February 22, 2023 • 36 mins
In this episode, Laura speaks with Dr. Zdena Mtetwa-Middernacht, whose doctoral research focused on whiteness in migration. Listen if you are interested in:
- Why you might need to learn to fake an Australian accent
- Colonisation and legacies of privileged whiteness in Zimbabwe
- What intersectionality means and how it affects our lives
- Transnationalism and living in two places at once
- Wearing different identity hats, and living different lives
Links to learn more:
- Zdena's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zdena-mtetwa-middernacht-ph-d-111bb59
- Her Twitter: https://twitter.com/zdenamtetwa/
About Laura: Laura is a former Executive Director of the International Mediation Institute and a negotiation and mediation lecturer. Her doctoral research asked “in what ways does blame make villains in politics” and covered the gamut from literature studies and linguistics to psychology and neuroscience, victimology to political science. Her expertise includes emotions, polarization, blame, and international politics. Feel free to connect with her on LinkedIn or ResearchGate—or even both!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Laura May (00:11):
Hello and welcome to the Conflict Tipping podcast from mediate.com,
the podcast that explores socialconflict and what we can do about.
I'm your host, Laura Reay, and todayI'm coming from you in my living room
where I'm doing the first in-personpodcast with the wonderful ua MIT, PhD.
She is a senior research consultantat O D S and her doctorate
(00:34):
research Whiteness in migration.
Her areas of interest areintersectionality, migration, whiteness,
and apparently coffee from what Idiscovered this morning, say welcome.
Thank you,
Zdena M (00:46):
Laura.
Thank you.
It's nice to be in your cozy living room.
Yeah,
. Laura May: Awesome.
Well, as people listening may havegathered, I actually have met Zine before.
We're in the same PhD program, one ofthe same PhD school, I guess, and so I
came across her research that way andI always thought it was super awesome.
And so when I saw her the other week, Iwas like, you have to come to the podcast.
(01:08):
You have no choice.
If you try and say, no,I'll be kidnapping you so.
Luckily there was no restraintrequired in this particular cape.
And so let's just jump through itin then, because one of the things
that first interested me in yourresearch, or first grabbed my
attention was the idea of accents.
Because being apparently a littlenarcissistic when you started talking
(01:30):
to you about accents in Australia,then I was like, oh, I'm paying
attention . So, how did you starttalking about accents in Australia,
especially as it pertains to inclusion?
Yeah.
So yeah, I mean, it, it was veryinteresting for me because I think
it unpacked a lot of the assumptionsthat we make particularly I think from
the perspective of Zimbabwe when itcomes to privilege and, and whiteness.
(01:54):
So my research waslooking at white Zimbabwe.
because in Zimbabwe, of course, because ofcolonialism and the structures that were
set up during colonialism, whiteness, orbeing white is, it amounts to structural
privilege, economic privilege, et cetera.
And in the context of migration,of course, the assumption was that
(02:15):
when people migrate, so when whiteZimbabweans migrate to other countries,
for instance, to Australia mm-hmm.
you know, that they would experiencelife much easier probably than black
Zimbabweans or other black Africans.
Mm-hmm.
would experience it.
But I mean, what I found was interestingbecause it's not that simple.
(02:38):
A lot of things that we embodythat position us very differently
in different societies.
And in the case ofAustralia what came up was.
Your accent is so importantin fitting in, right?
So when White Zimbabweans arrived inAustralia, they at least the ones that I
interviewed, had assumed that it wouldbe, you know, culturally close, right?
(03:00):
Mm-hmm.
. Um, The climate is similar.
You have a lot of South Africans, youalso have a lot of whites, Zimbabwe.
So there was an element ofpotentially blending in, et cetera.
But there was also an element of exclusionbased on accent, because when your accent
was different you were an outsider.
Even if you were white, even if youhad assumed, even if you had, you
(03:23):
know, heritage that brought you closeto a lot of other people in Australia.
So it was just an issue of how alot of the things that we embody,
they position as sometimes asinsiders, sometimes as outsiders.
And in the case of Australia,that's how the accent issue came up.
It came up in the UK as welland in other locations as
really a, a factor of exclusion.
(03:45):
I,
Laura May (03:45):
I find these particular countries you've given as examples
really interesting as well in that,the first time I hear you talking
about this, I had the same thought.
I think.
and that was like, oh, I can reallyrelate to the performance of accent.
Right?
Because I mean, I think now foreignAustralian, my accent is pretty neutral.
Like it definitely is stillAustralian . But I mean, if I spoke
(04:05):
with a really strong Australianaccent, no one would understand me.
and like pretty much everyone I talkto, I in Europe has English as a
like, you know, 15th language mm-hmm.
And so you throw an Australianaccent on, they're gonna be
like, what is this girl saying?
. But then when I'm in Australiaand also when I'm in the uk,
there's an element of performance.
Cuz if you go out with a group of Brits,they're like, oh, you're the Australian.
(04:27):
So you end up sort of like pilingit on and you're like, wow, my
accident's not normally like this.
Like, what's going on?
And so it's it's really interestingthese two countries are the ones that
from a very different perspective, Ifind having to perform accent is, is
Zdena M (04:41):
really, really important.
Yes, absolutely.
And, and I think that theperformance of it, of course, raises.
. Other issues as well, right?
Mm-hmm.
. So in the case of Australia, and there'sbeen studies done on this as well,
looking at immigration into Australia.
Mm-hmm.
and how other immigrantsexperience Australia.
So accent, I think for, at least in myresearch, it was interesting that some
(05:05):
people felt like they could perform it.
Others felt like it's somethingthat they couldn't change, but for
people who could perform it, , theycould feel a difference, right?
Mm-hmm.
. So you, you perform an Australianaccent and then no one necessarily
knows, at least until you tell themthat you are not actually Australian,
et cetera, which is interesting.
(05:25):
But again, that raises otherquestions of how you would have to
look like to get away with that.
So in the case of white Zimbabwe,they could get away with performing
an Australian accent and they'renot having to explain much else.
Mm-hmm.
, . But then for other immigrantsthat are very visible, you
know, that also is not enough.
(05:47):
Like performing the accent is notenough, like the other factors
as well that you can't performbecause you're so visibly different.
Laura May (05:55):
It's so interesting as you're saying this as well, because
I think the unsaid thing here isthat there's a, a hegemonic idea of
what Australians look like, right?
Yeah, absolutely.
Which means that everyoneelse is excluded.
Absolutely.
But obviously, I mean, Australia hasextremely visible migrant communities.
, I remember the last suburbI lived in, in Sydney.
You can actually look it up withthe Australian Bureau statistics
(06:17):
and it shows the differentpopulations of the different suburbs.
And the suburb I lived in was 84% Chinese.
Mm-hmm.
. And so, I mean, I wasdefinitely visibly the outsider.
I was also way taller than everyone.
And so every time I went to thesupermarket, I spent a lot of time
grabbing these off high shelves, , whichI felt that really became my role.
Right.
And so, you know, when we are talkingabout this idea of accents and inclusion
(06:38):
and well of course white Zimbabweans,who you can perform the accent, are able
to blend in better is blending into thisparticular idea of Australia as white.
Yeah.
Right.
Which is.
Zdena M (06:50):
Accurate.
Yeah.
. Laura May: And I understand there are some maybe similar dynamics in Zimbabwe
as far as whiteness and hierarchyinternally from what you've said.
Yeah.
I think because of the history of, ofcolonization and the power structures
that came to be what then became Zimbabwe.
(07:12):
I think after that you still had beingwhite as a position of privilege, right?
Mm-hmm.
Some of it would've beeneconomic privilege that was quite
ingrained into the structures.
Mm-hmm.
Social privilege as well,which is interesting because I
think the social privilege is.
in a way.
Also kind of awarded even by non-whites,Zimbabweans because of, you know, because
(07:36):
of the way colonialism played out andthe way people got to understand the
position or the position of white people.
It's like a globalhierarchy of people, right?
Where you have whites at thetop and you know, likes at the
bottom . So I think also in socialinteraction, less so now mm-hmm.
. But I remember certainly when I wasgrowing up in social interaction, it
(07:58):
was like that that white people areseen as important seen as people who
should be served first in a queue,even if they're behind it cetera.
So I think that that's just part of.
Yeah, the legacy that you, yougot out of colon colonization.
Laura May (08:14):
Yeah, it's, it's really, yeah, it's really interesting as you
say this, cuz, I mean, I'm having this.
Visceral nausea, , the whole idea ofbeing served first because, because you're
white and I like, I'm very obviouslyconscious that time has moved on.
Mm-hmm.
, but a lot of these structures arestill in place, so they're still
(08:35):
subliminal and subconscious andstill affecting people's lives.
And obviously like being as a guy on thebeach in Columbia one time, called me
the whitest girl, , like that a lot ofthis stuff is, is so invisible to me.
Mm-hmm.
The way I look at, it's like, well, a lotof the violence problems we go through
as women is invisible to men, and theydon't see, I'm like, all right, well,
(08:57):
now I understand how you can just notsee things that are happening because
they don't affect your daily life.
Mm-hmm.
. But yeah, I mean, when it getsreally blatant like that and you're
being served first and acute, it'slike, how can anyone live with this?
Like, how can they feelthat that's acceptable?
Zdena M (09:12):
Yeah.
Ugh.
Yeah.
, it's, yeah, it's, it's.
. It's interesting because I think, Imean, I think what's also interesting
about it is the complexity, right?
At least in my research, itwas interesting to explore not
only the race part of it mm-hmm.
, but also to see race as justone element of whiteness.
(09:36):
Mm-hmm.
. So it's not, it's an, it'san element of whiteness.
It carries a lot of weight.
Mm-hmm.
, but it's not everything.
Mm-hmm.
, I mean, there's also, there's quitea lot of other elements that define
whiteness that go beyond race as well.
Right.
So you
Laura May (09:52):
would find, I would talking like
Zdena M (09:53):
ugbo, like what's the , you know, things like social class mm-hmm.
Things like even accent as I'm saying.
Mm-hmm.
in, in specific places even so I.
So if we had to think of race,for instance, if we had to imagine
race as being the only thing,then it wouldn't matter that much.
Right?
Then people could blend in, inspite of where they migrated to.
(10:17):
. So there are certain people whomigrate, for instance, to the uk.
, but the combination of being whitebeing lesbian, for instance being
of a lower socioeconomic class, itpositions them outside of what is the,
the fictional center of whiteness.
Mm-hmm.
. So in terms of the privilegethat we experience mm-hmm.
(10:39):
, it's very differential.
It won't be the same privilege as,you know, a, a white heterosexual.
Middle class men, for example.
Mm-hmm.
. So it's, it's very interesting tosee what, in my research, I call
it differential whiteness, right?
Mm-hmm.
, that
Laura May (10:55):
sounds like an equation.
Yeah.
. I'm having my flash text in Algebra. It's a differential differential.
Whiteness.
Okay.
Zdena M (11:03):
But yeah, it's, it's how everything intersects together.
Which is why intersectionality isalso such an interesting concept to
apply in that sense because it's theintersections and the interaction
between all these different elements.
Laura May (11:19):
Okay.
And so can we just dwell on this conceptof intersectionality, because we see this
word popping up quite a bit and we seeespecially some voices on the internet
getting really angry about this word.
In fact, I had this strange experienceone time where I had to join a lot of very
pro Brexit Facebook groups in my research.
(11:40):
One day I made the mistake of answering acomment with, oh, it's at the intersection
of, and apparently this was too closeto the word intersectionality, and
so I was banned from the group and itreally messed with my research . So
it's obviously a term which is treatedwith a lot of weight, but can you
explain to me what it actually is?
Zdena M (12:00):
Yeah, maybe without going into its history, et
cetera, which is also important.
But I mean, I thinkthere's, there's two layers.
So you have the individuallayer and the structural layer.
So in terms of the structurallayer the way that society has
(12:22):
positioned certain elements.
So for instance, gender.
Mm-hmm.
, where that is positioned if you're a womansocioeconomic class for example, being
a migrant, for example, being disabledfor example, being black for example.
So these elements or these embodiment.
They, at least at a structurallevel, they tend to put people
(12:46):
in certain positions, right?
Mm-hmm.
Unfavorable positions.
Mostly I think when you look at,you know, race in terms of being
black or gender in terms of beinga woman and other elements.
So you have that, and thenat an individual level,
then you would have to see.
, the being of a person as the interactionbetween several factors in their life.
(13:09):
Mm-hmm.
, right?
So you as a being would be, youknow, your social experience and
the way you experience the worldis because it's based on the
interaction between you being a woman.
Being a white woman, being an employedwoman, being an able-bodied woman,
(13:36):
But yeah, but so the, the interactionof all those, your experience
is a result of that, right?
Mm-hmm.
, that intersectionality and then you plugthat into where society positions you as
a result of, of that whole calculation.
If you, if you couldn't call it that.
And, and that's interesting becauseit helps us to understand social
(14:00):
positions, I think in a more holistic way.
Mm-hmm.
It also in a more political way.
Mm-hmm.
And social experience aswell in a more political way.
Mm-hmm.
Laura May (14:10):
It's, it's interesting cause now we're on the, on the topic
of unemployment, because I had thisconversation with a former student of
mine in a cafe a couple of days ago.
And she's originally from Tanzania.
Mm-hmm.
. And obviously she and I areboth applying for jobs at the
moment as third party national.
So we're not, we have no right to workin the EU unless we get sponsored.
. And so we were talking aboutthis, this real challenge.
(14:31):
Cause on the face of things,I guess literally as well,
we're both very different.
But we have this shared migrantexperience of, wow, it is so hard to
get work here compared to a European.
Yeah, I mean, when I left my lastjob, my European colleagues were
like, oh, well, you know, be a weekor two and you'll get a new job.
And I'm like, I don't thinkyou understand how it works.
(14:52):
It's gonna be like 3, 4, 5, 6months before realistically I
could get work in Europe again.
Mm-hmm.
, because that's a migrant experience.
Yeah.
And so, I would talk to my formercolleagues and they're like, well,
you know, aren't you a resident?
I'm like, look, I've been inBelgium eight years and I have
no pathway to residency yet.
And they're like, , but you belong here.
I'm like, well, I'm not sure if I belongspecifically, but I'm like, well, yeah,
(15:15):
this is what it is to be a migrant.
Yes.
I mean, everything's hooked to, to yourwork and, and to your visas, and there's
constant battle and there's constantbureaucracy and so obviously on the face
of things, I have a lot of privilegesand there's no doubt about that.
, but that doesn't make you exemptfrom these other Absolutely.
Portions of intersectionality, whichrelate to your unemployment and
(15:36):
to your migrations list and so on.
Yes, exactly.
And that means that I have adifferent lived experience to
my European colleagues who wouldotherwise look the same on paper.
Absolutely.
Zdena M (15:44):
It's perfect.
It really captures it.
Laura May (15:47):
Well, I can definitely see how that then plays into the conception of
differential whiteness, as you put it.
Yeah.
And so I guess one question I have thenis why you opted for the word whiteness?
Like is it because the sort ofvisible race element was the most
important part of that cluster,or did it come from participants,
or how did that actually work?
Zdena M (16:07):
Well, it actually came from critical whiteness studies.
Oh, okay.
Because it's a whole concept on its own.
Mm-hmm.
, so it's a concept on its own thatcaptures race, but beyond race.
Right?
Mm-hmm.
that really tries to understandthe experience of, of
being white, but what else?
you know creates thatkind of center mm-hmm.
(16:29):
and the periphery.
Mm-hmm.
. So it's, it's a whole concept on its own.
And it's been defined differently,of course, by different people.
I think some of the, the references Imake in my research is really seeing
whiteness as the interaction betweenpower, privilege, and identity.
So the race element would come underthe identity, but then you also have
(16:50):
the element of power and the elementof privilege and that interaction
is what would produce whiteness.
Laura May (16:56):
Mm-hmm.
. And in your research, I recall therewas part about migrants going between
Zimbabwe and the UK and maybe backagain, and then having sort of different
experiences in different places.
Zdena M (17:09):
Yeah.
I mean, I think that'scaptured by Transnationalism.
Right.
Which is really existing in morethan one place at the same time.
Mm-hmm.
, and I think this is the reality of alot of migrants that you, your existing.
Beyond borders.
Mm-hmm.
So you're existing in the UK but you'realso existing in Zimbabwe simultaneously.
(17:31):
Mm-hmm.
And the, the going back and forth,that mobility part of it is just
one element of it, but beyondthat, you also have social media.
You have phone calls to family,you have remittances and money
that's is sent home, et cetera.
But yes, the different experiencesI think is, is part of that as well.
(17:51):
and that applies as well, I mean, formigrants, even beyond white Zimbabweans.
So, and, and that's interesting interms of social position as well.
Mm-hmm.
. So for instance, in our reality, youwould have migrants that are, for
instance , doing work in the uk probably.
Job, and I'm, I'm usingthe UK as an example.
(18:12):
I don't live in the uk . So maybelet's, like, think of Belgium.
So we could have say if I'm here mm-hmm.
and the social position that I occupyhere is quite a peripheral one.
Mm-hmm.
, a black woman, an immigrant possiblya low paying job, et cetera.
Right.
So in terms of my social positionhere, I'm not an important person.
(18:36):
Probably quite, I'm not describing myself,I'm describing a fictional of me, so, so
you would have a migrant like that, right?
Mm-hmm.
living in Belgium under thosecircumstances, but the same person
probably sends money to Zimbabwe.
Mm-hmm.
is probably helping to build acommunity center in Zimbabwe.
(18:58):
While living in Belgiumand working very hard.
Mm-hmm.
. Mm-hmm.
. So the way that they're seenin Zimbabwe and their social
position there is very different.
Mm-hmm.
, like when they travel toZimbabwe, they're really an
important member of the community.
Mm-hmm.
, they're a helpful memberof society, et cetera.
So their social positionis elevated there.
(19:19):
But the other social position in theother place that they simultaneously
occupy, , it's completely different.
It's it's on the periphery.
It's invisible in some ways, et cetera.
So, and this is the interestingthing about Transnationalism mm-hmm.
that we would exist.
And a lot of migrants are in thissituation that you exist in two places,
maybe even more at the same time.
(19:41):
And your social position in eachof those places is very different.
Laura May (19:44):
Yeah.
And I mean, how do people cope with that?
Or how do they integratethat or make sense of it?
Zdena M (19:51):
I don't know if they need to in some ways maybe it's not like, I
don't see it necessarily as a negativething . of course, different people
experienced it differently, so Ican't speak for anyone, but I, I can.
, imagine that.
I think it also provides outlets in a way.
Mm-hmm.
Maybe more opportunity than if youdidn't have that transnational.
(20:12):
Life.
Mm-hmm.
In the sense that you can be marginalizedin one context, but then you have
another context in which you'renot marginalized, which is not bad.
Right?
Yeah.
It's like, yay.
Laura May (20:25):
Yeah.
Quite bit of freedom for marginalization.
Yeah.
Zdena M (20:28):
Yeah.
Oh my goodness.
I mean, it's ideal if you're notmarginalized in any of these contexts,
but apart from marginalization, Iimagine there's also some richness
that comes out of just having differentexperiences in different places.
But it's not always positive.
It's really interesting
Laura May (20:45):
in that, if you are someone who's working in Belgium and you're not in
this transnational situation, and you havethese perceptions of this person as being
on the periphery in a society, this notionof them being really, really important
in a different country is not visible.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
And that's, that's really curious and I'mwondering whether that ever leads to any
Zdena M (21:07):
conflicts.
Yeah, I mean, that'sa really good thought.
I, I imagine it does just like becauseof course, I imagine it explains that
part of conflict, which comes from notunderstanding the full person mm-hmm.
or the full reality of a person.
Mm-hmm.
. And I think there would be more,Empathy if there was that recognition
(21:29):
of the full reality of people.
It's just that I think in thespaces in which people interact,
I don't know if those spaces alsoprovide enough opportunity for
them to understand the full person.
Right.
Often it's brief, oftenit's based on assumptions.
Mm-hmm.
and maybe stereotypes and there's.
Platform to really get a glimpseof the other side of a person.
(21:53):
That's one of the things
Laura May (21:54):
I really like about your research because I think it's pretty well
known that often migrants from poorercountries will send remittances back.
Right?
Yeah.
But I think theimplications of that as far.
Not just their community, but also theirrole in that community is often missing.
And I'd be quite curious abouthow knowing this would actually
(22:15):
affect people's perceptions ofthose migrants in their countries.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Zdena M (22:20):
I'll be curious as well.
The challenge I think is that it's,beyond the personal, you know, it's beyond
the person standing in front of you.
Often it's structural.
Often it's the assumptions thatare made about that whole country.
Mm-hmm.
Or that whole society.
And and, and I think this is why.
(22:42):
for me, it was interesting also to lookat the experiences of white Zimbabwe.
Mm-hmm.
also because of the intersectionof being white in a world way in
this global hierarchy of people.
Mm-hmm.
being white is quite at the top of thehierarchy, however, coming from Africa.
Mm-hmm coming from a poor countryand migrating to the global north.
(23:06):
Mm-hmm.
So I think that like thecombination is weird in a way.
, like, it's like confusing and that'swhy it's interesting to see what comes
out of this because there you also thencapture the experience of, okay, so apart
from the person standing in front ofyou mm-hmm , what if that person comes
from this part of the world where thereare a lot of assumptions made about
(23:29):
so many things that come out of there.
How do you reconcile that with thehuman being that has been placed
because of colonial history at thetop of that global hierarchy of,
so it's, it's, yeah, it's beyondthe personal and that's also, yeah.
How do you surface that ? I mean, what
Laura May (23:48):
do you think will be the forum for that other than listening to this
podcast and going, Hmm, I wonder what'sup with the, the various migrant, and I
say that as a migrant, obviously, as a,a different type, and then I'm I'm from a
country where people don't typically sendremittances to , so let's put it that way.
Right.
. And so that's a verydifferent form of migration.
I mean, I still wouldn't callmyself an expat cuz I feel like
(24:10):
that's a very exclusive language.
, but, you know, but I, but I am a migrant.
So other than listen to this podcast, whatdo you suspect will be a good forum for
people to actually learn about people'sdifferent positions across the world?
Zdena M (24:22):
I think.
I mean, in, in my research I,sorry, I refer to my research
a lot, but , you're, I mean,
Laura May (24:29):
you're talking about your research.
I feel like that's allowed
. Zdena M: Okay.
Thanks Sarah . youknow, people have blogs.
You have white Zimbabweans Mm-hmm.
, so they have their blogs in whichthey post pictures, they travel
back to Zimbabwe on holiday.
Mm-hmm.
, they reflect on how their holiday wasand who they met, and they show a lot
(24:50):
of pictures from there, write articles.
. This was maybe a coincidence of peoplethat were interested in really writing
and blogs and articles, et cetera.
But what I found interesting about thatas a contribution is that you could
criticize the fact that it's stillfrom a position of privilege, right?
Mm-hmm.
(25:10):
. So it would still be a position of maybevisiting certain areas of Zimbabwe.
Mm-hmm.
, you know, Maybe more expensivehotels than the average person
who's visited, et cetera.
There's all that and, and you know,we can unpack that, but I think for
me, the opportunity there is that ifthe audience is already a different
(25:32):
type of audience, so if those kindsof blogs and articles would reach out
perhaps to I don't know, potentiallymaybe already a white audience, Again,
you can criticize that, but I thinkfor me, that effort is already kind
of revealing another side of Zimbabwe.
Mm-hmm.
, which I find is a differentnarrative from the kind of colonial
(25:56):
narratives that we have on Zimbabwe.
You know, that really like.
Focus on, on Africa in generaland, you know, describing this
bush where people are wild andit's already going away from that.
Mm-hmm.
cause it, it's talking aboutliterature, it's talking about food,
it's talking about films, it's talkingabout of course, nature, but also
(26:18):
streets and, and seasons and mm-hmm.
and it, it brings the place closer.
It brings the place to context and it's.
, it reflects on it as a place wherepeople live and they have culture,
they have literature, and, and forme that's an important contribution
and I think it provides a platformto share the different light.
(26:39):
And in some ways you could see at leastthe whites andan who engage in these
kinds of transnational activities.
Mm-hmm.
as taking up the opportunity.
You know, reach out to a certainkind of audience and bring to life
this place that's sort of mystified.
At least in, if we reflect on you know,colonial narratives of Africa mm-hmm.
(27:01):
, so I think there areefforts that are being made.
This is just one.
And I'm sure there are plenty of, of.
Things we can think of or find and,but I, I appreciated that and I
found it to be quite interesting.
Apart from all the critique, I mean,we can always unpack anything and
deconstruct it, but I think we also haveto try and see through it and see what
it can offer as a contribution right.
(27:22):
In the space.
And so I understand you did interviews for your research,
so what were some of the interestingthings that came out of that?
Zdena M (27:30):
There are a lot of interesting things that came up, and, and you can
reflect on them in different ways mm-hmm.
, but I think some of the interestingones for instance , and I guess maybe
all of us do this in different waysto try and and clinging onto the thing
that will humanize you at that point.
Mm-hmm.
. So, some of the things thatcame up were, for instance,
(27:51):
in the case of the UK mm-hmm.
Where people felt like socialclass was quite important.
And so to navigate.
Out of the scrutiny of social class.
Some people would reallyemphasize their africanness,
you know, because that I do that
Laura May (28:08):
with being Australian in uk.
I'm like, I'm Australian, thereforeI'm exempt from your structure.
Thank you.
Zdena M (28:15):
This lens does not apply to,
Laura May (28:19):
that'll not be a bag structure.
Exactly.
Zdena M (28:21):
Yeah.
And so, And, and then youare positioned as exotic and
outside of that scrutiny, I'm
Laura May (28:28):
positioned with the charming
Zdena M (28:29):
convict.
That is
Laura May (28:32):
how I position.
Thank you.
I'm rules cause it's end.
Zdena M (28:37):
But I mean it's, it helps you to kind of navigate out of it, but.
. The interesting thing is how weuse these tools and all of us do
it, I think in, in different ways.
So in the case of my interviewees,so there would be that tool.
So then you become theexotic African mm-hmm.
. But then in some circles, that's notenough because for instance, maybe
(29:00):
you go to work and you are being.
Explained to and being told racist thingslike, yeah, you Africans don't get it.
You know?
And then this personthinks, oh, wait a minute.
I mean, I am British.
I am a British heritage.
My father is British.
Mm-hmm.
. And so that's again, kind of, okay, so.
(29:20):
being the African in this caseis not humanizing me enough.
So then I'm going to take something elseand then claim, yeah, my Britishness
and my British heritage because atthis point, this is what is important
and this is what will humanize me.
And so it was interesting for meto observe how people were using
all these different cards tonavigate different Situation then.
(29:41):
And, you could think of hundredways in which we all kind of used
the different different hats.
Yeah, different
Laura May (29:48):
hats.
I've got my Australian hat on today.
Yeah, I know.
I've got my living in Europe hat on today.
No, no, no.
I've got my immigrant hat
Zdena M (29:55):
on today.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I can, I can imaginethat, of course, in terms.
The way we experience the worldor the ease of our experience
in the world, the more of thosefavorable hats you have mm-hmm.
, the easier it is to navigate.
Right?
Mm.
Because I think not all of us, somehave more unfavorable hats than others.
Mm-hmm.
, depending on the context and how itdefines what is favorable, that amount
(30:19):
to privilege, which hats are in fashion.
Yeah.
Yeah.
. Laura May: Is that too far with the metaphor?
It's close enough.
Yeah.
And the fashion changes as well.
Yeah.
So, yeah.
Awesome.
Laura May (30:34):
And how does this all get back to conflict?
Zdena M (30:37):
Yeah, I mean, I think coming back to conflict, it's also interesting
to see or to learn the experiencesthat people get as the outsider.
Mm-hmm.
, the one that's not privileged.
Mm-hmm.
the one that's trying to use differentheads to navigate a difficult world.
I think those experiences if youtake them back, like to the context
(30:59):
of Zimbabwe mm-hmm . , I thinkthey are potentially good for
understanding each other, you know?
Mm-hmm.
, because someone who's used to beingprivileged and having an easy life
and maybe doesn't understand peoplewho are struggling more mm-hmm.
when they leave and they areexposed to struggle and being an
outsider and being an outcast.
(31:22):
Exchanges their perception as well.
Right.
And this is, I think, in the contextof migration, it's certainly important.
But then going back to Zimbabwe in aplace where historically you would have
also points in history where you hadthis tension between blacks and whites
and this social position of privilege.
In the case of white Zimbabweans,I think the experience
(31:43):
post-migration was different.
And in my research I could see thatthe way people then looked back
at Zimbabwe, in retrospect from adifferent location was different.
Mm-hmm.
so, , when you are privileged,you don't always see it, right?
Mm-hmm.
because it's your norm.
That's just your position in life.
But the way people then thoughtback of Zimbabwe from the experience
(32:08):
they were having in Australia orin the uk People started thinking
that was racist, , that was,
whereas before, they hadn't seen itthat way because that was their reality,
but because of the struggles that theywere experiencing and being violated
in some ways, being excluded in someways because of one thing or the other,
because of accent, because of nationality.
Laura May (32:31):
So it sounds like one of the things we can do then to reduce social
conflict is helping people have thoseopportunities to live different lives,
essentially in different countries,in different cultures, in different
places, to, to gain that, well firstof their empathy for others, but also
perspective on what their position isand what their privileges might be.
Yeah.
(32:51):
So a worldwide scholarship scheme, , soeveryone gets to travel all the time.
I'm OK with this idea.
. Zdena M: Yeah.
I mean, I think it always helps.
I came to Belgium when I was16 as an exchange student.
Mm-hmm.
and I had studied Frenchin high school mm-hmm.
for four years and I thoughtI'm going to be fine . So I came
(33:12):
and I was living in Wallonia.
Mm-hmm.
and with host parents, right?
Mm-hmm.
. So no one at home spoke English?
Mm-hmm.
, no one at school spoke English, exceptI think I made two friends that spoke
English and the English teacher.
Those were the onlyopportunities to speak English.
And of course, having studied friendshipsin high school, I thought I would be fine.
But then the accent is different.
(33:33):
People talk much faster.
And so for the first three months of thatyear, I remember sitting around the table.
Mm-hmm.
at home.
and just everyone wouldbe laughing and having it.
And I didn't know what they weretalking about and people would
so then like try to translate.
I mean everyone was very nicetrying to translate to me.
(33:55):
So it was very lonely, and thenI caught up after like three
months and then I was fine.
But
but I think for, it wasthe first time in my.
That I had an understanding of what itmeans not to understand the language.
Mm.
Because I'd grown up in Zimbabwe, Ispoke all the languages in Zimbabwe.
I would never possibly be in asituation where I didn't understand
(34:16):
what was happening around me.
Mm-hmm.
And I think this is also the nice thingabout what you are saying, right, about
travel and because we then get to be putin a situation where we can then imagine.
the situation of another person.
Mm-hmm.
. If I hadn't had that, okay, maybe Iwould've had it later in life, but
at that particular point in my life,maybe in a school situation, if someone
(34:38):
didn't understand a language, maybeI wouldn't have understood exactly
what that means in terms of howthey're feeling, so it always helps.
I mean, to be in different shoes
. Laura May: Sounds excellent for an empathy, more empathetic society.
And so I guess then key takeawaysfrom this conversation as far as
social conflict goes, are having thoseopportunities to live other lives.
(35:02):
Mm-hmm.
also sharing our experiencesfrom where we are.
Like you gave the exampleof blogs and what have you.
Yeah.
and then perhaps looking at the fullerperson in what a foreign that might be.
So I mean in, in a mediationdialogue or what have you.
Where we look at not just whothey are in front of us, but who
they are in other positions intheir life and around the world.
(35:24):
I love this.
It's like a massive recipe tohelp reduce social complex.
I like it.
Thank you, . All right, well look, Zena,thank you so much for joining me today.
I feel like it's time to fill out yourcoffee cup again, . And so for those
who interested in learning more aboutyour work, where can they find you?
On
Zdena M (35:41):
LinkedIn?
I think LinkedIn is a place tostart and we can connect from there.
Laura May (35:46):
Fantastic.
And for everyone else, until nexttime, this is Laura May with a
Conflict Tipping podcast for media.com.
Hello and welcome to the Conflict Tipping podcast from mediate.com,
the podcast that explores socialconflict and what we can do about.
I'm your host, Laura Reay, and todayI'm coming from you in my living room
where I'm doing the first in-personpodcast with the wonderful ua MIT, PhD.
She is a senior research consultantat O D S and her doctorate
(00:34):
research Whiteness in migration.
Her areas of interest areintersectionality, migration, whiteness,
and apparently coffee from what Idiscovered this morning, say welcome.
Thank you,
Zdena M (00:46):
Laura.
Thank you.
It's nice to be in your cozy living room.
Yeah,
. Laura May: Awesome.
Well, as people listening may havegathered, I actually have met Zine before.
We're in the same PhD program, one ofthe same PhD school, I guess, and so I
came across her research that way andI always thought it was super awesome.
And so when I saw her the other week, Iwas like, you have to come to the podcast.
(01:08):
You have no choice.
If you try and say, no,I'll be kidnapping you so.
Luckily there was no restraintrequired in this particular cape.
And so let's just jump through itin then, because one of the things
that first interested me in yourresearch, or first grabbed my
attention was the idea of accents.
Because being apparently a littlenarcissistic when you started talking
(01:30):
to you about accents in Australia,then I was like, oh, I'm paying
attention . So, how did you starttalking about accents in Australia,
especially as it pertains to inclusion?
Yeah.
So yeah, I mean, it, it was veryinteresting for me because I think
it unpacked a lot of the assumptionsthat we make particularly I think from
the perspective of Zimbabwe when itcomes to privilege and, and whiteness.
(01:54):
So my research waslooking at white Zimbabwe.
because in Zimbabwe, of course, because ofcolonialism and the structures that were
set up during colonialism, whiteness, orbeing white is, it amounts to structural
privilege, economic privilege, et cetera.
And in the context of migration,of course, the assumption was that
(02:15):
when people migrate, so when whiteZimbabweans migrate to other countries,
for instance, to Australia mm-hmm.
you know, that they would experiencelife much easier probably than black
Zimbabweans or other black Africans.
Mm-hmm.
would experience it.
But I mean, what I found was interestingbecause it's not that simple.
(02:38):
A lot of things that we embodythat position us very differently
in different societies.
And in the case ofAustralia what came up was.
Your accent is so importantin fitting in, right?
So when White Zimbabweans arrived inAustralia, they at least the ones that I
interviewed, had assumed that it wouldbe, you know, culturally close, right?
(03:00):
Mm-hmm.
. Um, The climate is similar.
You have a lot of South Africans, youalso have a lot of whites, Zimbabwe.
So there was an element ofpotentially blending in, et cetera.
But there was also an element of exclusionbased on accent, because when your accent
was different you were an outsider.
Even if you were white, even if youhad assumed, even if you had, you
(03:23):
know, heritage that brought you closeto a lot of other people in Australia.
So it was just an issue of how alot of the things that we embody,
they position as sometimes asinsiders, sometimes as outsiders.
And in the case of Australia,that's how the accent issue came up.
It came up in the UK as welland in other locations as
really a, a factor of exclusion.
(03:45):
I,
Laura May (03:45):
I find these particular countries you've given as examples
really interesting as well in that,the first time I hear you talking
about this, I had the same thought.
I think.
and that was like, oh, I can reallyrelate to the performance of accent.
Right?
Because I mean, I think now foreignAustralian, my accent is pretty neutral.
Like it definitely is stillAustralian . But I mean, if I spoke
(04:05):
with a really strong Australianaccent, no one would understand me.
and like pretty much everyone I talkto, I in Europe has English as a
like, you know, 15th language mm-hmm.
And so you throw an Australianaccent on, they're gonna be
like, what is this girl saying?
. But then when I'm in Australiaand also when I'm in the uk,
there's an element of performance.
Cuz if you go out with a group of Brits,they're like, oh, you're the Australian.
(04:27):
So you end up sort of like pilingit on and you're like, wow, my
accident's not normally like this.
Like, what's going on?
And so it's it's really interestingthese two countries are the ones that
from a very different perspective, Ifind having to perform accent is, is
Zdena M (04:41):
really, really important.
Yes, absolutely.
And, and I think that theperformance of it, of course, raises.
. Other issues as well, right?
Mm-hmm.
. So in the case of Australia, and there'sbeen studies done on this as well,
looking at immigration into Australia.
Mm-hmm.
and how other immigrantsexperience Australia.
So accent, I think for, at least in myresearch, it was interesting that some
(05:05):
people felt like they could perform it.
Others felt like it's somethingthat they couldn't change, but for
people who could perform it, , theycould feel a difference, right?
Mm-hmm.
. So you, you perform an Australianaccent and then no one necessarily
knows, at least until you tell themthat you are not actually Australian,
et cetera, which is interesting.
(05:25):
But again, that raises otherquestions of how you would have to
look like to get away with that.
So in the case of white Zimbabwe,they could get away with performing
an Australian accent and they'renot having to explain much else.
Mm-hmm.
, . But then for other immigrantsthat are very visible, you
know, that also is not enough.
(05:47):
Like performing the accent is notenough, like the other factors
as well that you can't performbecause you're so visibly different.
Laura May (05:55):
It's so interesting as you're saying this as well, because
I think the unsaid thing here isthat there's a, a hegemonic idea of
what Australians look like, right?
Yeah, absolutely.
Which means that everyoneelse is excluded.
Absolutely.
But obviously, I mean, Australia hasextremely visible migrant communities.
, I remember the last suburbI lived in, in Sydney.
You can actually look it up withthe Australian Bureau statistics
(06:17):
and it shows the differentpopulations of the different suburbs.
And the suburb I lived in was 84% Chinese.
Mm-hmm.
. And so, I mean, I wasdefinitely visibly the outsider.
I was also way taller than everyone.
And so every time I went to thesupermarket, I spent a lot of time
grabbing these off high shelves, , whichI felt that really became my role.
Right.
And so, you know, when we are talkingabout this idea of accents and inclusion
(06:38):
and well of course white Zimbabweans,who you can perform the accent, are able
to blend in better is blending into thisparticular idea of Australia as white.
Yeah.
Right.
Which is.
Zdena M (06:50):
Accurate.
Yeah.
. Laura May: And I understand there are some maybe similar dynamics in Zimbabwe
as far as whiteness and hierarchyinternally from what you've said.
Yeah.
I think because of the history of, ofcolonization and the power structures
that came to be what then became Zimbabwe.
(07:12):
I think after that you still had beingwhite as a position of privilege, right?
Mm-hmm.
Some of it would've beeneconomic privilege that was quite
ingrained into the structures.
Mm-hmm.
Social privilege as well,which is interesting because I
think the social privilege is.
in a way.
Also kind of awarded even by non-whites,Zimbabweans because of, you know, because
(07:36):
of the way colonialism played out andthe way people got to understand the
position or the position of white people.
It's like a globalhierarchy of people, right?
Where you have whites at thetop and you know, likes at the
bottom . So I think also in socialinteraction, less so now mm-hmm.
. But I remember certainly when I wasgrowing up in social interaction, it
(07:58):
was like that that white people areseen as important seen as people who
should be served first in a queue,even if they're behind it cetera.
So I think that that's just part of.
Yeah, the legacy that you, yougot out of colon colonization.
Laura May (08:14):
Yeah, it's, it's really, yeah, it's really interesting as you
say this, cuz, I mean, I'm having this.
Visceral nausea, , the whole idea ofbeing served first because, because you're
white and I like, I'm very obviouslyconscious that time has moved on.
Mm-hmm.
, but a lot of these structures arestill in place, so they're still
(08:35):
subliminal and subconscious andstill affecting people's lives.
And obviously like being as a guy on thebeach in Columbia one time, called me
the whitest girl, , like that a lot ofthis stuff is, is so invisible to me.
Mm-hmm.
The way I look at, it's like, well, a lotof the violence problems we go through
as women is invisible to men, and theydon't see, I'm like, all right, well,
(08:57):
now I understand how you can just notsee things that are happening because
they don't affect your daily life.
Mm-hmm.
. But yeah, I mean, when it getsreally blatant like that and you're
being served first and acute, it'slike, how can anyone live with this?
Like, how can they feelthat that's acceptable?
Zdena M (09:12):
Yeah.
Ugh.
Yeah.
, it's, yeah, it's, it's.
. It's interesting because I think, Imean, I think what's also interesting
about it is the complexity, right?
At least in my research, itwas interesting to explore not
only the race part of it mm-hmm.
, but also to see race as justone element of whiteness.
(09:36):
Mm-hmm.
. So it's not, it's an, it'san element of whiteness.
It carries a lot of weight.
Mm-hmm.
, but it's not everything.
Mm-hmm.
, I mean, there's also, there's quitea lot of other elements that define
whiteness that go beyond race as well.
Right.
So you
Laura May (09:52):
would find, I would talking like
Zdena M (09:53):
ugbo, like what's the , you know, things like social class mm-hmm.
Things like even accent as I'm saying.
Mm-hmm.
in, in specific places even so I.
So if we had to think of race,for instance, if we had to imagine
race as being the only thing,then it wouldn't matter that much.
Right?
Then people could blend in, inspite of where they migrated to.
(10:17):
. So there are certain people whomigrate, for instance, to the uk.
, but the combination of being whitebeing lesbian, for instance being
of a lower socioeconomic class, itpositions them outside of what is the,
the fictional center of whiteness.
Mm-hmm.
. So in terms of the privilegethat we experience mm-hmm.
(10:39):
, it's very differential.
It won't be the same privilege as,you know, a, a white heterosexual.
Middle class men, for example.
Mm-hmm.
. So it's, it's very interesting tosee what, in my research, I call
it differential whiteness, right?
Mm-hmm.
, that
Laura May (10:55):
sounds like an equation.
Yeah.
. I'm having my flash text in Algebra. It's a differential differential.
Whiteness.
Okay.
Zdena M (11:03):
But yeah, it's, it's how everything intersects together.
Which is why intersectionality isalso such an interesting concept to
apply in that sense because it's theintersections and the interaction
between all these different elements.
Laura May (11:19):
Okay.
And so can we just dwell on this conceptof intersectionality, because we see this
word popping up quite a bit and we seeespecially some voices on the internet
getting really angry about this word.
In fact, I had this strange experienceone time where I had to join a lot of very
pro Brexit Facebook groups in my research.
(11:40):
One day I made the mistake of answering acomment with, oh, it's at the intersection
of, and apparently this was too closeto the word intersectionality, and
so I was banned from the group and itreally messed with my research . So
it's obviously a term which is treatedwith a lot of weight, but can you
explain to me what it actually is?
Zdena M (12:00):
Yeah, maybe without going into its history, et
cetera, which is also important.
But I mean, I thinkthere's, there's two layers.
So you have the individuallayer and the structural layer.
So in terms of the structurallayer the way that society has
(12:22):
positioned certain elements.
So for instance, gender.
Mm-hmm.
, where that is positioned if you're a womansocioeconomic class for example, being
a migrant, for example, being disabledfor example, being black for example.
So these elements or these embodiment.
They, at least at a structurallevel, they tend to put people
(12:46):
in certain positions, right?
Mm-hmm.
Unfavorable positions.
Mostly I think when you look at,you know, race in terms of being
black or gender in terms of beinga woman and other elements.
So you have that, and thenat an individual level,
then you would have to see.
, the being of a person as the interactionbetween several factors in their life.
(13:09):
Mm-hmm.
, right?
So you as a being would be, youknow, your social experience and
the way you experience the worldis because it's based on the
interaction between you being a woman.
Being a white woman, being an employedwoman, being an able-bodied woman,
(13:36):
But yeah, but so the, the interactionof all those, your experience
is a result of that, right?
Mm-hmm.
, that intersectionality and then you plugthat into where society positions you as
a result of, of that whole calculation.
If you, if you couldn't call it that.
And, and that's interesting becauseit helps us to understand social
(14:00):
positions, I think in a more holistic way.
Mm-hmm.
It also in a more political way.
Mm-hmm.
And social experience aswell in a more political way.
Mm-hmm.
Laura May (14:10):
It's, it's interesting cause now we're on the, on the topic
of unemployment, because I had thisconversation with a former student of
mine in a cafe a couple of days ago.
And she's originally from Tanzania.
Mm-hmm.
. And obviously she and I areboth applying for jobs at the
moment as third party national.
So we're not, we have no right to workin the EU unless we get sponsored.
. And so we were talking aboutthis, this real challenge.
(14:31):
Cause on the face of things,I guess literally as well,
we're both very different.
But we have this shared migrantexperience of, wow, it is so hard to
get work here compared to a European.
Yeah, I mean, when I left my lastjob, my European colleagues were
like, oh, well, you know, be a weekor two and you'll get a new job.
And I'm like, I don't thinkyou understand how it works.
(14:52):
It's gonna be like 3, 4, 5, 6months before realistically I
could get work in Europe again.
Mm-hmm.
, because that's a migrant experience.
Yeah.
And so, I would talk to my formercolleagues and they're like, well,
you know, aren't you a resident?
I'm like, look, I've been inBelgium eight years and I have
no pathway to residency yet.
And they're like, , but you belong here.
I'm like, well, I'm not sure if I belongspecifically, but I'm like, well, yeah,
(15:15):
this is what it is to be a migrant.
Yes.
I mean, everything's hooked to, to yourwork and, and to your visas, and there's
constant battle and there's constantbureaucracy and so obviously on the face
of things, I have a lot of privilegesand there's no doubt about that.
, but that doesn't make you exemptfrom these other Absolutely.
Portions of intersectionality, whichrelate to your unemployment and
(15:36):
to your migrations list and so on.
Yes, exactly.
And that means that I have adifferent lived experience to
my European colleagues who wouldotherwise look the same on paper.
Absolutely.
Zdena M (15:44):
It's perfect.
It really captures it.
Laura May (15:47):
Well, I can definitely see how that then plays into the conception of
differential whiteness, as you put it.
Yeah.
And so I guess one question I have thenis why you opted for the word whiteness?
Like is it because the sort ofvisible race element was the most
important part of that cluster,or did it come from participants,
or how did that actually work?
Zdena M (16:07):
Well, it actually came from critical whiteness studies.
Oh, okay.
Because it's a whole concept on its own.
Mm-hmm.
, so it's a concept on its own thatcaptures race, but beyond race.
Right?
Mm-hmm.
that really tries to understandthe experience of, of
being white, but what else?
you know creates thatkind of center mm-hmm.
(16:29):
and the periphery.
Mm-hmm.
. So it's, it's a whole concept on its own.
And it's been defined differently,of course, by different people.
I think some of the, the references Imake in my research is really seeing
whiteness as the interaction betweenpower, privilege, and identity.
So the race element would come underthe identity, but then you also have
(16:50):
the element of power and the elementof privilege and that interaction
is what would produce whiteness.
Laura May (16:56):
Mm-hmm.
. And in your research, I recall therewas part about migrants going between
Zimbabwe and the UK and maybe backagain, and then having sort of different
experiences in different places.
Zdena M (17:09):
Yeah.
I mean, I think that'scaptured by Transnationalism.
Right.
Which is really existing in morethan one place at the same time.
Mm-hmm.
, and I think this is the reality of alot of migrants that you, your existing.
Beyond borders.
Mm-hmm.
So you're existing in the UK but you'realso existing in Zimbabwe simultaneously.
(17:31):
Mm-hmm.
And the, the going back and forth,that mobility part of it is just
one element of it, but beyondthat, you also have social media.
You have phone calls to family,you have remittances and money
that's is sent home, et cetera.
But yes, the different experiencesI think is, is part of that as well.
(17:51):
and that applies as well, I mean, formigrants, even beyond white Zimbabweans.
So, and, and that's interesting interms of social position as well.
Mm-hmm.
. So for instance, in our reality, youwould have migrants that are, for
instance , doing work in the uk probably.
Job, and I'm, I'm usingthe UK as an example.
(18:12):
I don't live in the uk . So maybelet's, like, think of Belgium.
So we could have say if I'm here mm-hmm.
and the social position that I occupyhere is quite a peripheral one.
Mm-hmm.
, a black woman, an immigrant possiblya low paying job, et cetera.
Right.
So in terms of my social positionhere, I'm not an important person.
(18:36):
Probably quite, I'm not describing myself,I'm describing a fictional of me, so, so
you would have a migrant like that, right?
Mm-hmm.
living in Belgium under thosecircumstances, but the same person
probably sends money to Zimbabwe.
Mm-hmm.
is probably helping to build acommunity center in Zimbabwe.
(18:58):
While living in Belgiumand working very hard.
Mm-hmm.
. Mm-hmm.
. So the way that they're seenin Zimbabwe and their social
position there is very different.
Mm-hmm.
, like when they travel toZimbabwe, they're really an
important member of the community.
Mm-hmm.
, they're a helpful memberof society, et cetera.
So their social positionis elevated there.
(19:19):
But the other social position in theother place that they simultaneously
occupy, , it's completely different.
It's it's on the periphery.
It's invisible in some ways, et cetera.
So, and this is the interestingthing about Transnationalism mm-hmm.
that we would exist.
And a lot of migrants are in thissituation that you exist in two places,
maybe even more at the same time.
(19:41):
And your social position in eachof those places is very different.
Laura May (19:44):
Yeah.
And I mean, how do people cope with that?
Or how do they integratethat or make sense of it?
Zdena M (19:51):
I don't know if they need to in some ways maybe it's not like, I
don't see it necessarily as a negativething . of course, different people
experienced it differently, so Ican't speak for anyone, but I, I can.
, imagine that.
I think it also provides outlets in a way.
Mm-hmm.
Maybe more opportunity than if youdidn't have that transnational.
(20:12):
Life.
Mm-hmm.
In the sense that you can be marginalizedin one context, but then you have
another context in which you'renot marginalized, which is not bad.
Right?
Yeah.
It's like, yay.
Laura May (20:25):
Yeah.
Quite bit of freedom for marginalization.
Yeah.
Zdena M (20:28):
Yeah.
Oh my goodness.
I mean, it's ideal if you're notmarginalized in any of these contexts,
but apart from marginalization, Iimagine there's also some richness
that comes out of just having differentexperiences in different places.
But it's not always positive.
It's really interesting
Laura May (20:45):
in that, if you are someone who's working in Belgium and you're not in
this transnational situation, and you havethese perceptions of this person as being
on the periphery in a society, this notionof them being really, really important
in a different country is not visible.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
And that's, that's really curious and I'mwondering whether that ever leads to any
Zdena M (21:07):
conflicts.
Yeah, I mean, that'sa really good thought.
I, I imagine it does just like becauseof course, I imagine it explains that
part of conflict, which comes from notunderstanding the full person mm-hmm.
or the full reality of a person.
Mm-hmm.
. And I think there would be more,Empathy if there was that recognition
(21:29):
of the full reality of people.
It's just that I think in thespaces in which people interact,
I don't know if those spaces alsoprovide enough opportunity for
them to understand the full person.
Right.
Often it's brief, oftenit's based on assumptions.
Mm-hmm.
and maybe stereotypes and there's.
Platform to really get a glimpseof the other side of a person.
(21:53):
That's one of the things
Laura May (21:54):
I really like about your research because I think it's pretty well
known that often migrants from poorercountries will send remittances back.
Right?
Yeah.
But I think theimplications of that as far.
Not just their community, but also theirrole in that community is often missing.
And I'd be quite curious abouthow knowing this would actually
(22:15):
affect people's perceptions ofthose migrants in their countries.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Zdena M (22:20):
I'll be curious as well.
The challenge I think is that it's,beyond the personal, you know, it's beyond
the person standing in front of you.
Often it's structural.
Often it's the assumptions thatare made about that whole country.
Mm-hmm.
Or that whole society.
And and, and I think this is why.
(22:42):
for me, it was interesting also to lookat the experiences of white Zimbabwe.
Mm-hmm.
also because of the intersectionof being white in a world way in
this global hierarchy of people.
Mm-hmm.
being white is quite at the top of thehierarchy, however, coming from Africa.
Mm-hmm coming from a poor countryand migrating to the global north.
(23:06):
Mm-hmm.
So I think that like thecombination is weird in a way.
, like, it's like confusing and that'swhy it's interesting to see what comes
out of this because there you also thencapture the experience of, okay, so apart
from the person standing in front ofyou mm-hmm , what if that person comes
from this part of the world where thereare a lot of assumptions made about
(23:29):
so many things that come out of there.
How do you reconcile that with thehuman being that has been placed
because of colonial history at thetop of that global hierarchy of,
so it's, it's, yeah, it's beyondthe personal and that's also, yeah.
How do you surface that ? I mean, what
Laura May (23:48):
do you think will be the forum for that other than listening to this
podcast and going, Hmm, I wonder what'sup with the, the various migrant, and I
say that as a migrant, obviously, as a,a different type, and then I'm I'm from a
country where people don't typically sendremittances to , so let's put it that way.
Right.
. And so that's a verydifferent form of migration.
I mean, I still wouldn't callmyself an expat cuz I feel like
(24:10):
that's a very exclusive language.
, but, you know, but I, but I am a migrant.
So other than listen to this podcast, whatdo you suspect will be a good forum for
people to actually learn about people'sdifferent positions across the world?
Zdena M (24:22):
I think.
I mean, in, in my research I,sorry, I refer to my research
a lot, but , you're, I mean,
Laura May (24:29):
you're talking about your research.
I feel like that's allowed
. Zdena M: Okay.
Thanks Sarah . youknow, people have blogs.
You have white Zimbabweans Mm-hmm.
, so they have their blogs in whichthey post pictures, they travel
back to Zimbabwe on holiday.
Mm-hmm.
, they reflect on how their holiday wasand who they met, and they show a lot
(24:50):
of pictures from there, write articles.
. This was maybe a coincidence of peoplethat were interested in really writing
and blogs and articles, et cetera.
But what I found interesting about thatas a contribution is that you could
criticize the fact that it's stillfrom a position of privilege, right?
Mm-hmm.
(25:10):
. So it would still be a position of maybevisiting certain areas of Zimbabwe.
Mm-hmm.
, you know, Maybe more expensivehotels than the average person
who's visited, et cetera.
There's all that and, and you know,we can unpack that, but I think for
me, the opportunity there is that ifthe audience is already a different
(25:32):
type of audience, so if those kindsof blogs and articles would reach out
perhaps to I don't know, potentiallymaybe already a white audience, Again,
you can criticize that, but I thinkfor me, that effort is already kind
of revealing another side of Zimbabwe.
Mm-hmm.
, which I find is a differentnarrative from the kind of colonial
(25:56):
narratives that we have on Zimbabwe.
You know, that really like.
Focus on, on Africa in generaland, you know, describing this
bush where people are wild andit's already going away from that.
Mm-hmm.
cause it, it's talking aboutliterature, it's talking about food,
it's talking about films, it's talkingabout of course, nature, but also
(26:18):
streets and, and seasons and mm-hmm.
and it, it brings the place closer.
It brings the place to context and it's.
, it reflects on it as a place wherepeople live and they have culture,
they have literature, and, and forme that's an important contribution
and I think it provides a platformto share the different light.
(26:39):
And in some ways you could see at leastthe whites andan who engage in these
kinds of transnational activities.
Mm-hmm.
as taking up the opportunity.
You know, reach out to a certainkind of audience and bring to life
this place that's sort of mystified.
At least in, if we reflect on you know,colonial narratives of Africa mm-hmm.
(27:01):
, so I think there areefforts that are being made.
This is just one.
And I'm sure there are plenty of, of.
Things we can think of or find and,but I, I appreciated that and I
found it to be quite interesting.
Apart from all the critique, I mean,we can always unpack anything and
deconstruct it, but I think we also haveto try and see through it and see what
it can offer as a contribution right.
(27:22):
In the space.
And so I understand you did interviews for your research,
so what were some of the interestingthings that came out of that?
Zdena M (27:30):
There are a lot of interesting things that came up, and, and you can
reflect on them in different ways mm-hmm.
, but I think some of the interestingones for instance , and I guess maybe
all of us do this in different waysto try and and clinging onto the thing
that will humanize you at that point.
Mm-hmm.
. So, some of the things thatcame up were, for instance,
(27:51):
in the case of the UK mm-hmm.
Where people felt like socialclass was quite important.
And so to navigate.
Out of the scrutiny of social class.
Some people would reallyemphasize their africanness,
you know, because that I do that
Laura May (28:08):
with being Australian in uk.
I'm like, I'm Australian, thereforeI'm exempt from your structure.
Thank you.
Zdena M (28:15):
This lens does not apply to,
Laura May (28:19):
that'll not be a bag structure.
Exactly.
Zdena M (28:21):
Yeah.
And so, And, and then youare positioned as exotic and
outside of that scrutiny, I'm
Laura May (28:28):
positioned with the charming
Zdena M (28:29):
convict.
That is
Laura May (28:32):
how I position.
Thank you.
I'm rules cause it's end.
Zdena M (28:37):
But I mean it's, it helps you to kind of navigate out of it, but.
. The interesting thing is how weuse these tools and all of us do
it, I think in, in different ways.
So in the case of my interviewees,so there would be that tool.
So then you become theexotic African mm-hmm.
. But then in some circles, that's notenough because for instance, maybe
(29:00):
you go to work and you are being.
Explained to and being told racist thingslike, yeah, you Africans don't get it.
You know?
And then this personthinks, oh, wait a minute.
I mean, I am British.
I am a British heritage.
My father is British.
Mm-hmm.
. And so that's again, kind of, okay, so.
(29:20):
being the African in this caseis not humanizing me enough.
So then I'm going to take something elseand then claim, yeah, my Britishness
and my British heritage because atthis point, this is what is important
and this is what will humanize me.
And so it was interesting for meto observe how people were using
all these different cards tonavigate different Situation then.
(29:41):
And, you could think of hundredways in which we all kind of used
the different different hats.
Yeah, different
Laura May (29:48):
hats.
I've got my Australian hat on today.
Yeah, I know.
I've got my living in Europe hat on today.
No, no, no.
I've got my immigrant hat
Zdena M (29:55):
on today.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I can, I can imaginethat, of course, in terms.
The way we experience the worldor the ease of our experience
in the world, the more of thosefavorable hats you have mm-hmm.
, the easier it is to navigate.
Right?
Mm.
Because I think not all of us, somehave more unfavorable hats than others.
Mm-hmm.
, depending on the context and how itdefines what is favorable, that amount
(30:19):
to privilege, which hats are in fashion.
Yeah.
Yeah.
. Laura May: Is that too far with the metaphor?
It's close enough.
Yeah.
And the fashion changes as well.
Yeah.
So, yeah.
Awesome.
Laura May (30:34):
And how does this all get back to conflict?
Zdena M (30:37):
Yeah, I mean, I think coming back to conflict, it's also interesting
to see or to learn the experiencesthat people get as the outsider.
Mm-hmm.
, the one that's not privileged.
Mm-hmm.
the one that's trying to use differentheads to navigate a difficult world.
I think those experiences if youtake them back, like to the context
(30:59):
of Zimbabwe mm-hmm . , I thinkthey are potentially good for
understanding each other, you know?
Mm-hmm.
, because someone who's used to beingprivileged and having an easy life
and maybe doesn't understand peoplewho are struggling more mm-hmm.
when they leave and they areexposed to struggle and being an
outsider and being an outcast.
(31:22):
Exchanges their perception as well.
Right.
And this is, I think, in the contextof migration, it's certainly important.
But then going back to Zimbabwe in aplace where historically you would have
also points in history where you hadthis tension between blacks and whites
and this social position of privilege.
In the case of white Zimbabweans,I think the experience
(31:43):
post-migration was different.
And in my research I could see thatthe way people then looked back
at Zimbabwe, in retrospect from adifferent location was different.
Mm-hmm.
so, , when you are privileged,you don't always see it, right?
Mm-hmm.
because it's your norm.
That's just your position in life.
But the way people then thoughtback of Zimbabwe from the experience
(32:08):
they were having in Australia orin the uk People started thinking
that was racist, , that was,
whereas before, they hadn't seen itthat way because that was their reality,
but because of the struggles that theywere experiencing and being violated
in some ways, being excluded in someways because of one thing or the other,
because of accent, because of nationality.
Laura May (32:31):
So it sounds like one of the things we can do then to reduce social
conflict is helping people have thoseopportunities to live different lives,
essentially in different countries,in different cultures, in different
places, to, to gain that, well firstof their empathy for others, but also
perspective on what their position isand what their privileges might be.
Yeah.
(32:51):
So a worldwide scholarship scheme, , soeveryone gets to travel all the time.
I'm OK with this idea.
. Zdena M: Yeah.
I mean, I think it always helps.
I came to Belgium when I was16 as an exchange student.
Mm-hmm.
and I had studied Frenchin high school mm-hmm.
for four years and I thoughtI'm going to be fine . So I came
(33:12):
and I was living in Wallonia.
Mm-hmm.
and with host parents, right?
Mm-hmm.
. So no one at home spoke English?
Mm-hmm.
, no one at school spoke English, exceptI think I made two friends that spoke
English and the English teacher.
Those were the onlyopportunities to speak English.
And of course, having studied friendshipsin high school, I thought I would be fine.
But then the accent is different.
(33:33):
People talk much faster.
And so for the first three months of thatyear, I remember sitting around the table.
Mm-hmm.
at home.
and just everyone wouldbe laughing and having it.
And I didn't know what they weretalking about and people would
so then like try to translate.
I mean everyone was very nicetrying to translate to me.
(33:55):
So it was very lonely, and thenI caught up after like three
months and then I was fine.
But
but I think for, it wasthe first time in my.
That I had an understanding of what itmeans not to understand the language.
Mm.
Because I'd grown up in Zimbabwe, Ispoke all the languages in Zimbabwe.
I would never possibly be in asituation where I didn't understand
(34:16):
what was happening around me.
Mm-hmm.
And I think this is also the nice thingabout what you are saying, right, about
travel and because we then get to be putin a situation where we can then imagine.
the situation of another person.
Mm-hmm.
. If I hadn't had that, okay, maybe Iwould've had it later in life, but
at that particular point in my life,maybe in a school situation, if someone
(34:38):
didn't understand a language, maybeI wouldn't have understood exactly
what that means in terms of howthey're feeling, so it always helps.
I mean, to be in different shoes
. Laura May: Sounds excellent for an empathy, more empathetic society.
And so I guess then key takeawaysfrom this conversation as far as
social conflict goes, are having thoseopportunities to live other lives.
(35:02):
Mm-hmm.
also sharing our experiencesfrom where we are.
Like you gave the exampleof blogs and what have you.
Yeah.
and then perhaps looking at the fullerperson in what a foreign that might be.
So I mean in, in a mediationdialogue or what have you.
Where we look at not just whothey are in front of us, but who
they are in other positions intheir life and around the world.
(35:24):
I love this.
It's like a massive recipe tohelp reduce social complex.
I like it.
Thank you, . All right, well look, Zena,thank you so much for joining me today.
I feel like it's time to fill out yourcoffee cup again, . And so for those
who interested in learning more aboutyour work, where can they find you?
On
Zdena M (35:41):
LinkedIn?
I think LinkedIn is a place tostart and we can connect from there.
Laura May (35:46):
Fantastic.
And for everyone else, until nexttime, this is Laura May with a
Conflict Tipping podcast for media.com.
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