Challenges that occurred during the making process of this pinboard are noted on the scratch pad on the bottom of the picture. The biggest difficulty was to decide whether to depict different onto-epistemologies in a binary way or not. To simplify the layout and demonstrate the contrast, I chose this binary layout in the end. Not every onto-epistemological pair component stands in opposition to the other one, but a vast division can be identified. The empty lines on the scratch pad offer the possibility to note further thoughts or struggles during the process of unlearning and reimagining knowledge production in a non-hegemonic way.

On the right side of my mapping, I have included examples of new knowledge projects I have learned so far from this module and also generally in the past year. As mentioned before, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s lesson is important as well as Rinaldo Walcott’s understanding of settler colonialism. What these knowledge projects listed on the right have in common is their challenging of Western, hegemonic ideas which are typically presented as undeniable. This mapping documents my evolution in learning- what I want to learn and the new onto-epistemologies that have been presented to me.

We were presented as “undeveloped”. According to a white supremacist categorization putting Europe on top of the pyramid, therefore, considering whatever is different as “less”.

We were seen as camel riders, exotic dancers, simple minded/ “primitive” creatures, uncultured savages. Simultaneously, our lands were considered as a strategic geographic location for exporting goods, and exploiting natural resources and raw materials. 

The Walt Disney animation “Aladdin” actually sums up the invented image of the Arabs’ way of living; a thief who lives in a torn house, inside a small village located in the middle of the desert. And falls in love with a princess who is dressed like a belly dancer, and let’s not forget the practice of magic and sorcery, which is opposite to the “European rationality”. 

Even now, we are still positioned and emplaced by the world in a similar way, only using different terminologies. Such as “third world countries”, “terrorists”, oil exporters, and political followers.

Additionally, the literature that I have consumed throughout my academic career has more often than not left me troubled, trying to even understand the main points of the authors. Whilst most of my colleagues were in love with Judith Butler's approaches, I struggled understanding them when reading the original literature. The texts felt like they were written for individuals with the same knowledge as the author and not as a way to educate people who are keen to learn more in order to widen their thinking.

 

Starting from the question “where do I position myself?” I realized that the focus of all my studying in the last eight years was on art and culture, and it was deeply influenced by my conservative, catholic and Eurocentric roots (that I’ve put in blue on the left of the map). In red there are the things I’m working on this current moment, thanks to the readings that I’m doing and the journey I’m embracing. Thus, my “position” is mainly on reflecting on my past errors and trying to correct them, so decolonizing my mind, while embracing the fact that I’m a white western woman, and this means that what I have to do is mostly to sit down and listed (or/and read) to the experience and the thoughts of those who have suffered and suffer from these systematic oppressions. I really want to engage in doing my part in this battle but I need to realize that the voices that have to be heard around these topics needs space that I don’t’ absolutely have to take. 

In green, on the right, I’ve put some of the quotes that really enlightened me in the last few weeks, and that pushed me further in this way of self-reflection.

Tracing a somewhat overlapping understanding of my previous two mappings, I can only conclude that there is chaos and contradiction in my existence: an existence that simultaneously holds several truths of privileges and disenfranchisements. 

I wish to come into these contradictions fully and address the conflict that my role in the community as an oppressor and as oppressed reveals. Looking at the difficult practice that is allyship work, I wish to surrender into it and let it change me. 

As a sheltered, privileged oppressor person, growing up in India, my understanding of caste politics was to say the least, implicit in mannerism that can only be called wilfully ignorant, because caste is everywhere around you, if you’re privileged, you just choose to not address it, a supposed caste-blindness. A seminal text that I was introduced to much later than I should have been is Annihilation of Caste by Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar which revealed to me as an oppressor caste person the complicit role all oppressor caste people play in the smooth running of state machineries by not actively trying to dismantle our oppressor caste habitus. Unlearning my oppressor caste politics is a lifelong practice that I believe and hope to place myself in alignment with in earnest.  

Over the last few decades, the community work that BIPOC folks have done in the field of transformative and restorative justice practices in the United States has moved me develop my own understanding of carcerality of being, of my punitive worldview until a few years ago. I owe an intellectual debt to the works Angela Davis, Audre Lorde, bell hooks, Mariame Kaba, Adrianne Maree Brown, Mia Mingus and countless others who have shaped my understanding towards abolitionist work. 

One of the key conflicts that I have struggled with in the last couple of years is finding my authentic voice in an academia that is structured on surveillance and policing. I find myself at a bridge on which I now stand: one end is the theoretical frameworks that have jargonised my academic work and on the other exists the praxis of community building that is tells me detangle the language that is not accessible to my community, a language that is not structured to serve us. Is a marriage of the two possible? Can academia be de-colonised to the extent that community exists within and from the very frameworks that we intellectualise over in seminars? 

As I posit these questions, I find myself hoping and manifesting a dreamworld, where there is discourse and friendship and generative conflict and resolution, where there is empathy and laughter and joy, where there is accessibility, where needs are met, where there is safety and community!

P.S. I have added Jamila Woods’ Holy on my padlet, please give it a listen, a song that teaches radical love of ourselves before we embrace the world around us.

 

 

 

Ideally the “outside” European and colonial thought visualization would be in a different plane however, I think this visualization works as well because in some ways the decolonial, post-colonial and "otherwise" knowledge projects both include and transcend European and colonial thought. Dr. Leroy Little Bear's talk really exemplifies this for Indigenous knowledge systems including and transcending standard Western thought. I included the knowledge projects that I have spent the most time thinking about and trying to learn more about in this visualization. I don’t think I am at a place personally or academically to really justify myself having any significant overlapping peripheries in specific knowledge projects in the “outside.” I think I likely go in and out of engaging with the ‘battles of others’ in the peripheries of these knowledges but not with enough significance or frequency to warrant a visual overlap on this mapping.

While I was exposed to certain peripheral voices during my university education it wasn’t nearly enough and much of what I learned was dominated by Eurocentric thought and voices. Not only that but when I did get to hear or study these marginalized voices, much of the work I did at the time was just in absorbing what I was being told, taking it as truth and never questioning it or applying it in a broader context. 

I never thought to take what was being fed to me and apply it to the world around me to create a new lens through which I could see how the world operates and where I fit in to all of that. Again, I can see now my own ‘white innocence’. Because of how these subjects focused on colonialism in the French context I always saw the issues that were presented as ‘someone else’s’ problem as opposed to taking what was being taught to me and applying it to see the atrocities at my own doorstep in terms of direct provision or just general racism in Ireland.

This class has been the beginning of that journey for me; moving the center, trying to shatter this Eurocentric lens that operates as my default and that creates this sense of white innocence. I want to try and see-through new eyes.

When thinking about my positionalities and emplacements in relation to the political projects emerging from others' journeys and struggles, the first thing I realise is that I am living in a constant tension. 

Through the reading in this module, I’ve been able to deepen the analysis on my personal journey and the embodiment of my experiences. Particularly, Juliet Hooker’s text has allowed me to question my personal experiences and learnings. During most of my life and particularly through my catholic education, I learned to feel compassion towards those who face difficulties -economic or otherwise. The term ‘solidarity’ was frequently used, mostly to talk about donations, but never to discuss the possibility of creating real change in other people’s reality. Hooker’s approach was particularly useful to think about solidarity as “an ethical orientation that moves us to action”. I can see that this was definitely not the case on the way I thought of indigenous communities, for example. 

I grew up in a low-middle class family in a small city in Argentina and I saw my parents struggle and work hard to give us a better future. Naturally, this upbringing had an inherent idea of meritocracy behind, that I was only able to see for what it was a couple of years ago.

When I was 17 I received a full 'merit' scholarship to study in one of Argentina’s most prestigious (and expensive) universities. Right after I graduated, I was hired to work at one of the best companies in the world. Needless to say, I have struggled with what is commonly known as ‘Impostor Syndrome’ ever since, always feeling out of place, not good enough. In order to survive that self-consciousness, I realise now I have used meritocracy as a tool to overcome that shame and build my self-esteem. Believing that I had earned everything I have today has helped me feel more adequate and confident. 

Regarding the different political projects I got involved with, I believe the first cause I joined was feminism, probably because it was the experience that stood out in my life as a personal struggle. It was easy for me to relate to the injustice created by gender inequalities so I was comfortable fighting for that and being vocal about it. 

My experiences living outside of my country (both in Mexico and in Ireland) have also created a tension in me. On the one hand, I learned what it felt like to be an immigrant, but I was also always aware of how privileged I was for being ‘the right kind’ of immigrant: a young white professional working for a top company. 

I only ever started identifying as a white latina when I moved to Ireland two years ago, when the huge difference between my experience and that of brown or black latinxs became more evident for me. This also had to do with the fact that I started getting more involved in learning about racial inequalities after George Floyd’s murder and the subsquent raise on awarness around this topics through the Black Lives Matter movement. 

During this time in Ireland I have also been confronted more closely with a narrative quite common in Spain, where colonisation is seen as a historical process of developing true civilisation in Latin America. 

When I mentioned the idea of ‘tension’ before, I think what I mean is that the more I learn about these topics, the harder it is for me to understand what my place and my role are. I identify as a white latina, but I am also deeply aware of how privileged I am today, even compared to most white Europeans. So while I stand in solidarity with the Latinx community and while I want to fight against socio-economic, gender and racial inequalities I am still very uncomfortable because I can’t fully define what my role in these struggles is. 

Growing up in a staunchly racialized - city, state, country - the work of placement (placing yourself l) begins as soon as you become aware of the hierarchy you are born into. My consciousness only grows as I continue into and through my education. 

 

Coming into this course, I would have thought I was a lot further down the line in my understanding of the structures that uphold colonialism and white supremacy and how they interact with the everyday experience. In hindsight, I was only knocking on the door. 

 

I did my undergrad in Economics, Politics and Law here in Dublin. Throughout this course, my mind keeps going back to various modules that replicate and reinforce the White-Eurocentric understandings of the world—a viewpoint I can see now with the benefit of hindsight.  For example, when I took a module in Development Economics, we were taught to view the IMF as an institution of integrity, a structure essential in achieving financial cooperation. My lecturer attempted to include dissenting academics from South America, yet the majority of readings were all in favour and glorified the works of the IMF. Looking back, there wasn’t an equal platform that enabled any means of a counter-narrative that discussed the origins of the “centre-periphery” structure or why such fundamental power imbalances existed in the first place and exactly who such a system truly benefitted. How can an institution hail its ability in developing students critical thinking skills if they’re failing to provide the full scope and context to the subjects they’re teaching?

The tools this course provides better enable me to really question the institutions and not take any information, no matter how it seems to come from a position of authority, as default and true, but rather see it for what it is, a chosen narrative.