8 min read.
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| (image of courtesy of Freepik) |
I go on campus a day earlier than my agreed start date to sort out some more admin; collecting my staff badge and access gadgets. It’s a clever move, eliminating a needless layer of stress for my first official day. En route to the security lodge, I stumble across the student-led Palestine Solidarity encampments. Like many academic institutions across the Western world, students are embarking on a long occupation to convince The University to cut academic and commercial ties with Israel until it ends its policies of slaughter and oppression.
I make a mental note to pass by the encampment at a later stage for further enquiries. I don’t want to tarry in becoming active. At the same time, I’m circumspect as a new member of staff (PhD Fellows occupy a netherworld between student and personnel). I'm wary of discretion on account of my newness becoming an excuse for cowardice. Nonetheless, it’s important to understand the lay of the land first. Over the next few days, I note Palestine solidarity graffiti all over campus; scrawled on walls and across the tables in the large canteen, or large memorial murals visible from the main road. The University appears to be taking quite a relaxed attitude to the students exercising their freedom of expression. This is a stark contrast to the brute force unleashed by Belgian police during another peaceful, student-led protest in central Brussels earlier that month.
After collecting my staff badge and other essentials, I pass by Birgitta’s office to say a quick hello. We already have a more formal one-to-one arranged for the end of the week. I hear my name called. It’s one of my new colleagues, Geraldine. She has her own rendez-vous with Birgitta that afternoon. It’s the first time we’re meeting offline. Originally from Ghana, she’s relocated to Belgium after doing some further studies in Singapore. I ask how the flat hunting is coming along. Geraldine – or G, as she’s already affectionately known by the team – has joined forces with Elif, another member of our cohort, to look for somewhere to live in or close to Brussels. I’ve given them the best advice I can, which they receive with appreciation. In the end, for the sake of expediency, they settle for somewhere in Flanders; a bit of a commute from Brussels.
Birgitta finds us chatting away and gives us a brief tour of the Literature and Linguistics department which we’re joining. Based on the sixth floor, our open plan office and kitchen spaces boast lovely views of The University’s verdant grounds.
Later that week, all four of our team of PhD fellows – Geraldine, Elif, myself and Janneke – originally from the Netherlands – will meet IRL for the first time at a department conference that Friday. The other three have already forged a good rapport. For various reasons, I initially feel a bit of an outsider; not least because of the unorthodox path that led to my acceptance on the programme. I’m pretty sure I’m also the oldest of the bunch. Nevertheless, everyone in the team is open and cordial. Over the course of the coming weeks, there will be various opportunities to share more about our diverse backgrounds. Elif, for example, already has familial connections to Belgium. Her mother, of Cypriot and Bulgarian heritage, is a Liegeoise born-and-bred. Geraldine is from the same part of Ghana as my maternal grandfather.
I meet colleagues from the wider department on an ad hoc basis. Things are already winding down ahead of summer, even if PhD fellows don’t strictly follow the usual academic year cycle.
Colleagues are kindly and ready to help, as I become accustomed to new ways of working and various other particularities. Whilst most of us are studying in English, Dutch is the administrative language of the institution. I have neither the time nor inclination to take Dutch lessons. What I cannot translate with Deep L, I ask my Flemish colleagues. I’m especially reliant on the help of the department’s (unofficial) Comms liaison, Karolijn. One of my roles as project coordinator is to help make our team’s research projects more visible online. We're part of - although still somewhat independent from - the wider research group, LILAC (Liminality in Literature Academic Centre). Karolijn patiently shows me the ropes during our shared office days. I try as much to be self-sufficient but am prudent enough to ask questions – of her, Birgitta or anybody else – if in doubt or fully at sea.
The month is busy with activities; interventions by world-renowned scholars, seminars, the first of many thoroughly stimulating book club-style theory and methodology workshops and an extravagant University-wide barbeque. There are also more spontaneous occasions to fraternise, like a lively discussion about contemporary Black women writers over lunch with Karolijn and others.
By the grace of God, I’m off to an upbeat start. If there is one thing that nags at me is the lack of diversity in the department. It shouldn’t come as a surprise, even in a context when so many are specialising in studies related to the African continent and its diaspora. Still, it’s one thing to grasp a fact only intellectually and another to be confronted by it. The department is 90% Caucasian, with a significant minority of Chinese students. Simply by recruiting Geraldine and me, Birgitta has pretty much doubled the presence of black fellows in the department.
Brussels is supposedly the second most multicultural city in the world (although I'd contend its cosmopolitanism seems more shallow than somewhere like London). Whilst this might be better represented in other parts of The University, it's not the case on our floor. It only takes a cursory glance at the members’ section of the LILAC website to gauge that. The few times I cross paths in the corridor with other black women, it’s all I can do not pounce on them with gratitude. Thankfully, the response has been warm.
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| Palestine Solidarity encampments |
I’m trying to be careful that my curiosity over other colleagues’ motivations for studying iterations of Black literature doesn’t turn into scepticism, if not cynicism. It's one thing if most of the fellows grew up in multicultural contexts, regularly exposed to literature from across the world. Instead, many have come from monocultural villages or small towns in Flanders or the Netherlands.
I don’t want to assume bad faith. It's possible that most take a genuine interest in these themes. Why shouldn’t indigenous Europeans care about cultures beyond their own? It's not just for Afrodescendants to study subjects related to our cultures. Neither should we be limited to that. And yet, academia is still a highly elite and colonial space that reflects – if not reinforces – many of the existing inequalities outside of its walls. How much is this literary fetishism, if not (unconscious) orientalism, I wonder? How much is it a case of some more affluent non-European students wanting to study in the West and exactly what they study is of less important?
I’m left questioning the general commitment to solidarity with the historically marginalised all the more following a discussion with another colleague, Trudi. She spots the Palestine badge on my raincoat and asks if I’m interested in joining the activities of staff sympathetic to the cause. I respond with enthusiasm. Trudi explains how staff hold their own weekly assemblies - in addition to the nightly ones organised by students. Trudi also disabuses me of any notion that The University is especially supportive of the cause. Rumour has it that they're engaging in a tactic of exhaustion, ignoring the students until they wear themselves out.
I also meet Benedict; an associate professor of Anthropology, who is public about his support for the encampments (he also happens to co-organise LILAC events with Birgitta). I am informed by both Trudi and Benedict that an open letter has been circulated just before my arrival. It was signed by hundreds of staff, including PhD fellows. However, to my disappointment -one that I readily share with Trudi - it is signed by very few within our faculty. I’m heartened to see Karolijn’s name amongst them, as well as that of Vision (originally from Zimbabwe, she’s one of the few black faces I’ve come across so far).
Outside of work, I share my reservations with loved ones. My friend Sylvia both challenges some of my assumptions and concurs with my questioning of motives. We can't rule out career advancement, she ventures. It’s possible some subjects are perceived as ‘sexy’ and du jour, especially post-2020 BLM uprisings.
Diversifying the department is not your particular fight, Sylvia admonishes, You have other avenues of activism.
Give it time, she reassures, you have four years to see how the faculty evolves.
Towards the end of the month, I also have the opportunity to converse with one of the visiting professors; a respected UK-based academic of Afro-Caribbean heritage. Without me having to probe, she's candid about how isolating it can be as a black female academic working in Literary Studies. More often than not, she's the only brown face in the room. Whilst this in itself isn't reassuring, it's a great comfort to be able to speak to her candidly. Neither is she despondent. Notwithstanding structural barriers, she gently urges me to use my position in future to encourage young black students to consider a career in Literature. A commissioning of sorts.
Soundtrack: Happy by Yinkah, Matthew 4:19 by Lynn Nsongo, Surrender the Day by Jimetta Rose & the Voices of Creation, Tawk Tamahawk, Choose Your Weapon and Mood Valiant by Hiatus Kaiyote.
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