Fieldnotes from Women Of Color In Anthropology对话笔记

去听了人类学系组织的一个讨论/对话，关于women of color in anthropology，实在是太好了，感觉就是care和brilliance的embodiment，全程一直忍不住偷偷流泪，这个讨论/对话是对十年前的一篇文章SITTING AT THE KITCHEN TABLE: Fieldnotes from Women of Color in Anthropology 的回顾（这篇文章也写得好好，推荐！！），其中的两个作者讲了些她们现在的想法以及回答了一些问题，虽然主要是在讲作为women of color在学术界的经历，但是感觉对于其ta的marginalized folx比如poc scholars in general、qtbipoc folx、crip/disabled scholars、working class scholars也很有共鸣很适用。记了一些笔记：

1. 讲到她们在重新读当时自己写的东西的时候，有想很多关于racialized and gendered expectation以及feelings of loneliness。比如作为women of color她们收到的课程评价很多时候非常负面，即便她们做的work比她们的white counterparts要多很多、要更负责、更有内容。然后即便为人非常nice/kind但还是被white colleagues告知你的白人学生害怕你/觉得你吓人/觉得你unfriendly。在institutions里（以及外面）move的时候就一直是feeling like “I am doing things wrong all the time"，各种负面的评价，但同时不知道自己究竟哪里做错了，为什么白人同学似乎没有遇到任何类似的问题。实际上很大一部分是因为structural racism/sexism，但是在自己总是唯一一个woc的时候经常会觉得好像自己是有问题的那个
2. 不被recognized的情感劳动。她们提到women of color会在各种意义上承担更多的unofficial情感劳动（这一点原文章里也有讲到），比如students of color会觉得有些经历只有你能理解ta们（white faculty and/or men cannot understand them and do not care for them)，认为你要automatically care for them/mentor them，会跟你share ta们经历的糟糕的创伤性的事情。而作为woc faculty自己一路也是被其ta的woc和ally的mentoring过来的得到了很多帮助才能够如今在这里（在如此困难的structurally racist/sexist的环境下仍然stay），所以也会想要很多地mentor其ta的跟自己类似处境的学生/提供力所能及的帮助，会希望能让这些学生感受到being supported/being seen and heard。但同时这些affective labor是unrecognized的，institution和profession只在意你发表了多少文章，拿到了多少grants，或者最多是你在多少个DEI committee上面。怎样在想要提供尽可能多的mentoring labor/affective labor与保护自己的时间和空间做一些career所需要的work之间取得平衡，仍然是个很难回答的问题。
3. 作为women of color和其ta的marginalized groups，mentoring——不论是被mentor还是给更junior scholars/students提供mentoring——是necessary work （for survival of yourself and others in your community) 而不是optional的。作为women of color，如果没有其ta的people of color和marginalized folx提供的mentoring和support，在一个如此precarious环境下是不可能生存下来的，也因此会很想要give back to the community and hold the door for those junior scholars who come after them。她们提到mentoring is a black feminist praxis。
4. 她们提到那篇sitting at the kitchen table的Part 2是这篇BLACK FEMINIST CITATIONAL PRAXIS AND DISCIPLINARY BELONGING 有关black feminist citational practice in anthropology: https://journal.culanth.org/index.php/ca/article/view/5368/745
5. 讲到她们如何开始写kitchen table那篇文章以及当时的一些考虑。两个人都提到当时没有太多想risks的事情（毕竟是在critique自己的discipline还是很risky）因为write from a place of pain，感觉不得不写。其中一位也提到It is risky to write and publish this (fierce critique of their discipline as women of color), but she still chose to write it because it is who she is, if this academia world is not going to let her stay as she is, then fuck it ---then academia is not worth staying。其中一位也有提到自己当时的job是在ethnic studies而不是在anthropology，而ethnic studies是很多被marginalized revolutionary folx聚集的地方所以发表之后没有收到很多来自系里同事的challenge，但可以想到anthropology的很多人（尤其白人）会很resistant/frown upon it。讲到当时有talk through politics of publication with each other，包括谁做first author/second author/third author，以及institutional norms of 这篇文章会被怎样perceived by each of their institutions（比如有的可能会count for promotion，有的可能会被despise,etc.）
6. 我觉得对我来说最重要（也是听到过很多遍）的discussion是关于find your people and make your world along the way的。她们说到it is important to have a group of people to whom you don’t need to constantly justify and explain the value of your research, they just get it and value it。然后要去努力找到各种人/community，find those people (other people of color/marginalized folx) who are senior than you, your peers, those who are junior than you, people who are students, who are senior faculty, who are in contingent faculty positions。总之就是找到who are your people, what disciplines and schools are they in, what conferences they go to (and you should go too), what organizations are they in/organize, find them and talk with them。其中一位举例说她在读phd的时候一直去AAA开会，但是poc就相比而言非常少，直到有一次有个人推荐她去开一个american studies的会然后她去了被震惊了，就是意识到ohhh this is where you/my poc folx are!
7. 其中一位提到They(her people) are the reason that she is still here in academia, those people who see her and her work as valuable. she is still here because they do not let her go。然后说到对于grad students来说现在就要开始想自己的community/people在哪里，思考如果说你遇到了困难you are forced to drop out of the grad school、你未来找工作、你找到了工作但是被denied tenure马上要被赶走，你的plan b是什么，who are the people that you can go to, who are the people that you know will definitely support you。
8. 说到要认真读致谢，因为that’s where people are telling you who’s their people and who’s not
9. 还说到作为grad students，很容易觉得自己没有任何power/没有什么能做的事。但是we do have power to some extent，就是我们还是有很多可以proactively做的事情然后这些可以在某些程度上shape/transform我们的local context。比如可以努力去参与decide for departmental symposium/colloquium which people to bring, 可以mentor poc undergrads, 可以give local community folx/activists access to things that you and your institution have,可以 labor organizing。
10. 其中一位说到一个很困难的事是逐渐的要make peace with the fact that there is a limit as to what you can do, 无论你尝试什么方法无论你写什么，就是有一些人是不会listen to you的，you are not going to reach them and change them.
11. 被问到她们怎样平衡activism/praxis和academic work. 都回答到对她们而言这两个是Really integral and go together. 就是无法想象去做extractivist work where you just extract things from your community and you cannot help them in return. 感觉这种work doesn't make sense. 也提到实际上这种结合了activism和theory的work has always been done，比如在black studies里人们一直在做这样的work，所以并不是说有多新颖多需要重新开始实践，而是这些works已经存在they just need to be valued。
12. 还有一个很有启发的是她们提到作为woc和marginalized folx，it's easy to be forced into an antagonistic relationship with your discipline，然后你survive on that antagonistic relationship，比如可能因为这个discipline太white太西方中心太保守有很多问题，你的work逐渐就变成了去批判和反抗这些，去让它less so。然后在这个过程中you are somewhat forced to drop things you care about or forget why you are here, 所以她们有特别提到you need to find your joy, find what attracted you to come here(this discipline, this methodology, this question or topic) to do this thing, find what's really valuable to you beside critiquing these assholes。说到you can’t survive and stay in academia fully on antagonistic relationship with it。