AlterNative

The subject of decolonisation is being discussed among colonised people all over the world today. According to Smith (1999) and Loomba (1998), the process of decolonising embodies how notions of authenticity and interpretations of pre-colonisation intersect in the immediate past (how we became colonised), present and future. Discourses on the decolonising process have been defined in terms of reclaiming traditional lands, ways of being, knowledge creation and transmission, research, language revitalisation and the right to tell our own stories and autobiographies. One aspect of decolonisation that is connected to all of these issues but is often overlooked in its subtlety is silence. Silence can be determined both by its absence or its inhabitation of the spaces between the dialogue. Belenky et al. (1986: 15) define silence as ‘a position in which women [or any marginalized people] experience themselves as mindless and voiceless and subject to the whims of external authority’. While we may choose to ignore, dismiss, veil, couch or misunderstand it, silence is always present even through its absences within linguistic space and research dialogue. In other words, silence is itself a dialogue that can communicate whispers of anguish, anger, aggression, resentment, resistance and/or stoicism through the void or space that it creates. According to Grande there are powerfully persuasive systemic borders or boundaries that delineate the authenticity of space. This discourse on ‘authenticity is underwritten by ‘essentialist’ theories of identity’ (2004: 92) and are validated and perpetuated by the Eurocentricity of the dominant social system. Within the scope of this paper, authenticity refers to reliability, genuineness and validity; essentialism refers to the assumption that all silence can be interpreted or is used homogeneously. It is within this construct that I address the issue of silence.