How to contribute to the efforts of making marginalised knowledges (and those who bear these knowledges) more visible
Key ingredients
- Racial justice
- Socio-economic justice
- Liberation and co-liberation
- Bringing capitalism back into our analysis
Key methods
- Allyship
- Decolonising
- Debunking
The dynamics of globalisation can make us feel that what was once a very big planet—one filled with different cultures, customs, landscapes and languages, often reachable only through months of perilous travel—has become a much smaller and more homogenous world. Nowadays, you can travel from the UK to Japan in about half a day. The widespread use of virtual means of communication makes it easy for me to call my grandma in La Tebaida, Colombia from the comfort of my living room in Liverpool, UK. The 2018 FIFA World Cup amassed about 3.5 billion viewers, who all watched the same images on TV screens across the world. You can eat at McDonald’s in Kazakhstan, Canada, El Salvador, France and Macau or pick up a pair of Nike’s in Kenya, Jamaica, New Zealand, Yemen or Belarus. It is very easy to buy the idea that the world has shrunk. There seem to be, after all, so many shared components across this globalised world—more than there ever were before.
Let’s pause for a minute, though, and consider this word, ‘globalised’. What does it evoke? To me, it brings to mind a twisted interpretation of the statement ‘what unites us is greater than what divides us’. We are citizens of the globe, or so we are told. Air Jordans and the Big Mac have brought us together as one people. If you are reading this cookbook, however, I assume that you don’t probably buy them/it. You may have bought those Air Jordans and that BigMac, but you do not believe that this type of globalisation has brought us any closer as humans. The person who buys Air Jordans lives in a different world to the person who makes them—even if they live in the same country or indeed in the same city. The conquering of the world through the expansion of commodities, brands and politics, has come hand-in-hand with deep inequalities. Some things are deemed worthy of worldwide recognition and some are obliterated. A few people—very, very few—amass obscene stores of wealth thanks to this process of globalisation. Others must do the work—sewing the trainers and cooking the burgers—that this process entails. This work, furthermore, often results in the erosion of their traditional practices, social configurations, as well as their environmental and general wellbeing.
This process of homogenisation has been possible only through the continuation of a colonialist modus operandi—in short, powerful actors still seek to gain control over people, practices, knowledge and territories through the exertion of dominance, refracted through the lens of race and class. Some states and corporations possess both the capital and the know-how to allow them to penetrate political arenas, markets, and the socio-cultural spirit of societies. They have the capacity to stamp out political differences, absorb local economies and displace local practice in the process of establishing their dominance. The fact that there are McDonalds outlets to be found in so many countries is not evidence of a global social consensus. We have not all decided that the Chicken McNugget should be earth’s signature food. The prevalence of these commodities in all corners of the globe is instead evidence of a process of homogenisation spearheaded by a handful of powerful actors who dictate what in a local culture is worth keeping and what is to be judged obsolete or deemed worthless.
The tangible nature of these examples makes the colonialist practice of globalisation quite easy to grasp. But global homogeneity is not limited to these kinds of commodities. The colonisation and homogenisation of knowledge is also a very insidious problem, and its implications are extensive and troubling. We have been educated to believe that the only kind of knowledge that counts is that which is imparted in schools and higher education facilities. Having expertise in a particular subject is often demonstrated by whether or not you hold a diploma that attests to your qualifications. This means that the legitimate knowledge that certain groups of people have acquired through non-conventional routes are marginalised or discarded altogether. Much has been lost to this colonialist homogenisation of knowledge. This is particularly true, for example, when it comes to environmental knowledge, which is the forte of several indigenous communities all over the world. Communities with an intricate understanding of nature, which they have accumulated through generations of observation and communion with the land, are often characterised as unworthy and illegitimate. The expertise available in these communities may not mirror the curriculum of a Master’s in Geology, or a PhD in Marine Biology, but, contrary to what the mainstream experts would have us believe, these knowledges are often detailed, insightful, accurate and very valuable. In delegitimising, ignoring and exterminating these indigenous knowledges we do not only prevent these communities from preserving and cultivating their culture and lifestyle—already an unacceptable loss—but we also deprive the world of much-needed solutions to environmental catastrophe. Several studies have suggested that indigenous land management is conducive to astonishing levels of biodiversity conservation and climate resilience (e.g. Dawson et al. 2021; Garnett et al. 2018). By shutting off this source of knowledge we are passing on the opportunity to learn how to establish more sustainable models of living on earth. It is worth noting, though, that “visibilising” indigenous knowledges is not a sufficient goal: we must fight so that indigenous populations can obtain and retain the rights to their land and ensure that they have the necessary safety and autonomy to thrive.
Having gained a clearer understanding of the colonialist process of homogenisation of knowledge and its consequences, we can now ask: how can we contribute to making marginalised knowledges and their bearers more visible?
I will outline two strategies for you to try out but, first, a word of caution. This process of shining a light on marginalised knowledges can not be an exercise in extraction; people are not to be mined for the benefit of our papers, conferences and dinner-party factoids. Their wisdom and expertise are not titbits for us to take as souvenirs and display on the shelf of our mainstream knowledge. The aim should be to give these knowledges and the people who have accrued them a rightful place in the tapestry of our collective understanding of the world and humanity’s place in it. So, whenever we are talking about engaging with and uplifting these marginalised perspectives, it is important we remain respectful and do not appropriate nor centre ourselves in the conversation.
Let us start with an easy one. If you have access to a forum or platform that has traditionally been guarded to prevent the intervention of non-authorised participants, you can do what is known as ‘passing the microphone’. As its name suggests, this means that your job is not to speak for those who have not been granted a space to speak out before, but to let them speak for themselves. In some cases this may mean literally passing the microphone—for example, if you are at a work meeting, conference, political convention, book club or any form of gathering where you have been given a space to actively participate, you can yield the floor to them. This also goes for Twitter and other virtual platforms, particularly if you have amassed a hefty number of followers. There are some cases, however, in which it is not possible to pass the microphone—in these cases, we have to do a bit more work.
One such case, for instance, is finding a space for marginalised knowledge in academia. Generally speaking, academia is a very hermetic community, and those within its walls furiously guard the boundaries of who is an ‘expert’ and who is not. I will develop my argument with this example in mind, but you can replace ‘academia’ with a myriad of other realms (e.g. politics, non-profits, journalism, etc.) For knowledge to be ‘formally recognised’ in the academic community, certain professional requirements must be met. For example, the possession of a higher-education academic title; the ability to express knowledge in a language and structure compatible with the academic standard; and a history of publishing in (mostly peer-reviewed) journals, developing ideas in relation to other postulates that have been previously accepted by the academic community. In these contexts, it is particularly difficult to pass the microphone, given that multiple knowledges have been traditionally marginalised precisely because they do not meet the requirements to be considered by mainstream academia.
There are, of course, exceptions to this rule—I can think of a handful of journals that have tried to integrate people, content and formats that were once unacceptable in academia. Additionally, the ‘decolonise’ movements that have permeated various disciplines have presented interesting strategies to structure academia in ways that allow for marginalised knowledges to come to the centre. However, to penetrate most journals, conferences and higher-education spaces, we can attempt to keep our foot in the door and let marginalised knowledges and their bearers come in. This may take the form of collaboration. Invite people (and even whole communities) to write and/or participate in academic fora with you. When doing so, be mindful of the fact that, while you are ‘formatting’ these knowledges in a way that can give them a better chance to penetrate the mainstream, you must respect the content and narratives that the bearers of these knowledges want to put forward. At the end of the day, the aim is not to dilute these knowledges in the global melting pot, but to eliminate the barriers that keep them marginalised so that they can stand on their own terms, side by side and on an equal footing with other forms of knowledge.
The point here is to shine a spotlight on marginalised knowledges and their bearers, acknowledge their value and learn from them. Incidentally, in this process we also disrupt the global, mainstream canon by highlighting the fact that we do not live under one system of knowledge production. Furthermore, in doing so, we cultivate the habit of conceiving knowledge, not as a disembodied, ‘objective’, universal truth, but as a legacy of identifiable people and communities, in this case, people and communities that have been kept out of the conversation. The result of this recipe should be a project/product/performance/publication/video/speech/etc. that has been elevated as a result of you heeding your responsibility to use your privilege to make marginalised knowledges and their bearers more visible. Enjoy!