Deconstructing the politics of a differently colored transnational identity

Abstract

Using personal narrative as a form of inquiry, this paper analyzes the possibilities of re/claiming epistemological grounds within racialized transnational spaces. Categories of race, nationality, and subject positions influence the legitimacies that are extended, withdrawn and or usurped within such transnational interactions. The paper examines the ways in which these interactions are performed and negotiated through my various identity positions that inevitably mark one in US higher education settings. Specifically it examines how identity, community and Blackness become imagined, redefined and performed in different spaces. Situated within US higher education settings, the paper pays particular attention to how my racialized subject position is interpreted and engaged with/in US and African research, academic and community sites. Within this paper I use my specific Third/First World transnational interactions to examine and theorize the politics, psychological intentions and outcomes of masked racialized ideologies that shape such interactions. The intention of this paper is threefold – to: (1) examine the complexities of transnational racial identity and politics; (2) trace the im/possibilities of being validated as intellectual worker and authentic Third/First World subject in the global politics of power and knowledge that shapes the transnational educational, research and community trajectory; and (3) theorize the possibilities and limits for using transnational racial identity and politics for building solidarity. This decolonizing writing project attempts to reveal and disrupt the ways in which imperialism constructs racialized Others within and beyond the west. It also shows how imperialism develops transnational citizenship that creates subjects who, for those in the west, believe that they can master and conquer the world and, for those in/from the colonies, are rendered into second‐class positions. Decolonization, therefore, needs to account for the interconnectedness of the west and the colonies as well as the transnational and complex interplay of subjugation, complicity and resistance.

Keywords:

• decolonizing
• identity
• narrative
• nationality
• race
• subject positions
• transnational

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Awad Ibrahim for his comments on the early draft of this paper, Stephanie Daza for critical feedback and the editors for their insightful critiques. She appreciates the assistance of Annette De Nicker.

Notes

1. I use the apartheid racial categorization: White, African, Coloured and Indian in this paper not as an essentialized concept or category but as a means to illustrate apartheid ideology/practices based on race.

2. The Soweto student insurrection of 1976 was a tragic national moment in South Africa. More than 1000 Black students were killed in demonstrations (Kunnie 2000). Students were protesting against the Bantu education system and the government's policy of mandating Afrikaans as a second medium of instruction in Black schools (this in addition to Black students already having English as a medium of instruction).

3. The apartheid racial categorization of White, African, Coloured and Indian are used here not as an essentialized concept or category, but as a means to illustrate apartheid ideology/practices based on race.

4. The term Black has its roots in the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) of the 1960s in South Africa. It was an inclusive term to refer to all of those who were marginalized and oppressed under the apartheid regime. It was used to collectively refer to Africans, Coloureds and Indians during the struggle. But the apartheid government appropriated this term in the late 70s to refer to Africans only. However, the term Black remained an inclusive term for the oppressed and those aligned with the liberation (Jita 1999).

5. Pseudonym used.

6. The TRC served to expose and document human rights abuses perpetrated under the system of apartheid. As part of the TRC process, many survivors provided testimony either in a private statement or at a public hearing. While primarily a socio‐political process, the TRC also provided psychological benefits for individuals. The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). Available on http://www.doj.gov.za/trc/.