On the Coloniality of Knowledge and the Emphasis on "Meaning"

 

    

Manuscripts on astronomy and mathematics originating from Timbuktu 
source: https://renovatio.zaytuna.edu/article/of-cannons-and-canons  

The journey towards decolonizing one's heart is never-ending and replete with challenges. Perhaps one of the most subtle being the need to always question meaning. Meaning. A word laden with possibilities, dangers, and sometimes the potential for decolonial freedom. Ever wondered where meaning is derived from? Why a certain word has a certain meaning? Why some things are deemed more meaningful than others? And who or what creates and controls that meaning? This post is about the production of meaning - the process by which knowledge is created - and specifically who creates it, and why.

"The most violent spectacles of imperialism are visited upon colonised bodies, but the most durable are inflicted upon consciousness. Colonial regimes were – and are – predicated on epistemicide; the erasure of entire ordering systems of knowledge. When such systems could not be destroyed outright – as was the case with Islam – they were often reorganised from within. Core texts remained unchanged, but the consciousness of the reader and the nature of knowing itself was fundamentally altered."

- Professor Rudolph Ware, Ph.D., University of California, Santa Barbara

I was asked to complete an assignment on the systemic barriers in Mi'kma'ki faced by racialized individuals, as part of a course I was attending recently that focused on the concept of a “career” and its development. The fact that this assignment as I have answered it below even exists today is a community victory; the original version of the questions was a far more colonial one that I had to go to work to address. What follows is the version I presented, the ripple effects of which, I’m told, will be long-lasting in terms of our institution's academic equity going forward. 

·         Why is the concept of ‘career’ potentially problematic?

The concept of “career” is derived directly from Euro-centric economic notions centered on the extraction of natural resources and exploitation of labour in the continent that sixteenth century Europe named the “New World.” One must ask, new to whom? As opposed to what? Certainly, not to the continent’s inhabitants, or their ways of living that were inseparable from Nature and rooted in their ancestral knowledge of who they are in relation to the world. I will refer to the entirety of North and South America as “Abya Yala” going forward, and to North America in particular as “Turtle Island,” unless to highlight the colonial names for descriptive reasons.  

Before Abya Yala was colonized by European settlers, its diverse peoples were able to enact their own cosmologies, relationalogies, and interculturalities based on their own interdependent ways of knowing- being-thinking-sensing-feeling-doing. A kind of “woven” fabric of economic, social, and linguistic interdependence which would’ve stood the test of time without need for thinking about such foreign-imposed concepts as career and sustainability. Both of which are direct results of taking local geo-political epistemologies from Europe and blowing them up to a disproportionate size: all over the planet, through globalized socio-economic systems.

The problem with such globalized systems is that they only fit the originating geo-political locality which conceived them. They’re simply not one size fits all – no cosmology is universal, and therefore no epistemology is either. Imposing Euro-centric epistemology on Abya Yala created privilege for the white settler and strife and war for the Indigenous Peoples of the land. The same can be said of the diverse peoples of Africa, in addition to their having to grapple with the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. 

Career is a narrative of modernity – one of many – built and maintained by modernity’s darker (flip) side: coloniality. Neither an African nor an Indigenous Turtle Islander would have ever wondered about their "career" if the physical structure of coloniality had not manifested through land colonization and capitalism. The merging of linguistic and cultural genocide with land colonization created what we call Canada, and modernity’s (artificial) narratives of progress, including that of career, are constantly veiling that darker truth.

So, yes, the concept of career is a forced lie, and a veiling of a darker truth, therefore very problematic. But then, so is the rest of coloniality’s structure and enunciation, where enunciation here refers to the production of knowledge or meaning. “Career” much like “nature” or “gender” are artificial constructs of European modernity superimposed on large swathes of the planet, including Turtle Island, and are based on a very dark truth of slavery, genocide, and exploitation. Nature as a “thing” separate from humans had to be created in the European Enlightenment so that the settler could exploit the lands on Abya Yala - separation. Gender was created before that so that patriarchy could exist and control knowledge/meaning production - sexism. And the Human (and “races”) were created – founded on so-called secular science – to make sure that hierarchy among humans favoured European ethnicity -  racism. Let’s be clear: without slavery, genocide, and exploitation we wouldn’t have “careers” to talk about on Turtle Island. If my land (Egypt) had not been colonized, I would’ve had a community role rather than a career. Maybe. I don’t even know for sure. Unfortunately, our history has been written about us, not with us or from us, and we lost control of our own enunciation over the years...

The slide below is from content I have developed for a course on Decoloniality and is based on the book: On Decoloniality: Concepts, Analytics, Praxis by Walter D. Mignolo and Catherine E. Walsh. I wanted to represent here the three main pillars of the Colonial Matrix of Power (CMP):

·         What kinds of systemic barriers exist in the field of career development?

Regulated professions:

At least in Canada, we have strong systemic barriers facing landed immigrants who want to practice regulated occupations, such as physicians, pharmacists, and certified accounting professionals. New immigrants with professional backgrounds in these occupations – who have been approved as immigrants particularly for these skills, ironically – must get re-certified for “Canadian standards.” A grueling process which costs time and money. Besides mental health. I know that for certified accountant re-certifications there is a limit of three times to take the test to pass, after which the immigrant professional is barred forever from practicing. That limit is a significant mental health burden for new immigrants, besides everything else they must adapt to in their new life.

Job screening processes, nepotism, and Islamophobia in the workplace and academic space:

During my first month in Canada, I was advised by an ISANS professional to change my name to a more anglicized version in order to get “screened in” to interviews. Another person there told me not to try to apply to a certain organization because they don’t like hijabed women (back then I was still wearing my hijab). In general, I didn’t really luck out in the workforce until I removed my hijab; I immediately got more interviews, coworkers listened to me more, I was taken more seriously at meetings, I could make a good impression a lot easier in a workplace…Islamophobia is a real systemic barrier in Canada. My story is commonplace.

A friend of mine who is a hijabed woman had a very difficult time graduating her physiotherapy program because of lack of accommodations in relation to her skin showing during practical exams. And worse, she was gaslighted by her professors that it was she that was the problem, not the system. Her story is commonplace.

Another friend of mine who is a “visible minority” and first-generation immigrant had her undergraduate daughter denied a work placement through her university program after the interviewer asked the daughter a series of questions related to her cultural origins, how many years she’s lived in Canada, what her parents do, and the like. Again, this story is commonplace, and may be connected to nepotism, racism, and Islamophobia, all of which “isms” hit this family collectively in this situation (intersectionality).

Accents, racial representation, and queer representation in management:

Organizations in Nova Scotia do not like people with certain accents (Asian, Semitic, and African); they’re generally seen as less competent, and that filters out new immigrants from entering certain occupations. I believe it’s one of the reasons for the gap in racial representation in senior management at every organization I’ve been to in this province.  

I have yet to see a transgender or non-binary person or openly queer person in senior management pretty much anywhere in the province, and especially in industries like construction and trades. I think screening questions at interviews should filter out queer-phobic folks, and this would be an example of a needed positive barrier. Equity is sometimes as much about excluding hate as it is about inclusivity.

Medical practitioner representation:

I have been trying to get a mental health provider that shares some intersectionality, or commonality, with me for a while, to no luck. The systemic barriers in the labour force filter people like me out. It’s rare to find a medical professional who shares any demographic identities with me. This reduces my chance to get better because white practitioners simply don’t understand what I’m going through, except on a theoretical level.

The classification system and internalized racism:

The classification system used federally (which derives directly from colonial classification systems made for land and knowledge control), that filters down to our college’s classification system in the yearly census always misidentifies me. I’m not allowed to identify as African, because colonially I’m not dark skinned enough to be African. The artificial sub-Saharan line divided Africans until they believed it too. My Africentric community had a hard time accepting me as African – I had to persuade them. And beg a little. Internalized racism is a beast like that.

Collective Agreements make some of us invisible:

Religious minorities are not recognized at all in our Collective Agreements, resulting in insecurity for us if we have a human rights claim. This is because the Supreme Court of Canada has recently ruled that any workplace conflict involving a unionized employee can only be resolved through the relevant union, whereas previously an employee could’ve resorted to the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission for resolutions regarding human rights violations. Indigenous folks at the College have a similar concern.  

Education opportunities and barriers:

Education opportunities for Black students from a very young age are diminished when they get assigned to an IPP (Independent Learning Plan) or put on an “Adaptation” plan. The effect of such plans and labels on Black children may severely impact their self-esteem and confidence, which reduces prospects in subsequent learning and work environments.

Education that furthers Eurocentrism persists. Linguistic suppression of French and Indigenous languages persists.

Job interview questions:

Job interview questions are generally not made for communities that are we-centric, as opposed to I-centric. This has a disproportionate impact on applicants from the former communities during an interview.

Physical and mental accessibility:

Where are all the ramps?! Everywhere I go I feel so lucky to have two legs that work. Physical and mental accessibility is a big gap in most systems. Introverts must adapt to an extroverted world, and people who can only learn in non-conventional or non-verbal ways have to adjust to a very textual, verbal environment.

Eurocentrism in the workplace:

Ways of work persist that favour only Euro-centric ways of being. For example, having to be pleasant all the time is so not my people’s thing. Can I look sad sometimes, please? Not being able to laugh out loud, generally be loud, be facially animated, or being received as an “exotic” exception when deciding to be these things that are a natural part of me (as in, not an exception to me) causes this pressure to be two distinct personalities: one for white settings and one for settings where there’s more racial representation. It’s exhausting.

Silence:

Being received with silence (or cursory acknowledgement) when I point to a systemic flaw, or as the angry brown woman. That’s a systemic barrier that only racialized folks experience. I can say something today about myself, but if a white man says it about me its suddenly more believable and engaging. This is a commonplace occurrence on social media, in workplaces, social in-person situations, and decision-making at the highest levels of government.

The reason I cite silence as a systemic barrier even if one person does it casually within a system is because individual acts of oppression are results of, and maintained by, systems. In fact, we’re in a system that has historically encouraged, condoned, and sharpened these acts of silence as pointy tools of oppression. 

Academic barriers to knowing oneself and telling our own stories:

Having no recourse to my real history because it’s been too whitewashed and filtered through a European lens before being sold back to my people has left me (and so many others like me) grappling with our identities. Who am I? What did my people do? Did they actually worship Osiris, or was he a symbol of a supernatural being? What did my ancestors really look like? Surely not like Sigourney Weaver and Ben Kingsley in the 2014 movie Exodus: Gods and Kings? I’m left to grapple with who I am all the time because our people are not taking up enough space in the telling of our stories. In the same way, I wonder if we’ll ever know who the Aztecs or the Mayans really are…two of humanity’s greatest knowledge systems totally wiped out in the 16^th century by colonialism.

An emphasis on knowledge and meaning production:

Knowledge occupies a central role in coloniality and its domains of oppression. The most fundamental effect of coloniality has been the eradication of knowledge that is not central to Western Europe or at least relegating it to the fringes of the world. Controlling meaning, sensibilities, and enunciation is at the heart of the colonial machine – to this day. This has led to a phenomenon called white supremacist acculturation. One way this phenomenon impacts our society on Turtle Island is that whatever the white man doesn’t know or understand, simply doesn’t exist.

For example, because our people’s spiritual ways of knowing never made it into the world’s controlled enunciation, it cannot exist as an academic subject. Therefore, any discussion of quantum mechanics from a Muslim/Egyptian/Africentric point of view is at best relegated to an “area study” within academia, or the “mystics.” What I know can never be “science” because it does not subscribe to the European way of thinking about science. I invite folks to read this article by scholar and historian Oludamini Ogunnaike: Of Cannons and Canons: The Promise and Perils of Postcolonial Education. It captures impeccably well what I’m trying to say here:

The list of systemic barriers I muscle through all day is too long, and the general impact of all these barriers is a stunted society, where privileged folks suffer from cultural and spiritual incompetence due to white supremacist acculturation, and racialized folks suffer from trauma, low self-esteem, internalized racism, and lesser prospects in life. This results in disproportionate wealth distributions, which in turn significantly maintain the status quo, ending in a vicious cycle that feeds itself.

One of the most important takeaways here is that none of the above described systemic barriers work in silos – they all funnel down from racism and patriarchy, and are all connected through a complex web of domains and levels, as explained by sociologist Anibal Quijano in the 1980’s and 1990’s, who coined the terms “Coloniality” and the “Colonial Matrix of Power (CMP)”.

The slides below are from my Decoloniality course’s content and are based on Quijano’s and Walter D. Mignolo’s teachings:

·         What can be done to dismantle these systemic barriers?

Unless it’s a paid job, racialized folks in Turtle Island should not have the responsibility for dismantling systemic barriers in a system that did not include them when such barriers were being made. However, the literature is out there on what decoloniality is, and I encourage everyone to read it intentionally. I suggest the previously mentioned book: On Decoloniality: Concepts, Analytics, Praxis by Walter D. Mignolo and Catherine E. Walsh.

Having said that, everyone shares in the responsibility for finding decolonial cracks. For the racialized, marginalized, and demonized of us, it’s a responsibility to illuminate each other on how to find and live within decolonial cracks to maintain our livelihood, sanity, and wellbeing. And sometimes our lives.

For the more privileged of us, you may be able to actually create decolonial cracks, or make present ones wider. Education is a powerful decolonial tool. Because of the place that knowledge occupies in the CMP (both at its heart and as a domain), educational spaces can all be decolonial cracks. We need to remember that systems are made of, for, and by people, and everyone is shaped by their education.

Understanding and uncovering the roots, structures, and origins of coloniality is a decolonial act. It can illuminate decision makers on all levels as to how to dismantle systemic barriers. 

In this slide, notice how binary logic imposition is at the root of colonial enunciation:

 ·         How can you apply these reflections in your own career development practice?

I have personally always applied this knowledge in one way or another to survive this colonized world that hits me on so many intersectional levels. Recently, I have taken my responsibility further to develop and facilitate a course on decoloniality. The course will be tailored to a racialized audience with specific learning goals: mainly finding and living in decolonial cracks.

I think I might need to take on a more influential role in society and be an educator on coloniality-decoloniality. I may not do it in a conventional way, I may not be a faculty member at an educational institute, but I may open a speakeasy for the community to come together to share knowledge and food. I love this dream!

At the confluence of:

a) privileged folks building inclusive practice, and

b) racialized/marginalized folks finding decolonial cracks in and as praxis of living, we may arrive at

c) a dismantling of systemic barriers for a better world for all.

Here’s to hoping.