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Grainne Ni Nuallain. Colonial Inheritances.

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Grainne Ni Nuallain. Colonial Inheritances.

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The colonisation of Ireland by the British was brutal, merciless and devastating. For 800 years, Irish language, culture, and people were decimated under the guise of “progress” and “civilising” the wild people of Irish descent. As the granddaughter of a fierce Nationalist, Gaelgóir, and a family of strong, feminist Irish women, I have a deep connection with my Irish heritage, but equally I am deeply troubled by the aspects of history that literature and history books have ignored. As a child, and into my teens, I was expected to attend mass at our local Catholic Church most Saturday evenings, and every major Church holiday. I attended Catholic school for both Primary and Secondary education, and was not permitted to attend a mixed gender Secondary school due to worries of “distractions” etc. The cultural influence of the Catholic Church remained strong throughout my pre-University education, with mandatory mass attendance at school, and a strong “Catholic” attitude towards queer and LGBT members of the student population (largely emanating from the principal and staff of the school). It is no surprise, then, that my own sexual emancipation did not occur until I was in my 20s, out from under the influence of my Catholic education and exposed  to other experiences and perspectives. As a child, I always felt uncomfortable in a Church, not just due to boredom etc., but because the truth of my existence, as queer and as a woman, was (and remains) unacceptable under the Catholic Church’s teachings. In my recent studies of postcolonial thought regarding my PhD, coupled with the decolonising and critical race theory currently studied in this class, it is impossible not to re-analyse Irish history, especially as pertaining to Irish women as below, but also queer (Marriage Equality was only made legal in 2015), trans (blatant transphobia in State services such as Health), and non-White Irish residents (Direct Provision).

Despite the many Irish women who risked (or gave) their lives for the Irish emancipatory cause, when Ireland finally achieved that status of “Republic”, and the potential of a new Ireland, without the colonial inheritances of British rule, promised new freedoms, for men and women, the promises made were pushed to the back burner. Under the guise of prioritising stability of the State before inferior concerns such as women’s freedoms, the Irish government immediately set precedent for trivialising women’s concerns (and involvement) in State matters. Unsurprisingly, after hundreds of years of persecution, Irish Catholics were excited to freely practice their religion. However, the integration of the Catholic Church and the Irish State was a huge step backwards for Irish women. With the Catholic Church (the hierarchies of which continue to only allow men to enter the clergy) whispering in the ears of the Irish State, women’s freedoms before and after marriage, both socioculturally and legally, took a huge hit. Culturally, the significance of having a member of clergy as a son, was unparalleled. It is unsurprising, given that the Catholic Church was structured to prioritise male existence, both as being closer to God, and as divinely chosen as the superior sex, women under a Catholic State were, at best, denied freedom, at worst, brutally abused. The maintenance of female “purity” was of the utmost concern of the Catholic Church (a legacy which continues to affect the level of sexual education provided at schools with a Catholic ethos), and the responsibility of education of women on matters of maternity and motherhood, coupled with the illegality of contraception, and a huge silence regarding female reproductive health, pregnancy and sexuality, culminated in the advent of Mother and Baby homes. In January 2021 the full report of the Mother and Baby homes investigation was concluded, with horrific findings regarding mass graves, thousands of deaths, and the State sanctioned abuse of women for “illegitimate” pregnancies. Despite their central purpose to society as “homemakers” and “child rearers”, despite a lack of teaching on sexual wellbeing and intercourse, it was still the women who were blamed and abused. In 2021, the government issued an apology to the women (and children) affected, but the absence of recognition of the historical (and current) teachings (and absence of teachings) of the Catholic Church, whether via mass, school or community, and the direct implications these had on the treatment of women in Ireland, is deeply troubling.

The irony of the centrality of the “Mother Ireland” motif regarding the Irish cultural revival in the early 20th century, juxtaposed with the treatment and perception of Irish women, is great. Symbolically, Mother Ireland called the Irish men to arms, but when it came to legally, politically, and culturally equating women’s in evolvement in Irish life (and struggles against Britain) to men’s, Ireland fell short. While Irish men were gaining postcolonial freedoms, the women of Ireland remained colonised under patriarchal control, perpetuating many of the gendered perceptions of women as perpetuated by British colonial powers. Indeed, one needs only to look at the Repeal of the 8th Amendment (added to the constitution in the 80s!) in 2018, and the current medical misunderstanding and mistreatment of gynaecological illness, to understand that Irish women continue to be treated unequally under the eyes of the State. It is imperative to continue the work of rethinking and restructuring the roots and histories of our knowledges, and to actively pursue change in harmful beliefs, both legally and culturally.

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Having grown up in a small city in the North of Argentina, I can trace many colonial-eurocentric beliefs I have inherited, some of them quite obvious, others more subtle. My region has a stronger presence of aborigin communities than the rest of the country but it also has a long history of racial injustice manifested particularly in the disavowal, social rejection and denial of rights to our indigenous communities. Despite being acutely aware of all these inequalities, I can’t remember my family or friends ever discussing it. In retrospect, I can easily see how my mind created associations that responded not only to social class structures but to strong pigmentocratic beliefs. For example, I can clearly remember the first time I saw someone white asking for money when I was 17; during my entire life I had only ever seen ‘brown’ or people with indigenous features asking for money. I naturalised this connection between brown people and poverty without ever questioning it.

My feelings towards the indigenous people were mostly positive; I associated them to the fantastic handicrafts that are common in my area, to breathtaking scenery of the mountains. I think it is more common to have compassion or pity for indigenous communities in my region than to actually see them as a threat.

When I was at school, it was still the norm to learn about how Spain had ‘discovered’ America and brought ‘civilisation', but we also learned and celebrated Argentina’s independence from the Spanish government. Religion also played a crucial role in my education; I attended a strict Catholic/Opus Dei school, where I learned that the poor would receive God’s ‘compensation’ in Heaven, but not on Earth.

I can also think of many examples of eurocentric beliefs in the way I learned what is aesthetically desirable or appreciated. I don’t remember exactly how I learned this, but I always knew, for example, that blond hair and blue or green eyes were considered as something more desirable and attractive.

While my region has a larger presence of indigenous communities, there was definitely a lack of representation of other races when growing up. I only ever saw black people in movies/TV, most of the time associated with negative or sad images. I also learned about the slavery and oppresion endured by Black people thorugh fiction (novels, TV, movies).

One of the most important beliefs I can track back to my education and uprising is the idea of meritocracy; I was led to believe that everyone, regardless of their background, could achieve what they wanted if they worked hard enough. Again, never questioning the social injustices I was surrounded by.

When I was 17 I moved to Buenos Aires to study and found myself immersed in a high class environment that was completely unfamiliar to me and it was the first time I really felt like an Other. Same as in many countries, in Argentina it is very common to make fun of or bully people from “the provinces”. I started changing my accent, mannerisms, etc to disguise those cultural differences. Up to this day, I still have a “neutral” Spanish accent and most people won’t recognise where I’m from.

At University I was also confronted with Western aspirations, maybe for the first time in my life. All my classmates had traveled around the world and expected to develop their careers in the US or Europe. At the same time, I can see it was then that I learned what a “good” professional career was, what my aspirations for life -capitalist ambitions- should be.

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What I wanted to show with this map is that while the privileges I've enjoyed are all connected to each other, they all stem from two essential facts: I am American, and I am white.
Of the two of these facts, I believe that the more impactful is that I'm white. Colonialism and the spreading of Eurocentricity have given whiteness an inordinate amount of privilege and power; America, in particular, is rife with imbalances that are ultimately based on race. Laws, for instance, are often geared towards the benefit of well-off, white citizens, to the exclusion of people of color and the poor.
While I am not a proponent of this inequality, I cannot deny that I, as a white woman from a middle class family, have benefited from the massive unfairness still embedded in the systems that govern everyday life. My whiteness is most likely the reason for why I am here today - I was never held back, by any reason, from being allowed to dream and follow my own path. I've never met any obstacle that was so insurmountable that I had to give up on an idea - this I credit, again, to the advantages I had growing up, and the fact the world has never told me that I'm not allowed to go somewhere, do something, be someone. Whiteness is almost like an all access pass, in that way: nothing is off limits to me because of my ethnicity.

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When thinking of the coloniality of being, my mind thinks of the experiences of my grandmother. As a result of the Catholic Church, my grandmother lived in a time of intense cultural shame. So much so that when she became pregnant with my dad before she was married to my grandad, they decided to emigrate to the U.K. They made their decision in order to escape the harrowing potential of my grandmother entering one of the Magdalene Laundries. These Laundries were institutions ran by the Catholic Church in which women and girls were imprisoned, forced to carry out unpaid labour and subjected to severe psychological and physical abuse.

My grandparents felt like they had no other choice than to leave their homes, families and communities. Not because they wanted to but because their fate in Ireland had they stayed, would have been one of incredible alienation and institutional punishment for my grandmother. All for the crime of bearing a child out of wedlock.

I consider my grandparent’s circumstances as a result of the British colonial rule. While under British occupation, Ireland experienced the systematic oppression of Irish Catholics through the Penal Laws. The system set out a two-tier society in which deprived Catholics of many basic human rights. Catholics were banned from education, voting, owning property and even speaking the native language. Through the British attempt of erasing Catholicism, religion became deeply embedded into Irish people’s identity.

Through British colonialism, Ireland was not only stripped of its physical resources but was torn right into the roots of the Irish psyche. The effects of colonialism resulted in a population deprived of self-worth and continuous insecurity, creating fertile grounds for the Catholic Church to assume a position of influence as it offered moral leadership.

When Ireland gained its independence, it was a new nation deprived of its resources and faced extraordinary economic difficulties. Ireland leaned on the Roman Catholic Church to help provide the essential functions of the State, but with financial aid came the Church’s influence. In the original writing of the constitution, the State recognised the special position the Catholic Church held in Ireland. The Church largely controlled the States hospitals, schools and many other institutions, including the Magdalene Laundries. Ireland basically handed all the power and influence that Britain once held over to the Church, which cultivated an oppressive culture in its own right that is still felt vividly today.

However, the Irish experience of colonialism cannot be separated from its Eurocentric positioning. The extent to which racist, imperialist systems permeate every facet of society is still hard to fathom. Growing up, I was taught that racism was confined to individual interactions. Once I didn’t use derogatory words and treated everyone with respect, I could consider myself not racist. I was utterly unaware of micro-aggressions and thought racism was confined to overt, blatant discriminatory acts. I believed that the various systems that made up our society, such as the Garda, the hospitals, and the schooling systems, were all impartial. Sure, these institutions were created to protect, heal, and educate us; how could they be bad? These are the assumptions that white privilege can claim. It was only through my own work of reading and listening to the experiences of BIPOC that I began to see just how sheltered my view of the world was. I remember listening to a podcast with the Irish author and academic Emma Dabiri when she conveyed a message that hit home. Dabiri spelt out that we live in a racist system. Whether we like it or not, we have all internalised unconsciousness racist beliefs about ourselves and others, about who is superior or not, who is beautiful or not, is deserving who is not. It’s not about arguing if someone is racist but accepting that we all are and making the conscious decision to acknowledge and tackle such prejudices. This was an “Ah-Ha!” moment for me, and it’s the work I continue to do.

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I grew up white in Ireland, where I was taught that the world is mildly unfair, but with a little work, we could overcome it individually. My schools taught Eurocentric history, literature and values. I saw Black people in stereotypical roles on television, and rarely saw other races  represented at all. I grew up around 'casual' racism on the playground, where the lack of diversity in media was blamed on the inability of BIPOC creators, and not the system. Africans,in particular were shown to be a nation in desperate need, whom we, the white saviours, could help. In short, like most other white people, I grew up in a system of racism, that I had to work to unlearn.

My home environment wasn't racist, but the world I grew up in was. I lived in a majority white country, that perpetuated colonial values, such as anti environmentally friendly 'progress' and Capitalism. I was taught that I was inherently better,because I was white. I learned that some countries were naturally better off than others, which obviously suggests that some people deserve the world, while others the crumbs.

These inheritances range from belief in  systems of domination, to unconscious biases that we as white people come to hold. They include the idea that Western knowledge is automatically the most trusted, that global development is fair, and that humans are inherently selfish.

I am unlearning my colonial inheritances, but am glad to have done this mapping exercise. It has made me realise just how ingrained some of these ideas used to be, and how much work I still have to do.

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I wanted to symbolize my map by creating two very distinct and distant banks separated by a river. These two banks represent my colonial inheritances as a colonizer and executioner in one hand, and as a colonized and victim on the other. The main question I ask myself when I look at my map is: Will it ever be a bridge able to reunite these two edges? Where do I stand on this map?

I am the product of two countries that share a very conflictual past. Indeed, as early as 1830, France started colonizing Maghreb and was a huge actor in the scramble for Africa at the end of the 19th century. As a consequence of that, a lot of people started to come to France, expecting better living conditions and opportunities. My Moroccan grand-father was one of them. He took his wife and children and migrated to the south of France. This idea of the Western world being a better place to live automatically creates a hierarchy between spaces and territories. I think it is one of my first colonial inheritances, which was passed onto my father and onto me. France actually tried to erase the cultures it colonized during its time there by imposing the general idea that the French nation (and the Western world in general) had the monopole of culture, progress and science, so much so that people who were colonized started believing it. Then came the ideas of « assimilation » and «integration» for immigrants, which incited people to get rid of their roots, their origins and their beliefs to embrace French culture in order to become a true French. Therefore my Moroccan family started embracing the values of the French system, such as education. Western education is seen by my father (and by many Maghrebian families) as a way to climb the social and the racial/ethnical ladders.

As a result, I internalized the viewpoints of my immigrant family about success and going past one’s origins through knowledge. But as a person who was born and raised in France by a French mother and a naturalized French father, I also developed a massive White gaze. Indeed, I inherited important economic, social and cultural capitals from my French family, which gave me privileges. Thus I was conditioned to think in a White, Western way and I integrated all the assumptions, prejudices, ideas about France and about the arabic/muslim culture as universal truths. For instance, that Islam and Arabic countries are «uncivilized », that Muslim women and the LGBTQ+ community are oppressed and killed, unlike Western countries, which are the voices of freedom and knowledge. I could also talk about the several terrorist attacks that happened in France in the last few years, which increased racist thoughts and islamophobia.

In conclusion, I ended up thinking that France (and the Western world in general) was better than the rest of the world. Western knowledge was the only one worth knowing and understanding because it rhymed with progress and freedom. I internalized these ideas and created a hierarchy of cultures in my own mind: my french heritage was better, more interesting and more beautiful than my Moroccan heritage. I could never fully accept my second culture because it was a « Third-World » culture, thus inferior and incompatible with my feminist beliefs.  However, a small part of me started feeling ashamed of my disinterest in this legacy and in my Moroccan family. Eventually this part of me grew more and more over the years, notably thanks to my liberal arts studies and the great history programme I had last year. It opened my eyes on what had been hidden from French people (the danger of the single story on colonization) and from me as a biracial person (I was taught that my Western heritage was a gift/blessing while my « Third World » heritage was a burden/curse). I am now trying to build this bridge that will reconcile these two incompatibly-seeming sides. It will take a lot of learning and unlearning, a lot of time, but I have hope that eventually, this double-consciousness of mine will become one.

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When discussing the coloniality of being and the ensuing colonial inheritance, it would be rather challenging for me not to discuss my own eating disorder recovery as it broke open a lot of previously taken-for-granted, and by and large, socially acceptable assumptions, about bodies, their worth and their place. Through this process, I have begun to learn and attempt to dismantle all the ways I have learned and never questioned the racism and coloniality of my beliefs about “good” bodies.

I chose a collage to represent this genealogy because it is layered in trying to unpack all the assumptions of the value of different bodies and how they relate back to the world. This first broke open for me during the summer of 2020. I was in treatment and could no longer fit into my Patagonia shorts (both pictured in the collage and muted because a big part of this learning has been figuring out how to decenter myself and whiteness). Patagonia is a status symbol in the West for wealth, size and to some extent ability. Having even one pair of Patagonia shorts was very important to me and when they no longer fit at the very top of their sizing, my first thought was “Oh god. I can’t be the good, skinny white girl in the outdoors anymore.” I didn’t even realize that I had those thoughts until that moment. It shocked me and I started a big dismantling that I will be doing for the rest of my life. It is so glaringly a colonial inheritance in many ways. One of which being the places that I feel most myself and have sought belonging in is in the outdoors on “public” lands that are actually stolen Indigenous lands (the tribal insignia of the tribal nations that used the lands are pictured. The Helena valley was a transitional land and was not a permanent home for any one tribe). In addition, the  value that I got in my body fitting the white Mountain-West aesthetic through any means necessary is tied directly to fatphobia which is inextricably linked to anti-Blackness and I began to learn of the connections through authors like Sabrina Strings.

Some of the questions that I end up spending a lot of time thinking about are:

What does it really mean to value the Patagonia aesthetic that is rooted in racism (and really do anything to attain it) on stolen lands?

What does it mean to be recovering from an eating disorder, getting told and starting to believe “all bodies are good bodies” but realizing if I have exceptions to that statement, I don’t actually believe it and how do you dismantle all the layers of it? Even if I think my only exception is me, I realized I actually hold more insidious exceptions that are sometimes below my own awareness.

How to begin decentering, challenging and changing the white, thin, middle class woman/girl narrative of eating disorders in recovery/treatment, activism and science?

Image Credit:

Patagonia shorts: https://eu.patagonia.com/ie/en/product/womens-baggies-shorts-5-inch/57058.html

Séliš-Ql̓ispé (Salish) Culture Committee of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes http://www.csktsalish.org/

Blackfeet Nation: https://blackfeetnation.com/

Crow Nation: http://www.crow-nsn.gov/

Shoshone-Bannock Tribes: http://www.sbtribes.com/about/

Strings, S. (2019). Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia. NYU Press.

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Candace Thomas - Colonial Inheritances. 

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Candace Thomas - Colonial Inheritances. 

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I have attempted to use a methodological technique called "Deep Mapping" inspired by the work professor and fellow Showmen Dr. Mitch Miller ("Biddles Walk", 2010, Dialectorgram).
Once again, I found this exercise challenging as it feels like a reversal of order/conflation of inheritances in many ways. I accept and acknowledge that growing up in 1990s/2000s Scotland (Britain) has meant that I have inherited colonial/eurocentric aspects in my conceptual genealogy (competing British/Scottish nationalisms; "queen and empire"/English and Scottish protestantism; legacy of the troubles Scottish sectarianism and anti-Irish racism; anglicisation etc). However, my earliest forms/dominant inherent understandings are rooted within the Showmen-Traveller community (my upbringing was within a community which largely, arguably self-marginalises). I see my epistemological journey as grounded within my community; moving from the centre outwards (de-colonial or pre-colonial?) and bringing my in-community understandings to my research/place is colonial institutions.

Despite this, I can point to examples of how colonial/eurocentric inheritances have seeped into the conceptual framework of the community as a whole:
1, internalised "racism" or white washing of self-identity. Showmen preferring to be called "showmen" rather than travellers to avoid anti-traveller racism/ethnic discrimination.
2, "hierarchy of beings" within the community/larger population stems from scientific racism. Traditionally, Showmen see themselves as the dominant group, then settled-Travellers (non-travelling Showmen), then "working men" and lastly, "Flatties" (whites; POC and possibly Irish Travellers least of all from SB perspective).
3, Other social phenomenon present in community from colonial/eurocentric ideas: racial capitalism, patriarchy and sectarianism (Celtic/Rangers).

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The allegory of my hair reflects the conundrum of what I considered truly "African" in the face of Eurocentic inheritances that have stealthily woven into the tapestry of my "African culture". For me, the realisation is that my Nigerian habitus, which I perceived as essentially African, was actually infused with a healthy dose of European regimes of truth. The result was subconsciously I had relegated my Yoruba culture vis-à-vis the European standards that permeated my upbringing.
Recently, I came across the term "Afropean" and it struck a chord... deeply... it resonated with my being and brought me to a place of peace. It underscores the interpenetrability of cultures and uproots the reification of cultures as discrete and concrete concepts. It helped me solve the problem of my hair.
I am a type 4c, notorious for breaking combs and brushes due to its thick and tight coils. To make it manageable, I had to perm it to get it straighter, so that the combs go through effortlessly... that was a norm in Nigeria... straight permed hair. I didn't think much of it until I travelled out of the country and realized that the straight hair was another subconscious form of coloniality of the black body, this time to European standards of beauty. To rebel against it, I longed back for my thick bushy afro, but could not cope with the thickness as soon as the natural undergrowth began to sprout... I had to keep the perm, even though I made sure all my children kept their afros. This irony of my hair is what I express in the picture, where the normative hair under the "Afro" (when in Nigeria) is straight and the preferred hair under the "Pean" (when in Europe) is afro.
I solved my hair problem by reducing the number of perms I have in a year, and wearing my hair in weaves and braids that reflect my African heritage. This is what being an “Afropean” is for me. I recognise what scholar Michelle Wright says: "The past is not behind us, it is all around us in changed forms". Eurocentric racist knowledge regimes continue to flourish in the present, with racial hierarchies infused in systems and group consciousness. But now, I am more aware…I choose the way the narrative should go. I understand the insufficiency of my culture, but I bring my African identity and culture back to the fore (which is why it comes first in the word), while I acknowledge the presence of European influences. Recognizing the fluidity of culture also helped me realise that my "Africanness" is not a fixed culture that transcends space and time, but a culture that is evolving with its fundamentals. My embodied dispositions now stem from equal power relations between my African identity & culture and the European culture.

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GAELSCOILS, IRISH NATIONALISM, AND RACISM

Although I am grateful for growing up in Irish-speaking environments and therefore being fluent in my native language (an ability less than 40% of the Irish population possess), I am also conscious of the nationalism that goes hand-in-hand with these environments and am conscious of a number of ways in which Irish nationalism can be problematic. For example, in my secondary school Colaiste Chillian, I noticed a strong in-group/out-group mentality between the white students of the school and the black students of other schools. I would hear white students refer to black students in other schools as being “violent” and “dangerous”. I believe this perception is a consequence of Irish nationalist culture overlapping with white supremacy, in that Irish nationalists are often fixated on preserving a very specific image of pre-colonial Ireland, which also happens to be a predominantly white Ireland. I’ve noticed this dangerous overlapping between ‘preserving’ Irish culture and bigotry towards black people has recently found a voice in organisations such as the National Party, a far-right political party formed in 2016. Although I never bought into this bigoted narrative having been brought up in a liberal family, I am conscious that challenging Irish nationalism is necessary to seek out and unlearn more covert but still potentially problematic ideologies I may have been unconsciously socialized into during my time in the nationalist environments of primary and secondary gaelscoils. It is my suspicions around Irish nationalism that have attracted me to justice struggles that run counter to the more problematic areas of Irish nationalism such as the Black Lives Matter movement, and media that explores issues related to this be that in film, music, or otherwise.

“NOTIONS” - POST-COLONIAL INFERIORITY COMPLEX

One way of making sense of the world that I believe is a post-colonial ideology that most Irish people are unwittingly socialized into that I would like to unlearn is the concept of ‘notions’ and criticizing or begrudging those who allegedly have them. In Seán O’Casey’s 1926 play “The Plough and The Stars” set in a tenement (a play that caused literal riots in the theatre during its initial production), Mrs. Grogan says of Nora that she has “notions of upperosity” for wanting to escape the tenements. Even today, it is not uncommon to hear an Irish person describe another Irish person as having “notions” for wanting to improve their circumstances in some way. On a larger level, we see this reflected in how the Irish public reacts when an Irish actor gains considerable success abroad, such as the criticisms hurled toward Saoirse Ronan as her career was taking off abroad that she was faking her Dublin accent. I would argue that this is an internalized anti-Irish sentiment learned from British colonialists. Irish people do not want to see other Irish people succeed in any way, or rather, they do not want to feel surpassed by other Irish people. I believe this internalized hatred and jealousy was a form of social control that can be attributed to British rule, and I would like to unlearn my own inclinations towards these impulses by reading more about the effect of colonization on the psyche of post-colonial nations.

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I primarily focused on being British and coming to terms with the country's imperialistic and racist past and present.
What I find most baffling is the collective amnesia that is so prevalent across British society regarding our Colonial past and its continuation today. In schools the Empire is barely touched upon, and in public discourse it is still socially acceptable to think that it was generally a force for good in the world. I believe that said amnesia regarding this is deliberate from the part of the British ruling class, who want to continue exploiting the racialised other rather than reckon with the suffering they have caused/do cause.
Personally, I also have to come to terms with the fact that I have materially benefitted from this oppressive system. I came from a middle class family and it is important to consider how white, British wealth is built on the back of slavery, colonialism and a racially hierarchical society. Therefore, whilst it is important for me to try to challenge racism and imperialism on an individual level, I also believe it is paramount to attempt to challenge the structures and systems that perpetuate it.

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The very obvious first colonial inheritance of mine is the fact that I am a native English speaker and that I live in a country where the impact of British colonialism still resonates, even from simply glancing at the Anglicised place names found around Ireland. But of course, I am also from a Western European country wherein I was given a Eurocentric, Westernised and an overly nationalistic education.

I was instilled with pride in Ireland from a young age but at the same time, I understand that nationalism is problematic and that I was taught a simplified story of Ireland’s history. I think it is important to remember that Irish people were not mere victims to colonialism. There were Irish slave owners and in order to assimilate, Irish immigrants in America were incredibly racist towards black people. Ireland has proved itself to be a racialized state with its direct provision system in which there are predominantly people of colour institutionalised. At the same time, it is also important to remember that nation-states are all imagined communities, as Benedict Anderson famously wrote and there is no singular moral character to any nation. I think all people in the West need to be aware of the problematic and violent pasts of the countries they were brought up in but I’m not sure if guilt about this history is productive, I think action to end systemic racism is what is necessary.

I think in the West, there is this preconceived idea of cultural or ethnic difference between strange or difficult, but cultural homogeneity is always manufactured and most times through violent means- the Armenian genocide and the Holocaust are examples of ethnic cleansing. I’ve recently understood that difference, whether that be cultural or ethnic difference or “different” gender or sexual identities, the existence of all these differences is natural and normal, despite what the Western education system might tell you.

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One of the main issues that I’ve had to face over the last few years which is being reinforced by this class is this notion of white innocence that I have attributed to Irish people. In our own history and culture, we see ourselves as the oppressed, a rebel country who rose against the coloniser.

This is not to deny Irish history but rather to question this duality that we associate with identities of the coloniser/oppressor and the colonised/oppressed – we, as Irish people have played both roles.

This issue was highlighted by Rattan’s text on scientific racism and her historical account of how Irish people ‘assimilated’ to whiteness in the U.S. We today have grown into a position of political and economic power and yet we still position ourselves as the historically ‘oppressed’ and elect ourselves this rebel identity which I can no longer agree with in a country that profits from a system like direct provision.

Its particularly difficult for me to understand how such a system came to be in a country with such a huge history of emigration and seeking refuge in other countries. After having lived experience of that transition why would we inflict even worse conditions on someone who has been forced to seek refuge here? Historically Irish people have first-hand experience of a certain degree of racism and yet here we are acting as systematic perpetrators of such racism.

I have been guilty of associating Irish people with this identity of a victim rather than a perpetrator and I took pride in knowing the struggles we’d overcome. But how can I now be proud of a country who is a perpetrator of systematic racism? A country who has faced intolerance, discrimination, prejudice and exclusion themselves in the past and has now taken this experience and molded it into a system that is committed to oppress, degrade and ostracize people.

Is this system just another means of Irish people securing their position in whiteness through the exclusion of the other?

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Italy is a fundamentally racist nation, and I was raised in the most conservative and catholic part of the country. Even though my family is left/liberal oriented, I was raised under the influence of racist and sexist values, that only in the last years I’ve acknowledged. I was mad at myself, and I still am sometimes for discriminating things I’ve said in the past, and I realize that being on a constant journey of improving myself and recognizing my privilege is something that it's necessary and it takes a big effort and endless discussion with family members. I sense how, especially in Italy, people are not able to address their own privileges, and even if it cost a lot of emotional energy, I started to call out every racist/sexist/discriminating comment the people around me make, and that help also me in being more aware about confronting my reactions to these statements. I know I still have a long way to go in decolonizing my mind, and I’m starting to deconstruct my white/catholic/racist cultural heritage piece by piece, thanks to studying these topics and having constructive conversations with more informed people.

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Since my picture is quite text-intensive and self-explanatory, I will focus more on the layout of my picture. The categories “My Politics of Knowledge”, “Decolonising My Mind”, “Colonial Past of Germany”, “Germany’s Present Power”, “Family Influences” and “Positionality” are shown without any specific order or hierarchy. The endlessness of aspects concerning my personal colonial-Eurocentric inheritances are depicted through arbitrarily arranged topics, while keeping blank spaces as well as omitting a clear frame to indicate the necessity of further reflection. In some cases, one must zoom in – literally speaking – in order to read and understand what was written, which stands symbolically for fragmented and small-scaled influencing aspects of global power inequalities, that pervade the societal system, we are situated in. Besides, there will always be more facets to discover about one’s own inheritance and its ongoing effects.

Special attention is drawn to my recent thought process after reading “Borderlands” by Anzaldúa, which resulted in the decision to introduce myself from now on with my German name without the English pronunciation. With this small action, I want to remind myself and others of the dominating and universal position the English language occupies.

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The question of pluralities of oppressions and privileges in the complexity of being is difficult to examine because it makes you see yourself complicit in systems of harm. To chart out the how of assumptions and biases of one’s inheritance is to attempt de-limit one’s understanding of the world itself. And this is often terrifying.

In the first image of the pictorial thought boxes posted on Padlet, I have traced the roots of my colonial/Brahminical being, who understood justice solely in terms of punishment until a few years ago. Justice, as if it is a word devoid of context, of privilege, of oppression. In the Indian context, devoid of caste politics, a closer examination into this reveals a "oppressor caste habitus", that I was most certainly raised into. The existence of this binary of crime and punishment is drilled in us from our very childhood. In our homes of primary care, we find the models of carcerality take shape: withdrawal of affection for harm done and care if one’s subservient/obedient. We are rarely taught how to navigate conflict without punishment, without perpetuating the cycle of harm. And then we when go on to lead our adult lives, where we practice the same carcerality and model of denial and withdrawal, of passive-aggression we learnt from our primary care givers.

I do not recall a point in my early childhood and adolescent years, where the understanding of myself was not shaped by the social systems I was a part of. The language around disability and neurodivergence was so limiting and ablest while I was growing up, it more often than not denied complete personhood to those who wanted to just exist in their disabled, neurodivergent selves. Growing up, I had a stutter, often understood as a speech deficit. For me, it was like my mind ran thoughts at a speed with which my tongue could not compete. I was never taken to a speech therapist but in school and at home I was told to correct my supposed disability by slowing down, forming words more clearly. In a non-disabled world, any deviation from the norm is ridiculed, is shamed. I have shared Barry Yeoman’s article on my Padlet titled Stammer Time: Stutterers Beyond the Medical Model of Disability which has made me feel seen much later in life and made me shed the baggage of shame that I was carrying around with me.

” What excites me even more, though, are the new conversations about “Stutter Gain”—how dysfluent speech really does enrich our, and others’, lives… “If he hadn’t heard me stuttering, we would never have had that conversation,” he said. “The fact that he recognized some sort of vulnerability in me is what gave him the opening to share his own vulnerability.””

Once I sat down to examine the roots of  coloniality of being, it was hard not to find cracks in all the social, political, sexual, gendered systems around me. Over the years, I have used social media as an outlet to reveal my mental health challenges. The medical systems are designed to strip you of your humanness and for a long time I was afraid of seeking help, at the thought of being denied access. In my genealogy mapping, I had mentioned that, in an Indian context, I was at the pinnacle of social privilege being a person of Hindu, Brahmin identity, but on re-examination, I believe how I choose to navigate systems of medical and mental health accessibility in the last few years shows that I was afraid of being termed “unhealthy”, “unfit”, “ill” in a society obsessed with productivity and labour. It was my colonial, capitalist understanding of individual worth in a society that made me delay seeking help.

The ideas of personhood as personal and personhood as a social construct are linked. Coming to terms with the present day version of myself has also been possible because of the re-examination and poking holes at cis-heteronormative ways that have been passed down to us through generations, with erasures of history of people in my country and worldwide who could have been my chosen kin.

The process de-colonising of self (and the world) is journey about reclaiming the forgotten, the muddied, the lost aspects of what could have been and what still could be. I believe it will be life’s worth of work to move beyond the strict ideas of coloniality in our personhood and society, but in my community and friendships, I have attempted to give grace and space for failure (while unlearning the fear of failure myself), for mistakes, beyond the notions of binding moralities and being.

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Doing this assignment was particularly emotional for me, since I can’t discuss my colonial inheritance because I’m still living in a colonized country. This is why I will discuss how we Palestinians are preforming acts to decolonize our bodies. Subsequently, I will share some of the colonized thoughts I had.

Decolonizing our bodies:

The Israeli occupation always tried and continues trying to colonize our bodies, by performing several treacherous acts such as; imprisonment, killings, house demolitions, apartheid, racial segregation, restrictions on movement, checkpoints, ethnic cleansing and so on.

Thus, what I mean by decolonizing our bodies; is challenging those physical discriminations imposed by the Israeli occupation, and taking control of our own bodies. Thus, challenging these wretched acts has been practiced by Palestinians over the years; we go on demonstrations, advocate for Palestine, go through checkpoints, Palestinian prisoners go through hunger strikes. Even choosing to live in Palestine despite all of this, is challenging of the occupation, which is an attempt to decolonize our bodies and take control over them.

One of the greatest examples of decolonizing the Palestinian body happened last month, where 6 Palestinian political prisoners, who are sentenced to life by the occupation’s judicial system, managed to escape prison by digging a tunnel from their prison cell to the outer world. Making this escape one of the happiest events for all Palestinians, because they gave us hope that we can free our bodies, even if it was for a few days or weeks, although they got caught in the end. This courageous act rendered them symbols of freedom and resistance for Palestinians.

Decolonizing our thoughts:

When I was in high school, I used to think that European and American schools, ways of life, languages and music are better than those of Palestine, and more “advanced”. Which was one of the colonial mindsets I had to get rid of. It was considered “cooler” if you listen to English music instead of Arabic. The more you know how to properly speak and pronounce English the better you are, which is such an evil thought.

Jerusalem is 15mins away by car from my house, and this year was the first time I visited it. I’m writing this in the section of decolonizing my thoughts not body, because what was keeping me from visiting Palestine’s capital was both physical and mental boundaries. My mind was colonized by the idea that I didn’t want to go through all the trouble of getting my papers checked, and going through checkpoints, but most importantly, was the fear of seeing the settlers walk by me in my land, living their lives which is much easier and better than mine, not caring about what happens to the people behind the segregation wall. But this year I was determined that this colonial thought won’t keep me from seeing every inch of my land, because this is what they wanted all along, to keep us away from them, and make us feel not at home, which is a terrible and depressing feeling.

The pictures I put in my collage are examples of how Palestinians decolonize their bodies, and if you want to join me in doing something to decolonize your soul, listen to this Lebanese singer who is part of our daily tradition; we usually listen to her while we are drinking Arabic coffee in the morning. enjoy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgVQjr5PuXA

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I noticed the colonial and eurocentric inheritances in my ways of thinking. I am challenging my habit of acting as a ‘white expert’ who imposes, through my own positionality, the view of how others who are less privileged should live. When studying international development, I realized how damaging some assumptions are to the developing countries, e.g. many of the UN or NGO sponsored reports present certain groups of people in a diminished way, e.g. ‘women, children and other vulnerable groups’. I can see that some of the language can be a reproduction of coloniality (‘we’re civilized, you can’t survive without our intervention’). Given that my interest is in sociology of gender and gender equality, when working as a researcher, I can only be a facilitator to present the voices of others rather than assume they need my help.

I’m also challenging my personal assumptions about my approach to work and a capitalist economy. I grew up in Poland which has a rich history of invasions and occupations by other countries. Despite my connection to Poland, I always aspired to live in the west of Europe (Poland was only at the early stages of moving to a free market economy when I was growing up). The fast, developed, capitalocentric lifestyle seemed appealing to me. However, I quickly started to question progress and profit at all costs. I can see the damaging effects it has on people's health and the environment. I have recently read a very interesting article which argued that ‘clock time’ was a weapon of capitalism and a modern working schedule is an inheritance of the colonial era. It was used to, on one hand, control the working class in factories in England and ensure efficiency and principles of order, and, on the other hand, it was used as a racialized cultural weapon to dominate the colonies. The colonial government portrayed African societies as lazy, idle and backward and 'clock time' was used to 'civilize' them. The concept of time for these societies was closely linked to the sun and natural cycles, the rainy seasons and linked to agriculture and indigenous knowledge of nature. The colonial idea of strict working hours was in complete conflict with the local customs.

At the moment,  I’m trying to question most of the assumptions of a modern society, including the approach to work, long working hours that are harmful to the body and mind, capitalist ideologies based on profit and dominance at all costs, and the consequences for the environment that these ways of living have. My goal is to be open to the indigenous knowledge, culture and traditions and as a researcher, ensure that I integrate these perspectives into my ways of making sense of the world.

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I have been raised through the narrow prism of both the convenient and selective type of knowledge that benefits the society I grew up in. And it benefits it because no one questions it but rather it is widely accepted as no one’s privilege seems to be at stake.

I feel as though I have been deprived of a part of my education that for so long has been overshadowed by the essence of the never-questioned dead white men. And that has been the colonial legacy left for me, being born into a middle-class family who has allowed me to be part of this first generation that made it to be college-educated.

I am white myself, for years I only learnt about the superficial aspects of wars, geographies and political upheavals. I was taught through a Catholic system that highlighted the importance of values I never believed in yet assumed as irrefutable means to navigate life.

Home was not much different. I would hardly ever see my dad because work was prioritised over affective needs. That was what society had chosen for him and I accepted it like I did with everything else. My stay-home mum would not speak much but make sure the household didn’t fall apart. My brother’s patriarchal identity was engraved in him throughout the early stages of our “education”. I felt lonely yet unsure about what it was I was lacking.

I lacked a voice and felt restricted with a privilege I was simply not aware of. My mental health struggled through trying to find out about my real interests. My career path of choice was based on characteristics I had looked for in other people, those being the nurturing capacities I believe a nurse should have. I wanted to “help” in a small version of a world that had somehow restricted my means to ask for it myself.

Since that, I have moved away from home and I have become an active explorer in my own world instead of a passive “privilege bearer”. This is allowing me to observe this encapsulation I lived in from the perspective of an outsider that is trying to understand so that I am able to construct. I now have questions to be answered and academic resources that help me use my privilege in the way I want to use it, without unconsciously living oblivious to it.

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I see life through the eyes of a privileged person. Not only am I a white woman who grew up surrounded by a dominantly white society, but I have also never been denied anything simply because of how I present, may that be my gender or my ethnicity.

Although I did learn about the "concept" of Natives in my education, it was always portrayed as if they were almost "at the risk of extinction". My education was highly colonized. Since Germany had so many well-known wars, the topic of colonization was barely brushed upon in school, instead we focused on "closer" topics such as the holocaust. Up until I started my Bachelor degree, I was not even aware that Germany had owned colonies because Germany had not officially acknowledged up till then, that they had owned some. Furthermore, since the word "race" in connection to skin color does not exist in German (the word essentially meaning "breed" is seen as inappropriate when talking about humans), discrimination connected to heritage was not talked about a lot in school. Based on the knowledge I gathered from teachings in school, I definitely fed into the idea of Natives being weak because I believed the colonized knowledge that I got taught. Additionally, through my upbringing in a, what I would call, "body-shaming surrounding", I internalized specific western and colonized beauty standards.

I am working on unlearning these ideas and questioning the narratives I learned. I want to get more educated in regards to race and decolonial theory and also apply this knowledge in my private life. I want to deconstruct everything from an intersectional perspective, always.

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Positionality is paramount. Postmodernism argues that a researcher cannot disentangle themselves from the object of study. As a first generation, Black, Nigerian American cis-gendered woman, I have been educated in the West thus have a proclivity for Left Western cannon and research design. Careful consideration is taken to highlight the subaltern without cultural voyeurism. I have been both the villain and the victim of coloniality.

As a global health practitioner, I have occupied spaces and used my position to impose what I believe is the best course of action for a health intervention.

However in some really refreshing ways I reimagine existence. I believe I am multidimensional and can show up as my full self to spaces. I take this mandate seriously and constantly take time to show up as my full authentic self. I enrich my learning with different sources, ethnically diverse and Afrocentric.

Ultimately I am plagued with WeB Dubois’s double consciousness.