Analysis Of Postcolonial Politics Of Academic Writing

For this week’s reading, we read the article “Racialized Discourses and Ethnic Epistemologies” by Gloria Ladson-Billings. The main purpose of this reading is to argue that “there are well-developed system of knowledge, or epistemologies, that stand in contrast to the dominant Euro-American epistemology.” (Denzin and Lincoln P. 399) The author started out the article by arguing the importance of national and racial consciousness. Author Billings pointed out that the Europeans view that the individual’s mind is the origin of knowledge and presence. On the other hand, the African word “Ubuntu” means “I am because we are.” This shows that the African thinks that the idea of humanity is very important and everyone should be treated fairly no matter what racial and ethnic background they are from. These two ideas came out in the mid to late 1960’s, the two different point of views clear choice between hegemony and liberation. Comparing these two various perspectives shows that this is a critical case.

Unfortunately, Rachel Price’s narrow-minded attitude remains stagnant into late adulthood. The Equatorial where Rachel’s “proudest achievement[s]” lie alludes to the imaginary line that divides up the world, establishing how Rachel’s accomplishments lie on a unjust foundation (462). Fittingly, her “own little world” (462) is upheld by her “standards of white supremacy” (28).The word “world” suggests to the reader the illustration of a European explorer charting the globe for unknown lands to redeem as his own. It frames the painting of colonialism and segregation to the reader, as Rachel “can run [her world] exactly however [she] please”, further alluding to the image of a white colonist dictating and exploiting the lives of “local boys” and “punish [them] with a firm hand” (462). Rachel’s self-appointed responsibility of policing her African staff with violence only gives more weight to her internalized ignorance, prolonged by her stay in the Congo and unwavered by the years. Unlike her siblings’ change of heart over the years, Rachel’s exposure to Africa only reiterates her initial belief of how “these people here can’t decide anything for themselves” (480), suggesting how she sees them as lesser than her, as a docile child who remains incapable of assertion. All in all, Rachel’s unfazed ignorance

When Idi Amin’s policies are forcing Asians to leave Uganda, Mina’s father Jay asks his lifelong native Ugandan friend Okelo, “Where should I go? Where should I go? This is my home” (Nair). Okelo replies, “Not any more, Jay. Africa is for Africans—black Africans” (Nair). Although the pain of being forced to leave Uganda so that its indigenous people can regain control of the economy is massive for Jay, it is this remark by his closest friend that devastates him, because what it tells him is that he does not belong in Uganda. He is not wanted, not accepted—not even by his best friend.

I think it is important to understand that African people have been present on this Earth for a very long time, long before white people decided to rip them from their homes. Many people of America don’t know the true history of Africa and that Africans are the true creators of civilization. Because of this lack of knowledge about our history, I think many people don’t know the greatness that black people are capable of. We come from a long legacy of kings and queens, but many people think of us as thugs and felons and unfortunately some of our people perpetuate this myth. The study of the African experience is important because it is necessary to know where we come from in order to understand where we can go. Reading is the best way to learn more about our history. This semester one of the books that we are reading is Something Torn and New by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong 'o and he talks about the disembodiment of the African people.

“Remotely Global: Village Modernity in West Africa” by Charles Piot is a book based on the lives of the people of the remote village called Kabre located in Northern Togo. The author discusses the “vernacular modernity” of the people of Kabre village that has been influenced by a long tradition of encounters with outsiders that included the colonialists. The author provides an in-depth analysis with ethnographic details about the Kabre people as the author discusses a wide range of their culture and history that included houses and the structure of homestead, gender ideology, ritual like initiations, exchange system, and social relations (Piot 178).

Space and Power are woven throughout our lives, they are what make up the world we live in and how it runs. You cannot have one without the other, they are symbiotic. Space is not just “the container within which things happen” (Kitchen, 2009: 269. Cited in Williams, Meth & Willis, 2014). It is the relationships with people and things, hierarchical systems, personalities and interactions that take place in our surroundings. From this comes Power; the power within, the power over and the power to. Some think power comes from money, but history will show us that it wasn’t always that way. Power came from the amount of land you owned, the livestock you had and the people you controlled or how clever you were. Which then leads on to the critiques of power: inclusion, exclusion and inequality, and how these then link back to space. This essay aims to explain the relationship between space and power and how they relate to inclusion, exclusion and inequality by taking a look at the colonisation of south Africa by the Dutch and their battles with the native Khoikhoi tribes in Table bay.

In Adrienne Rich’s article “Notes towards a Politics of Location,” Rich argues that positionality is a way of understanding how power and privilege affect perspective. I am in agreement with Rich that recognizing one’s own politics of location is a useful starting point for feminist theory. Rich’s main arguments are that the US education system failed to provide an adequate retelling of world histories, that white feminism is ignorant of its privileges, and that through the awareness and inclusion of racial movements can feminist theory grow. I will also compare Rich’s article to Simone de Beauvoir’s first chapter, “Biological Data” from her book The Second Sex, and to Judith Butler’s article “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory.” Lastly, I will explain how Rich’s article is valuable to myself, to the WOMN 2000 Feminist Thought course, and in broader social contexts. Rich effectively argues that white feminism recreates the power structures feminism seeks to disassemble.

In a freezing class, two brilliant minds unlocked the fiery passion that is their talent one an artist the other a writer. Bringing to light a history long forgotten creating abstract thoughts arbitrary to our own. Komi Olaf the artist and Okey Ndibe the writer not only enlightening the class but also the world with each brush stroke and each word. Every creation stemming from the hands of these masters tell of issues at the heart of Africa from colonialism to existential dilemmas. Thru spoken word, hip-hop, art, music, poems and literature issues close at heart to the artists and to Africa are portrayed. This paper will focus on the art exhibit by Komi Olaf and Foreign Gods inc by Okey Ndibe as spoken by them during their discussion in the class on October 13th. Where the talks focused on the key course objectives being stereotypes, post-colonialism, youth culture, and resistance.

In Derek Walcott’s From in a Green Night: A Far Cry from Africa, the author explains and dives into the topic of colonialism and self-reflection through his own experiences of being trapped between his Kenyan and British descent. Similar to Fanon’s concept of complicity, Walcott also understands both sides of the story in an unbiased manner. In his poem, he uses imagery to describe the violent past in which Kenyans and British people have committed to each other, the ‘savage’ nature of humans during colonization, and his own internal speech where he himself is confused of his cultural and social identity. This paper will explore the core concepts of Walcott’s writing and further explain it through Fanon’s lens to amplify the meaning of the poem.

Chimamanda Adichie is an author from Nigeria, a major country in Africa. She is an exceedingly well-known author from her writings on immigration, feminism, and the African experience in America. She has given a variety of Ted talks, speeches, and has done interviews on immigration, feminism, and the African experience in America. In her writings, most noticeably “My Mother, the Crazy African,” she talks about the experience of immigrants in America and through a lens which relates to issues one from all walks of life can understand. Her book shows a growing divide between the understanding of “American Culture” and other cultures from around the world, in this book, most specifically Nigeria in this case. The analysis in this essay will take place through examining similar work as well as her interviews and speeches.

The article unfolded with the author, Kwame Appiah, starting the essay with a description of a palace in Ghana. His description depicts a place full of tradition, color and custom. While going into details about the royal area, he later switches and starts depicting another set of people that were clothed in western suits, carrying around cell phones and having business meetings. Clearly, just from the beginning along it is obvious that the place the author was describing had a mixture of tradition and modernized people with modern technology

It is this dignity that many African people's all but lost in the colonial period...The writer's duty is to help them regain it by showing them in human terms what happened to them, what they lost." (Achebe/Killam Eds. Pg. 159.)

This chapter in Africans and Their History by Joseph Harris presents some of the roots of the stereotypes and myths about Africa in the past and for the most part are still held today. Harris discusses how the “greats” of history, geography, and literature starting a path of devaluation of Africans that writers after their time followed. Harris also denounced the language that these “greats” used to describe and talk about Africans. He asserts that this language inherently painted Africans as inferior and subhuman.

The readings for this week consisted of summaries in Applerouth and Edles (2016), excerpts from Discipline and Punish by Michael Foucault (1975), “Social Space and the Genesis of Groups” by Pierre Bourdieu (1982), “Outline of a Sociological Theory of Art Perception” also by Bourdieu (1968) and Orientalism by Edward Said (1978), as well as the article “Towards an ‘optics of power’: technologies of surveillance and discipline and case-loading midwifery practice in New Zealand” by Deborah Davis and Kim Walker (2013). All of these readings center on “Poststructuralism”, which Applerouth and Edles (2016) describe as being a response to “Structuralism” (Applerouth & Edles, 2016, pg. 644). Applerouth and Edles (2016) state that “From the perspective

Today I will be constructing an analysis along the bases of migration, exploring the film “Last Grave of Dimbaza,” which occurs during the Apartheid era and comparing it to the book “Living, Loving, and Lying awake at Night by Sindiwe Magona,” which explores the idea of forced migration from the woman's point of view. Both the film and the book exhibit the differences amongst the Whites and Blacks within South Africa. In compare and contrast, the film establishes a ground of separating the urban life in comparison to the rural life within South Africa and showing the different ways that migration has changed both parties' lives. In the reading by Magona, she shares the experience amongst the women in South Africa and how migration within