When
I think of my positionality in America, I cannot help but think of myself as a
young, educated, black man. This is no coincidence as I believe it has
everything to do with my current time and space. When I lived in Zambia, I
hardly ever saw myself through racialized lenses. Perhaps due to the fact that
almost everyone around me was black or perhaps due to my country’s indifference
to racial matters. Dominic Hill (2014) defines positionality as, “the way in
which people are ranked in society and this ranking transcends larger structural
systems and follows people into their places of work, classrooms, and how they
see themselves and their relationship to others” (p. 162). According to this
definition, it is no wonder I position myself as a young, educated, black man
in American society. The three identifiers I have used are certainly used to
rank or classify people in society. This paper will seek to illustrate the systemic
educational structures of my country (largely influenced by our former
colonizer, Great Britain) and the United States, and how they have influenced
my epistemology and positionality.
Growing
up in Zambia I attended schools that used the British education system
blueprint. Our postcolonial governments (and the governments of many former
colonies) have not done enough to create an education system that values and
qualifies the local people’s cultural capital, knowledge, and ways of knowing.
Many postcolonial governments seem content to carry on teaching and using English
as an official language and transmitting Western beliefs and ideals. This has
deprived many former colonies of their true national identity and heritage. The
method of co-optation through Western education has led many people of Africa
to believe that their traditions and ways of knowing are inferior to Western traditions
and ways of knowing. Many Zambian families still insist on having their
children attend schools that would make them behave, dress, and sound more
British. This has had a profound impact on Zambia and its traditions.
On
the other hand, I have to admit that I have a personal inner struggle
reconciling with the fact that I am a beneficiary of Western education. If it
wasn’t for my country’s insistence on learning the English language among many
other Western forms of civilization, I probably would not have received the
opportunities to study in England and the United States. This raises the
question of whether we are limiting the opportunities of future Zambian
generations by insisting on creating an education system that deviates from
Western education. The fact that many former colonies were stripped of their
own identities and robbed hundreds of years to accumulate their own wealth,
makes regaining all that was lost a herculean task. Many former colonies are
still poor, under-resourced, and in huge debts with their colonizers. This
situation creates a colonization of the mind that leaves them powerless or
without the agency to enact policies that would distance them from their former
colonizers.
In
the domains of knowledge chart that I presented in class, I placed family and
academics at the core of all other domains of knowledge because I firmly
believe that I am a product of family and academics. My social milieu at home
was mainly composed of family, friends, and school. In America, I have spent
most of my life in academic institutions, and as a result, my knowledge
creation is heavily influenced by academics. As we all know, academic
institutions are notorious with giving institutionalized identities such as, “the
expert, the genius, the marginalized, the disabled [etc.]” (Acevedo et al, p. 28).
This form of social ranking or positioning of individuals impacts individual’s
confidence in knowledge creation and limits their abilities. Acevedo et al.
(2014) stipulates further that,
the
conventional educational models have been critiqued for practices that reduce
and decontextualize knowledge (Morin, 2001), preserve and reinforce hierarchical
and dominant social orders (Freire, 1996; Giroux, 2007), and disenfranchise the
knower from the production of knowledge (Freire, 1998; Shor, 1992; hooks, 1994)
(p. 30).
I have personally
experienced many conventional educational models that disenfranchise the knower
from knowledge production. For example, my confidence and credibility to create
knowledge is limited by my positionality as a current graduate student. On the
contrary, a professor’s positionality may increase my confidence and
credibility.
The
above quotation inevitably leads me to think of our society and how it is
stratified in social classes. Academic hierarchies and stratifications are
mirror images of our society’s hierarchies and class distributions. Education
has been used to put people in different social levels according to their
academic achievement. Bright students are singled out, praised, and rewarded
with prestigious awards whereas struggling students are held back, and not
encouraged to make anything of themselves. As someone with a lot of confidence
in social justice and equity, I believe social classes only promotes individualism
and competition rather than collaboration, knowledge co-creation, and
togetherness.
In
conclusion, it is clear to me that my family and education influences my
perception of reality. I therefore cannot determine what my perception of
reality would be had I received a different form of education. I also know that
it is difficult to personally deal with the dilemma of personally having
received the benefits of a Western education system or replacing it with our
own local education system. Furthermore, my social positionality is highly
influenced by my level of education and vice versa. This implies that what I do
and do not know now is bound to change as my social positioning varies with
time and space.
References
Acevedo,
S. M., Aho, M., Cela3, E., Juei-Chen, C., Garcia-Gonzales, I., MacLeod, A.,
& ... Olague, C. (2015). Positionality as knowledge: From pedagogy to praxis. Integral
Review: A Transdisciplinary & Transcultural Journal For New Thought,
Research, & Praxis, 11(1), 28-46.
Hill,
D. C. (2014). A vulnerable disclosure: Dangerous negotiations of race and identity
in the classroom. Journal Of Pedagogy, 5(2), 161-181.
