Disclaimer: This is a hard post to write. I may be wrong about a few things; everything mentioned is "in-process", that is, I'm not claiming to see the entire picture, but my perspective of what it means to be a Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV) in 2017-18 is becoming broader and deeper, and this is a recurring theme that comes up in conversations with friends, PCVs, other ex-patriates, and Ugandans. In the pursuit of a truly liberated fashion, I would love to discuss this further with anybody who is also exploring or familiar with the ideas and theories referred to therein. ✌🏻
Let's start at the beginning.
The first time I realized that the real struggle for me as a white American & PCV would be to check my privilege at the door (if not at the airport) was during our pre-service training (PST). Over and over again, our trainers and PC staff challenged us to continually examine ourselves, increase our awareness of the social and cultural lenses we were wearing, and encourage us not to tell a single story or narrative of Uganda or our time as a PCV.
Their reason for this caution is somewhat well-known: in today's world, it's becoming increasingly common to be able to point out narratives of Africa that glorify the white savior mentality or depict Africans as "savages" or portray the entire continent as devoid of vibrant life (except in its scenery and animals), and instead fill it with only poverty, violence and "failed states". Even in Peace Corps, there is the possibility that someone with good intentions can play into these single stories of Africa and misrepresent the specific country in which they serve.
A single story, in the context of this post, is a concept taken from a TED talk given by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a Nigerian writer, that we viewed during a session at PST. You can find it online at YouTube.
In it, she makes the case for a different, truer way to talk about Africa. She explains, "It is impossible to engage properly with a place or a person without engaging with all of the stories of that place and that person. ... Show a people as only one thing, and only one thing, over and over again, and that is what they become."
Power, she believes, is the ability to not just tell the story of another person, but to make it the definitive story of that person (emphasis mine).
At the same time, I'm almost halfway through Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, Freire wrote and published this, his educational philosophy, in 1970, after six years of political exile from his native state of Brazil. In it, he argues for a comprehensive reform not just of the way we think about education, but the way we regard each other and the fabric of society, globally and nationally.
Something struck me toward the end of the first chapter, quoted below:
"... Certain members of the oppressor class join the oppressed in the struggle for their liberation, ... It happens, however, that as they ... move to the side of the exploited, they almost always bring with them the marks of their origin: their prejudices and their deformations, which include a lack of confidence in the people's ability to think, to want, and to know. ... They talk about the people, but do not trust them; and trusting the people is the indispensable precondition for revolutionary change."
"Those who authentically commit themselves to the people must re-examine themselves constantly. This conversion is so radical as not to allow of ambiguous behavior. To affirm this commitment but to consider oneself the proprietor of revolutionary wisdom - which must then be given to (or imposed on) the people - is to retain the old ways. The man or woman who proclaims devotion to the cause of liberation yet is unable to enter into communion with the people, whom he or she continues to regard as totally ignorant, is grievously self-deceived."
Obviously, this warning carries a lot of weight and has endless implications for anyone who works in the field of international development, but its meaning extends even into our daily relations with other people, whose "otherness" we tend to gloss over with group labels and emphasis on identities that intersect with or match our own. Dehumanization is an inherently human problem.
However, in the context of Peace Corps service, and assuming that one believes that a) there are such things as single stories and privilege, and b) there is truth in Freire's theory of liberation for the oppressed, what does it mean?
It means that I have to focus on developing within myself the critical consciousness required in order to avoid dehumanizing Ugandans alongside whom I serve. It means that I acknowledge their wholeness to myself, that I trust their judgment and seek their counsel on projects that I would like to do, and put my first priority on ones in which they would like me to participate. It means that when I talk to people from home in the U.S. (or anybody, for that matter), I find ways to relate to them in the same way that I find ways to relate to Ugandans in ways they can understand, even if we disagree, and give my utmost effort into conveying the deep complexity and richness of life that is Acholi culture. It means that with humility and grace, I analyze the power structures that are and contrast them with what they could and should be without falling into paralysis of analysis, that state of being where helplessness and cynicism become debilitating, a false reality that denies our humanity: our ability to act and reflect upon the world in order to transform it.
It means (and this is becoming my personal manifesto) that I defy anybody or anything, including myself and the subconscious narratives that I'm learning to challenge, to stop me from working alongside the oppressed for their liberation. It means that I will continue to look inward and be cognizant of how past experiences shaped who I am: my childhood in upstate New York, college years at SUNY Binghamton, a year abroad working with International Justice Mission in India, and a year spent re-integrating at home before Peace Corps service. All of these lenses, plus my identity as a Christian white woman, inform my perspective of the world and my place in it; now, I'm also learning to see how it informs my view of others and their places in the world, too.
And so, the struggle continues. To all of the uncomfortable things I will continue to say at parties and other social gatherings; to all of the deep discussions on race, poverty and politics that will continue to be shared; to truth and liberation and working together for the common good, I propose a toast.
Cheers, everyone.