The World Is Never Made of Neutral and Objective Language

Seeing Through Language: What Africa Taught Me

1. I’m reading a book I promised to write a review on. It explores one African country in great detail, aiming to inform the reader thoroughly.

As I read it in Korean, I find myself glad — glad that I can access unfamiliar cultures and information through my own language. But with my admittedly “tilted” perspective — though I personally believe it’s a more balanced one shaped by my encounters with Africa — I can’t help but feel that some descriptions are biased.

To be fair, I don’t think it’s the author’s fault. It’s more that my lens is tilted. The author is simply seeing the world through the lens they’ve inherited. That perspective is shaped by their positionality, and I understand that.

(Still, it’s making me anxious about how to write the review… Honestly, I already regret agreeing to it. Haha. From now on, I’ll just stick to reading books I bought myself with my own money. ^^;;)

What keeps bothering me is how often this phrase appears: “Although it’s a poor country…” or “It’s poor, but…”

This kind of phrasing shows up in countless materials. At first glance, it feels objective, even neutral.

But I’m filled with question marks. A description based solely on economic value — can that truly capture the richness and diversity of this land?

And then I come across a passage describing how a Korean company is extracting resources from this country, framed in an optimistic, forward-looking tone. That, too, is common in many sources.

But to me, while it may boost Korea’s GDP, it also looks like a business profiting by exploiting natural resources and the future of humanity.

It just goes to show — so effortlessly, so unconsciously — how much of the world’s values can seep into what we think of as neutral description.

2. I’m also reading a book by sociologist and geographer Hein de Haas: Migration: The Freedom to Choose Where We Live (highly recommended!).

It offers a powerful, evidence-based rebuttal to the many misconceptions surrounding migration from the Global South.

One person’s journey is framed as a “voyage,” full of adventure and romance. Another’s journey is framed as illegal border-crossing.

One person’s income is seen as development and innovation. Another’s economy is deemed backward and inferior.

3. When I was traveling in West Africa, I was once stranded in the middle of the Sahara Desert. It was a freight truck driver named Amid who picked me up.

Freight trucks, it turns out, play a big role in helping people “illegally” cross the Sahara — a kind of business, really. But no one ever stopped me at the borders of Mauritania, Western Sahara, or Morocco to question whether I was entering illegally.

And when I returned to Korea, I was celebrated as a brave young person who had backpacked through West Africa solo. I was happy to tell that story again and again.

So in a world where even mobility — and the perception of it — is unequally distributed, can anyone really claim that all they’ve achieved is solely the result of their own effort?

4. The world is never built on truly neutral or objective language. That’s what Africa continues to teach me.

That’s why I try to use my own language to see the world.

To look carefully at what voices are being silenced or devalued in the language that’s labeled “objective” and “neutral,” and widely circulated as such.

Ah, my teacher. My Africa.