Doing life! – A live blog with Ngubia Kessé

Sharing stories and experiences – empowering Black and PoC scholars.

Life is not easy – that’s for real. But to us, everyone else might seem to be gliding through life unruffled. From my life’s perspective, it seemed like other (especially white scholars) scholars had/have it all together, and I kept wondering whether it was I that wasn’t getting things right. I felt that my ideas and ways of thinking as a Black scholar were just ‘off’ the mark – maybe they were too simple or not right? At other times it just bothered me that I wanted different things. Sometimes I have feared that my differences in approach would be interpreted as academic unfitness in a white world. We all have our own hidden fear and struggles that we want to mask by overexerting ourselves. Maybe our strategy is hiding, disconnecting and running, complying, and so on… Everyone has their specific struggles and coping stratergy. As a Black woman from a working-class family, I had to learn how to ‘be’ in an academic world dominated by people privileged by whiteness. Part of what has been a really great help in coping and developing my own survival strategies has been mentorship – the opportunity to see other Scholars (BPoC and white) do life. It has for example empowered me to learn that (some) people I greatly admire also face(d) similar struggles and sometimes felt afraid, that they did not always know the solutions to problems… Instead of “writing” a blog I will run a live Blog.

The aim of this live blog will be to empower Black and PoC scholars by sharing the challenges I have lived through as a Black woman in academia and how I have dealt with them. In the second half of our meeting there will be the opportunity for you too to reflect on and share your experiences-stories (if you want to).

No registration is required. Donations are welcome. It is possible to participate in single individual events.

Time: Once a month from 5:30-8pm

Dates: 17.3., 21.4., (this session is cancelled) 19.5., 16.6.

Languages: English/German

Topic 1: How did I get here? – Self acceptance
Topic 2: What do I do-like? – Self discovery (cancelled – but come to the other sessions!)
Topic 3: What am I afraid of? – Exploring fear
Topic 4: Fear of discovery – Being Black in a white academy