Researching coloniality: A reflection on identity

Annals of Tourism Research 82 (2020) 102901

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Research article

Researching coloniality: A reflection on identity Sarah N.R. Wijesinghe

T

Taylor's University Lakeside Campus, Faculty of Social Science & Leisure Management, 1, Jalan Taylors, 47500 Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia

A R T IC LE I N F O

ABS TRA CT

Associate editor: Donna Chambers

The coloniality of power in tourism has been a topic of discussion among researchers in the field since the late 1970s. However, a general lack of narratives that underpin the experiences of critical scholars, and the challenges and limitations of researching power itself, still prevails. This paper narrativises my reflections as an early-career, female, Asian tourism scholar who explored the colonial and neo-colonial structures of power in Southeast Asian tourism knowledge production and dissemination. The discussions in this paper pave the way for critical tourism researchers to ponder on the deeper aspects of identity that has been socialised in historical and political processes. The discussion also presents the limitations and challenges researchers encounter in the agenda of academic decolonisation.

Keywords: Coloniality Neocolonialism Reflexivity Identity Critical studies Southeast Asia

Introduction The coloniality of power highlights the discriminatory racial, political, economic, epistemic, and socio-cultural hierarchical discourses of superiority and inferiority, which have outlived formal colonialism through the integrated structures of modern postcolonial societies (Grosfoguel, 2007; Mignolo, 2002; Quijano, 2000). These heterogeneous structures - the modern/colonial/ Euro/Westerncentric/patriarchal/capitalist world system- have aided the governance of the ideological keystones of coloniality which continue to shape the modern world and its social order (see Blaut, 1993; Wallerstein, 1991). As a result, Euro/Westerncentric discourses of superiority and inferiority (of ideas, development, education, governance) continue to institutionalise what can be intelligibly thought, experienced and said about the world (Foucault, 1988). Since European colonialism (and American neo-colonialism) was grounded on the doctrine of cultural hierarchy and supremacy, exclusion continues to occur across various asymmetries of power, such as gender, class, race, ethnicity, culture, and episteme. Consequently, modern human identities are significantly embedded within (neo)colonial ideologies, especially as we still live and formulate our identity based on a predominant Eurocentric reality (see Alatas, 1972; Bhabha, 1984; Fanon, 1952; Memmi, 1965; Said, 1993). As Adorno (1966, p.151) claims, “Identity is the prototype of ideology”. Hence, “if we consider colonialism as a body, identity constitutes its spirit…and in the colonial system, everybody within the border has to pay a price, identity” (Türkmen, 2003, p.189 & 197). In tourism, debates concerning the coloniality of power (representation, governance, planning and development, and mobilities), including its theory and knowledge production, have been ongoing since the late 1970s (i.e. Dann, 2011; Echtner & Prasad, 2003; Hall, 1994; Matthews, 1978; Mura & Wijesinghe, 2019; Winter, 2009). One important outcome that has arisen out of these discussions is the emergence of tourism scholars challenging the ‘white, male, and western’ status quo of the tourism epistemology. This has served as a stepping stone for the decolonisation of its academic discourses (Ateljevic, Morgan, & Pritchard, 2007; Chambers & Buzinde, 2015; Chang, 2019; Cohen & Cohen, 2015; King, 2015; Zhang, 2018). Today, tourism academia subsists at a critical juncture, where previously unquestioned premises are being brought to the fore so as to develop an inclusive way forward. While

E-mail address: [email protected]. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2020.102901 Received 16 August 2019; Received in revised form 17 February 2020; Accepted 25 February 2020 0160-7383/ © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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interest in the topic is gradually increasing, with calls for the inclusion of other ways of knowing and being, an important aspect that is currently missing in the discussion is the general lack of reflective narratives that underpin the experiences of critical scholars, hence the challenges and limitations of researching (neo)colonial powers. Indeed, colonialism (much like its extended structures such as ‘white superiority’) cannot be seen as a monolithic discourse that can be easily interpreted. For it to be understood, the structures of meanings need to be read with greater depth, and reflections serve as an important aspect at a time where hegemonic structures are being challenged, and alternative paths are being called for. Undeniably, decolonisation (or any reformation) requires the ability to think anew among the many constructs that glue its ideology to its ‘subject’. In turn, there remains a need for critical researchers (who have been predominantly educated in Euro/Westerncentric institutional settings) to delve deeper into the multifaceted construction of self, to understand the ways ideology constitutes our own emotional, psychological, epistemic, and physical responses as researchers and activists, so as not to re-create hegemony cyclically (see Freire, 2005). In the field of tourism, reflexive accounts have generally corresponded with issues of ethics, emotional entanglements, challenges of fieldwork, data analysis as well as issues of representation (i.e. Cohen, 2013; Dupuis, 1999; Hall, 2004; McIntosh, 2010; Mura, 2013; Pocock, 2015). More recently, non-western authors have also voiced their own narratives on the varying social conditions shaping their research experiences, beliefs and processes (i.e. Dewan, 2018; Gan, 2018; Rajaratnam, 2018). Focusing on colonialism, neo-colonialism and decolonisation, Chambers and Buzinde (2015) critically situate themselves within the western/Eurocentric narratives of universalism present in tourism knowledge structures. Zhang (2018) further ponders on linguistic discourses (embedded in Eurocentric ideologies) that continue to hinder decolonial projects. Tucker (2009) on the other hand, engages in an emotional journey of her own discomfort in a postcolonial encounter, while Hall (2004) contemplates his personal and professional institutional entanglements in the neoliberal academia and its influence on knowledge production. Among these, some scholars (Chambers & Buzinde, 2015; Rajaratnam, 2018) have also considered how colonial socialisations have influenced their perspectives in the tourism research processes. Although these narratives have presented an avenue to understand the entanglements of knowledge production, they still lack in addressing the ways the researcher's identities can influence the production of discourses, particularly those concerning the ‘coloniality of power’ and decolonisation. This paper narrativises my reflections as an early-career, female, and Asian scholar who explored colonial and neo-colonial structures of power in Southeast Asian tourism knowledge production and dissemination. The discussion paves the way for other critical researchers discoursing on the coloniality of power to ponder on the deeper aspects of identity that is subsumed in historical and political processes as well as the limitations and challenges these present towards the (rather messy) agenda of decolonisation. In turn, this paper also challenges the existing discourses of reflexivity itself. An important aspect of the analysis of this paper is its reverse analytical lens. Research on coloniality has predominantly been grounded on the researcher observing an external phenomenon. In this paper, I frame the analysis of coloniality through my own identity, and also how the particularities of my identity had influenced the research process, including its conceptualisation, the fieldwork process as well as the qualitative analysis and development of representations. The reflections engage in a deeper scrutiny of my ‘identity’ and the ideological, linguistic and psychological entanglements which arose in researching coloniality. Entanglements here refer to the “forces that influence, constrain, and shape our complex and dynamic acts of producing and reproducing knowledge” (Ateljevic, Harris, Wilson, & Collins, 2005, p.15). Through the reflective discussions, this paper provides a much needed narrative that aims to convey the messy nature of colonial discourses and the complicated experiences involved in researching the subject. Although the narratives in this study are based on the issues of identity while researching post/neo-colonial power structures, there is some similarity between the discussions of this paper and those researching other power structures (i.e. gender inequality, ethnic marginalisation, and racial issues). In this regard, the discussions are also relevant to critical tourism research(ers) in general. Literature review Coloniality of power and identity Colonialism was not merely a physical endeavour; it involved a certain psychological warfare which justified its operations. Hence, “colonialism is also a psychological state rooted in the social consciousness in both the colonizers and the colonised. It represents a certain cultural continuity and it carries a certain cultural baggage” (Nandy, 1983, p.2). Indeed, colonialism gave the Euro/Westerncentric ideology the structural ability to transform society, confining the colonised individual into its ideology (Amin, 1989; Blaut, 1993; Kassab, 2016). The ideology, encapsulated in the theory of Eurocentrism (now also Westerncentrism) created the ‘colonisers model of the world’ where European ways of knowing constituted the epitome of progressive human existence (Blaut, 1993). The hegemonic colonial representations created through the Eurocentric discourses then became institutionalised as common knowledge. In turn, it was used as the benchmark to define the reality of the coloniser/colonised social world, thereby distorting consciousness itself (Constantino & Mészáros, 1978; Gikandi, 1996; Kincaid, 1991; Mbembe, 2001). For the operation of Eurocentrism, the mind was (and still is) captivated through several structures of subjugation, including discourses of socio-cultural superiority and inferiority, language, and education/knowledge structures (Alcoff, 1997; Mignolo, 2002). The socio-cultural stratification of dualities that rooted the structure of colonial ideology (i.e. first world/third world, developed/ developing, advanced/primitive, and modern/traditional) exploited the need for the colonised to embrace the knowledge of the coloniser while it provided the coloniser a justification for their assertion- ‘the white man's burden’ as Rudyard Kipling notes. In the process, the ideology created a universal consciousness grounded on the knowledge of the west- an absolute truth that served the 2

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interests of the ruling class (Grosfoguel, 2007). Historical accounts were consequently rewritten to fit this hegemonic narrative, leaving little understanding for the modern pupil to achieve a sense of self (Constantino & Mészáros, 1978). This doctrine (which still persists through the modernisation paradigms) was then disseminated to the population through the ‘colonial tutelage’ (Blaut, 1993; Hall & Gieben, 1992). The systematic mis-education characterised by colonial values and attitudes have succeeded in creating generations of ‘false consciousness’ (Mamdani, 1996; Mészáros, 2000). The insertion of the coloniser's language into the colonies further validated the discourses of Eurocentrism, thereby leading to an established system of thoughts that continue to underpin ontological and epistemic boundaries (Barthes, 1966; Pennycook, 1998; Shohat & Stam, 1994). The ‘captive mind’, as Alatas (1972) describes, is a result of this subjugation, where the intellectual traditions of the so called ‘west’ continue to create alien (almost mechanical) men and women in the colonies (see also Ashcroft, Griffith, & Tiffin, 1989). As such “we have become people without access to the truth and to parts of our written history… and in turn, this reality exists as one of the most powerful shackles through which the past dominates the present and blocks the road to a meaningful future” (Mészáros, 2000, p.309). Scholars, such as those of Subaltern Studies (among others) have made significant critical contributions by examining and developing alternative underpinnings of colonial histories to counter the hegemonic representations of historical accounts (i.e. Bhadra, 1997; Chakrabarty, 2009; Guha, 1997; Spivak, 1988). However, the postcolonial search for identity continues to be an ambiguous task because of the alienation that was created due to the impositions of the colonisers' so called truths, values and metaphysics (Nandy, 1983). How is one to create a sense of identity when the existing blueprints are drawn according to hegemonic realizations, histories, and myths, including the national, cultural, racial, or ethnic narratives of an authentic self? (Appiah, 1992; Chatterjee, 1993; Hall, 1996; Naipaul, 1967; Radhakrishnan, 1993; Said, 1993). Indeed, as Bhabha (1994) contemplates in his theory of hybrid identities, the very notion of a culture or identity being pure or essential is disputable, especially as we exist within made-up societies. Critical debates have consistently focused on the relevance of such civilizational categories, and yet the Eurocentric reality is difficult to disintegrate. Through its long unquestioned existence, Eurocentrism has unobtrusively, created an asymmetry of power which continues to segregate race, class, gender, ethnicity, ideas, and places. As Chakrabarty (2009) reflects, the legacy of ‘Europe’ is everywhere - “in traffic rules, in grown up's regrets that Indians had no civic sense, in the games of soccer and cricket, in my school uniform, in Bengali nationalist essays and poems of critical and social inequality” (p. IX). As such, modern identities are still largely subsumed under monolithic and fetishist colonial perceptions (Appiah, 1992; Kalua, 2009). Hence, the implicit and explicit biases of Eurocentric values and perspectives, as those we have been socialised with and educated to believe for generations since colonialism, continue to nourish the neo-colonial reality of the contemporary day (Constantino & Mészáros, 1978; Mészáros, 2000; Nkrumah, 1965).

Eurocentrism and the tourism discourse The tourism epistemology has come under great scrutiny in recent years for its Euro/Westerncentric intellectual dependency. This is mainly a result of the ‘white, male, and western’ first generation of ‘foundational’ scholars, and the following four generations of tourism scholars who have subsequently been immersed in the same intellectual diet (McKercher & Prideaux, 2014; Wijesinghe, Mura, & Culala, 2019). Scholars have since then challenged the dominant (neo)colonial epistemological frames within which the tourism phenomenon has been articulated, including its universalist traditions, elongated through the positivist/Eurocentric ideologies (Mura & Sharif, 2015). For instance, Chambers and Buzinde (2015) point out that tourism knowledge is predominantly colonial in nature, where Western ontologies, epistemologies, and methodologies are applied across cultures for understanding, planning and developing the tourism arena. Hollinshead (2013, no page) further posits that “our conceptualisations of tourism tend to be overly informed by the cosmologies of the societies from which tourism scholars have traditionally hailed – what we might clumsily call ‘Western’ ways of understanding the world”. Likewise, Tribe (2006) asserts that there are several forces (knowledge force-fields) and structures of power (academic tribes) existing in the production of knowledge which governs and shapes the representation of tourism as a field of inquiry. As a result, tourism knowledge is filtered and formed by various powers, namely persons, rules, positions, ends, and ideologies (Tribe, 2006). These academic tribes consist of scholars who stem from the predominantly white, educated, industrialised, rich and democratic (WEIRD), cultural and academic circles (Oktadiana & Pearce, 2017). This, inevitably, crystallises the colonial nature of tourism knowledge and its dependency on particularistic ways of knowing and being (Dann, 2011). As a result, it has “provided the basis for misguided claims of universality” (Tucker & Zhang, 2016, p.250), and furthered “restrictive, monological, and heavily capitalised worldviews that have concretised pseudo-colonialist, urban-industrial, and pungently North Atlantic/Judeo-Christian certitudes upon alterity” (Hollinshead & Jamal, 2001, p.64). More recent literature contends that even though calls for the inclusion of other knowledge, such as the ‘critical turn in tourism studies’ (Ateljevic et al., 2007), ‘hopeful tourism’ (Pritchard, Morgan, & Ateljevic, 2011), and the ‘Asianisation’ of the field (Chang, 2019) have been raised, neoliberal academic structures continue to hinder the promotion of alternative ways of knowing and being (see Munar, 2018; Mura & Wijesinghe, 2019). While the tourism academic community outside the western circle has grown significantly, with more contributions coming from non-western scholars, Eurocentric traditions still permeate the foundation of tourism knowledge across cultures (Aquino, 2019; Korstanje, 2018; Wijesinghe & Mura, 2018). Subsequently, the need to decolonise has become an important agenda.

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Methodology The discussions in this paper stem from my doctoral journey which explored colonial and neo-colonial frameworks of power permeating the academic spaces of tourism knowledge production and dissemination in Southeast Asia (specifically Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam). The location of the investigation, Southeast Asia, was influenced by my own positioning as a doctoral scholar at a Southeast Asian university. However, the three cases of the study were objectively chosen for their contrasting historical conditions in relation to European colonialism. As the aim of the doctoral research was to explore the effects of European colonialism on the epistemic structures of Southeast Asia, I realised the need to investigate the phenomenon through varying historical constructs. In addition, the limitation of the analysis to three cases was due to reasons of practical and financial feasibility. In the case of Malaysia, the colonial control had flowed from the Portuguese to the Dutch, then the British and the Japanese from 1941 to 1945, for a brief occupation. Among these colonisers, the British colonisation of Malaya had remained strong, comparatively. It dismantled the pre-existing governing structures, fundamentally changing the political, social and economic structures of the country before independence in 1957. In the case of Vietnam, the colonisers had asserted their influence in the form of the country's development, beginning with the Confucian institutions stemming from four periods of Chinese colonisation since 111 BCE Vietnam was subsequently subjected to six decades of French colonisation and anti-colonial struggle since the late 1880s, and later postcolonial state formations, 20th-century wars (i.e. American) and the subsequent erosion of the state-socialist institutions, and most recently, globalization and internationalization (see London, 2011). The case of Thailand is different in terms of its history as compared to Malaysia and Vietnam. Thailand is the only nation in Southeast Asia that was not subjected to direct European colonial rule (Rhein, 2016). Hence, Thailand was chosen as an exceptional case. The deliberate selection was expected to bring into context, the neo-colonial predicament of contemporary structures that exist as an (in)direct extension of the ‘colonisers model of the world’ (Blaut, 1993). Thailand, as Herzfeld (2002) noted, is a case of ‘cyrpto (hidden/concealed) colonialism’ where the process of political independence led to a massive economic dependence. My journey into this area of research in tourism was guided by several dynamics. The first of these was my own observation that among the several studies underlying the marginalisation of ‘other’ ways of knowing, and the need for the decolonisation of tourism academia, the discussions remained largely theoretical or bibliometric in nature. There was little ethnographic research which involved engagement with the marginalised tourism academic communities. The second was my background as a Sri Lankan scholar, born and raised during the civil war- the remnants of the British colonial era. While I was aware, to a certain extent, about the ideologies that were impressed upon me, my interest in the topic of tourism was guided by the texts of postcolonial/decolonial scholars from Asia, Africa, and Latin America, followed by my discussion with a distinguished tourism scholar who subsequently, became my principal supervisor. The doctoral study was qualitative in design due to its in-depth and explorative nature. I conducted fieldwork in Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam which involved observations as well as semi-structured interviews with tourism academics. A total of 24 indepth interviews paved the path for a critical structural analysis of power that highlighted the complexity of dependencies shaping higher education systems in Southeast Asia (Mura & Wijesinghe, 2019). The participants of the study included Southeast Asian tourism academics working in faculties/departments of both public and private universities in Southeast Asia. The interviews were designed to explore the academics' personal and educational background, work experiences, research interests and specialisations, paradigmatic beliefs, methodologies and methods. The discussions that ensued were then directed towards understanding their decisions and experiences in relation to institutional structures or power, as well as colonialism, neo-colonialism and its ideologies. This was guided by seminal works concerning coloniality of power, intellectual hegemony, and academic imperialism among others. The reflections addressed in this study are a summary of the challenging thoughts which I encountered throughout the doctoral journey. They were compiled through diary entries and field notes. Identity and the politics of emotions Born and bought up in the former British colony of Sri Lanka, and educated in English education structures meant that a significant part of my identity was grounded within colonial discourses. As Tharoor (2017) had envisaged on himself, I too have been socialised to be ‘an alien in my own land’. In school (an elite missionary school in the capital of Sri Lanka), while I learnt from some about the many nationalist heroes that stood against colonialism, there was an equal emphasis to highlight the benefits of colonisation. Similarly, in school as well as society in general, the importance of the English language was constantly ingrained in my mind. The lack of comprehensiveness in English often meant a lack of intelligence and value. There was a general belief among the locals where I grew up that if you do not adopt the ‘modern’ (Western) societal norm, you are ‘gode’ (read classless, cultural, uneducated or not worldly). In the bourgeoisie community of Colombo, there was a constant reminder by the people surrounding me that it was important to one day, go abroad to a place like the United Kingdom, Europe, the United States, Australia and New Zealand for a better life. For many years, this remained my dream; it instilled in me a sense of intimidation that made me feel as if I was lesser if I did not accomplish this dream. Indeed, even as I questioned this premise, mechanically and unconsciously, I also believed (which was easier than negating it) in the superiority of the British (white) ways due to my own upbringing where I was taught to look up, and worship the likes of the United Kingdom, or America, as a point of reference for my life. As a result, my identity was saturated with colonial ideologies since childhood. Emotions thus played an essential role in realising the colonial ideology ingrained within my identity. In undertaking the doctoral project, I discovered that my emotions informed the research process in three fundamental ways. The first of these was the most 4

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important, which involved the deconstruction of the self or ‘decolonising the mind’ (Wa Thiong'o, 1981). As explained, my personal, political, social and educational experiences had a strong impact on the way I viewed colonialism and its ideologies. To undertake the research, I had to challenge the assumptions that shaped my identity and formed the very foundation of my existence. Making an attempt to unlearn and relearn (see Lee, 2002–2003) the colonial constructs to which I was born into, brought up with and educated in, at the age of 26, came to be more difficult than I had anticipated. What I was challenging was an experience I had always carried with me but was never able to articulate. I received my higher education in tourism and had only realised (to a minor extent) ‘coloniality’ through the books I read. The knowledge I had before undertaking the project of the deeper psychological effects of colonialism on my identity was oblivious to my conscience. Thus, my attempt to decolonise the mind provoked anger, fear, frustration, and a sense of loss in belonging. I was overwhelmed by the huge plethora of mixed emotions dwelling in me and was terrified as I observed myself questioning the familiar. In that process, I felt as though I had ‘lost’ myself, or the self I knew. I observed my mind straying from the discomfort I was imposing on myself. As the momentum built up with similar processes of thoughts and questioning, I also realised I was no longer looking at the world in the same way. Overtly (and covertly), the emotions I encountered and experienced while attempting to decolonise the mind, had significantly influenced the research decisions I made at this stage (see Blakely, 2007). My emotional stance as a researcher influenced the texts I read which framed the research, and the tone and language I chose to write the project in. Noting the emotions that often surfaced during my comparative reading phase (see Bu, 2013) where I challenged myself to read a multiplicity of perspectives on colonialism written by authors from various social locations, I also came to acquire a deeper understanding of the ideology lingering in my thoughts, the worldviews, and behaviours. In a way, it also humbled me into realising how little knowledge I possessed (with my language limitations), and how feeble my perceptions were. This realization also unfastened an aspect of reflexivity that was not often regarded as important - the conceptualisation of the research (reading stage), which provided me with a deeper understanding of my identity, my worldviews and the limitations of these, prior to the fieldwork I undertook. I wondered aimlessly for a time unknown, thinking to myself, is it even real? Is what I am questioning a problem that does not exist? Am I the problem for thinking differently, am I the ‘troublemaker’? Maybe I am the problem. Maybe I should accept how things are and learn to navigate myself around it. Maybe he was right to laugh at me. (My field notes after the second interview, January 2018, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia) The second aspect of emotions stemmed from the stages of the fieldwork. The extract of my own reflexivity, as disclosed above, provides a snippet of the emotions I had experienced while conducting the fieldwork. The interview was the first of the many challenging conversations. The interview in question was with a former dean of one faculty in a ‘top’ public university in Malaysia. His general disinterest was visible as he responded with ‘no specific reason’ for many of the questions I asked. Indeed, to him and many other Southeast Asian tourism academics I had engaged with, my undertaking research that explored ‘coloniality in tourism knowledge’ was one of insignificance. This was an issue that ‘did not exist’ or was ‘not true’, and I, as a junior scholar just needed to learn how things work in academia and follow through. This was also because debates surrounding ‘critical turn in tourism studies’, ‘hopeful tourism’, and ‘academic dependency and decolonisation’ were unheard of within the intellectual circles I entered, largely a result of the lack of cross-cultural communication in such agendas (Higgins-Desbiolles & Whyte, 2013). One fundamental aspect of this research which was oblivious to me, prior to the fieldwork, was the power of ideology or the politics of identity. An important theme that had arisen from the narratives of the participants during the interview was the fluidity of the colonial/Eurocentric narratives that had situated itself among the generations, through deep-seated beliefs engraved in former colonial social values/structures as well as political and economic aspirations (Mura & Wijesinghe, 2019). The Southeast Asian tourism academics whom I interacted with had, like me, also been trained and educated with a very specific Euro-American intellectual diet. Thus, it was not surprising that the tourism academic spaces surrounding the three Southeast Asian nations which I was exploring, were very much grounded in the belief of the superiority of the so-called Western ways of knowing and being. Consequently, the interview space was saturated with feelings of avoidance and disbelief, especially as it challenged the participants' dominant social reality (Bissell, 2005). These sentiments emerged during the dialogues that discussed the seminal works of Asian, African and Latin American writers (as well as tourism scholars) who have debated at length on the growing intellectual dependency of Asian scholars. For instance, It's not because you are being colonized. They (West) come up with theories earlier than you, you know. A lot of things earlier than you. So you want to study how they do it. (Malaysia/Female/55–60) It's not a bad thing because we don't have knowledge. (Malaysia/Male/35–40) It's not because you are being colonized. It's because they (west) are more advanced in their sense of thinking… So yeah, try to think of it as something positive and not negative saying things like taking things from foreign countries or whatever theories, because that's bad. (Malaysia/Private/Female/40–45) I would say they were the pioneering authors…. So why challenge the articulation of the values if they are universal…. perhaps non-western academics should not be too worried about the theories having been originated in western literature. (Thailand/Male/50–55) 5

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I think perhaps some Asian academics feel the need to challenge this westerncentric literature, mainly because we are at an infancy. (Vietnam/Male/50–55) The psychological conditions that govern the way in which human beings define themselves are inherently social and political in nature (Wodak, 2011). In turn, power and identity act in a nonlinear manner, where power constructs identity, and identity, in turn, defines power (Appiah, 1992; Mamdani, 1996; Nandy, 1983). Indeed, in a recent article in Vox, Resnick (2017) suggests that because politics are tied to our personal identity, any challenge to liberate the deeply held (often unconscious) belief is an attack on the self, of which the brain and the mind are designed to defend. This means that people would often “discount evidence that contradicts their firmly held beliefs” (Kaplan, Gimbel, & Harris, 2016, p.1). This has also been theorised as ‘confirmation bias’ and ‘false consciousness’. Inevitably, beliefs are connected to powerful emotions, as has been highlighted in decolonial/postcolonial texts such as that of Alatas in his ‘captive mind’ (1972) or Fanon in his ‘black skin, white mask’ (1952). The reason is that ideology sits comfortably within the implicit and explicit beliefs of the mind, often validated by the external political, economic, and social structures surrounding the self (Constantino & Mészáros, 1978; Mészáros, 2000). Furthermore, my emotional reactions (often frustration, anger, fear) to the participants also informed me of the identity I was carrying as a researcher. Sen (2006) mentions that history and background are not the only way of seeing ourselves or the identity categories we choose to belong to. We can simultaneously belong to a great many categories. However, throughout the research, I often regarded myself as an ‘Asian’ or the ‘non-Western’ researcher/academic, thus I often assumed a position of the ‘marginal’ while conducting this research. Although I also identified my role as a female, early career, qualitative researcher, and an academic (among others), the predominant identity that guided the project was my ‘Asian’ (a colonial expression in itself) self. Balibar and Wallerstein (1991) consider this as a crystallisation of colonialism because the attempt to decolonise is still pursued within a Eurocentric reality of national or regional identity. Indeed, referring to the national identity, Balibar and Wallerstein (1991) argue that in the anticolonial struggle, the attempts at independence was forged under the idea of nationhood identity where strategies to break away from colonial control instilled the institutions drawn by the coloniser. Subjective reflexivity? How can we learn or even unlearn history? How difficult is it to illuminate those ‘frozen’ structures, which determine our thoughts and actions? (Viva Voce, January 2019) Psychologically, our beliefs and values are formed through our social, political, and cultural environment and experiences. They colour the way we identify ourselves and view the world. Over time, through crystallisation, much of what shaped us is built into our unconscious or subconscious minds (Peacock, 2012) – the mental wiring that validates our identities (Brewer, 2001; Knights & Willmott, 1985). Being able to critically question or highlight the premises of our unconscious beliefs that influence the behaviour we presume to be normal, is a heavy task. It requires great knowledge and training because much of who we are, as researchers, are embedded in our subterranean being influencing us in ways we can never fully fathom (Devereux, 1967). Researching hegemony entails moving beyond the surface level of reflection, into the confrontation of deep seated beliefs, and values which colour our perception. It is a transformative process that requires in-depth multidisciplinary (multilinguistic/multicultural/multiepistemic) knowledge which enables the researcher to articulate the researcher's identity against the political, economic, institutional, epistemic, and socio-cultural environment. This process of ‘critical consciousness’ (Aluwihare-Samaranayake, 2012) enables the researcher to understand the problems of representations and power orientations (Gramsci, 1971). However, in researching coloniality, what became observable were the ways in which coloniality exists. Recognising the coloniality of power in knowledge structures, and also in the self could be as simple as (for me) scrutinising my general unwillingness to recognise knowledge that is grounded in Islamic texts, or as complex as recognising the way in which my views were governed by the particularities of the English language that had unconsciously influenced how I view my native tongue, and its philosophies to be ‘inferior’. Intellectual hegemony is situated within a multitude of political, economic, social and institutional power structures. Locating myself within the structure meant questioning every form of the self I had become, and every perspective and belief I held. How willing and capable are we in questioning our beliefs, especially the ones we hold so dearly in our mind (unconsciously)? Critically questioning the self, and learning to be deeply reflective was only possible with great lengths of reading and even longer periods of engaging the mind. I emphasise more specifically on the latter aspect of the two because being well-read does not necessarily mean one can engage the mind. As the great Sufi poet Bulleh Shah (2018, p.12–20) contemplates, ‘you have learnt so much and read 1000 books to become self-esteemed, but never learned your own self?’ My capacity to position myself as a researcher, as well as a scrutiniser of my own beliefs which had been embedded in coloniality, was based primarily on the texts I read, the documentaries I watched, and the discussions I had. Nonetheless, I was also aware that my capacity to reflect was greatly limited by my own language capabilities. Over the years, my readings had been predominantly in English (including those translated to English), and to a miniscule extent, the Sinhalese. While the scrutiny expanded my mind for reflecting, I was aware that I only reflected upon myself and my ideological positioning based on the knowledge I possessed. Amid that scrutiny, I was regularly overwhelmed by the fact that as researchers we cannot question (or even think) what we have not enabled our minds to articulate. In this regard, reflexivity is thus limited to our mind's capacity to position and question our subjectivities. 6

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My articulation of the questions I asked, and the subsequent reflections I practised, also changed over the period of the research. After all, we do not exist within a single state of mind throughout, but rather we “continue to learn, grow and change through new encounters, which continue to entangle, stretch and challenge us” (Pocock, 2015, p.38). One instance where my limitations on reflexivity became apparent was at my Viva Voce when I was asked the question, ‘Which aspects of the Sinhalese literature influenced your mind?’ With this, I contemplated on the texts I had read as a teenager. I had been inspired by local authors such as Piyadasa Sirisena, and Martin Wickramasinghe. They were great cultural revivalists and advocates. As I answered this question, I also pondered on why I was specifically attracted to these authors per se. Then it dawned on me that this had a lot to do with the environment I grew up in, as a child, in Sri Lanka. I had grown up in an environment typified by the civil war and radical, racial, and nationalistic discourses of separatism. However, leaving Sri Lanka at the age of 17, I had suppressed these experiences; I did not ponder on how it may have had an impact on my identity. While I thanked the jury for asking me the question, I also pondered on how I have missed this element in my reflexivity, an obvious aspect of my identity. Certainly, the experience has a lot to do with why I was attracted to my doctoral research topic, how I felt about it, and the tone with which I wrote the research. Similarly, in the reflective account of Chambers and Buzinde (2015), and Pocock (2015), they too acknowledge the challenges and aspects of their identities that were oblivious to them in the conscious process of knowledge production. Indeed, situating deep-seated dominant values and ideologies in the researcher is limited to the extent to which one is selfperceiving. This is especially the case as being observant of our decisions, reactions, emotions and behaviours as researchers, is an acquired skill. Therefore, the practice of reflexivity, in the context of researching coloniality (or critical research in general) seemed, to a certain extent, to be subjected to many aspects that were grounded on the researcher's ability and willingness to scrutinise and to situate the self. This is because some beliefs are readily apparent while others are not. This leads to another question: Is it then a matter of honesty and truthfulness? What is honesty if the researcher is unable to (or the mind is unwilling to) articulate his/her subjectivity? What are the implications on the subjectivities of reflexivity in researching coloniality (and other structures of power) and the way we form alternative realities to break hegemonic realities? Positionality of identity and issues of representation In recent years, there has been an increasing number of criticisms made of researchers who study other cultures and subcultures only to deliver a rendering of that group to an academic audience (Byrne, 2017; Denzin & Lincoln, 2011), including the critical turn in tourism studies (Higgins-Desbiolles & Whyte, 2013). This phenomenon has also been recognised as an extension of the Eurocentric ideologies governing traditional ethnographic research. Hence, researchers have been encouraged to consider how the “research benefits and promotes self-determination for participants and to avoid being judged in terms of neo-colonial paradigms” (McIntosh, 2010, p.216). However, even as a researcher emanating from a former ‘colonial’ space, I was still an outsider. Indeed, as Grosfoguel (2007) argues, “the fact that one is socially located in the oppressed side of power relations does not automatically mean that he/she is epistemically thinking from a subaltern epistemic location” (p.213). Evidently, in my effort to construct the narrative of the study, I also observed how I was being constrained by my epistemic and linguistic location. In this process, while raising the issues of coloniality in tourism knowledge production, the narratives of the participants often surfaced as powerless and primitive and posited ‘the Euro/Westerncentric colonial premise that subalterns cannot speak or represent themselves’ (Spivak, 1988). Consequently, while reflexivity allowed me to criticise my position, I was unable to exit the colonial constructs within which I was representing the academic communities of the selected places. Fanon (1952) argues that it is the colonised people who can truly rebuild their own culture and identity, according to their preferences. But how do you do this when you have been trained and are situated within an oppressor's epistemic and linguistic setting? Indeed, even the discourse of emancipation is largely Eurocentric in nature, a colonial excuse constructed to portray the inferior other (Kincheloe & McLaren, 2000). As a result of my education, and my use of English as a language in the project, the discourses I constructed often manifested the dominant representation of the other (Hales, Dredge, Jamal, & Higgins-Desbiolles, 2018). Although I brought into the fore, a multidisciplinary theoretical foundation to address the issues of epistemic marginalisation within the colonial and neo-colonial structures, the epistemic grounds of the research were still limited to those written in (or translated to) English. The choice of using English in documenting this research was also a problem because “language is not neutral. Thus, when we, as writers, create a representation of the world it is value-laden” (Byrne, 2017, p.3). Further, using the English language within the interview space to discuss matters of colonialism also created more complexities, especially as the discussion primarily existed within binary categories. The participants often used words such as ‘developing’, ‘inferior’, ‘not advanced’ (each connoted a negative perception) to describe themselves, and their reality. While this existence enabled me to observe how firmly the Westerncentric ideology has rooted itself in the mental realm of the participants, I was also questioning myself whether the same discussion could have been otherwise, different, if it had been undertaken with the use of a local language. Although seemingly impartial and value-free, language carries with it preconceived notions that are reliant upon culture; language has tied people to their communities since the dawn of basic communication (Wodak, 2011). The magnitude of this reality is further compounded when we realise that these subjective values, by which people identify themselves, are reproduced on a continuous and unconscious basis, through all forms of communication, thereby making language a potent vehicle for hegemonic influence (Shohat & Stam, 1994; Wa Thiong'o, 1981). In this regard, using the English language to write and research colonialism posits as a significant limitation in the objective of ‘empowerment’ (Porter, Rheinschmidt-Same, & Richeson, 2015). This is particularly so as English (while some argue is neutral) remains a language laden with colonial implications (Pennycook, 1998). Furthermore, the critical school of thought (in English) also proved to be inadequate “because it remains too firmly grounded in 7

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binary pairings as oppressor/oppressed, master/slave, and power/freedom” (Zembylas, 2012, p.1). There was no neutral way of seeing the oppressed or the oppressor, the master or the slave, and the power of freedom. The reason is that the critical school of thought is also compounded primarily within western theorists (i.e. Marx, Adorno) (see Spivak, 1988). Therefore, undertaking the research within the paradigm of critical theory, I often got irritated by my use of words such as ‘Asian’, ‘other’ or ‘non-Western’ in representing the communities I was referring to. Even the use of the collective national identity such as ‘Malaysian’ or ‘Thai’ formed a continuation of colonial ideology. They seemed to be straightjackets of pre-specified terms of references “submerged in this allegedly prima way of seeing the differences between people” (Sen, 2006, p.11). What are Asian values? There is no singular Asian or Southeast Asian discourse or episteme (and should there be?)? Are they not civilizational classifications (modern day) that serve as a source of belligerent distortions (Sen, 2006)? Are we then distorting reality for the benefit of a particular ideology? The division between ‘East’ and ‘West’, ‘developed/developing’ or ‘emerged/emerging’ is to me, mere myths. Such terms, in the intellectual force of social science, exist to capitalise on the ‘differences’ defined by the terms of the ‘privileged’ (through colonialism). Indeed, in the act of academic decolonisation, much emphasis has gone into bringing into context, the ‘Asian’ or ‘African’ way of knowing (for instance), which in reality, is aligned as a different entity to that of Europe or the West. As a result, the imagined Europe (Chakrabarty, 2009), or the myth of Europe (Kincaid, 1991) as the centre of all senses continue to take a central role, governing the representations of the ‘other’. As I delved into using these terms with which I have come to view the world, and the phenomenon that surrounds me, I also understood how these terms carried a scent of oppression limiting your mind to the worldviews of a particular group (Hooks, 1989). Indeed, while I attempted to portray how former colonial academic spaces (and narratives) were “unjustly dealt with and deprived of their voice” (Freire, 2005, p.50), I too noticed that my use of the word ‘marginalised’ (victims), seemed to suggest a supposed lack of power in influencing the authority. This led me to question: Am I also bracketing them into ‘oppression’, presenting it as if their work had no value? Can and should emancipation then be achieved through the narratives of the oppressor? Would this not re-create hegemony with a slightly different mask? In response to this conundrum, Bhabha (1994) suggests the ‘third space of enunciation’. All cultural statements and linguistic systems of thought are constructed in contradictory and ambivalent spaces of enunciation. He reiterates that the third space can go beyond the realm of colonial binary thinking, and innovate new sites of collaboration and contestation, where meanings and the symbols of culture, with no primordial unity or fixity, can be appropriated. Nonetheless, the ambiguity of such notions is the recognition of existing ‘fixities’, and understanding its operational constructs. Indeed, even as I attempted to think and subsequently, write outside the readily available terms mentioned above, I could not help but feel that each word that I strived to avoid, such as ‘Malaysian’, ‘Asian’ or ‘Non-western’, carried with it, a different set of cultural conditionings (i.e. local and indigenous). Similarly, some tourism scholars (Urry, 2000; Cohen & Cohen, 2015) have also suggested alternative solutions to overcome the Euro/Westerncentric tourism epistemological assumptions. For instance, Urry (2000) and Cohen and Cohen (2015) conceptualisation of the ‘mobilities paradigm’ and King's (2015) counter proposal on ‘encounters’ challenges the Eurocentric limitations of ‘tourism’. These suggestions, however, fail to take into consideration, the power constructs, including the social epistemic location (and the privilege position) of the authors, and the lack of engagement with ‘other’ intellectual communities (King, 2015) in its development. Indeed, to exist and to think within the ‘third space’ requires us to also undress the hegemonic representations (both colonial and neocolonial) that exist unconsciously within our identity. Conclusion Is it possible to move beyond Euro/Westerncentric fundamentalism, and to create a balanced representation of reality that is free from intellectual domination? What should be considered in the process? One important aspect of researching the coloniality of power is understanding, and subsequently, challenging our own role as researchers in the process of creating a foundation for the ‘decolonial thought in tourism’. Indeed, as highlighted in this paper, actively enabling academic decolonisation involves the important task of considering the internal complexities of researchers as activists/leaders of such projects. Identities and its subsequent politics play a central role in our research practices and decisions - its conceptualisations, operations and production/narration of the representations (Tuhiwai-Smith, 1999). As researchers, we cannot exist as if untouched by our own objects of observation. (Neo)coloniality in itself is a multifaceted phenomenon that is neatly crystallised in contemporary realities through capitalist, neoliberal, development and globalization discourses. Consequently, the ability to identify the ways its ideology constructs our thoughts and behaviours is a heavy task. Nonetheless, to raise a counter consciousness, through the development of counter-hegemonic theories that disrupt dominant colonial and neo-colonial discourses (Denzin, Lincoln, & Smith, 2008), we as researchers need to first advance the ability to recognise our own particularities of the mind. As Nandy (1983, p.3) contemplates, “that which begins in the minds of men [sic] must also end in the minds of men [sic]”. Breaking away from the hegemonic discourses that cumulatively define our reality is a painful process because it involves developing self-critique, self-negation, and self-discovery (Chen, 2010). Learning to be critically conscious requires “a marriage of a multitude of philosophical orientations, and a continuously flowing and permeable multiple resource mechanism that also includes a willingness and the openness to participate in listening, questioning, reflexivity, and dialogue” (Aluwihare-Samaranayake, 2012, p.76). It is a process that requires the researcher to ‘learn’ and ‘unlearn’ history. This is the most difficult task of the research, for it is extremely difficult to unlearn what one has learnt in the past (Lee, 2002–2003), that which had been ingrained into one's life and became one's identity over years of accumulation. Indeed, like Chambers and Buzinde (2015) argue, decolonisation does not simply occur with the inclusion of the ‘other’ academics into mainstream academia. Since tourism scholars have been predominantly trained within a specific Eurocentric intellectual space, the cross-cultural knowledge production and dissemination is still governed by a set of privileged colonial paradigms. Hence, the act 8

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of ‘epistemic decolonisation’ is a complex process that requires a fundamental shift which moves from facile binaries to new frames of reference, and subjectivities. Academic decolonisation should then engage critical reflections as a phase to understand the ways in which ‘power and ideology’ circulate through our thoughts, actions, and emotions. This applies not only to researchers, but also academics, and reviewers who engage in the process of knowledge production and dissemination. Without the scrutiny of self, we may continue to produce and give way to Eurocentric premises albeit unconsciously. Decolonial trajectories should also take place with the cumulative participation of academics across cultures because without meaningful cross-cultural communication, academic decolonisation would remain simply a subject of discussion without further progress. The lack of cross-cultural communication and diffusion of ideas can also lead to the recreation of privileged epistemologies and ideological conditioning. This remains an important reason to explain why cross-cultural ethnographic research in studying coloniality of power is essential. Indeed, as put forward through this study, the challenges within the fieldwork of the project led the author to acquire a deeper understanding of the self, and the multiple constructs of identity within which the ideologies of coloniality exists. Understanding these constructs and the ways coloniality exists among different political, economic, institutional, and social structures is crucial for developing the way forward towards academic decolonisation. Acknowledgement I wish to thank the handling editor and reviewers of the journal for their helpful feedback which led to significant improvements in the manuscript. 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Wa Thiong'o, N. (1981). Decolonising the mind- The politics of language in African literature. Rochester: James Currey Heinemann. Wallerstein, I. (1991). Geopolitics and geoculture: Essays on the changing world-system. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wijesinghe, S. N. R., & Mura, P. (2018). Situating Asian tourism ontologies, epistemologies and methodologies: From colonialism to neo-colonialism. In P. Mura, & C. Khoo-Lattimore (Eds.). Asian qualitative research in tourism: Ontologies, epistemologies, methodologies, and methods (pp. 97–115). Singapore: Springer. Wijesinghe, S. N. R., Mura, P., & Culala, H. J. (2019). Eurocentrism, capitalism & tourism knowledge. Tourism Management, 70, 178–187. Winter, T. (2009). Asian tourism and the retreat of Anglo-Western centrism in tourism theory. Current Issues in Tourism, 12(1), 21–31. Wodak, R. (2011). Language, power and identity. Language Teaching, 45(02), 215–233. Zembylas, M. (2012). Critical pedagogy and emotion: Working through ‘troubled knowledge’ in posttraumatic contexts. Critical Studies in Education, 1–14. Zhang, J. (2018). How could we be non-Western? Some ontological and epistemological ponderings on Chinese tourism research. In P. Mura, & C. Khoo-Lattimore (Eds.). Asian qualitative research in tourism: Ontologies, epistemologies, methodologies, and methods (pp. 117–136). Singapore: Springer. Sarah N.R. Wijesinghe is a postdoctoral fellow at the Faculty of Social Science & Leisure Management (Taylor's University Lakeside Campus, Jalan Taylors, 47500, Selangor, Malaysia. Email < [email protected] >). Her research focuses on coloniality and neo-coloniality, academic decolonisation, identity and representation, neo-colonial structures of power in knowledge production and dissemination, and critical theory.

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