
2009), and Anti-Colonialism and Education: The Politics of Resistance co-edited
with George J. Sefa Dei (Sense 2006).

Devi Mucina is a University of Toronto PhD candidate in Sociology and Equity
Studies at Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. His study interest concerns
Ubuntu storytelling as a way of engaging and regenerating Ubuntu ways of life
beyond colonialism. Devi positions stories as tools of healing spiritual injury while
challenging us to ensure that colonialism is not repeated again. He holds an MA in
Indigenous Governance and a BA in Human and Social Development (Child and
Youth Care) from the University of Victoria in British Columbia.

Mandeep Kaur Mucina is a practicing social worker, youth worker, and community
worker. Mandeep aspires to bring awareness and contribute to the fight against
violence against women. Mandeep is currently working towards a PhD in the Adult
162
Education and Community Development program at OISE and finished a Masters
degree in Social Work, from the University of Toronto. Born and raised in a small
community on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Mandeep finished a BA in
Human and Social Development at the University of Victoria. Since arriving in
Toronto in 2005, Mandeep has been active in the South Asian community, working
as a counselor to provide therapeutic support and education to South Asian commu-
nities in the area of Violence Against Women (VAW). Currently, she is focusing
her research on second-generation South Asian women and their experiences of
honor-related violence, particularly exploring how second-generation South Asian
women negotiate cultural knowledges, such as honor, in the Canadian context.

Donna M. Outerbridge is a PhD candidate at the Ontario Institute for Studies in
Education, University of Toronto in the Department of Sociology and Equity Studies
in Education. She has participated in numerous conferences and has recently
published The Fact of Blackness: A Critical Review of Bermudas Colonial Educa-
tion System in Fanon and Education: Thinking through Pedagogical Possibilities.
Donna is also co-editing Decolonizing the Spirit with Dr. Njoki N. Wane. Her
research interests are in the areas of Anti-colonial, Anti-racism, Black Feminism,
Indigenous Knowledges and Afrocentricity. Her research work will engage the ways
in which African Bermudians can come to re-claim their history and conceptualize
their identity through an African centered education.

Imara Ajani Rolston is a MA candidate in the Adult Education and Community
Development and Collaborative Program in Urban and Community Studies. (OISE)
University of Toronto. Imara has been concerned with restorative justice, community
mobilization, HIV/AIDS intervention, and anti-oppression. His local work in restora-
tive justice focused on working with a locally based Toronto organization to promote
alternative dispute practices for youth. His international work has focused on both
HIV/AIDS and gender. Imara has worked for close to three years on HIV/AIDS
initiatives in Botswana. His work placed him at different points in the national
response, from national capacity building organizations, to community based family
planning organizations, to a national faith based organizations implementing HIV/
AIDS counseling, to testing and OVC initiatives.

Marlon Simmons is a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology and Equity
Studies at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto. His
current research interests include anti-colonial thought, issues of governance and
self in the context of schooling, and educational reform. The foci of his thesis are
about modernity and colonialism, with a particular attention to Diasporic experiences
and the interplay in the context of the West. He recently co-edited Fanon and Educa-
tion: Thinking through Pedagogical Possibilities (2010) with George. J. Sefa Dei.

Njoki Nathani Wane, PhD (University of Toronto), is the current Director of
Office of Teaching Support at OISE & Associate Professor, Sociology and Equity
163
Studies in Education, University of Toronto. Her teaching and research interests
include: anti-racist pedagogy in teacher education; Indigenous knowledges; anti-
colonial thought; spirituality and schooling; Black Canadian feminisms; and ethno-
medicine. Her most recent selected works include co-edited collections A Second
Glance at Africa (Wane, N. et al., 2009), and Theorizing Empowerment: Canadian
Perspectives on Feminist Thought (edited by Massaquoi, N., & Wane, N., 2007);
refereed articles in Journals Race Ethnicity and Education (2009, 2008), Atlantis
(2009), and Contemporary Issues in Education Curriculum Inquiry (2009); and book
chapters in Fanon and the Counterinsurgency of Education (edited by Dei, G. J. S.,
2010), Contemporary Asian and African Indigenous Knowledge and Learning:
Essentialisms, Continuities and Change (edited by Kapoor, D., & Shizha, E., 2010),
Alternative Counseling & Healing (edited by Moodley, R., & Sam George, A., 2010),
The Contested Academy (edited by Wagner, A. E., Acker, S., and Mayuzumi, K.,
2008), Doing Democracy: Striving for Political Literacy and Social Justice (edited
by Lund, D. E., & Carr, P. R., 2008), Multicultural Education Policies in Canada and
the United States (edited by Joshee, R., & Johnson, L., 2007), and Anti-Colonialism
and Education: The Politics of Resistance (edited by Dei, G. J. S., & Kempf, A.,
2006). She teaches both in Graduate School and Initial Teachers Education program.

The Politics of Cultural Knowledge

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