elephants in the room

The elephants in the room today were race and power. But aren't they always,...in the room? The workshop focus of the symposium today was really a stroke of genius and a wonderful attempt to invite conversation and dialogue. But the elephants were having none of it. None of the conversation and none of the dialogue. My head was dull from not having slept last night. I couldn't shut my brain down and I knew I would suffer in the morning and so I did. As a result I couldn't see and I couldn't really anticipate the movements of the agitated elephants in the room. I noticed them but couldn't make sense of their behaviour. 

Academic spaces, like the one I was in today, are fertile grounds for power struggles. People parade and stake out their intellectual space. I am a Bernsteinian. I'm an academic literacies person. I am female. I have a PhD. I am a practitioner. I'm interested in the student. I'm interested in the curriculum. I'm using LCT. I dislike Karl Maton. I am black (or coloured, or white, or indian). In these uber-polite environments it's the person who wields their power through the eloquence of their words and the conquering up of theory to support their position that gets to dominant. Better still if they are able to evoke ontological debate and philosophy. Those unable to engage in this manner are simply present in the room, but definitely not guest of the party. That's the power first and foremost and how it is exercised. 

So what about race? Did my silence today have anything to do with my race? Or did it have more to day with my inability to communicate (or let me be frank, my intellectual incapacity to take up the debates)? To say that my perceived inability to engage in the conversation in the ways necessary to be recognised as a 'guest', is because I was denied the privileged of good schooling and opportunities because I'm black and grew up in apartheid South Africa, is condescending and deeply offensive and suggests a clear lack of understanding of the multiple factors that act to silence or amplify peoples' voices in any given situation. Such a view while tinged with the realities of being black, is limited and simply airbrushes, me Lynn, and all my agency (and that of my family) out of the picture. Yes I always mentally count how many black academics are in the room and my observations suggest that both in SA and aboard, typically, we are in the minority. But I'm not convinced that how we behave in these sittings are only determined by the colour of our skin. But I can understand and recognise that power evoked around race is still contentious and needs to be brought to the surface. I don't have the answers and feel that I might be 'outting' a somewhat assimilationist or dare I say 'colonised' view on race in SA through my articulations here. What I do wonder is how the symposium space could have been reconstructed in such a way to ensure that everyone felt more equal (on whatever grounds) and more comfortable to speak and voice their ideas. But maybe seeking equality in academia is an elusive notion and that's why the elephants in the room will always be allowed to go 'bos'.

walk like an egyptian

Today I attended a symposium organised by colleagues at UCT. I did a short presentation focusing on how my PhD research incorporated the academic literacies and Bernsteinian perspectives. Surprisingly for me, the presentation itself was well received. I got some really complimentary comments, mostly about the research approach I used and how I was able to articulate what I'd done. Thankfully no real questions about the specifics. Although at the end of the day someone did 'corner me' and ask a question about the very specifics I was hoping would be overlooked. And I did struggle to provide a coherent, intelligent response, because as I realised, when mumbling through bits and pieces of what I did almost three years ago, I actually don't remember. No, maybe this is an unfair portrayal for my intelligence (and memory). What actually happened here is that I haven't yet considered how to mediate or translate the specifics of what I did during my fieldwork, or how I came to the interpretive stance I took to my analysis work, outside of what I wrote in the thesis. Without the steady, slow progress of the argument constructed by the structure of the thesis I was a bit lost.

This brings me to walking like an egyptian or rather walking, talking and behaving like a PhD academic. These events that bring together academics to discuss and debate a scholarly issue are very much like a particular kind of performance. You have to walk like an egyptian and my nervousness and anxiety before such events is usually because I'm never really sure whether I'll be recognised or perform appropriately as 'that' egyptian. Or indeed if I want to be a darn egyptian in the first place. When I was a masters student (and to a lesser degree a PhD student) or when I went to conferences as a 'practitioner' I felt less pressure to try to be the 'academic', 'scholar', 'Dr' - the egyptian in Egypt. In this early post-PhD phase I've become increasingly conscious of my identity and the identity projections of everyone else in the room. And so the mumblings I described above bother me even though I have a reasonable explanation for my response. Your thesis always needs mediation and translation especially when you are presenting it, or parts of it, to an audience not made up of your supervisors or examiners. A lesson I'm learning slowly and sometimes a bit painfully. But when in Egypt you have do what the egyptians do, no? The trouble though is that it's not always clear what that actually means, and to construct your own path through this environment, no matter how many times you've visited before, can be a risky business. But never fear, for now at least I'm an academic with a PhD and tomorrow I get another chance to trying out my own special walk, talk and way of being.