The Personal Is Political
Nicole Asuquo ’24
(she/her/hers)
“The personal is political.” This is a radical feminist slogan that would frame the work that I would be partaking in during WEST 3400 Theory and Methods in WEST, and it would forever change the way I perceive, define, and articulate myself as a scholar in academia.
Customarily, as students, we are taught to remove ourselves from our research—to be observers and passive investigators of the knowledge which we seek to gain and understand. In doing so, we make the people of our studies merely subjects and limit knowledge to an essentializing truth that only construes partial pictures of a socially constructed world that is being formed and redefined on the daily. Theory and Methods in WEST, for me, has deconstructed such ideologies by cultivating the notion that knowledge and “truth” is always in formation and can be found through the diverse lived experiences of the individual—you and me.
The ways in which we speak, our language, are at the center of the construction of our identity and thus have an inextricable link to power. This class has given me the capacity to retake and reclaim my power. By making the “I” present in my work and understanding, academia is not, should not, and cannot be limited to those who simply adhere to such yielding guidelines, which has always been assumed as “scholarship” because of the ‘God’s eye view’ in which it asserts.
I love this class. It simply makes the personal political and asks me every day to face and challenge the hard realities of systems, institutions, and schools of thought that advertently or inadvertently disenfranchise various marginalized groups through theoretical frameworks and methods of research. WEST 3400 has given me the opportunity and tools to propose and conduct my own research, which calls attention to the dating practices and experiences of women of color at UCCS. Without this class, my perspective would have never been transformed to be as expansive as it is now.