Hello everybodyyy,
If you do not follow
IAMLENGA’s socials, you should because you will miss out on great content and
information! But, just to keep you updated, I have decided that at the start of
every month I will have a designated check-in weekend.
Slyly this gives me a little post break, hehe, but I hope it also reminds my readers that we are all a community that needs to be there for one another. I really want to normalise checking in on the people in one’s life, and as my readers, you all play a part in my life! So please feel free to use that time of the month to message the IAMLENGA platform on any socials @IAMLENGA if you need a friend, advice, someone to listen to you rant or cry, or even someone to celebrate with. Of course, I will be replying to dm’s all through the month, but I aim to have a quicker reply rate on the check-in weekends particularly.
I want to know how you’re doing!
On the topic of checking
in on friends, for this blog post, I would like to introduce my first ever
guest writer and my friend @BelleAllanx.
We used to go to school together and she is undoubtedly one of the most talented, and beautiful souls that I have ever met. She is unbelievably intelligent and very well-articulated, so of coooourse I used my oozing charm and charisma to convince her to collaborate on a blog post with me, and SHE SAID YES.
Thank the heavens she did, because this post is for sure an eye-opener!
I AM- BELLE
I AM A…
·
Cisgender
white woman
·
State
educated
· Oxford university student (who is from Southampton)
PART I- THE HUMANITIES & EUROCENTRISM
According
to the Oxford English dictionary, the humanities [plural] are defined as: ‘the
subjects of study that are concerned with the way people think and behave, for
example literature, language, history, and philosophy.’
Just as the name suggests, the word ‘humanities’ originated from ‘humanity’ meaning ‘people in general’ or ‘human beings collectively’.
So why does this
collection of academic subjects focus so much on the cultures and people who
originate from the European continent?
This is a question that has tainted my experience as a music undergraduate at The University of Oxford. All 3 years of my time within the Oxford Music Faculty have been dominated by the music of Europe, spanning over 800 years; leading me to question why we only have 2 compulsory options which look at music on a global scale, both of which are run by the same academic tutor. While I understand my experience is particular to me and the institution in which I study, it is clear that Eurocentrism is widespread within university humanities departments.
For a course to be Eurocentric, the course must be rooted in
a European value system that seeks to exclude or diminish other values.
A Eurocentric curriculum reinforces the idea that what
occurs in the Western world is more important than the rest of the world and consequently
should be more heavily focused on within the curriculum, ultimately ignoring
and diminishing accomplishments from other parts of the globe.
While this might not always be conscious, there is a value
system in place which does not see the ‘other’ as worthy of time or study
within the undergraduate course and beyond.
Ultimately it is rooted within the white supremacy which is a core to our university institutions, a hangover from centuries of colonialism and imperialism. The issue of eurocentrism is engrained in universes, academic subjects, and personal biases, and so often goes unacknowledged within the spaces we occupy. Again, I want to stress this does not mean everyone who teaches a model concerned with Europe is ‘a racist’; but our western academic institutions fulfill the dominant white narrative and perpetuate racist structures within our society.
I have the privilege to supposedly receive a ‘world-class’ education. A ‘world-class education’ that costs me over 9k annually. According to The World University Rankings by the Times, the University of Oxford in number 1 in the world [1].
I had hoped on entering university my eyes would be
opened to sounds and ways of viewing music that I had never experienced.
Musicology (the study of music) has such potential for scope, incorporating
music theory, history, music philosophy, and psychology. However, within this
diversity, there remains a focus on tonal western classical music, composed, studied, and theorised almost exclusively by white men. There are so many aspects of my
course which could be adapted to take a more global approach.
Take, for example, music analysis: while you can analyse traditional Japanese song, the analytical process taught at undergraduate level have been designed exclusively for classical and romantic musical forms, which consequently only allow space for the study of specific types of music, proliferated by German men living between 1750-1850. Phillip Ewell has spoken at length about the whiteness and maleness of music theory within academia and I would highly recommend reading his work [2].
Sure, I understand you cannot study everything in depth. But through choosing to teach humanities subjects through the lens of dominant cultural forces in society (white, male, European) a decision is made about what knowledge is worth passing on to the next generation, and subsequently which knowledge and cultures are not worthy. This is what causes me such great sadness- there is so much amazing, incredible music, history, and cultural traditions that I will never be aware of because they were never an option for me to study.
PART II- LIMITATIONS TO OVERCOME
I think within this discussion it should be noted there are numerous reasons for this lack of diversity, many of which are built into our current knowledge systems and so it is not something that is easily fixable.
1) Different cultures are not seen as ‘developed’ or ‘advanced’ as current education system measures complexity in certain ways.
For example, western classical music places the emphasis of
music on harmony, on how different tones can be combined to create different
sounds, and how certain combinations of tones lead on from one and other.
Subsequently, cultures that centre their music around other features, such as rhythm, timbre, or social relationships opposed to complex harmonies, are perceived as 'less impressive’. These kinds of music cannot be fully understood through the lens which universities teach by, and so they are written out of the curriculum. This can be seen on a much larger level throughout all humanities there is a focus on written histories. From classics to history to English, oral histories are not seen as valid, and this has very real consequences for curriculum because if oral histories are not viewed as legitimate then they are not studied or spoken about within academic environments.
2) As well as the ideological barriers, there are also financial ones.
Currently, there are not enough resources and money within
these humanities subjects to properly invest in the study of all these
alternative histories and cultures and therefore the gap remains. Consequently,
a second problem occurs, one of tokenism.
Tokenism occurs when professors attempt to incorporate non-Western texts to serve
only as a counterpoint to the Western canon, rather than analysing them in their own context. This
leads to marginalised viewpoints being paraded to distract from the ultimate lack
of diversity.
For example, within my undergraduate course, there is a compulsory topic called ‘global hip hop’ which equates to 1 out of 5 topics within 1 paper. There are 5 papers in total so global hip hop is only 1/25 (4%) of the total content, we learn within our first year [3]. However when discussing diversity (or lack of) within our curriculum it is this single topic which is mentioned, not the other topics that comprise 96% of the content we learn, and all happen to be European based.
3) The issue of eurocentrism also relates to the wider societal inequalities within these institutions. For most University departments, staff are mostly white and male.
Staff diversity is something which should be improved for
all reasons of working life, different lived experiences are needed to bring
attention to what is missing as Caroline Criado Perez shows in her book
Invisible Women [4].
The professors currently teaching in university departments often come from similar educational backgrounds and did not experience global diversity within their own education. There are 2 main consequences of this. First, there is a general lack of awareness of other cultures and a huge gap in knowledge on every educational level. The second is a consequence of that; no one does research in these areas as they are unaware, to begin with, and the most prestigious research areas are those which are already well established. A positive feedback loop is created; Western education will naturally turn out Western-educated professors, who in turn may only be comfortable teaching Western perspectives.
We need to raise awareness of Eurocentricity, both for our own knowledge, but to widen our value systems, and to remove prejudice from wider society.
This problem holds its roots incredibly deep and there are so many other things which enter this wider discussion, such as systemic racism, unconscious bias, and colonialism. By choosing not to study other cultures we are at best buying into an old system of white supremacy and at worse consciously viewing the western world as more developed and important while other cultures as not being worthy of study.
We limit our own thought systems by assuming the norms and goals of the west are universal, which we all know is not true. It is colonialist thinking bleeding into the education of the 21st century. However, students are living in a globalised world, one where all countries are connected unlike ever before, and our education should be reflective of this new global mindset.
I understand this is not an easy problem to fix, and it is
one which will probably take generations of academics working and fighting
before a meaningful change occurs. It is our jobs as students to continue the discussion, because
there are things at every educational which could be improved to remove our
racial biases and Eurocentric mindset and pave the way for a more global,
inclusive education.
…
Thank you so much for reading my first collaborative blog post! I want to say a huge thank you to Belle for writing this post and insight into the politics of higher education and problems of eurocentrism. Like always, I hope you’ve taken something from this, (even if it’s just to check in on your loved ones every once in a while).
But ultimately, we just want you to know what we know, you know!
Signed,
IAMLENGA
…
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[Business email: iamlenga.blog@gmail.com]
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*Alongside Belle's own opinions, this post and the points made within it were inspired by a range of literature that you may want to check out if you found this to be an interesting read:
[3] It is not quite as simple as this as the other 4 papers require different
skills and knowledge base. However, they are all centred around western
classical music which is European by nature. And this problem is exacerbated
when expanded for the whole 3 years of the degree.
[4] Criado-Perez, Caroline. Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men. New York: Abrams Press, 2019.
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