6 min. read
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| Image: Nathan Dumlao |
Birgitta, our supervisor, is a gentle and emotionally-intelligent soul but also a woman of very high standards; be it strict adherence to grammatical rules or conference planning.
One week after the LILAC event, the EMW (English in a Multilingual World) gathering takes place. This time it’s my colleague Geraldine and I, alongside several other LILAC colleagues of varying seniority, who are roped into organising. The conference booklet becomes the bane of our existence. Subject to much proofreading, revisions and weeks and weeks of email exchanges, the booklet will still be riddled with mistakes after going to print. Most notably, the University’s in-house comms team manages to miss out a whole abstract page. Their work generally leaves a lot to be desired. Despite the many exchanges and astute observations of colleagues, the oversight somehow escapes our collective attention. We resort to printing out inserts.
If that weren’t enough, there's a last minute cancellation by one of the EMW keynote speakers, who’s caught a strong bout of COVID. By then all the promotional materials, including the booklet, have long gone to print. Miraculously, Birgitta manages to find a hail-Mary replacement; one Dr. Johann Larsberg. Cue another page insert.
During these intense weeks, Birgitta prefers the team to be on campus as much as possible. Furthermore, a number of administrative meetings are squeezed into this period; likely in an effort to grab folk before the Christmas holidays and campus closures. I’m also obligated to attend sessions during the once-a-year Ethics Week, in order to complete the compulsory online training for PhD researchers. It’s a mind-numbing, box-ticking exercise as well as a missed opportunity. This year’s theme is on the use of AI in academia and military research. The sessions are mostly didactic and non-interactive. In addition, the University’s Free Palestine campaign group, of which I’m a member, criticises the event for ignoring Israel’s use of technology to terrorise Palestinians, as well as the institution’s continued complicity through collaboration with Israeli academia.
Apart from Ethics Week and/or conference planning, there are numerous other events - not all during office hours - abstracts to draft for more conferences, team workshops for which to prepare and our own reading and research with which to contend. I feel all the project management and admin is distracting me from the ‘real’ work of study. This is something with which I need to make my peace quickly. As the official team project coordinator, these duties fall on my shoulders even more than that of my colleagues. I share my concerns with my life coach, Pieter. He's gone through the PhD process himself, whilst working and raising a young family. Piet advises me to observe the rhythms of one full academic year to better understand effective time management for the future.
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| Image: Claudia Wolff |
As well as keeping an eye on catering, alongside our most affable colleague Jessica, Geraldine and I try to catch as many of our immediate team members’ presentations as possible. Frustratingly, there’s a scheduling clash between Elif’s paper and that of new colleague, Maddox. In Autumn she took over from our former teammate, Janneke for whom the PhD wasn’t a good fit. She subsequently returned to teaching. Maddox came personally recommended by Janneke. It’s so far been an auspicious transition. Also hailing from Flanders, you’d never know from Maddox' naturalistic English and clipped diction.
Alas, during the EMW conference I’m caught between her accomplished presentation on travel writing, checking on the caterers and following Elif’s intervention. Something has to give and thus, I don’t make it in time to catch the latter part of Elif’s paper, much to my regret.
For the sessions of the LILAC and EMW conferences I do attend, I pose challenging questions. Whilst attending one particular presentation, I find it especially hard to bite my tongue. All three participating academics speak on Afrodescendant literatures and contexts with which none have any direct experience. Two of the speakers are European, one is East Asian. This wouldn’t be an issue if academia didn’t already strongly reflect the racial and class inequalities of the real world. I am the only black face in the room. I debate on whether to say anything at all.
I reflect carefully on how to formulate my question in such a way that makes my point, whilst causing the least amount of offence. Many of those who’ve packed out the session also specialise in Afrodescendant literatures.
I affirm that I’m not advocating academic segregation. Neither would I claim to represent the entirety of the 'Black British Experience' - whatever that is. However, what might be merely source texts to my paler-skinned fellow academics aren't just abstract stories to me. They often reflect something of my lived experience. It bothers me that certain (neo)colonial practices are being inadvertently replicated. A group that is minoritised in the Western context are effectively being objectified by 'outsiders' for research purposes. It risks being extractive, as phrased by one of a number of black academics with whom I’ve discussed this sensitive issue. How to avoid it?
One visiting professor comments about the power of literature to break down barriers and change perspectives, citing Richard Wright’s memoir Black Boy; one of my own personal favourites. She's not wrong. I don’t have to be an Englishwoman of the early 19th century to enjoy the work of the Brontë sisters, for instance.
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| Image: Shubham Sharam |
Nevertheless, this appreciation does not redress existing macro/structural inequities being reproduced in academia. She further tries to find common ground by making a well-intentioned but tone deaf comparison to the prejudice her parents faced as Spanish migrants to Belgium. Once again, I diplomatically attempt to point out the limitations of such an analogy.
To my surprise, there are sympathetic nods and remarks during and after my intervention, by the likes of Prof. Meyer no less, for which I’m grateful. Still, I sense a shift in the atmosphere. One faculty member, about whom I’ve had reservations from the outset, approaches me with a feigned friendliness that drips with passive-aggression. When they ask for suggestions on how to address the quandary, I can almost hear a ‘wise guy’ left off the end of the sentence.
I remind them of my own endeavours to acknowledge the complexity of the issue, as well as remarks made by Dr. Larsberg during his own keynote speech. Referencing the work of a Polynesian poet, the main theme of his intervention is the decolonisation of literary analysis. Whilst Johann was not in the room when I raised my question, you’d think from his presentation that we’d previously consulted on the subject. He also uses terms like ‘objectification’ and ‘extraction’ to warn against colonial capture, all whilst recognising that there are no quick fixes.
Vindication.
As pointed out by my sweet and sympathetic Dutch colleague, Karolijn - also researching Black British literatures - awareness is the game. Or, as I like to call it, methodological humility. It’s incumbent on white or non-black academics in these spaces to acknowledge imbalances and colonial overhang.
A few days later, we will review this conversation as a team at our all-day Christmas outing in Flanders. Maddox once again commends me for raising the issue. If not you, then who? Birgitta agrees that it's no bad thing for academics to be upfront about the motivation for their field of study. Particularly when it pertains to minoritised groups of which they are not part.
