The essentialist view of culture and writing claims that a white, western, educated female has no business writing about Africa. “There goes another white person who thinks they know more than we do about ourselves,” commented one of my friends. Apologetic for the shameful legacy of colonization, it is easy to feel immobilized and ashamed. In this age of global community however, shame distances us and prevents recognizing the humanity in each of us. South Africa’s famous concept of ubuntu is instructive. Ubuntu teaches that people are people through others. Or in the words of Chris Abani,the only way for me to be human is for you to reflect my humanity back at me. If this is true, then as I write about the impact in my life of my encounters with Africa, my humanity (or inhumanity) will be reflected back to me. I hope it will reveal a non-essentialist, diverse, and teachable humanity but at times it may also reflect an arrogant, racist, “other” point of view – and I trust I will learn and become a better human as I see myself more clearly. And so I write not to understand Africa, but to understand myself.  I cannot transcend who I am, but perhaps I can be a part of the movement toward celebrating complexity instead of simplistic categories that divide people, toward embracing diversity as evidenced in every living being. This then is called the “Third Space”.

Third space displaces the histories that constitute it… [and] gives rise to something different, something new and unrecognizable, a new area of negotiation of meaning and representations.

~ Bhabha, 1990

And so I humbly bring my western, white, educated, female perspective to the table to learn, to contribute my portion to this “third space” and in the process, to be transformed by it.