Finding darkness: A metaphor for wayfinding in a precarious moment in the academy

ABSTRACT In times of uncertainty, one would seek the light at the end of the tunnel for clarity. By using Bayo Akomolafe’s metaphor of finding darkness as a literary placeholder, I weave my personal narratives with scholars who refuse colonial assemblages and challenge what has been brought to light. I write-through a time of being lost in the light and explain what it means to find, stay, and be in the darkness. This piece explains finding darkness as resistance to the colonial gaze and troubles the notion of self and visual representations of identity. It also means to embrace and stay hidden with displaced stories and inspire wonder as an incomplete and ongoing practice of wayfinding in the academy.