Reading postcolonial francophone literature (Djebar, Fanon, Ben Jalloun), and thinking about boundaries. For example, the idea that national identity, gender identity and subjectivity could all be said to be given a sense of coherence primarily through the formation and control of strong imaginaryboundaries, which seek to contain and own and make separate. This practice might be called:

‘a fascinating but somewhat neurotic delusion
that is both completely arbitrary and ideologically
necessary, for any culture, any society, not only marks
out borderlines for its own containment but also invests
ideologically in them, as if that mapping could not possibly
be redrawn.’ (Victoria Best Between the Harem
and the Battlefield.)

So, the ‘occlusion’ of women and of colonial subjects (and in our own lives, of anyone whose existence challenges our own sense of self) can be seen as a part of a process of self-definition where the 'other' is boxed away in order to establish a clear and safe 'me,' and 'us' on the other side of 'them.'

Wondering what it looks like when we are free enough not to do this. Sometimes this thought scares me.