{"id":2073,"date":"2022-12-14T11:59:32","date_gmt":"2022-12-14T10:59:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/convivialthinking.org\/?p=2073"},"modified":"2023-10-17T09:18:40","modified_gmt":"2023-10-17T07:18:40","slug":"diaspora-humanitarianism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/convivialthinking.org\/index.php\/2022\/12\/14\/diaspora-humanitarianism\/","title":{"rendered":"Diaspora Humanitarianism- A Poetic Expression"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Jeevika Vivekananthan<\/em><\/p>\n

I have been scribbling words and calling them poems since I was a kid. It is my preferred method to communicate complicated topics and complex emotions that I cannot express or explain otherwise. These days I also create poetry on a mode of reflexivity when I get frustrated by the content I interact with as part of my academic reading and research. In the creative space of poetry, I can position myself in relation to my lived and living experience and reflect on the knowledge I come to interact with, mostly essentialised or reductive, in the form of a concept, theory or evidence. Unlike the nature of typical academic writing, poetry gives me the freedom to interact, relate, reflect, contest and imagine the phenomena of my interest.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

As I embarked on a PhD journey, seeking to understand the so-called \u2018diaspora humanitarianism\u2019,[1]<\/a> I recognised that I was struggling with binary thinking. I struggled with the gap between theory and practice. I sat at my table, searching for hours and hours for existing knowledge that can make sense to me; \u2018me\u2019 a diasporan<\/em> from a war-torn country in the Global South, currently living and researching as a settler on an indigenous land of which the sovereignty has never been ceded, and exploring \u2018diaspora humanitarianism\u2019 from the perspectives of crisis-affected people in the Global South. Can you imagine the dilemmas and struggles considering my translocational<\/em> social position? Add a self-commitment to decoloniality on top of these struggles.<\/p>\n

I created a poem responding to my inner struggles in framing \u2018diaspora\u2019 and \u2018diaspora humanitarianism\u2019 months ago at the beginning of my PhD journey. What if the concepts themselves can speak for \u2018our struggle\u2019? I use \u2018our struggle\u2019 to mean the collective struggle of people like me, people I know and people you might know. I use spoken word poetry to present our struggles, potential and imaginaries. This poem is written and performed from a diasporic perspective. So, whenever you hear me say \u2018I\u2019, think of diaspora from Global South in its plural, collective sense.<\/p>\n

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I suggest listening to the spoken word poem here instead of reading it in the first place.<\/strong> The text of the poem is given below, mainly for clarification and reference.<\/p>\nhttps:\/\/convivialthinking.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/The-spoken-word-poem.m4a<\/a><\/audio>\n

Diaspora Humanitarianism<\/strong><\/p>\n

I dangle in between<\/p>\n

Local and international<\/p>\n

Caged in time and place<\/p>\n

Labelled diaspora<\/p>\n

Stripped out of meaning or<\/p>\n

Stretched out of it<\/p>\n

Territorialised<\/p>\n

Ethno-racialised<\/p>\n

Essentialised by all means<\/p>\n

So here I am<\/p>\n

The diaspora<\/p>\n

No local or international<\/p>\n

Outsider<\/p>\n

That’s my cousin<\/p>\n

Calling me from his paddy field<\/p>\n

Where we walked holding hands<\/p>\n

Bare feet covered in muddy sand<\/p>\n

Raced behind the flying kites<\/p>\n

Raced away from the fighting jets<\/p>\n

You left<\/p>\n

You left me for the freedom<\/p>\n

I squirm<\/p>\n

I squirm from antagonism<\/p>\n

You don’t belong here<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t belong here<\/p>\n

Outsider<\/p>\n

Outsider<\/p>\n

This time<\/p>\n

It’s the passenger<\/p>\n

Next to me on the train<\/p>\n

Offended by the smell<\/p>\n

Of turmeric and chilli powder<\/p>\n

Of my accent blended with<\/p>\n

The milk from the breast of my mother<\/p>\n

So here I am<\/p>\n

The diaspora<\/p>\n

No insider or an outsider<\/p>\n

Hello<\/p>\n

It’s my cousin<\/p>\n

Over the phone<\/p>\n

Breathing through hyperinflation<\/p>\n

Surviving the emotional deflation<\/p>\n

Living his everyday life<\/p>\n

Hoping it shall pass too<\/p>\n

On the same paddy field<\/p>\n

Not yielding as it was before<\/p>\n

So here I am<\/p>\n

The diaspora<\/p>\n

Asking him<\/p>\n

How can I help<\/p>\n

My hand suspended<\/p>\n

In the air<\/p>\n

Over the plate with curry and rice<\/p>\n

Thinking of his children<\/p>\n

Last time I met<\/p>\n

Their dreams and aspirations<\/p>\n

Whispering in my head<\/p>\n

I calculate my casual pay<\/p>\n

What is left from the mortgage<\/p>\n

The bills and the aspirations of my kids<\/p>\n

The cost of the summer trip we hatch<\/p>\n

The guilt of living a better life<\/p>\n

A better life from my cousin\u2019s eyes<\/p>\n

I am far behind from a better life<\/p>\n

I cannot say it to my cousin though, can I?<\/p>\n

The society I live reminds me every day<\/p>\n

I am far behind from a better life<\/p>\n

Think of starting your life<\/p>\n

From the scratch on a foreign land<\/p>\n

Did I choose this life?<\/p>\n

The answer is never straightforward<\/p>\n

My self-esteem vapours like a burning candle<\/p>\n

Struggling to meet some invisible standards<\/p>\n

To be taken seriously<\/p>\n

For the contributions to this society<\/p>\n

Forget them all<\/p>\n

I tell my cousin<\/p>\n

Let me help you.<\/p>\n

Humanitarians (you say?)<\/p>\n

I cannot be one<\/p>\n

I am not principled or trained<\/p>\n

I am not organised or certified<\/p>\n

I cannot stand neutral<\/p>\n

And discuss human pain<\/p>\n

I cannot turn my face<\/p>\n

And talk about the system in vain<\/p>\n

I cannot forget<\/p>\n

And move to a crisis hitting headlines<\/p>\n

I cannot stop<\/p>\n

The whispering voices in my head<\/p>\n

So here I am<\/p>\n

The diaspora<\/p>\n

I am a force<\/p>\n

Shaped by the ocean waves<\/p>\n

Helping my folks<\/p>\n

Is the way of my life<\/p>\n

Folks from the same paddy field<\/p>\n

But scattered worldwide<\/p>\n

Call me a humanitarian<\/p>\n

Or not<\/p>\n

The force cannot be stopped<\/p>\n

I am crafted by time and space<\/p>\n

The people I meet<\/p>\n

The lands I cross<\/p>\n

I leave footprints<\/p>\n

I trace back and forth<\/p>\n

Round and round<\/p>\n

All over the place<\/p>\n

Making connections<\/p>\n

I find home<\/p>\n

I lose it<\/p>\n

I find again<\/p>\n

And reroot<\/p>\n

I give<\/p>\n

I take<\/p>\n

I help<\/p>\n

I am helped<\/p>\n

Call me a humanitarian<\/p>\n

Or not<\/p>\n

The force cannot be stopped<\/p>\n

Diaspora humanitarian<\/p>\n

Define it and cage me (again)<\/p>\n

Ignore my experience<\/p>\n

Erase my memories<\/p>\n

Of my land and people<\/p>\n

Of survival and revival<\/p>\n

Take me out of my context<\/p>\n

Teach me about crisis response<\/p>\n

Drill me about the system you speak<\/p>\n

Grill me on the politics at play<\/p>\n

Make me chew the Dunantist principles<\/p>\n

And swallow these code of conduct<\/p>\n

Leave me at the mercy of donors<\/p>\n

Fighting over the grant proposals<\/p>\n

Host me at the fancy conferences<\/p>\n

Drug me with the power of do-gooders<\/p>\n

Coordinate me with dominant institutions<\/p>\n

Let them use me for the remittances<\/p>\n

Divide me among affected people<\/p>\n

Award me the new humanitarian<\/p>\n

Humanitarians (you say?)<\/p>\n

I cannot be one<\/p>\n

I cannot be principled or trained<\/p>\n

Because I am principled and experienced<\/p>\n

I cannot be organised or certified<\/p>\n

Because I am organised and legitimised<\/p>\n

Maybe the West cannot see it<\/p>\n

Through the lens of the West<\/p>\n

Try to see it through my lens<\/p>\n

And you will see the difference<\/p>\n

I am a force<\/p>\n

I mobilise and dissolve<\/p>\n

I configure the local<\/p>\n

Translocal and transnational<\/p>\n

I respond to war<\/p>\n

Conflict and disasters<\/p>\n

I help my folks<\/p>\n

From lands of paddy and gold<\/p>\n

I am the voice<\/p>\n

Voice of the South in North<\/p>\n

I blur boundaries<\/p>\n

Drawn by human laws<\/p>\n

I come from the margin<\/p>\n

I live on the edge<\/p>\n

I am a rooted cosmopolitan<\/p>\n

With views that might not be universal<\/p>\n

Decoloniality<\/p>\n

Calls me a settler<\/p>\n

On indigenous lands<\/p>\n

Where the sovereignty was never ceded<\/p>\n

Intersectionality<\/p>\n

Shows my privileges<\/p>\n

In terms of class, caste, et cetera<\/p>\n

I am not homogeneous<\/p>\n

I am dynamic and divided<\/p>\n

All things considered<\/p>\n

I have potentials<\/p>\n

I promise the dreamers<\/p>\n

To transform this world<\/p>\n

The world that is made of centres and peripheries<\/p>\n

I can transcend the abyssal line<\/p>\n

Between North and South<\/p>\n

West and the rest<\/p>\n

Because I have a taste of both<\/p>\n

I can strategise my social location<\/p>\n

Belonging to different places<\/p>\n

People and cultures<\/p>\n

I can use it<\/p>\n

To advance my life<\/p>\n

Or to advance this world<\/p>\n

Or both<\/p>\n

So here I am<\/p>\n

The diaspora<\/p>\n

The concept<\/p>\n

I am a force to be reckoned with<\/p>\n

Call me a humanitarian<\/p>\n

Or not<\/p>\n

The force cannot be stopped<\/p>\n

Try me and tame me<\/p>\n

But remember<\/p>\n

My roots are strong<\/p>\n

I did not think of poetic autoethnography or autotheory when I wrote this poem. I became invested in them when I presented this spoken word poetry at an online conference in July. Firstly, I did not have the courage to present it at an academic conference. I was searching for poet-scholars for inspiration. One evening after a long day of reading, I stumbled upon an interview-based article<\/a> in which M. Soledad Caballero, a poet and a professor, highlights,<\/p>\n

\u201cI like this fluidity between the scholarly approach and the creative approach to a topic. I\u2019ve already resisted that scholarship is not creative and poetry is not part of my scholarly self. I think the idea of autoethnography allows for that cultural divide between the creative and academic to be really disrupted.\u201d<\/p>\n

She also speaks of the academic culture that divides praxis from theory. In this article, I (re)found my purpose- connecting the poetic self to the researcher in me, connecting theory to praxis and personal and social.<\/p>\n

Lyrical autoethnography is a method that can enable us to situate lived experiences within our scholarly work through reflexive engagement and a poetic voice (Rawlins 2018). Poetry returns the researcher to the body by creating a space for expressing the embodied experience of daily life (Faulkner 2016). Moreover, it can evoke embodied responses from the listeners and readers. The intersubjectivity offered by poetry makes it a product to and for others while it is in and for the poet, explaining a “triple-bind of my\/your\/our fringed experience” (Rawlins 2018, p.157). Autotheory<\/a> explains the process of linking theory to our embodied experience.<\/p>\n

The spoken word poetry has features of autoethnography and autotheory. It speaks of my experience and the experience of people I know through my personal life and research. It also engages with the concepts, theories and evidence from the academic literature. Even though I did not write the poem with autoethnography or autotheory in my mind at that time, I now see their relevance and significance in exploring further to be \u2018officially\u2019 embedded as a method in my PhD journey. I see their potential to challenge the Western hegemony in knowledge production. I see their potential in speaking for those marginalised, forgotten and ignored. As someone living and researching from the margin, poetry gives me hope, courage and breathing space. As I propose further exploring and applying poetic autoethnography and autotheory in the research, I welcome your feedback and reflections. If you have time, please answer a couple of questions for me:<\/p>\n