nothing will work unless you do

I read a lot of Maya Angelou in my early and mid-twenties. I was going through a 'feminist' phase, although saying this now sounds so wrong, implying that I'm no longer a feminist. Well it was a phase where I took a more hardline approach to all things gender related. In retrospect I was simply working out who I was and how I, as a black woman related to the rest of the world.

In the last two days I've been lucky to spend some time with two good friends/colleagues talking about me and my professional life post-PhD in direct and indirect ways. Reading some of the many obituaries and famous quotes from Maya Angelou I was drawn to this one 'nothing will work unless you do'. In both these chats the issue of writing as a survival and personal affirmation strategy came up, again in direct and indirect ways. I've put serious academic writing off for too long, citing all sorts of reasons not to make it a priority. I have to do the work to solve the problems I encounter, even if that work isn't what I initially expected it to be.

I like this image.
She looks directly into the camera,
open, unassuming, comfortable.

Maya Angelou to the rescue once again? Which makes me wonder if I've already figured out all I need to about how as a black woman I relate to the rest of the world.

structure and agency

I have just a few common-sense observations and reflections to make about this oft discussed and theorised concern  - structure and agency.

In the literature it's always wonderful to see the little person (aka - the agent) overcome or subvert the negative and even tyrannical  impact of the society or the institution (aka - the structure). Of course all of this plays itself out in complex and diverse ways and as Margaret Archer and other theorists (like Bourdieu, who a good friend reminded me about recently) have shown us, the relationship between the structure and the agent is also interceded by culture. And I won't even try to pretend that I know anything about more psychologically informed understandings of these interactions. BUT theory-schemory when it comes to trying to understand your own place in an organisation and why it is you behave and react to events,  incidents and people in the way you do. It's safe to say that I have enough of a common-sense understanding (and experience to back this up) to know that the environment that I live and work in will affect me as a person and in someways impact on, and direct how I response to what I encounter. I'm fast realising however, that irrespective how agentive you are as a person, you are still operating within a broader system that WILL either constrain or accentuate your level of agency. Also the conditions in environment can distort your ability to realise your agentive potential. It can also act to reframe and reconstruct your inability to use this agentive quality as a personal failing and in so doing turn the spotlight off the features inherent in the structure that directly act against this agentive potential. As I write this I imagine that somewhere in the literature, someone has already described this process in more elaborate and eloquent ways, and with just the right sprinkling of theoretical concepts and constructions to give it the necessary air of credibility and validity. I wonder though if anyone has ever written about how being caught in this process actually makes you feel, and how understanding these processes, no matter how rudimentary that understanding, offers no buffer against the person impact on its detrimental effects.

20 years on

I wanted to write about the 20th anniversary of South Africa's first elections two weeks ago, but all I did was think about what I could say. Today I went off to vote in our 4th national election since becoming a political democracy. Maybe it's the conversations, debates and slight turmoil about who to vote for, that has accompanied me over the last few weeks, that crystalised today in my determination to put my thoughts down.

Thelma a few days before
the inauguration of
Nelson  Mandela

In 1994, for me and most my family it was a foregone conclusion who we would vote for. This was accompanied with much optimism, enthusiasm, even euphoria about the fact that as a country we had reached this momentous landmark despite the bloodshed, destruction and turmoil that had defined the 'struggle years'. I remember desperately waiting to see the results tally and wishing the ANC would get the two-thirds majority that would once and for all show the previous apartheid government (and the rest of the world) the faith and confidence the South African people had in it's liberation movement and political party. Nothing could dampen the feelings of positivity and deep hope for a different kind of future, one defined by equality, for everyone in the country.

Today I went to vote at a Bridgetown voting station. I grew up in this apartheid era 'council area' and accompanied my sister and brother-in-law who still live there. On our way back after voting we were reminiscing about the 1994 elections and my sister made a very simple, but poignant statement. She said it was so sad that after only 20 years all that has become of the expectation, hope, optimistism we felt then, is now, only a bitter taste felt in our mouths.

The last time I voted for the ANC in a National Election was 2004. For the local elections I had unfortunately, already lost faith in party and especially its personalities, before that. But I think in 2004 & 2009 the debates about who to vote for were more predictable. People like me who were a bit pissed off or irritated with the ANC, made a token gesture of either spoiling our ballots or voting for an obscure, small independent party. It was a silent, person statement. This time around the dissatisfaction with the political context was more widespread and had entered the heartland of the ANC support base. I'm defining 'support base' here as people who, while dissatisfied with particular policy or tactical  decisions made or who had issues with certain personalities in the ANC, are by and large still loyal supporters (for whatever reasons). In the last few weeks there have been all sorts of calls, even by ANC stalwarts, to vote tactically, and in so doing give the ANC a wake-up call. For me it's been hard to respond to these calls and debates. In principle I could agree, but on the question of who to vote for I was very unsure. It's one thing to make a personal, and very silent, statement in a voting booth, but a completely different thing to possibly direct your vote towards an opposition party that you find morally irreprehensible, simply because you want to send a clear message to the ruling party without watering down the opposition.
My dilemma today.
My choice about which political party to vote for is still emotionally charged and undeniably scarred by my history. Just like I was unable to vote for the ANC because I see it distorting the ideals it held in such high regard a mere 20 years ago, I was unable to put aside my personal and political beliefs when selecting which opposition party to vote for. As it can be said that most political parties stand on shaky moral ground anyway, does it really matter? Unfortunately for me, at this moment, it still does. I tried to pick the best of the baddies and as a result I probably didn't do my bit for helping to develop a more robust opposition.

Melissa's ink-marked thumb

Waiting to vote for Melissa

My niece, Melissa, who was born in November 1994, and therefore a true 'Born Free', voted today for the first time. So a special moment for our family and maybe symbolic too. I'm forced to acknowledge that the political landscape has changed in the past 20 years, and this is positive too. In a way the fact that Melissa had the option to choose an alternative to the party I voted for 20 years ago is an indication that, politically and socially, our country is able to accommodate the necessities of change. And in a small way I feel, through the act of Melissa voting today, the same positivity and optimism we all felt the first time we went to the polls, in what also seems like a life-time ago.

doing it on the fly

As a PhD graduate I'm meant to take a scholarly, systematic and structured approach to all my academic related activities. I'm suppose to think carefully about my pedagogic or research practices and approach them in ways that are befitting of the knowledge and skills I developed as a PhD student in the UK. Instead I've embarked on two 'on the fly' projects. One, a pseudo mini-research project exploring student transition and another, an ad-hoc 1st year writers' circle support group. One could see these activities in one of two ways; a) I'm completely arrogant, highly confident and self-assured so therefore dismissive of the need to follow procedures, structures, scholarship - I know what the problems are, I know how to fix it and the literature can't tell me, anything I don't already know; b) I'm a practitioner confronted by a concern, a problem and I've acted in a responsive manner. I, however, think there is a third way. I'm a practitioner with a deep scholarly disposition, very aware of the 'shortcomings' of my hastily prepared research and pedagogic projects, trying desperately to find the time needed, to give both my projects the kind of academic and intellectual 'thinking' time they need, they deserve. I'm an aware practitioner and I know how these projects can be strengthened to fulfill all the rigours demanded by a critical scholarly community, of which I am also a participant. But needs must. And this is a way for me to feed my intellectual curiosity and keep my teacher identity alive and kicking in an otherwise barren environment.

taking the weekend off

The PhD experience instills a strange discipline or guilt  - depending on how you want to view it. Your work is a constant feature of your life, and if you are doing a full-time PhD the days of the week are practically indistinguishable from each other. Basically, weekends don't exist. I had a rule of working a six-day week. Since I was relieved of my teaching responsibilities my weekends have pretty much become weekends. Unless I've been working on some or other writing project, my weekends have become a time when I do the things normal people do on a weekend. I was surprised to acknowledge last week, that I did not check my e-mail for practically most of the weekend. More surprising is that it didnt really bother me. Of course there is that niggly bit of something I feel, a slight discomfort at doing 'nothing' or having 'nothing' of value to do (reframed this means that only real academic work - aka, writing or research - is of value). Last time I wrote about how writing and identity are two sides of the same coin, a similar claim could be made that academic work and identity are two sides of the same coin. So is it any wonder that my work, or guilt, or discipline associated with my work follows me into the weekend?