Every year, Black History Month offers an opportunity to celebrate the achievements, contributions and extraordinary histories of Black people. It is a time for remembrance, reflection and recognition. Yet, this year, I wanted to approach it somewhat differently.
Every year, Black History Month offers an opportunity to celebrate the achievements, contributions and extraordinary histories of Black people. It is a time for remembrance, reflection and recognition. Yet, this year, I wanted to approach it somewhat differently.
Too often, Black history is narrated principally through the language of struggle and adversity. Although these histories rightfully occupy an important place in our collective consciousness, the experiences of African and Caribbean communities, and the solidarity forged in overcoming extraordinary hardships cannot be all there is to the story.
Thus, two questions I have found myself pondering this Black History Month is whether in defining Black history through resistance, we risk overlooking the richness of Black existence beyond it. And secondly, how are black people themselves able to find agency in defining their own experiences and struggles? There is no easy answer to either of these questions, but I have had the opportunity to string together some musings and half answers from a multitude of sources over the course of the month.
To start, my background as a History and Politics graduate has implored me to consider from a Foucauldian lens how celebrations of Black History illuminate the relationship between power and knowledge. Alongside Bourdieu’s insights into symbolic power and legitimate cultural capital, I have used this Black History Month not only as an opportunity for reflection, but a chance to inspect our identities and construct our own narratives of what it means to be of Black African-Caribbean dissent. The power to represent and define others is, after all, itself a form of power.
Through the Black student leaders video series project I curated, I had the privilege of interviewing various Black student leaders and witness their agency in reflecting on what it means to be a Black student here at Oxford. And what was made abundantly clear was that these conversations reinforced something that ought to be obvious, but which is too often obscured: there is no singular Black experience. Black identity is neither monolithic nor confined to the commemorative boundaries of October, it is dynamic, multifaceted and most importantly, continuously evolving.
This sense of historical and definitional dynamism became particularly apparent at the Black History Month Show and Tell we hosted in collaboration with the Bodleian Libraries on 29th October. The exhibition brought together an extraordinary collection of historical materials, from placards used during the 2020 Black Lives Matters protests in Oxford, to records of the anti-apartheid movement and campaigns against Barclays’ involvement in South Africa during the 1970s, alongside materials dating back to the nineteenth century. These collections revealed more than simply a chronology of struggle but acted as a reminder that Black History is something that is continually produced, contested and reimagines across generations.
My thinking was further complicated by attending Adom Getachew’s lecture on the iconicity of Africa. Here Professor Getachew revealed a particularly interesting tension between Black peoples attempt to an establish a shared connection among diasporic communities through the personification of Africa, and the risk of reproducing the very homogeneity that Pan-Africanism seeks to overcome. At a moment when Black communities are once again negotiating the terms of identity and representation, both internally and in relation to wider Western political and cultural discourses, these questions feel especially pertinent.
It is against this backdrop that I found the conversations emerging from this year’s Black History Month particularly meaningful. Discussions with Black student leaders about their studies in Medicine, PPE, Human Sciences, Integrated Immunology or Geography and Environment revealed that breadth of experience, intellectual brilliance and expertise. DPhil Candidate Cynthia inspired me with her discussions on decolonising the wild and bringing black voices back to studies on wildlife and nature. Austine emphasised the importance of having African research in the field of immunology. And Daniella revealed the importance of intersectional networks like the NeuroNoir CIC to bring together Black, Queer and Neurodivergent students. We also witnessed cultural leadership from Presidents and Vice Presidents Hip Hop Society Kieran and Levy, who are both respectively active in other areas of Oxford life such as being a JCR President or member of the Oxford famous acapella group, Out of the Blue. These discussions revealed a very diverse community whose experiences cannot be reduced to any single political or cultural narrative, and that Black spaces in Oxford life should not be considered solely as an exception, but as what ought to be a normal enrichment to our communities.
Hence, returning to Foucault, the relationship between knowledge and power reminds us that representation is never entirely neutral. The stories told about communities' shape how those communities are perceived, governed and understood. For me this interview series created a space where Black people could actively participate in determining the terms of their own representation. And this is where I think the greatest significance of this year’s celebrations lies. Therefore, If this year’s Black History Month has taught me anything, it is that we must resist the temptation to replace one reductive narrative with another and avoid the trap of trying to establish a single, definitive account of Black identity. We have seen here at Oxford no less, that many expressions of Blackness can coexist.
Ultimately, the question is not simply how Black people are represented, but who has the power to represent us, and whether we are afforded the freedom to define ourselves on our own terms.