Don’t fit in! Deconstruct from the classrooms!

Interviewer Véronique Lerch
Jingle Laura María Calderón Cuevas
Editing Brua | bruapodcasts.com

Transcript

00:00:02:20 - 00:00:12:20

David Nnanna Ikpo

Two roads diverged in a wood and I took the one less traveled by and that has made all the difference to.

00:00:17:15 - 00:00:40:24

Véronique Lerch

Welcome to this episode of The Road Less Traveled. The Road Less Traveled is a project of the Center of Human Rights from the University of Padova and Global Campus of Human Rights. The project aims at exploring the less usual careers and career paths that are possible after a degree in human rights. We believe that there are no clearly defined career paths, entry points and routes to work with human rights.

We need people in all sorts of way to contribute to making an impact in human rights. And our guest today combines his many passions and forged his own unconventional path after his degree in human rights is a proper I think we can say hybrid David.

00:00:59:01 - 00:01:00:09

David Nnanna Ikpo Yes. Yes, yes.

00:01:01:20 - 00:01:19:02

Véronique Lerch

David is a graduate of the Masters in Human Rights and Democratization in Africa, from the University of Pretoria and I think he would say that you're a lawyer, storyteller, researcher and filmmaker. All of this.

00:01:19:10 - 00:01:20:00

David Nnanna Ikpo All of this.

00:01:21:06 - 00:01:24:20

Véronique Lerch

Well, welcome, David. Thank you for accepting to be part of this conversation.

00:01:24:24 - 00:01:28:16

David Nnanna Ikpo

Thank you very much for having me.

00:01:28:19 - 00:01:46:05

Véronique Lerch

So, David, maybe let's start by trying to find out when did this artistic journey start for you and whether it was always intertwined with human rights or whether that link with human rights came later.

00:01:47:17 - 00:02:14:04

David Nnanna Ikpo

Hmm. It's not so clear when it started, but I knew that while growing up there were a few things that piqued my interest. One of them was speaking clearly enough. I was born as a stutterer. I had a very bad stutter as a child, so I would always want to speak or try to be as articulate as people who are more able bodied than myself.

And I was also very drawn to the idea of superheroes, you know, and wanting to be a born activist type person out there in the world. I was fascinated by how the media, how cartoons, how drawings constructed their masculinity, that I wanted that to be a part of my reality as well, you know.

00:02:38:02 - 00:02:46:18

Véronique Lerch

So what do you think art can bring to human rights? Do you see art being useful to human rights?

00:02:47:14 - 00:03:34:21

David Nnanna Ikpo

Art does a lot of things for human rights. I think the most striking, most important thing that are does for human rights in our world today is questioning, art questions how our world is. Art is one of the most potent features of democracy. And I will stay in the hands of, you know, people who would ordinarily not have access to platforms where questions are asked, like like the parliament or the courts, arts and its various decolonial and transgressive forms have been used as a portrait taken to question human rights, to question the scope of it to question the depth of it. I think that's what it does. It does what it claims it will do for us.

00:03:43:16 - 00:04:11:05

Véronique Lerch

And for instance, if we take your novel that was published a few years ago, it's quite a success Fimisile Forever. Yes. Can you tell us maybe a little bit about the story of the book and maybe then to continue this conversation to tell us in which way you think you are using human rights in the book and the way maybe the book is hoping and like to push for human rights in certain ways.

00:04:11:20 - 00:04:46:11

David Nnanna Ikpo

Okay. Thank very much. I'll tell you, Fimisile Forever, is a love story of a younger version of myself. There werent so many same sex loving Nigerian men who are represented in the stories in any form in the world. You know, masculinity is constructed in a certain way

And that's very far from the truth. People live very complex lives. People are in very complex realities. it's not being in the closet or being queer is not a dichotomy, It's a dynamic. It's a part of how people have been. And there's a lot of hiding from the West portrayal that if you're gay you need to come out.

But the reality for us on the continent isn't important at the moment. We have, for as long as we've known, embraced this as part of our dynamic. Yes, boys loved boys. But yes, they also have their roles to play for the community. How they live and what reason completes is way beyond their self-actualization.

They live to fulfill the dreams of others. And it's not only self-sacrificing, it's a very direct way of living out your value for yourself and for your community. Following by the principle of ubuntu i am because I am truly true to you, i am because we are all interlinked.

And so I wanted to see this in the story. I want to tell this to myself and to put myself out. Then construct this complexity for boys like me. To see that understand that things like this happen. People like this exist and they can, even keeping their secrets.advance in human rights still in being queer and having same sex lover,on their side and having your girlfriends out in public still want to leave your full lives complete and is like I always use the the illustration of the sewing machine right there's the thread which is very big But there's also the bobbing thread, which is hidden That's small tread is an essential part Anyway a gay man or bisexual man secret life is like a bobbin thread is part of what makes him spin

We prepare for constructions of African Nigerian men to have that clip of themselves represented there. This is not an aberration. A fact of how we've been and how we are. We have secrets and it works for us.

00:07:53:01 - 00:08:17:15

Véronique Lerch

What has been the reaction to to you, to the story you've been telling? Do you feel like you've been telling a story that, you know, finally represented better the reality and that you got a reaction from a certain audience that was grateful for having this finally being represented? Did you did you have that reaction to your to your book?

00:08:17:15 - 00:08:55:02

David Nnanna Ikpo

Unfortunately not, you know, there is a very cultural dominance representing african homosexuality in mass media And these have been pushed by, you know, mainstream publishing houses over and over again? There's nothing wrong with these things. There are people to whom it applies

But it's not often that I come across Ive met few of them who could tell me this is our story, right? I found myself in these characters. But the most part of the story of the deprived, victimized gay African on the run is what the world wants to see is a story that's credible to themselves over and over and over again.

And that story has been exploited. The story has been used by people who are not queer And also that those are the stories not true. It's true, but it's incomplete. That is dominance. It's really space for parallel stories that although. They are the people who exist on every trajectory of the socio economics, scale, rights.

They are queer men in power. They are queer men who are gifted, who are connected. They're also poor queer people rights that people who themselves want to aspire to cis heterosexual cultures and that is okay. All right. But at a demonic homo normative narratives, are still have been adopted

00:10:30:15 - 00:10:46:20

Véronique Lerch

So. But can I say that basically with literature and maybe other art form that you're using, that what you want to do is to contribute to the diversity of narratives and to have a more complete picture and maybe a more complex picture, correct?

00:10:46:20 - 00:10:47:03

David Nnanna Ikpo Yes.

00:10:47:03 - 00:11:14:10

Véronique Lerch

as you're working now still as both you know, you're working as a lawyer and as a storyteller. Where do you see yourself in a few years? have a stronger focus on one of the two, one of the three, because you're actually also studying filmmaking or do you actually find it useful to combine all of it?

00:11:15:09 - 00:12:00:11

David Nnanna Ikpo

I think the three of them are quite complementary to each other at the moment I'm an officer at the Center for Human Rights, University of Pretoria. And I find that more and more the use of arts and engagement in my standards have become the norm in the master's programs and part of the academic requirement of distance learning for the Hitch Idea program is to produce advocacy materials, cartoons, films, posters, sort of art and some, you know, Human Rights Campaign at the EU level, at the UN level.

00:12:00:24 - 00:12:24:08

David Nnanna Ikpo

And usually this to would, you know, outsource these things. But now we have to sit down together and they have to write scripts, they have to shoot staff to the office and it's their selves. And you know, we look at it as because I would ask questions or you want to have an African woman in your film just calls them up to protocol.

00:12:24:12 - 00:12:46:14

David Nnanna Ikpo

Why did you want time to farm? Is it a fair representation of have. Come on, why would you see yourself in the farm and that exists. But is that is that your story there is because representation only Chris course whose was a close plus was personality and these things kept coming up over and over again. And it's very helpful for the Center for Human Rights.

00:12:47:01 - 00:13:11:18

David Nnanna Ikpo

But I, I don't know where I am headed professionally. And I would like to keep having these three fields interact with each other. But I don't know what the future is for me. I don't know if it's human rights is the future for me, but definitely not. I want to continue this interaction with the three fields.

00:13:12:19 - 00:13:35:04

Véronique Lerch

And do you ever experience some pushback or do you feel like it's difficult sometimes to navigate those worlds because they are so different? You know, the academic world and the legal language and and of course, you know, like people working in filmmaking have a very different way of talking. And then when we want to translate human rights, you know, we have to use other words.

00:13:35:04 - 00:13:46:17

Véronique Lerch

And the legal words if we really want people to understand. So do you find sometimes yourself being misunderstood in some of those words?

00:13:46:17 - 00:14:21:03

David Nnanna Ikpo

Yes, yes. Often, often that experience and it's less and less the case. I think people are becoming more open to to the idea of interdisciplinarity. I find that, for instance, I would, you know, in the film school to read the dissertation and I would pitch my chapters in the sense of if hopefully you could play my race research group and I'll get feedback for my advice and vice versa.

00:14:22:15 - 00:14:57:22

David Nnanna Ikpo

But the problem remains in terms of how you calibrate value. Yeah, this is interesting in this work are you have this interests, are you pursuing them? But how to calibrate value added, calibrates promotions, calibrates contributions to academia. But by telling where a valuable academic is or somebody who is the dominant culture is someone who publishes in formal accredited journals and not someone who makes films.

00:14:58:07 - 00:15:19:08

David Nnanna Ikpo

Right? It's pragmatic, but these films need to be made to support their work, right? And everyone wants to be involved. Everyone wants to advance in their field with a pencil. But there is no protocol for a lawyer who is a filmmaker and a researcher at the same time. What's what standards will what would you use to evaluate his work?

00:15:19:21 - 00:15:46:20

David Nnanna Ikpo

You can look at my at my place when I write, I write there's all these things. Right. And so to effectively access them, you have to read my lenses. And most times it's because he's the one who read all three of his ideas at the same time. And so I'm stuck with assessments. That's so I find incomplete. It's like limbo.

00:15:47:07 - 00:16:04:05

David Nnanna Ikpo

But those holes approach with some level of maturity and forgiveness because the world is in debt and interdisciplinarity is a journey that is still evolving, still happening in so many departments.

00:16:04:05 - 00:16:26:10

Véronique Lerch

But maybe creation happens in the symbols. Maybe it's like when we when we are in the boxes, this is maybe not where we're the most interesting innovation or creativity may have happened. We had a professor like PepsiCo from the University of Florida where she was telling us that, you know, human rights happen in the into citizens of the system.

00:16:26:10 - 00:16:30:03

Véronique Lerch

So in a way would fit a little bit more where what you're saying is true.

00:16:30:09 - 00:16:30:19

David Nnanna Ikpo Of you.

00:16:30:22 - 00:16:34:13

Véronique Lerch

That your limbo is your creative or your contribution?

00:16:34:23 - 00:17:09:17

David Nnanna Ikpo

It is. It is. But to promote it, you see, is that it is a thing, right? And where what is in that intersection that a creative, functional and beautiful arise is the one who would also rise to check them? Right. For instance, why it takes think of that as a theater podcast. It's the take to record. It's to the great quality.

00:17:10:05 - 00:17:43:17

David Nnanna Ikpo

All those hours, possibly more hours it would take to write a journal, a journal article, the value its or when is that sense in times of academic worth waiting to entertain a university lens that is used as improper rights, but these are equally valuable content which goes to the problems of academia, of human rights, of the work that's not the global campus or Chinese assurance do across the world.

00:17:43:17 - 00:17:48:08

David Nnanna Ikpo

What are they assessed with fair standards. Mhm. All right.

00:17:48:20 - 00:18:13:19

Véronique Lerch

Yeah, that's a fair question. I mean I do think that it hasn't been the case and this is why this project is we feel this project is so important because I think there was this idea of one big avenue for people graduating from wars as human rights master, being working for the UN and being a lawyer. Exactly the dominance, the dominance of the lawyers, I think that came out in all of the webinars we organized.

00:18:13:19 - 00:18:28:03

Véronique Lerch

You know, where I think a lot of people said, you know, even the lawyers said, you know, the dominance of the lawyers in the human rights view is not happening, true is happening in sync with most lawyers. So we can say that true.

00:18:28:07 - 00:18:29:16

David Nnanna Ikpo Yes is true.

00:18:29:16 - 00:18:50:15

Véronique Lerch

I think we can confidently say another way is is is necessary. And I think we need to open up. And I hope, you know, with what we do and what you do, I think I hope we can we can show the diversity and protect those intersection and show, you know, where is where this law is going outside the grid, very crucial.

00:18:50:16 - 00:18:51:24

David Nnanna Ikpo Everything we need to do.

00:18:52:06 - 00:18:54:24

Véronique Lerch

So they need what brings you joy in your work.

00:18:56:05 - 00:19:28:05

David Nnanna Ikpo

What would it be? I'm not sure. The one time I've been truly happy with my work is when I think when I have the concern about rights, when I'm able to articulate the concept because I know, for instance, I once to create a thing to address this issue and it's housed in corporate law and research, some systematic considerations it has to have taken up to that goal configurations.

00:19:28:17 - 00:19:41:02

David Nnanna Ikpo

I know so clear. It starts with our concept paper that I know that a lawyer can read an anomaly I can only put on the stand. I'm very happy.

00:19:41:19 - 00:19:42:12

Véronique Lerch Okay.

00:19:42:12 - 00:19:42:24

David Nnanna Ikpo Yes.

00:19:43:09 - 00:19:54:01

Véronique Lerch

Okay. So you're writing you're writing your Ph.D. on a place for indigenous storytelling. You imagine queer rights advocacy.

00:19:54:06 - 00:19:54:12

David Nnanna Ikpo Yeah.

00:19:54:21 - 00:20:04:06

Véronique Lerch

And you're writing it just to pick up on what you said. So are you right? It. I guess it will be quite a legal THG.

00:20:05:15 - 00:20:07:08

David Nnanna Ikpo

That's true. No, no, no, it's not.

00:20:08:01 - 00:20:23:13

Véronique Lerch

Will it be that that document. Because I think that's a you know, we were discussing with Adebayo in the webinar that that's the issue of PhDs often that the written in such a way that they're actually not accessible to a lot of people. So it is your kids going to be different?

00:20:23:23 - 00:20:46:20

David Nnanna Ikpo

I believe it's different or it's going to be different. It was changed, you know. So after having written the page, he was different as a lady and he was offended. And then after it was written, my syllabi had to change from on Elodie to a PSG. This is not is a legal said so not purely legal study.

00:20:47:11 - 00:21:01:10

Véronique Lerch

Okay so yeah maybe just to explain to you for listening so it's basically like so now you're doing a study which is not purely a legal one, but it's a mix. Yes. And what are the other. Okay, the plain.

00:21:01:11 - 00:21:32:13

David Nnanna Ikpo

And I would say so for social social psychology of queer theory. Imagine contact theory, decolonial theory. All right. And also know practice led research, because I really do write fiction. I follow my Ph.D. and have it's, you know, recorded at least some soundtrack triptych, I think this, this or this or of stories to classrooms I have them head on.

00:21:32:13 - 00:21:52:14

David Nnanna Ikpo

Instructor with hmm yeah. So it's it's not because of anything analysis or anything. It's what do you think of this of this kind of story and with that mindset, how do you engage with this of law calls for inclusion? Hmm.

00:21:53:04 - 00:21:53:22

Véronique Lerch Fascinating.

00:21:54:03 - 00:21:55:01

David Nnanna Ikpo Yeah.

00:21:55:01 - 00:22:21:18

Véronique Lerch

And talking about literature and I can see of a book on the table. And one of the question I had for you before you came was, you know what is the piece of musical literature that that is a bit like a pick me up way as one of our guest said or the the, you know, that brings you a little bit of peace or comfort when you're done.

00:22:22:08 - 00:22:23:17

Véronique Lerch

So what did you bring us?

00:22:24:06 - 00:22:42:23

David Nnanna Ikpo

Um, well, I'm a I'm a story flipped, so I flipped through the story. I don't have any one piece of literature and do that for me except that the Bible. But I'm reading column buy, buy, buy, buy, buy a name by Andre Aciman I keep my mouth shut pronounces I.

00:22:42:24 - 00:22:45:08

Véronique Lerch

Actually, I don't know, but let's see Aciman.

00:22:45:11 - 00:23:09:19

David Nnanna Ikpo

I see. So I've been into a film on Netflix and it was with a very great film. But after watching the film, I found that the film was very cinematic in the way that so much was lost. We're winning when you go to films, put a lot of emphasis on should until. But if we don't know, then we leave so much to very vague constructions.

00:23:09:19 - 00:23:34:05

David Nnanna Ikpo

Right. And I would like to know what is really happening, not just sort of us eyes, but was really happy for the character and reading the books. You find that it's Ellen Oliver. There's so much happening in Alia's head, right where every scene in the movie, there's so much happening. Those lives were articulated in the movie in Alia's Head.

00:23:34:11 - 00:23:59:05

David Nnanna Ikpo

Oh, okay. And I'm drawn to this very muse, very shy, problematic, fractured complex in fairly war torn homeowner, a young boy who is separated from anything that has been shown as what's a boy capable of any sort of initiative seen. So far. Yeah, so thrilled by a little imperfection.

00:23:59:09 - 00:24:00:12

Véronique Lerch

So, you know. So there you were.

00:24:01:05 - 00:24:05:07

David Nnanna Ikpo

This is a young Connie coming. I think superhero.

00:24:05:12 - 00:24:09:17

Véronique Lerch

Is a say yes. So do you want to read? A small part of it.

00:24:10:01 - 00:24:40:20

David Nnanna Ikpo

Is there's a project online. I like to read. On page 15, he talks about the feeling that he has when he ponders on this his father's houseguest, Oliver Wright. And he says he imagined him coming to his room at night, really going to read this book and tell me I wasn't dreaming that night when I heard a noise outside the landing by my door.

00:24:40:20 - 00:25:08:09

David Nnanna Ikpo

And suddenly I knew that someone was in my room. Someone was at the foot of my bed, thinking, thinking, thinking, and finally said, moving toward me. I was long, like not next to me, but on top of me when I leave my tummy. They liked it so much that rather than risk doing anything to show up and awaken or to let him change his mind, unclear.

00:25:08:09 - 00:25:34:14

David Nnanna Ikpo

We I feigned to be asleep thinking this is not cannot not be a dream. Because the words that came to me as I press my eyes shut were This is like homecoming. This is like coming home rather like coming home after years away among Trojans and less Oregonians like coming home to a place where everyone is like you, where people know.

00:25:35:00 - 00:26:13:15

David Nnanna Ikpo

They just know coming home. That's when everything falls into place. And how you suddenly realize that for 17 years, all you've been doing was feeling with the wrong combination. Wow. Right, right. What's this? This reminds me of, you know, boarding school and how there was this subculture of boys, components of boys, part of bombings at night. And you never know when it's real, when it's imagined, when you're dreaming.

00:26:13:23 - 00:26:38:18

David Nnanna Ikpo

It's such a blur because you have a sleeper. There's someone there with feeling with you, right. And I had a similar experience in boarding school. He imagined here that in my there was a boy I've been chatting with for a friend of mine with girls up close and no, it was one night it was raining heavily and the rain was pouring into the hostel.

00:26:39:06 - 00:27:01:15

David Nnanna Ikpo

The dormitory hall, with like 13 boys, a metal box. So I felt someone put my bunker away from the rain and from my notebook. And it was this boy and I. What are you doing? Like this house to me. And it helped me into. It's cool. Just sleep, you know, it's a if it's just a real like it's what happened to anybody else.

00:27:01:17 - 00:27:20:16

David Nnanna Ikpo

I'm just very thankful for both for for what is good. That is what's, you know, this acceptance to me, the feeling of being with someone of and it feels just like that is the best thing, the most right that could happen to you in the world at that time. MM Yeah.

00:27:21:07 - 00:27:32:21

Véronique Lerch

So it resonates like that. The experience is so similar and you feel like this is something you could have written. Yes. Mhm. Interesting. It's difficult to move from.

00:27:33:24 - 00:27:34:16

David Nnanna Ikpo Action, but.

00:27:34:20 - 00:28:01:10

Véronique Lerch

To do more mundane question but maybe to close a conversation that I would like to ask you, you know, if, you know, if if among the graduates to listening and you know any of them is is is a lawyer but as disinclination for it be music or literature anything it's you know, what will be your advice in terms of of overcoming the fear of moving into this direction?

00:28:02:01 - 00:28:07:05

Véronique Lerch

What would be your piece of advice for them to do it and go for it?

00:28:08:13 - 00:28:42:21

David Nnanna Ikpo

I would say the very cliche things read, believe in yourself. A lot of but there is a I think it is difficult to believe in yourself when when you find that the world and industry, the law industries are struggling in a way that you are of no importance or value until you know the EU or the EU or the UN.

00:28:43:21 - 00:29:19:02

David Nnanna Ikpo

And that's quite an underwhelming factor of many people who want to, you know, break away from this moment. You coming to our programs, the global campus programs and everyone is be multidisciplinary, right? But by the end of the program, everyone is beaten to a clone of the next lawyer or yeah. So I would say don't fit in, right.

00:29:20:02 - 00:29:48:15

David Nnanna Ikpo

Because deconstructs from from the classroom the construct from the program and for the program managers to construct from from from from from your centers demands that the intense humanity of order to walk up claims to be woven in on the level of curriculum design. Right the construct from the management they construct from the books that's you're forced to read, right?

00:29:48:21 - 00:30:30:11

David Nnanna Ikpo

Perhaps you know how I know one that I doubt that that that the that I had does is I know have a program there like internships that are provided at the level of the EU or you know we go for we go to save our universities is ten student of that is it possible for us centers to collaborate with galleries or collaborates with museums and have a with our students one with lawyers or who have interest in those students, go there for the second semester placements, you know, be supervised by curators because advised by artists or content creators.

00:30:30:19 - 00:31:04:22

David Nnanna Ikpo

Right. And there are many people who are collaborators, one themselves very qualified, supervised academic materials with such demands, and we give them the rubric rights. We viewed partnerships with institutions beyond the traditional invests. It's not that there's not a careers. And when you're doing the programs, we secure internships with them in production houses or magazine houses, you know, film school scholarships even.

00:31:05:14 - 00:31:06:07

David Nnanna Ikpo Hmm. Right.

00:31:07:02 - 00:31:26:22

Véronique Lerch

So you're actually giving two pieces of advice, one piece of advice for the seasons and one for the center is for the centers, which I agree. I think it is absolutely necessary. I mean, I think there is probably, you know, something that probably there is something in the way we're studying and we talk about is reproducing the system.

00:31:26:22 - 00:31:41:20

Véronique Lerch

And I thing is to break the mold, you know, and it's great that you managed and we should definitely encourage and more to break the mold and and support the centers in changing themselves so that this point the people who want to break the mold.

00:31:42:00 - 00:32:07:11

David Nnanna Ikpo

If you like I said, is interest in the level of cucumbers, at least there was a time they came in 2017 and it was a one day human rights festival at the Universal Pretoria. But just one day. Right. And then the Earth of the week was conferences and conferences. I it was movie that that interesting and that important.

00:32:07:11 - 00:32:22:11

David Nnanna Ikpo

Why are they more central MM. Rights or R&D be more prominence if we are good now or do a want to literary rights, we should give this more to more repetition of forms. More. Yeah, yeah.

00:32:23:10 - 00:32:39:08

Véronique Lerch

Well I think we'll continue to and to push for this we together to. Well thank you for the lovely conversation and and all the ideas and for the reading. And hopefully a lot of people are going to read your book.

00:32:39:08 - 00:32:41:19

David Nnanna Ikpo

Hopefully. Thank you very much.

00:32:41:19 - 00:32:49:23

Véronique Lerch Thank you, David.