Booknote: Sara Ahmed Complaint! - New Formations

I read Sara Ahmed’s Complaint! at a time where I had become exhausted and deflated with the sheer weight of what it means to be a first-generation Black woman researcher in academia. I came to Complaint! at a time when I didn’t have anything left in me to say. This, as Sara Ahmed explains, ‘can be a sign of how much you have to complain about’ (p153). The pure exhaustion of complaint had rendered me silent. There was so much to be said that if I started to complain, I didn’t know whether I could stop. Ahmed’s Complaint! reminded me however, that I didn’t even need to say anything to be registered as complaining, all I needed to do was turn up. Turning up was enough. Turning up became exhausting. Being the only Black woman in a white space, registers as complaint. Writing a literature review and discovering that next to nothing has been written in your area and then simply stating that discovery registers as complaint. I discovered that even confusion can register as a complaint when it comes to unwarranted advances made by external male academics. I wondered about the entanglement of complaint, the entanglement of complaint with my joy for academic exploration, with the considered support available to me at my home institution, and with the stimulating discussions which I delight in and get to take part in. This book came at this time.