Class Reflection #3

I really loved the flow of this class. I appreciated how long the exercises were because I could see a difference between how much time I was given to talk to my group and really delve a little deeper into some of the questions being asked.

Some Takeaways:

[1] I’ve really seen the contextual and geographic effect that the definition of words can have based on the area in which it’s being used. For example, in class, we covered how diaspora in the context of class/in America is seen as someone whose parents immigrated from their home country to America. Their kids would be seen as diasporic. However, in my experience, talking to other pan-African diasporic people and other ethnicities, we’ve often used diaspora in a more traditional way to mean the dispersal or movement from someone beyond their home country. So for example, I would be considered as part of the Nigerian diaspora since I’m Nigerian although not living in Nigeria, therefore, contributing to the diaspora of Nigerians outside of Nigeria.

[2] It’s really been interesting to see how around talks about decolonisation and how to decolonise our world, design, research, our minds, etc we always have to approach it in contradiction to what current western culture is and capitalism. I wonder if we truly know or can fathom what a world post decolonisation looks like. Not just writing wrongs and unlearning racist behaviour, what could a truly decolonise world that didn’t feel the impact of capitalism, imperialism, colonisation. This isn’t really a question, but more of an observation and then an internal ask of mine. Can we truly be decolonised if there are minute and implicit effects of colonisation still around a number of years later?

[3] Having the timeline exercise section was really interesting. It made me think about the hierarchy to which I place my commitment. You never get asked to rank your identities or anything like that, but there’s something about visually seeing what issues you are more likely to support than the other so starkly on a piece of paper was jarring to me.

Excited to see where next weeks readings + class takes us.