Kendi has always been critical of the ongoing negative influence of the colonial project and its biased histories.

As a child, she remembers questioning why her history books credited the discovery of Mt. Kenya to European explorers, instead of the indigenous communities who had lived there for millions of years. 

In her work, she uses story-based approach to promote restorative healing justice and collective liberation by combining her expertise in Corporate Communication and Community Development to find practical ways of co-creating more inclusive structures and equitable spaces in Higher Education, Industry and Third-Sector organisations.

This Research Journey is part of a collection made with members of the 100 Black Women Professors NOW network.

Browse stories from the collection.

Transcript

[Kendi is sitting in front of a white background speaking directly to camera.]

Kendi: My journey to now started in my home country of Kenya.

I grew up on the foothills of the majestic Mount Kenya, which is the second largest mountain in Africa. So it was always intriguing to me when I would read my history books, and they all said that Mount Kenya was discovered by Johann Ludwig Krapf, a European. And I would wonder, how come my ancestors didn't know that this massive mountain was just right there amongst them, dominating everything? Were they blind?

Fast forward to when I went to university. So I went to university and I studied communication and community development. And I remember one day, our lecturer took us on a field trip, and we went to this remote village in northeastern Kenya. Those of you who know Kenya would recognise that as an arid or semi-arid area, part of the country, little rainfall quite dry. And there was this group of well-meaning European donors who came to this part of the world, and they observed how the women had to walk several kilometres every single day to go and fetch water. And they thought, "You know, Eureka, we have a solution to this problem. We will give them a tap in the middle of the village, running water. This is going to free them, you know, give them time to go and do other things, maybe lie in the scorching sun, I don't know." But anyhow, they thought this would be a brilliant idea, and so they did. And off they went.

So two years later, we show up, a bunch of eager university students wanting to see what had happened with this project. And indeed, there in the middle of the village was this majestic tap still standing, just as the European donors had left it. But not a single drop of water had been drawn from this tap. The women were still walking kilometres twice a day to go and fetch water. And our question was, "Why?"

Well, that day I learned three things:

One. Development is about people, not things. You can go ahead and throw money and things at a problem, but that seldom brings about lasting change. Instead, what you need is buy-in from the community that you are there to serve. And an approach that is collaborative, that is compassionate, that is respectful, that leads to the co-creation of sustainable change that is much more meaningful to the community.

Two. My world is not the world. You see, the assumed superiority of the donors made them think that the problem, as they saw it, was the problem as the community also saw and experienced it. So they imposed a solution to a problem that really didn't exist in the same way for that community. They did not understand that going to the river twice a day was part of the fabric of this community, an activity that these women relished, and hence they ignored the tap and went about their business as usual.

Three. The job is never done. These well-meaning Europeans came in, erected a tap, and in their own minds, supplied water to X number of people or X number of households in rural Kenya, putting a big tick against that objective. But had they really? They never came back to assess the impact of the work that they had done, and in fact, they didn't even come to check whether there were any opportunities for improvement. In their own mind,
their work was perfect. Job done.

So let's fast forward to 2005. I come to Leeds as a postgraduate student, and at that time I had absolutely no idea how these three lessons would form the bedrock of my career. For instance, for my PhD, I looked at the relationship between donor agencies, like the IMF and the World Bank, and donor recipient countries. I chose to use the lens of corruption and anti-corruption initiatives in my own home country of Kenya as a case study.

In my work, I saw many "taps" that had been imposed upon donor recipient countries by these donor agencies, and I also observed the conditionalities and restrictions that came along with those "taps". So in terms of where they were erected, who could access them, who could draw water, how much water they could draw, what they could use the water for, and so on and so forth. So it's disheartening to me that after many years of anti-corruption initiatives funded by these donor agencies, corruption still continues to be one of the biggest problems for Kenya.

My research has since moved on, and I find myself once again standing at the foothills of Mount Kenya, looking up at the three peaks of Lenana, Nelion and Batian. This time, I know my ancestors were not blind. In fact, they were rendered irrelevant in a Eurocentric world where their existence didn't matter.

So in my teaching, my research, and my work as the Dean for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, I take a decolonial approach whereby I create space for. different ways of knowing and different ways of being. I also take seriously my responsibility to play a part, no matter how big or small, in dismantling your colonial structures that seek to diminish the existence of people who look like me.

My motivation comes from the true meaning of Ubuntu, that African spirit that honours the interconnectedness of all human beings. When the least of us suffers, we all suffer. So my passion then comes from wanting to not erect a tap, but rather to find sustainable solutions to the inequities and the injustice that we face in our world. A world where some people are elevated at the expense of others.

I feel privileged to have the opportunity to co-create a space where people can come as they are, where they can have an opportunity to fulfil their purpose, to make a remarkable difference and a contribution to society.

This is not a place where people come to survive. This is a place where people come to thrive.