I am AmaSu and this blog begins my PhD journey. Here is where I, as Afro (African Origin), scholar, artist, activist teacher, writer, performer, researcher, woman, mother, grandmother, come to breathe with freedom. I will share views, thoughts, perspectives and creativity. My research looks at Blackness and Freedom to Breathe, it is partly autoethnographic, meaning my own story and lived experience are both resource and fundamental core to the research. The research is also a unique comparison between African and Buddhist philosophies. Yes, that’s right, these epistemologies have yet to be explored. My intention is to bring African thought and philosophical perspectives into the wellbeing conversation. Historically, ideas of wellbeing and humanness have been dominated by Western rhetoric, which features the individual over the communal. Contrarily, African and Buddhist share doctrinal philosophies, which are driven by community or Sangha/Samgha Sanskrit/Pali. There are over 34 definitions of Sangha and various spellings differentiating traditions in India and Tibet expounding the meaning of community.
‘Samgha means something in Buddhism, Pali, Hinduism, Sanskrit, Jainism, Prakrit, the history of ancient India, Marathi, Hindi.’(www.wisdomlib.org 2008)
Freedom to Breathe is a theory that I seek to develop throughout the next 4 years of my project, and I am eager to hear stories from Afro humans on this planet, we do breathe but do we have freedom to breathe, what does this mean to you?
I began this research during the Covid Pandemic in my bath. In 2020 I was diagnosed with a physical condition that affected my ability to move. As a professional dancer I identify through my body, I express, I feel, I create but in 2020 I did not have freedom of movement. This was catastrophic for me, I function through my body, this body has survived, this body identifies me, I speak with my body, and I mourn too. This body is a geography of my existence both past and present. What do I do, if I cannot move? Who am I without a moving body? These questions tormented me until I became less afraid and more curious. My self-interrogation developed into an enquiry of possibility. What I could do, was breathe and this helped me move in the bath water, with the water and I began to find new ways to move, to express the pain and restriction. This is what we do.
The only time when I wasn’t in pain and could move, albeit minimally, was in my Victorian bath filled up to my neck with hot water. The confinement of the bath yet freedom of movement was a rich place for me to reside physically, mentally and spiritually, here I was able to breathe with more ease. Everyday throughout the entire period of ‘lockdown’ I was in my bath where I worked with limitation and explored creatively deep minimum movement and deep full breathing. It became a daily meditation and contemplation of my ancestors. Therein lay the seeds of this PhD.
I will return to these seeds so that they may crack, germinate and grow the roots of this project. I look forward to sharing my journey and discoveries with you.
Photographer Jessie Barry
Author AmaSu 2024
