The Final Installment

Summer Madness

No No Keshagesh

This is Your Life

On our way toward summer maddness.

RP4: Reflections

Our discussions in class Thursday about our personal research question made me realize something. As my group members each attempted to identify their own obsessions and interests in order to create their own question, I was busy questioning the question. In order to know what my personal research question is, I have to know myself. Who am I? I found the discussion difficult in that there is a paradox that blocks us from receiving a simple answer. We need to know ourselves to establish a question, but how can we possibly know ourselves when we as individuals are constantly changing? We are under a constant barrage of media and educational topics, and the more we explore the more we expand ourselves. The self is indefinite, so how can we, so early in our lives, be expected to establish a question to pursue? It came to me that we can establish a question as long as we do not expect to receive a definite answer. Over time the question will change, as will the answer. It will adjust to our changing selves. It, like us, will be fluid.

Who am I? I feel like most of us in the class were, in one way or another, asking ourselves the same question. In the past few weeks, I have become so focused on Rabasa's concept of Elsewheres, and that every individual person is different, that I had forgotten that we as a collective humanity are still capable of having commonalities. All of us at this point are still on a mission of self-discovery. We are all learning more and more about topics that interest us in hopes that we might better understand ourselves. We share the common journey of self-discovery, searching for a sense of personal enlightenment. What are we here for? What can we do? It seems to me that we in this class are all searching for the answers to these questions. And although it may be frustrating when we cannot find a definite answer, it is only natural to work through that stress and continue on.

I wanted to write this to remind everyone in our class that even as we knock down social binaries, break through borders of race and culture, and establish that every individual is indeed an individual, that we are not alone. We are all on this journey of self-discovery together, and I have been very pleased to have shared my journey with you for the past 9 weeks. I look forward to seeing what answers we do find, and how our questions all change in the future. Thank you, and always remember you do not journey alone.

RP4: Coloniality, Colonialism, and Mignolo

Colonialism saddens me, and in a large scheme Mignolo does not support the idea that coloniality is permanent; however, when applying his theory to our daily lives, I have a hard time understanding the ways in which colonialism can be entirely dismantled.  I understand that there are methods which can be applied to anti-colonialism to render its effectiveness, but on a large scale I think that the demolition of colonialism is impossible.

Unfortunately, I am working from a limited perspective and I do not yet have the scope to conceive of the abolition of colonialism.  Considering the ways in which the land of The People has been historically* misused, it will be difficult to adjust all of the structures which were quickly assembled, but built to last and endure.  To an extent, colonial structures were built with a form of survivance in mind.  Once one group is colonized, it almost seems as though the quickest form of reconciliation or retribution is through the colonization of another group of people.  Now, is this to say that I am assuming colonization can only be dismantled in a matter of years?  No.  It is to say that I believe that coloniality will take decades to erase, and I do not see the lifespan of humanity occupying the same lengthy lifespan.

To reiterate, my perspective is limited.  I began reading with the idea that the lifespan of humanity after 2014 is waning.  This limited view constricted me and did not allow me to completely agree with Mignolo's theory.  Although I agree that colonialism is the the "hated little sister" which the family attempts to disguise as modernization, or progress, or development, and I partially agree that "the decolonization of knowledge and subjectivity through the imagination of alternatives to capitalism and alternatives to the modern state and its reliance on military power... is taking place" (Mignolo, 85); however, I do not believe it has garnered sufficient support to be considered ultimately successful.  I also do not believe there is a way for these movements to be greatly successful until all of colonialism is disbanded.

Now this post is not in any way a means to say that I have the answer to ending colonialism.  It is also not not an attempt to say that Mignolo's theory was not brilliant.  Instead it is to say I do not entirely agree with his theory.

*the use of the term historical is not to confine this text to the European, Greco Abrahamic linearity of time, but merely to contextualize my thoughts through a method that is familiar.