Dr Isabel Arce Zelada looks back on her PhD research activities at the University of Hull, as she moves on to a Postdoctoral Researcher position.
I have spent four years at the University of Hull, three and a half of those years I spent doing my PhD at the Wilberforce Institute. Now I am moving on to a Postdoc and I don’t quite know where all the time went.
I remember when I was supervising one of the last independent bars in Aberdeen, and a group of admin staff from the University of Aberdeen came in to have a drink. They asked me why on earth I was going to do a PhD? Did I not know that I would be overqualified for most positions and be out of a job like the hundreds of PhDs out there?
And honestly, having been questioned over and over again before even getting the opportunity to do a PhD, I only grew closer to the desire to have a place in the world that would allow me to think, challenge and write. Or at least that is what I used to say. Ever since my undergraduate, my research has led me closer to the people who matter, the ones exposed to, and fighting, different oppressive forms of governance. Whether that was on the streets of Havana or in the asylum system of the UK, I was always taught by those surviving the everyday, manufactured destitution how to survive, how to expand my thought and how to approach academia with their concerns at the forefront. Perhaps my desire has more to do with an insatiable curiosity to learn more from those whose narratives are erased by our nation-states.
I grew up surrounded by tales that the nation-state erases; tales of protestors, political prisoners, exiles, stateless, undocumented, on how to survive a failed asylum claim, how to listen out for police knocking on your door, or how you rely on the good will of a few people that might lend you a helping hand when the nation-state deems you to be an acceptable death. Meeting the surprise and shock of people who had never acknowledge these tales in their lifetimes frustrated me to no end. And I immediately realised that I probably have neglected many tales in my own lifetime.
Reflecting on this I think I realised that what I desired was to honour these erased tales, to engage with them, to ask what they thought of the future, what they thought of our world and re-enter them into the discussions that neglect them and continue their erasure. I wanted research to acknowledge the wealth of these tales, the alternative possibilities that they offer for our present and future. When you truly feel like you owe people for their time, their wisdom and their tenacity you end up asking yourself how you can interrogate these systems of oppression with them and still pay them back somehow.
That was part of what my PhD tried to interrogate, how to design a project to repay and move forward with the people who were themselves on the frontlines of questioning and challenging these systems. I found the answer in the music and art interest that many carry with them, but few get the space, time and money to pursue. By providing the materials, instruments, music teachers, facilitators, time and space; each of the people who were part of this project became musicians and artists in their own right.
I can say that we took art seriously, in the sense that we approached it as a reflection of discourse, of experiences, memories and desires. I can also say that while I facilitated the workshops, every artwork, exhibition, description and skill that came out of it was solely the credit of each person who shared part of themselves with the work that would eventually lead to my PhD. While I couldn’t put them all as co-authors of my thesis, I could at least cite each of their artworks and engage with their knowledge beyond their oppression, beyond the label of asylum seeker they had been given when they crossed into the UK.
For those who are researching, let research transform a history of erasures, transgress the borders that academia puts up and preoccupy itself with a future in which we practice a radically different governance. For those lending their knowledge to us, I hope we can do you justice and practice research with you. May we refuse to erase you.
The header image is an excerpt from a painting by Isabel Arce Zelada called The Calling of Guabancex
Further imagery may be viewed on Instagram via @whoweare_hull