Provocation: Knowledge Production
Watching Achal Prabal’s film on “People are Knowledge” conjured a lot of important thoughts and reflections about the many tunnels through which wisdom can radiate. Achal’s film explores citation in Wikipedia in the context of South Africa and India’s relationship to knowledge production. Geeta Narayan, one of the main speakers in the documentary, shares how she feels like she is coming from a culture where so little written down. She raises and challenges the question about whether this means her culture “knows nothing?” She poses this question and idea in contrast to the realities of European and American big libraries, recognizing how the western colonial empire has glorified standards of legitimate knowledge production involving literacy, what is written, what is printed and mass produced, and what is in the public. It is really important for Geeta to raise this question and affirm how libraries and the written word are not the valid holders of knowledge nor are the only evidence of wisdom. It is rare that I get to hear speakers or storytellers from Indian ancestry in books or films shared in class so hearing Geeta talk about her views on knowledge in the context of India inspired a lot of connections about wisdom creation in the setting my cultural roots.
What Geeta and this film highlight made me think about other forms of wisdom beyond the mainstream sphere like Wikipedia. It made me think of what is intimate, hidden, in secret, captured through film and dance and song, what is non-verbal, oral, musical, ceremonial, bodily, emotional and intuitive, energetic, and spiritual. In my access to Indian community and hindu ceremony and now as I am uncovering ancestral medicine I am learning more about the importance of song, oral story, dance, the senses, and ritual that involves plants, flowers, and offerings to ancestors. In this bodily and spiritual way I have been engaging with the past, present, and future, with Indian hxstory that doesn’t involves text or even writing. This type of learning and knowledge production is bringing me closer to myself and my healing as well as collective healing. I used to think if I just read everything about my people through the right textbooks and writing, I could ignite the healing I needed. I didn’t realized this until later as academia funneled me deeper into the realm of my mind and took me away from my bodily, spiritual, or heart needs. Later I found that needed to feed my spirit and engage my body in movement, dance and ritual that takes into account what I learned through the written but doesn’t see text as the central place of knowing. Healing became about making alchemy of what I learned through text, Wikipedia, but more so through community, friends, elders, femtors/mentors, my experiences with love, trauma, and family.
The film made me think about the many other dimensions through which hxstory, stories, emotions can be conveyed not limited to text or literature. It made me think about knowledge that engages with many senses, with the body, heart, mind, spirit, and soul like dancing. It made me think about my friends, queer people of color, creating knowledge away from our parents and their eyes or in front of their eyes, as we talked about our fears of being rejected from our homelands and parents because of queer sensual and creative desire. The conversations that transformed us, gave us butterflies, made us release our pain from trauma, and brought healing and loving moments that were are oral, or involved hugs, and holding one another physically as we told stories. It made me think about wisdom dancing away from validation from Wikipedia, how there is so much not documented under the limelight.
Another important element of knowledge production that surfaced for me was when the film mentioned people being able to access the sum of all knowledge. I thought about how I have learned through western and colonial ideas that it is important for me to know everything, to accumulate facts and information, and dominate in my knowing. However, one thing I have learned from other queer people of color healers and myself is that it can important to not know too and the respect that we cannot know or all access all knowledge. It can be humbling to understand that there is ambiguity and mystery in life, that we don’t need to conquer knowledge or hoard all information. This pressure to accumulate, has sometimes caused me to shame myself for what I know and the non-normative ways that I know and feel. I appreciate how this film made reflect on all these tunnels of wisdom sharing I engage with.
Watching Achal Prabal’s film on “People are Knowledge” conjured a lot of important thoughts and reflections about the many tunnels through which wisdom can radiate. Achal’s film explores citation in Wikipedia in the context of South Africa and India’s relationship to knowledge production. Geeta Narayan, one of the main speakers in the documentary, shares how she feels like she is coming from a culture where so little written down. She raises and challenges the question about whether this means her culture “knows nothing?” She poses this question and idea in contrast to the realities of European and American big libraries, recognizing how the western colonial empire has glorified standards of legitimate knowledge production involving literacy, what is written, what is printed and mass produced, and what is in the public. It is really important for Geeta to raise this question and affirm how libraries and the written word are not the valid holders of knowledge nor are the only evidence of wisdom. It is rare that I get to hear speakers or storytellers from Indian ancestry in books or films shared in class so hearing Geeta talk about her views on knowledge in the context of India inspired a lot of connections about wisdom creation in the setting my cultural roots.
What Geeta and this film highlight made me think about other forms of wisdom beyond the mainstream sphere like Wikipedia. It made me think of what is intimate, hidden, in secret, captured through film and dance and song, what is non-verbal, oral, musical, ceremonial, bodily, emotional and intuitive, energetic, and spiritual. In my access to Indian community and hindu ceremony and now as I am uncovering ancestral medicine I am learning more about the importance of song, oral story, dance, the senses, and ritual that involves plants, flowers, and offerings to ancestors. In this bodily and spiritual way I have been engaging with the past, present, and future, with Indian hxstory that doesn’t involves text or even writing. This type of learning and knowledge production is bringing me closer to myself and my healing as well as collective healing. I used to think if I just read everything about my people through the right textbooks and writing, I could ignite the healing I needed. I didn’t realized this until later as academia funneled me deeper into the realm of my mind and took me away from my bodily, spiritual, or heart needs. Later I found that needed to feed my spirit and engage my body in movement, dance and ritual that takes into account what I learned through the written but doesn’t see text as the central place of knowing. Healing became about making alchemy of what I learned through text, Wikipedia, but more so through community, friends, elders, femtors/mentors, my experiences with love, trauma, and family.
The film made me think about the many other dimensions through which hxstory, stories, emotions can be conveyed not limited to text or literature. It made me think about knowledge that engages with many senses, with the body, heart, mind, spirit, and soul like dancing. It made me think about my friends, queer people of color, creating knowledge away from our parents and their eyes or in front of their eyes, as we talked about our fears of being rejected from our homelands and parents because of queer sensual and creative desire. The conversations that transformed us, gave us butterflies, made us release our pain from trauma, and brought healing and loving moments that were are oral, or involved hugs, and holding one another physically as we told stories. It made me think about wisdom dancing away from validation from Wikipedia, how there is so much not documented under the limelight.
Another important element of knowledge production that surfaced for me was when the film mentioned people being able to access the sum of all knowledge. I thought about how I have learned through western and colonial ideas that it is important for me to know everything, to accumulate facts and information, and dominate in my knowing. However, one thing I have learned from other queer people of color healers and myself is that it can important to not know too and the respect that we cannot know or all access all knowledge. It can be humbling to understand that there is ambiguity and mystery in life, that we don’t need to conquer knowledge or hoard all information. This pressure to accumulate, has sometimes caused me to shame myself for what I know and the non-normative ways that I know and feel. I appreciate how this film made reflect on all these tunnels of wisdom sharing I engage with.