A-1

THE RHETORIC AND STRATEGY FOR AFRICAN ETHNOGRAPHIES:

STRUCTURES OF INTERPRETATION/TRANSLATION OF eCULTUREf AND eSOCIETYf

 

Gaku Moriguchi

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Hitotsubashi University, JAPAN

E-mail: gakumpola@gmail.com

 

Keywords: Cultural translation, E.E. Evans-Pritchard, Ethnography, Rhetoric,

 

I. Introduction: The Rhetoric of eCulturef and eSocietyf in African Contexts

eCulturef and eSocietyf are two giant terms in anthropological knowledge. When someone asks an anthropologist what anthropology does, the ordinary answer is always it is ean interpretation of culture and societyf. On the other hand, the concept of eculturef and esocietyf have been criticised since the 1970fs, and especially in the late of 1980fs when the book gWriting Cultureh was published (Clifford and Marcus 1986). Although this Writing Culture shock was the past moment of more than twenty years ago, I would like to argue more on the rhetoric and structure of interpreting culture by writing ethnography in English. There are some reasons why I would dare to do so now, but the first of all, English language and the rhetoric of eculturef and esocietyf are one of the most dominant factors when people describe themselves in African contexts, especially in Uganda. The aim of this paper is to analyse the rhetoric of the other eculturef and esocietyf and contextualise the self and the other in post-colonial African contexts. In the next section, I will focus on the work of Evans-Pritchard and analyse his rhetoric of comparison and contrast. Then, in the third section, I will point out the structure of interpreting culture and society in African/English ethnographies. In conclusion, the paper tries to discuss more on current language situation and theoretically suggest alternative strategy of writing ethnographies in Africa.

 

II. Works of Implicit Metaphor of Evans-Pritchardfs Ethnography

There are a lot of literary devices in the work of Evans-Pritchard (E-P). He described Nuer, Azande and other ethnic groups as a consistent and coherent social order in each text. But this order depends on the gWestern Obsessionh of his contemporary British Anthropology (Strathern 1988). The writing style of British Social Anthropology, which was that of gStructural Functionalismh, had too much consistency and coherence to conceptualise the real phenomena of gsocietiesh. Moreover. this style was formed within the British colonial administration system, which was gindirect ruleh in African and Indian countries (Leclerc 1972). In Writing Culture, Renato Rosaldo also criticized E-Pfs colonial attitude to Nuer and Azande and his epistemology (Rosaldo 1986). E-Pfs view was explored from his tent in Nuerland, not from his neighboursf hut. According to Marcus and Fischer (1986), however, people in the Writing Culture School found much more interesting in, and reread, such classic work as E-Pfs Nuer and Malinowskifs Argonauts of the Western Pacific (Marcus and Fischer 1986). What the Writing Culture School has done is to examine the quality of writing, but what I will do in this paper is to examine the writing itself by questioning what E-Pfs concept of culture constitutes in his ethnography. I will focus on the E-Pfs writing style and his ethnographic comparison and contrast. He aimed at the translation of culture in his ethnography and I try to point out some of its cultural and political bias.

 

III. Works of Translation and Interpretation of eCulturef

The reason why I pick up on E-Pfs writing style is neither to admire his excellent method of comparison and contrast nor to illustrate the importance of his ethnographic rhetoric. This is because I totally agree with Asadfs opinion, when he states: gYet despite the general agreement with which this notion (of ecultural translationf) has been accepted as part of the self-definition of British social anthropology, it has little systematic examination from within the professionh (1986: 143). In this section I want to examine how E-Pfs gcultural translationh contributed to anthropological knowledge and where the politics is in this comparison and contrast method between African society and English society. This is also an examination of the process of gcultural translationh and of reproducing gthe inequality of languagesh, which Asad points out. What does it mean that E-Pfs texts connote this context of the English writer for the English readers? The point to which Asad tentatively criticised is not the procedure of a fundamental mistranslation of culture. He located himself in a different place from other members of Writing Culture, a place which is slightly outside of anthropological discourse, and which critical to the action of Writing Culture. At the Writing Culture School most of them focused on the way that writing rhetoric could be the politics of anthropology (Clifford 1986, Fischer 1986, Marcus 1986, Crapanzano 1986, Tyler 1986, Rabinow 1986) or the way that on the colonial power can hide in the deployment of rhetoric in ethnographic descriptions (Pratt 1986, Rosaldo 1986). Whereas Asad, examined Gellnerfs text, gConcepts and Societyh, and pointed out the problematic of the gone-way streeth translation from another culture into English. He called this process gthe Inequality of Languageh.

We need to examine that process of translation and the inequality that it brings. What Asad argued is at first that the English Ethnographer recognises a cultural phenomenon in one certain society within his/her cultural context. Secondly, the original meaning of the phenomenon is differentiated through being written by an English Ethnographer, who appropriates the English cultural context and produces the coherence and consistency of the text. Finally, through the authenticity of British Social Anthropology School (or American Cultural Anthropology/ French Ethnology), the social phenomena of the whole world are put together and made one within Euro-American anthropological discourse.

What I would like to explain on ethnography and gcultural translationh is that, at first, the ethnography is considered as a simple text which tells of the anthropologistfs cultural experiences in other societies. As I show in Diagram 1., ethnography is an anthropologistfs narrative, and one which is directly conveyed to readers. Nobody except a few anthropologists realised that there are some devices of the metaphorical and symbolic use of language in this process. This is what the Writing Culture School (Clifford and Marcus 1986, Marcus and Fischer 1986) and Geertz (1988) pointed out. As we see in Diagram 2., ethnography becomes metaphor to tell anthropologistfs cultural experiences. By revealing the anthropologistfs experience as a text, the other culture appears to become accessible to the readers. The translation is possible when the experience is objectified and symbolised. Metaphor in the text itself does not mean anything. With readers who are going to read and understand them, the work of metaphor becomes valid.




                                                                          

 

Metaphor and symbol are devices for readers to understand other cultures, so E-Pfs ethnography is an intermediation between two cultures. In this process of gcultural translationh, I cannot take the optimistic position and claim that translations keep reproducing new texts as Clifford has argued (1986). The process of translation itself includes power relations between languages. In the context of Writing Culture, ethnography itself, which is the English written gcultureh, also retains a particular cultural authenticity in anthropological discourse and other fields of discipline.

 

IV. Conclusion: Toward a Strategy for African Ethnographies

V.Y. Mudimbefs gInvention of Africah argued that European discourses on Africa, such as anthropological knowledge, missionary speech, and political movement, have established what the African knowledge is, so-called African gnosis (Mudimbe 1988). He tried to focus on the discourses on Africa, rather I tried to clarify the structure of the cultural interpretation beneath the ethnographic descriptions. By analysing this kind of structure, supposedly, we may be able to suggest alternative strategy for African ethnographies. In conclusion, I would like to discuss more the term of culture in Uganda, which is somehow essentialised in etribalf politics and identity, and therefore think of possibility of African ethnographic literature.

 


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A-2

PASTORAL POETICAL WORLD OF IMAGINATION: EMANCIPATION OF THE SELF

 

Itsuhiro Hazama

JSPS, JAPAN

E-mail: hazama@jambo.africa.kyoto-u.ac.jp

 

Keywords: Karimojong, eFiguref and eGroundf, Existence, Salvation, Representation

 

In this presentation Ifll make analysis of fieldnotes written in or composed since I visited a certain Ugandan pastoral society such as the Dodoth and Karimojong in 1998.  As is well-known, they are based on pastoral subsistence in savanna woodland, dependent on the body of (domesticated) animals; milk, blood and meat.  I would like to focus on how the poetical world of imagination is revolved, and what kind of gworldh they sing in each daily life.  Their world is ceaselessly opening out and in illusion and reality, negation of existence and its affirmation, toward unknown dimensions. What are the self, consciousness, and the body latent in the depths of various expression of pastoral poetry?  From a viewpoint of a possibility and a limitation the gselfh in the modern society suggests, this presentation @aims at constructing the locus of the Karimojongfs poetical imagination and their lives as a contemporary thought, and seeks for the cosmos of language echoed with a symphony to foreign cultures.

What a man has seen, what he has lived, and what he has created is by far more affluent than what he has thought consciously or the thing which he has recorded as what he ought to be.  Because of the fascinating anticipation for this massive iceberg as expression, I choose to begin with the nomad living in gnatural societyh, rather than ggreat thinkersh, as starting point for our present task; measurement of the possibilities and limits of the self in the modern world.

The modern world-system, especially its classical idea type, has set up and invented the self as subjectivity having identity inhabited each human body as something like a privileged independent variable, or the primary cause for the social world to exist and change.  Transcription of Descartesf famous statement is translated in English as gI think, therefore I amh.  Truth is that it is fallacy of assuming the point in debate.  The social anthropological importance is not the fallacy itself but that it is the vanishing point of skepticism even for Descartes himself as a thorough skeptic.  In a structure of the world, the phenomenon of gIh is primarily the more remarkably self-evident entity than any entities such as gGodh, gnatureh, gthe otherh and others.

What I am to think about in this presentation is ethe selff of human being, or, what gIh as the phenomenon is like.  What is gselfh and what is gIh ?  What is gindividualityh like?  What is gsubjectivityh like?  What is gidentityh?  Such mutually overlapped and different questions constitute the basic question not only for academic thoughts but also for various fields of thoughts, expressions and acts.  Even if not questioned as a subject matter, the particular way in which these are answered (or the particular way how these are thought) forms the foundation for the academe, the thought, the art and the institution.  It is the premise such like the whole fields of academe, art and institutions would be collapsed once it should be negated. It is the premise such like the whole fields of academe, art and institutions would be collapsed once it should be negated and overturned. A certain way of the self, subjectivity and identity being is the premise for the social system, whether it is mentioned or not.

 

In their pieces of the pastoral poetry, which should be titled as ethe black ox in the plateauf, the singer describes black as one gabsenceh which is bored deeply in the scattering lights of space. In usual way of eseeingf, we unconsciously concentrate on an individual which is pulled out and abstracted from the whole. And a prerequisite to it is, according to the terminology of Rubin or gestalt psychology, the differentiation of gfigureh and ggroundh. If it were not for anything particular in angle of Sight which can become figure (ga stark white snow-cover mountainh, gwhite season in dry landh etc.), form perception cannot occur nor distance perspective. Unless this figure appears, ground continues to remain sea of ground. Since figure appears once, however small this figure might be, it opens the corridors of reversing vision, like it might reverse the ground into the figure vise versa. eThe black ox in the plateauf is based on this reversing power, like existence is absence of absence or being is nothingness of nothingness. Another poem sings not the oxfs voice itself, but sings how the voice expands and after a while disappears into the gpraying groundh. In other words, it sings the quality of silence or gsound of silenceh. The voice itself is a sacrificed stone which opens silent space, only by which we can hear silence, the ground of sound. This ePraying Ground songf, as well as the song of ethe black ox in the plateauf, is based on reversibility of sense.  

How are the meaning of gmy existenceh and its limits (edeathf, ethe otherf) are sensed and represented for the imagination in the world in which existence is felt absence of absence or being is sensed nothingness of nothingness?  gA life-time in this world is only a moment, and the status of death, however it is, is eternal.  That cannot be doubted.h(1)  This horror does not belong only to Pascal, but also it fringes lots of modern rationalism ultimately.  Even if the meaning of emyf life can be felt in the course of the life of mankind, and even if the meaning of emyf life can be found for the future of mankind, it is baseless that the life of mankind is eternal.  The life-time of mankind is also only a moment, as far as we stand the point of view that my life-time is only a flash, that is, the viewpoint of geternityh.  gI do not allow anyone to conclude that mankind will be extinct.  We know that each being dies but mankind should not die.h(2)  Beauvoir writes like this, absolutely without any proof.  She held to this because she feels that our meaning of daily life turns into vanity.  Eternity of mankind is postulation for her.  This reminds us of God and eternity of soul for Immanuel Kant.  Kantfs eeternity of soulf is systematization of classic modern thought.  Beauvoirfs eeternity of mankindf is atheistic existentialism.  This resonance seems to indicate the limitation of aporia which modern thought cannot overcome.

Sensing the existence as one miracle can also be observed, for example, in Calvin as well as in Karimojong.  Calvin demanded to know the thought of Hebrew Christianity to the utmost limit, and stood at the key point to prepare European modernism.  How is the world sensed by him?  Poulet writes as to it in the context of considering Human time.(3)

 

Feeling anxious and undergoing torture of looking at his existence suspended from the edge of one string, and looking at the ground in which he lives being gabove so the deep hell that its foothold seems to fall upside down all the timeh, the existence of downfall feels like survive only through the miracle from moment to moment. For him, each moment is inevitably the moment of tumbling down. God does not so much extend the string of existence as stops the action of revenge and extinction at every moment and suspends him.

 

However, we will see in later that the meaning of miracle of existence is exactly reversal to the case of the Karimojong.

As Eliade, a theologist who compares religion of India and Europe states, for the Hebrew Christian sense of the world, there is brightness of meaning only inside of cosmos blessed and ordered by God.  But things outside of this cosmos or something just as naked as nature are sinful or, at least, meaningless.  That is the very reason why Calvin had to have horrors of downfall into this ubiquitous darkness and had to seek for God blessing for miracle of existence at every moment. In modern rationalism which has lost God as a light source of meaning or has absorbed it into the self, where there is lonely light source such as the self or human beings, desert of sense of the world remains, and all sources of meaning exist in vast space of meaninglessness for an instant and before long they vanish into vanity.  Witness that gAmericans make it a rule not to think of his or her own deathh simply expresses the lack of salvation in modern sense of the world.(4)

The Karimojongfs self in their poetry seems also dark at a glance because it is concentrated into the image of shadow. However, what surprises us is that the world surrounding this shadow or something like the ground of existence is full of the sparkling brightness.  Thus Calvinfs self, that is to say, prototype of the modern self deprived from Hebrew Christianity is the self which is lonely light going in the ubiquitous darkness.  On the contrary, this shadow is the self which is lonely darkness going in the ubiquitous lights. Clearly, only by this sensibility of the world, such thought can sustain, as grasps that we go beyond the self as one kind of emancipation.

 

Notes

(1) Pascal, B. Pensées et Opuscules, 1897

(2) Beauvoir, S. de. Pyrrhus et Cinéas, 1944

(3) Poulet, Georges. Etudes sur temps humain, Plon, 1950

(4) Moore, W. E. Man, Time and Society, 1950

 

 

 


A-3

SOCIAL CHANGES, MODERNITY AND COMMUNALITY AMONG AGRARIAN SOCIETIES IN EAST AFRICA

 

Soichiro Shiraishi

Graduate School of Asian and African Area Studies, Kyoto University, JAPAN

E-mail: shiraish@jambo.africa.kyoto-u.ac.jp

 

Keywords: Anthropology, Subjectivity, Discourse, Social norms, Inconsistency

 

Introduction: The dichotomy of modern/primitive and the discourse of modernization

The aim of this study is to discuss on the potential of anthropological thought, which is not necessarily popular in African academics, setting theme that how we can describe and analyse social changes of rural societies in Africa. 

In social sciences, there is the master narrative of modernity on social changes in African societies.  Those are designed on social evolution theory of 19th century, desired to domesticate eprimitive Africaf just as propagation or enlightenment by missionaries in pre-colonial history.  In the basis of that idea, they have the dichotomy of eWe West/They Africaf, which views Africa as the mirrored or negative image of the West for defining them reflectively [Mudimbe 1988].  Even some aspects of Negritude movement and pan-Africanism shared such view as its shadow in the reverse way.   

Anthropology is no exception though it has ecultural relativismf which refuses Europe-centric view as one of its central dogmas.  In the past, many studies described the changes of African societies as the transition from etraditionalf to emodernf, from etribalf to ecivilf society, or in conflict of both.  In recent years, a number of works of African studies have summarized social changes of agrarian societies as cultural homogenisation under spreading globalisation, meaning the great influence of efree marketf or neoliberal economic policy typified by Structural Adjustment Programme.  Those scopes are appropriate in macro-level currents, but they often surreptitiously slip stereotyped assumptions of emodernizationf, eloss of communityf and so on.  If we saw each society through such scopes, only monolithic forms of social changes will remain and subjectivity of individuals in each society would have been veiled.  Again, in the theoretical background of those scopes is dichotomy of efree will/determinismf since the time of Descartes.  They define western subject as choosing action or making decision by free will on the one hand, while African as objects who are subject to their etraditionf or esocial normsf on the other hand. 

In short, to seek the theme ehow we can describe and analyse the social changes of rural societies in Africaf, we should carefully think ehow we can keep appropriate distance to the master narrative of modernity.f  In what follows, I describe social changes of a rural society in Eastern Uganda with reference to peoplefs discourse on social relationships and social norms.(1)

 

Outline of the research area

I carried out field research in Sabiny society situated in Kapchorwa District, Mt. Elgon.  Until the first half of 20th century, people were agro-pastoralists, keeping cattle and goats, and growing crops like sorghum, millet and yam only for family consumption.  Many elders say the landscape of the area at that time was covered by bush and most of the land was uncultivated, used for grazing their livestock.  They also brewed beer from their harvest and had beer parties.   In the research area, people introduced ox-plough and maize around 1950.  Maize cultivation emerged gradually afterwards.  In the last decades of the 20th century they began to grow hybrid maize and nowadays fields of maize and bananas cover the landscape.  In recent years, maize has become the main crop. 60% of the households sell their maize in 100-kilo bags.  Since the Ugandan government began encouraging production of maize as a non-traditional commercial crop, the national production rose sharply after 1990.  Today the research area is one of the main producing centres in eastern Uganda.  My research purpose is to clarify the qualitative change of social relationships, social norms, and the role of peoplefs practice to those changes in the area. 

Two ethnographic cases are illustrated to support this argument.  The first is on reformation of co-operative relationships among people, taking the changes of labour organization as example.  The second is on dispute over land tenure, analysing how people justify onefs access to land referring to their social relationships.  In both cases, I take notice of peoplefs discourse to clarify the complexity and inconsistency of social norms.  

 

Case 1: Changes in labour organization

Earlier studies summarize that, in the process of penetration of market economy in rural Africa, channels of access to labour were disembedded from social context and individuated [e.g. Berry 1993].  This is parallel to classical view of modernization in social sciences, for instance, Simmel says that personal face-to-face relationships dispersonalize and become anonymous once money mediates between people.  This kind of explanation, however, showing the shift of labour formation from A to B is just unilateral and evolutionary and failed to grasp the meaning of peoplefs daily practice which motivate social changes.  We need to explore more detail of those changes and experiences. 

The types of weeding labour have been researched on 58 households in 2002.  They organized their weeding labour either (a) their own household labour, (b) various size of labour exchange, (c) wage labour among people in the area, or they combined them.  Large-sized co-operative labour that used to come with beer party after work was very common at least until 1970s [see also Goldschmidt 1967, 1976], but it declined today partly because of spread of Islamic religion.  Instead of former beer party, rotating credit associations are common festive gatherings among neighbours, and not a few women made their labour exchange group among the members of the same association.  This result shows that the reaction to cash economy is not always fragmentization of social relationships.  [Shiraishi 2006-a]

However, there is the common discourse on the change among people, especially among elders, that is something like eloss of communalityf.  Some of them have retrospective view on former co-operative labour saying that ethe only way to organize neighbours were moyket (co-operative labour with beer) in those years, it was very easy to gather people whenever we prepare beer for labour, and everybody did thatf.  But in the process of the research, I found the fact that there were other minor ways of organizing labour, middle-sized co-operative labour without beer, small-scale labour exchange, and they often combined them with the major one.  At the same time, some of them told me the negative accounts of former co-operative labour saying that esome other people out of workers used to join beer parties, so moyket did not payf, other said emoney is the best thing to gather neighbours today\providing, if I had the onef.  In short, though peoplefs evaluation of former and present labour organization is various and sometimes ambivalent, the dominant discourse of change is efrom beer to moneyf.  As Pottier pointed, generally there are plural ways of organizing labour [Pottier 1985], only this dominant discourse cover the existence of minor labour organizations. 

This case indicates that the state of labour organization in the area, coexistence of plural ways, is not mere transit period of unilateral individualization under emodernizationf.  Social norms are always multilayered and contain ambivalent evaluation of customs at present.  Thus, though a custom took a dominant position as the normal way in the society at a certain historical point, there is other potential ways and people knew them.  In the phase of practices, people can take eother waysf than normal one, and this makes indeterminacy of social norms, as well as the driving force of social changes.  To clarify the relationships between this multilayerness or indeterminacy of social norms and peoplefs practices, I introduce the second case. 

 

Case 2: Dispute over land tenure

The classical studies of anthropology had premise of ecustomary lawf, which was different from written positive law, but kind of unwritten traditional natural law.  Those studies suppose that people act or make decision socially always by referring traditional norm, the customary law.  In later years, anthropologists began to pay attention to multilayerness or indeterminacy of social norms, they gradually changed their approach to eprocessualf ones, which stresses that there are negotiations at any scene of decision making [Comaroff & Simon 1981]. 

In 2002, a dispute arose concerning the land tenure of a man who had moved from the area 40 years ago.  K, a son of the man, visited the area and sued villager B who currently occupied the land to Local Council, saying he had inherited the land from his father.  This was never-before-seen case in the area.  I analyzed discourse taken from the minute of the local council and the records of my open-ended interviews to the neighbors and relatives of both K and B. 

One of the focuses of peoplefs comments to this dispute is whether K (and his father) was estrangerf for them or not.  People refer their knowledge of customs and historical memory to evaluate onefs access to the land.   By ecustomsf here, I mean, for instance, cultivate onefs own land after he got it from his father or just bought, bury the dead of family members at their land, or migrate somewhere over the river when he/she lost more than two children at that place, and so on.  eHistorical memoryf means, for example, the memory of experience of working together in co-operative labour group, attending funeral of the neighbour, insecurity under the frequent cattle raiding from Karimojong, and so on. 

Not a few neighbours knew the profile of Kfs family.  Once father of K came from other area and married with a girl in the area, he lived on the land, he lost three children and his wife and buried at the land, and then he went to other area where he was born.  But other neighbours said that father of K had had just come several times as a visitor to care his relativefs cattle herds or to have negotiation over bride-price of his wife, he had borrowed the land from his relatives, and he had gone back to his home place.  eForty yearsf absencef, emigrated after family members diedf, and ereturning back to where he was bornf were the persuasive elements of the people who took Bfs part.  On the other side, a man who is the affine (in-law) of K remarked in interview that in the years their grandparents had came and lived in this area, anybody egraspf their land by free because there had been frontier, then his generation inherited those lands, sometimes they should migrate temporarily to escape insecurity or other reasons, so K is just the same as anybody in the area.  At the same time, this man emphasized that B egraspf the land just recently but since then B has kept lending the land to townsman every year, that shows B knows that land did not belong to B.  [Shiraishi 2006-b]

This case shows us the eligible example of indeterminacy of social norms and its relation to subjectivities of the people.  As we see, we cannot know which is ultimately erightf; these are a kind of so-called barren controversy, whereas each statement based on idioms of customs.  Manipulating those idioms, which are in paradigmatic relations each other, people describe or evaluate B or K, and they construct their assertions [see also Matsuda 1989].  In the process of this enegotiationf, each of them voiced their stance on this never-before-seen issue variously.  They are different from etribal selvesf which are subjected to etraditional systemf or ecustomary lawf, likewise different from emodern selvesf which are perfectly free from any customary bias\of course, there is no such person even in modern societies. 

 

Discussion and Conclusions

After the age of Structural Adjustment Programme in Africa, the discourse of social/human development seems to be the most vigorous framework in the social theory.  If we fully follow that framework, which says development of traditional societies into emodern civil societyf, we would view African rural areas with the image of eprimitivef, ebackwardf or eunderdevelopedf societies.  In that view, villagers are living under traditional systems and only emodernizationf frees them to be economic-men or civil who get freehand subjectivity.

But when we see the details of everyday life in societies, we can find peoplefs practices, which generate moments of social changes.  In the process of that, customs are not always the yoke of social changes, sometimes they become the media for changes, and it would be the same as any local societies in edeveloped countriesf in changing times.  The frame of the discourse of social/human development does not capture that.  Finding various patterns of social changes through observation in field research, and making dominating development discourse to be interlocutor for the thought on epossible societiesf, I think that should be the practical significance of doing anthropology in Africa today. 

 

Notes

(1) In general, esocial normf is expectations which serve as common guidelines for social action.  But it is a complex rather than a system, here I technically define it as complex of myriad customs and values.  In Sabiny vocaburary, endarastitf is the one, which usually translate traditional belief, custom, or culture.  Moore [1975] suggested that to analyse social changes, we must take into account inter-relationships of process of regularization or situational adjustment, and the factor of indeterminaicy of social norms.  

 

References

Berry, Sara. 1993 No Condition is Permanent: The social dynamics of agrarian change in sub-Saharan Africa.  University of Wisconsin Press.

Comaroff, J. & R. Simon 1981 Rules and Processes: The cultural logic of dispute in an African context.  The University of Chicago Press.

Goldschmidt, W. 1967 Sebei Law. University of California Press.

Goldschmidt, W. 1976 Culture and the Behavior of the Sebei.  University of California Press.

Moore, S. F. 1975 gUncertainties in situations, indeterminacies in cultureh, in Moore and Myerhoff eds. Symbol and Politics in Communal Ideology. Cornel University Press.

Matsuda, M. 1989 (in Japanese) gFrom syntagmatic meanings of discourse to practises of manipulating paradigmatic idiomsh@Tanabe ed. Renewing Anthropological Knowledge: Ideology and Practice. ­ Dobunkan Publisher. pp. 357-386

Mudimbe, V. Y. 1988 The Invention of Africa: Gnosis, philosophy, and the order of knowledge.  Indiana University Press.

Pottier, Johan. 1985 gReciprocity and the beer pot: the changing pattern of Mambwe food productionh.  In Food Systems in Central and Southern Africa.  School of Oriental and African Studies, pp.101-137.

Shiraishi, S. 2006-a. gFrom beer to money: Labor exchange and commercialization in eastern Uganda.h African Study Quarterly (The Online Journal for African Studies), University of Florida, Vol. 9, Issue 1 & 2. (http://web.africa.ufl.edu/asq/v9/v9i1a4.htm)

Shiraishi, S. 2006-b. gDiscourse, Social Relationships, and Value Related to Land Tenure: A Case Study of a Claim for Land Rightsh. Paper presented in workshop on "Whose Creative Energy? Action and Reflection in the Construction of Value," at the Kyoto Symposium of 21st Century COE Program, ASAFAS & CSEAS, Kyoto University (November 9, 2006, Kyoto)

Simmel, G. 1990 [1900] The Philosophy of Money [2nd ed.].  Routledge & Kegan Paul.

 

 

 


A-4

INDIGENOUS PRACTICES FOR PEACE AMONG eVIOLENTf PASTORALISTS IN EAST AFRICA

 

Toru Sagawa

Graduate School of Asian and African Area Studies, Kyoto University, JAPAN

E-mail: sagawa@jambo.africa.kyoto-u.ac.jp

 

Keywords: Peace construction, Cross-cutting ties, Conflict transformation, Ethiopia-Daasanetch

 

Introduction

Pastoralists in East Africa have been represented as typical eviolentf and ewarlikef people not only by neighbouring agriculturalists and urban inhabitants but also by anthropologists. A lot of researches focused on their eviolent customf and analyzed the cause of war. Some researchers attributed its cause to the pastoral way of life itself [e.g., Ferguson, 1990] and have taken a part in reproducing the negative image on pastoralists.

As I have conducted field research in the Daasanetch, who are agro-pastoralist in the border area among Ethiopia, Kenya and Sudan, since 2001, I have come to recognize such representation is one-sided view. I know that they have fought with neighbouring pastoral peoples who are classified as eenemyf (kiz), for more than 50 years. 48% of Daasanetch adult men (n163) have gun, mainly Kalashnikovs. 67% of adult men (n174) raided the livestock of kiz and 18% of them killed the member of kiz in previous wars.

Nevertheless, many Daasanetch have kept various friendly cross-cutting ties with the member of kiz. When a war ends, they come and go to each land, live together, and make friendships and kinship relations with each other. People have recovered peace by themselves after a war ended. Anthropologists have not shed proper light on such indigenous practices for peace [Fry, 2006: xiii].

Today, external actors have intervened in elocalf areas, where anthropological researches have traditionally been conducted, to construct peace. However, intervention without an understanding of the indigenous logic of war and peace will bring only confusion to the area. Richards [2005: 19] recently pointed out that it is important for the anthropological research to emphasize the glocal potential for spontaneous peace.h Researchers need to make discreet efforts to examine it not only to criticize the biased representation on pastoralists, but also to make outside interventions exert positive influences to local communities.

In this paper, I describe the amicable trans-ethnic cross-cutting ties among the Daasanetch and neighbouring ethnic groups. I then clarify how they relate to the process of inter-ethnic war and peace, and argue the potential for peace construction which cross-cutting ties have.

 

Trans-Ethnic Cross-Cutting Ties with eEnemyf

Amicable trans-ethnic cross-cutting ties are classified into co-residence, trade, friendships, and kinships [Sagawa, in press]. I only write on co-residence and friendships.

According to the Daasanetch, there is no clear-cut territorial boundary with neighbouring ethnic groups. In their language, the word that corresponds to boundary is gaar. For example, when they divide the cultivation land among each household, they draw a line, or gaar, with a stick. Gaar can also refer to a certain wood or a dip that marks the border between villages and to stones that mark the national border. In short, gaar refers to physical objects used to mark a territorial and social boundary.

There are no such gaar with neighbouring ethnic groups. Of course, they said gA is our land, B is Turkanafs land,h with referring place names. The land between eour landf and etheir landf is called dieto and is mainly used for grazing. In dieto, members who belong to different ethnic groups make livestock camps and use natural resources together, so I refer to dieto as co-resident land.

Through co-residence and trade, a person forms a friendship (beel) with someone, who is compatible with him, to make their relation continual. I asked 169 adult men whether they have friend(s) belonging to other ethnic groups. 71 of them had and an average of 2.3 per capita. People across all age groups had them. When they form a friendship, they ordinary make a gift.

An important characteristic of gift between friends is that it is not a one-time-only transaction. Initial gift is often not reciprocated immediately, so the gift recipient will visit the gift giverfs village to offer a counter gift. Even if the counter gift had been done, most of transactions are not the eequivalent exchange,f compared with the exchange rate of trade, so that a newer gift will be leaded. Asymmetrical relations resulted from the transactions mediated by the time and/or the non-equivalent exchange ensure the continual mutual visiting.

One Daasanetch told me that both of the Daasanetch and neighbouring peoples are peoples who egive cattle skin (rokode siis)f to others. In the evening, people spread cattle skin in front of the house, and they drink coffee, enjoy talking, and sleep on it. ePeoples who give cattle skinf means peoples who have good hospitality and entertain others without asking immediate return. The person who is entertained would say to the host, gYou should come to my village with your wife to eat my livestockfs meat.h Fraternity created from hospitality and mutual-visiting enable them to form equal and continual relation.

 

How Cross-Cutting Ties Relate to War and Peace

How does the amicable relation change the antagonistic relation and war happens? Problems that stem from co-residence and mutual visiting trigger war. When the Daasanetch lived together with members of other ethnic groups or visited to other ethnic groupsf lands for peaceful purposes, they were killed by kiz or vice versa. The killers were often youths who hungered for praise from community members as ea brave man who killed enemy.f After such small conflict, both groups moved to each eour landf from dieto, and made a symbolic boundary by sorcery (muor), and war occurred. Co-residence and mutual visiting gave youths opportunities to kill kiz, and the slain memberfs group started large-scale wars for revenge.

On the other hand, there are cases in which cross-cutting ties contributed to the alleviation of conflicts. In the Terle War (circa 1950), Nyangatom youths tried to attack the Daasanetch who lived together soon after they had heard that Terle, a Daasanetch youth, had killed a Nyangatom woman. Then, Lugute, a Nyangatom elder, persuaded the youth not to immediately attack the Daasanetch, saying, gI have a good Daasanetch friend. I gave his baby my name, Lugute, and they live here now. You should not kill my people.h The youths accepted his word and postponed their attack until the next day. In the meantime, the Daasanetch moved to the south with their livestock, and only one herd was raided in the next dayfs attack. Because one elder had an intimate friendship with a Daasanetch, the war remained on a minimal scale.

Cross-cutting ties are also necessary to form peace in the post-war situation. Battle would finish for one or two days. However, antagonistic relation continues and mutual visiting remains absent. Under such ecold warf situation, individuals who have cross-cutting ties with kiz visit to enemyfs land for peace speech meeting or co-residence.

Peace speech meeting is held when one group visits the other group after a war ends. At the meeting, people frequently referenced the names of co-resident places or other groupsf members: gWe lived and herded the livestock together in X placeh or gI ate the livestock meat with Yfs father many times.h These testaments reminded people of the friendly relations before the war and persuaded both groups that recapturing the friendly relations would be mutually beneficial. Their orations were persuasive because, as a matter of fact, they have recovered co-residence and mutual visiting every time after a war ended.

For the Daasanetch, peace (simiti) does not exist without amicable trans-ethnic interactions. One elder talked about simiti: gWhen the rain comes and the land becomes cool, we move with livestock and live together with the Turkana. Elders talk on many issues under the shade of a tree all the day. Youths herd together under the sun and take a rest together under the shade of a tree. If the Daasanetchfs herd starts to move when a Daasanetch herd boy is sleeping, a Turkana boy shakes away him and says, eYour herd is moving.f This is simitih [Merikile, 26th March 2006].

This notion of peace does not imply a passive condition of eno warf which is the dominant notion of peace in modern Western world. Simiti is a dynamic process in which people recover mutual visiting, renew old friendships, and form new social relations. In short, simiti means that individuals actively engage in amicable face-to-face interactions with others irrespective of each ethnic attribute. eNo warf is just one requirement for simiti. Because individuals who have cross-cutting ties with kiz take the initiative in recovering mutual visiting against antagonistic relation in group-level, the inter-ethnic relation shifts from gno warh to simiti or from enegative peacef to epositive peacef [Davues-Vengoechea, 2004].

 

Conclusion

Trans-ethnic cross-cutting ties have taken necessary roles to mitigate conflict and recover peace in the border area. At the same time, I pointed out that co-residence and mutual visiting between members of different ethnic groups sometimes resulted in conflicts and they escalated to large scale war.

The matter for peace construction is not to negate trans-ethnic amicable interactions as ga cause of war.h We should be cautious about such idea, because we know the consequences brought by indirect rule of the British colonial government in Kenya. The colonial government established tribal zones to curtail mutual visiting among ethnic groups, partly because they regarded such relations as potential sources of conflict. A divide-and-rule policy might achieve a temporary state of gno war,h but it has also aggravated a sense of exclusivity or etribalismf and antagonism among ethnic groups from a long-term perspective [Matusda, 2000]. In Ethiopia, ethnic federalism policy since 1991 seems to bring about similar consequences, the escalation of ethnic nationalism [Turton (eds.), 2006].

In the field of conflict theory and peace studies, some scholars recently use the term econflict transformation,f instead of econflict resolution.f Galtung [1996] discussed that conflict itself cannot resolve, but the process of conflict can transform to the direction of peace. Igriss [2005: 195] described that conflict is gthe unavoidable friction resulting from differences in human affairsh and, at the same time, gis as much at the root of progress and innovation as it is of polarization and violence, depending on how those engaged in conflict understand and deal with it.h They seem to appreciate Simmel [1955: 13] who recognized that conflict is gone of the most vivid interactionsh and contains both of positive and negative aspects.

Considering conflict transformation approach, we need to examine how to prevent the escalation from first small conflict in individual level to collective violent exercise in ethnic group level. It will be the important task in the peace construction process to transform individual cross-cutting ties to more positive powers which prevent or mitigate collectivization of violence. Current and future interventions need to respect the indigenous cross-cutting ties as glocal potential for spontaneous peaceh and, at least, should be careful not to exact negative influences to these ties.

 

References

Davues-Vengoechea, X. 2004. A positive concept of peace. In G. Kemp & D.P. Fry (eds.). Keeping the Peace: Conflict Resolution and Peaceful Societies around the World, pp. 11-18. New York, Routledge

Ferguson, B.R. 1990. Explaining war. In J. Haas (ed.). The Anthropology of War, pp. 26-55.Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Fry, D.P. 2006. The Human Potential for Peace: An Anthropological Challenge to Assumptions about War and Peace. New York, Oxford University Press.

Galtung, J. 1996. Peace by Peaceful Means: Peace and Conflict, Development and Civilization. Oslo, PRIO.

Idriss, S. 2005. Principles for conflict transformation: Practitioners in Africa. In P. Chabal, U. Engel & A, Gentili (eds.). Is Violence Inevitable in Africa?: Theories of Conflict and Approaches to Conflict Prevention, pp. 193-212. Leiden, Brill.

Matsuda, M. 2000. Everyday forms of ethnic conflict and super-ethnicisation in Kenya. Takeuchi, S (ed.). Conflict in Africa, pp. 55-100. Chiba, Institute of Developing Economies (in Japanese).

Richards, P. 2005. New war: An ethnographic approach. In P. Richards (ed.). No Peace, No War: An Anthropology of Contemporary Armed Conflicts, pp. 1-21. Oxford, James Currey.

Sagawa, T. in press. Persistence of trans-ethnic cross-cutting ties and its potential for peace construction in the Daasanetch. In E Gabbert & S. Thubauville (eds.). Modalities of Cultural Neighbourhood in Southern Ethiopia. Köln, Verlag.

Simmel, G. 1955. Conflicts and the Web of Group-Affiliations. New York, Free Press.

Turton, D (ed.). 2006. Ethnic Federalism. Oxford, James Currey.

 

 

 


B-1

IDENTITY, GENDER AND REPRESENTATION: REFLECTING ON THE SCULPTURE eMOTHER UGANDAf

 

Rose Namubiru Kirumira

Department of Sculpture, School of Industrial and Fine Arts, Makerere University, UGANDA

E-mail: kirumira@starcom.co.ug

 

Keywords: Uganda, Sculpture, Identity, Gender, Representation

 

Introduction:

Art making performs a function in life, it allows one to balance out their creative side with the critical side. Art is a tool to understanding oneself better and the roles one is playing in life and as a result understanding other people better. As one understands of themselves they get better their work will become more honest and there is some thing in that honesty that people respond to. It is also a personal believe that one can earn a living through art and at the same time make art concerned with everyday issues that take place in our society freezing them in material and shape, becoming a mirror of our sociological challenges. I try to fulfill my creative aspirations through artistic excellence and depiction of subject matter that is emotional and spiritually uplifting. My work is concerned with the notion that the artists and viewer is able to put parts of information together during the act of art making/viewing, resulting in what is perceived as a whole – or as art – but this wholeness is temporary and dependent on either, location, association or recognition.

 

This paper will seek to discuss the dynamics underlying the place of individual artistic practice in Ugandan public spaces and how this in turn relates to public reception and criticism. So as to be able to construct a presentation about personal visual artistic practice within the broader given area, an effort has been made to approach the subject by using personal experience and trying as much as possible to reflect on the circumstances surrounding the location of a personal artwork and the ensuing public reception of it. In deciding to make use of the artwork, I put my understanding of how a female artist living in a transitory situation deals with challenges of representation and reception by reflecting on the conflicts between the three elements of artist/student and public being eselff and, the said artwork and the public being the eotherf. The person of the public takes on two roles. Other artworks will be explored in relationship to the issues arising in this conflict.

 

eMOTHER UGANDAf, was made in 1990 in partial fulfillment of an M.A.F.A (Muk). As UNDP set up its offices in 1888 it commissioned the sculpture as a way of concretizing its presence in Uganda and also as part of institutional policy. The sculpture is 15 feet high made in white concrete, formed of symbols of a female, UNDP and its development areas (health, education, agriculture and construction). It was made to symbolize strength, purity and growth, qualities that needed to be encouraged in Ugandafs 1990. A lot of energy was invested in fulfilling the task of making a personal and public transitive representation. And as already mentioned it was made with deepest belief in artistic excellence and depiction of subject matter. The artwork later became a source of emotional and spiritual growth as two constructs, the personal and the public were challenged as the piece was being completed. Three occurrences happened surrounding this work that now maybe seen as reflecting a conflict that was not apparent then between the artist and student, the artist and authority, the artwork and the public.

 

Illustration A: Mother Uganda, UNDP Headquarters Kampala

 

The period of concern here is 1986 to 2000, and focuses on public sculpture found in and around Kampala.  By public sculpture I will refer to those two or three-dimensional artworks erected in public spaces and are accessible to the public physically for reception and criticism. I confine myself to the evolutionary stages of sculpture making and how it affects personal artistic presentation and production. I will also examine the academic, social-cultural and economic factors influencing the making of public sculpture in Uganda. Palmberg, (2005) observes that there is a divide between the artistfs expectations and the nature of support that the artistfs community can give including the fears of enegative interferencef. An examination of the confrontations between public interests in sculpture and the pressures of making and exhibiting a public nude female sculpture will be given.

 

By 1990, Uganda was finally accepting the end of a bitter civil war and not only looked forward to the coming in of a new political system but was still experiencing a degree of insecurity as it examined the extent of national destruction. In most public spaces, a lot of structural damage had been done through bombing, looting or by simple neglect. Throughout all this destruction many public sculptures, within and around Kampala made before the war and the period between 1970 and 1980 had survived, those that had been at near completion still stood while no significant public sculpture was being made. Experiencing the new political stability from 1986 and moving in tandem with the liberalization of education, economy and socio-cultural freedom, a new energy of artistic expression emerged as spaces of cultural production witnessed new talent in the performing, literal arts and, painting and graphic genres of the visual arts. However very few artists ventured into making sculpture and those who did only managed within institutional environments for economic reasons. Sculpture and public sculpture in particular has not been a popular genre on Ugandan artic scene.

 

Between 1990 and 2000, after almost fifteen years a slight change was seen as several free standing public sculptures were made mostly in Kampala; the War Victim, Makerere University Library; Hatching the Golden Eggs, Makerere University; King Ronald Mutebi, Buganda Parliament;  Kampala monument, Kampala City Council grounds and the UNDP monuments, UNDP, headquarters.  It is important to note that these sculptures had been made by artists attached to the School of Fine Art, Makerere University. They were at the same time commissioned by an institution, therefore responsibility towards their reception and criticism lay with the institution and almost none of them used the female figure.

 

Illustrations B, C, D: Five contemporary sculptures

 

Chronologically Art in Uganda between 1935 and 2001 more than twenty six monumental sculptures by 30 artists are listed. Of those listed 4 artists were actively engaged in making public sculpture between 1986 and 2001, (Kyeyune, 2003). These figures reflect only the artists who went through the Margaret Trowell School of Industrial and Fine Art, almost no sculpture was being made by artists outside this institution. The progressive formation of artists in Uganda specializing in sculpture making during these years was mostly a result of the School and a few as teachers from Kyambogo Teacher Training College. Thus the trend and transformation of art in Uganda between 1986 and 2001, with particular reference to public sculpture significantly rotated around the history of teaching at Makerere School of Fine Art. The shifts between ideologies of indigenization and modernization, social-political references and technical excellence were in turn a reflection of the political instability, economic challenges and social uncertainness in the country. The challenges that Uganda was going through helped artists to discover new [and alternative] approaches to subject, form and content that have significantly affected the instruction and [art] production of recent years, (Sunanda, 2000).

 

In 1986 the only significant open public sculpture that the artist and his/her audience could make a reference to, though many were being made by graduate students and well established sculptors in surrounding offices, schools and colleges, was the Independence Monument made among others before 1970. The presence of most of these sculptures had been overtaken by social-political challenges over the years such that their significance was not so much due to their aesthetic or representational meaning but physical being. It had been several years since artists had had the opportunity to make a public sculpture let alone be commissioned and allocated a space for one.

 

Illustration E: Independence Monument

 

The first reaction following the inauguration of eMother Ugandaf was by a gentleman then working at the UNDP Headquarters as a driver who made a comment that if he had the power [especially in an unstable environment] he would grenade it. This was a direct attack on the female person of the artist, with a reminder of the violent nature of retaliation typical of those times. The second reaction, formal in nature was by the then director of the National Gallery the late Buluma disassociating him and the institution he was representing from the offending nude artwork with raised a serious debate on wrapping the figure in a loin cloth. These responses can be construed as the reception of the sculpture being foreign therefore the eotherf, a nude female figure shown in public, intruding on the moral of society by an individual during a time when reconstruction of what had been a degenerating society was taking place.

 

In response the Head, School of Fine art responded to the Director explaining the place of nude sculpture in the Ugandan context. The work though depicted as one is three parts one growing out of the other and has two distinct styles to it. The lower part is geometrically designed to serve as a pillar to the upper almost realistic female figure. The making of the sculpture reflects the relationship between freedom of expression by the artist/student and the influence of the supervisor and mentor. The original idea ended midsection of the current piece, though later it was advised that the upper piece, a different study be added to it.

 

Later works show continuous engagement with subjects that have been personally and socially challenging. There is anxiety and apprehensiveness in making public works of art where the experience of the activity is new. Public sculpture in Kampala and other districts of Uganda is on the increase reflecting several characteristics that point towards changes in reception of visual arts. A lot of images are culturally representative but few using the female figure in complete nude. The boom in the commercial building industry has given a new dimension to the meaning of artistic reception and commissioning of sculptures including road side sculpture sold as part of building materials. The format of the genre is including two-dimensional work made both in concrete and metal, sculpture has moved from institutional to commercial public spaces and artists making it are not all from Makerere University. The overriding factor now is that artists need to survive, and to live as an artist you must get an income from your work. Some genres are more sensitive to the failing market than others, in [Uganda] particularly sculpture, and, of course, also crafts, (Palmberg, 2004). In the area of public sculpture the need to express one self in an artwork is in some cases overtaken by the lack of resources for the basic inputs.  The line between art (non-commercial) and commodity (commercial) is drawn here and this method of categorization within the local Ugandan context is apparent.(1)

 

Illustration F: Popular sculpture in Kampala

 

Notes

(1) Kasfir gives a relevant version of this stand so long as is seen from the relationship between the Western categorization of African art and not African about contemporary African art.

 

References

Appiah, K.A. 1991. Is the Post-in Postmodernism the Post-in Postcolonial? Critical Inquiry 17, 336-357.

Communication 3, 1-21.

Eriksson M. Palmberg M; SAME AND OTHER, Negotiating African Identity in cultural Production, Nordiska Africainstitutet 2001

Fabian, J. 1978. Popular Culture in Africa: Findings and Conjectures. To the Memory of Placide Tempels (1906-1977). Africa: Journal of the International African Institute 48, 315-334.

Kyeyune George, 2003 Art in Uganda in the 20th Century, Unpublished Doctoral Thesis.

La Duke, Betty (1991). AFRICA Through the eyes of Women Artists. Africa World Press.

La Duke, Betty (1997). AFRICA Womenfs Art Womenfs Lives. Africa World Press.

Palmberg M and Kirkegaard A; Playing with identities in contemporary music in Africa, Nordiska Africainstitutet 2003

Sidney Littlefield Kasfir (1999) Contemporary African Art. Thames & Hudson.

Sunanda, Sanyal (2002). Imaging Art, Making History: Two generations of Makerere artists. PhD Thesis, Emory University, USA.

Szombati-Fabian, I. & J. Fabian. 1976. Art, History, and Society: Popular Painting in Shaba, Zaire. Studies in the Anthropology of Visual Communication 3, 1-21.

 

 

 


B-2

LIVELIHOOD AND CREATIVITY: A CULTURAL IMPLICATION OF INDIGENOUS BANANA CULTIVATION IN BUGANDA

 

Yasuaki Sato

Graduate School of Asian and African Area Studies, Kyoto University, JAPAN

Bioversity International, UGANDA

E-mail: y-sato@jambo.africa.kyoto-u.ac.jp

 

Keywords: Banana, Creativity, Landrace, Homegarden, Buganda

 

Introduction

Banana (Musa spp.) has been a centre of the livelihood system in parts of the Great Lakes region of East Africa, including Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, and the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. This crop is fundamental to subsistence economy, local custom and agricultural landscape. This study argues both cultural and biological aspects of the unique livelihood system in Buganda, central Uganda. They are well known as the people who maintain their identity as banana farmers. Through illustrating two topics, landrace and homegarden from the viewpoint of human-plant interrelation, I discuss how creativity is embedded in their banana cultivation.

Creation, the act which makes new things from raw materials, can be understood as a changing process of relation between the subject and the object. This idea can be applied to relation between a farmer and banana plants, although we should take into account differences of two phenomena, fine arts and agriculture.

One of the differences is producerfs sense of purpose. A work of sophisticated fine art clearly reflects producerfs intention and approach. When people appreciate it, they feel his/her aim. On the other hand, crops do not necessarily reflect farmersf intention directly. It is unclear who appreciate it, except the cultivator themselves. Agricultural practices are casual works for their subsistence, and are the process of approaching plants, which is formed in relation with their social lives and natural environment. It includes customs that farmers have no clear objectives. And more importantly, the cropfs mode of life has much effect on the variation of farmersf act and recognition.

Another difference is about the representation. In the case of fine arts, material bodies, such as sculptures, paintings etc. are the outcome of the works, and are his/her expressions. In contrast, the outcomes of agriculture are more complex, and not result but process. It appears at many levels. Agriculture brings not only harvest, but also landraces, gardens and even livelihood systems. These kinds of creation are always on the way of continuing.

Between January to October 2005 and September 2006, I carried out participant observation and semi-structured interviews in K village, northern part of Rakai District. A married couple and children is the basic unit for management of garden and for diet. A banana garden encloses each house. Most of them subsist on agriculture and animal husbandry. Main crops are banana, sweet potato and maize. Main cash crop is coffee, and some sell several bunches of bananas in a month. The climate is warm throughout the year and it has two rainy seasons in a year.

 

Landraces

Botanically, there are three categories of banana found in Uganda today; (1) the cultivars of East African coast and nearby islands, (2) the plantains, and (3) the East African Highland bananas (EAHB) which I mention. Since their introduction to East African great lakes region several thousand years ago, EAHB have diversified through mutation in this area and acquired names in various languages (Karamura 1998; Tushemereirwe et. al. 2001). In addition to the mutations, peoplesf recognition, cultivation and utilization are indispensable prerequisites of the creation and maintenance of the landraces. Some evidences can be observed in Buganda.

Their classification has flexibility and personal variations. People classify the plants of EAHB (s.g. kitooke kiganda, pl. bitooke biganda) to various landraces (s.g. ekika, pl. ebika) by their appearances. Key parts for their classification is bunches (female inflorescence) and leaves. While the scientific approach of morphological taxonomy identifies five groups (clone sets) in EAHB (Karamura1998), folk taxonomy does not set the names of the category between kitooke kiganda and ekika. They tend to make fine recognitions to continuous characteristics such as length and size, and distinguish landraces as a complex of many characteristics. They possess even wide acquaintance with subclassification under common landraces, or changes of landraces. It depends on each experience in their own field, and this kind of knowledge is shared with only few people. Many of the villagers say that they learned from parents or by observing real plants in their own garden. It indicates that farmers get their knowledge informally, and take careful attention to the difference of the forms of individual plant.

Each house has many landraces in a garden. The interview reveals that each household has about twenty landraces on the average. With regard to the introduction of new landraces, there are two major cases which farmers explain. The first common case is when a son becomes independent. He receives a sucker (baby plant) from his parents or relatives. The second case is when they visit his friends. They find an unknown banana plant with a big bunch, and received a sucker as a gift. The banana diversity is maintained through inheritance from parents, through chance to encounter with unknown landraces, and through building of friendships with people who can exchange suckers. These findings mean that they collect landraces in their informal social context. This argument is supported by the fact that they do not share a rigid sense of value to the diversity itself.

 

Homegarden

Banana gardens have some unique features. Their creation and management are combined with their socio-cultural traits.

Traditional banana garden in Buganda is managed continuously for a long time. The cycle of the garden management begins from the inheritance or purchase of the land. When a son becomes independent, his father allows him to use a part of the land. They can take over even banana gardens. There is a report that gardens as old as 50-60 years used to be known in Uganda (Tothill 1940).

Banana gardens are clearly differentiated from gardens of other crops verbally and in utility. They call a banana garden lusuku (pl. ensuku) in spite of enimiro (pl. enimiro), the general term for a garden or a field of crops. People make fences at the boundaries of their banana gardens. A garden surrounds each dwelling, and covers the space for daily activities such as bathing, washing clothes, making backcloths, having a rest, etc.. In most cases women frequently go back and forth between the dwelling, the kitchen, the yard and the banana garden.

The garden is like as a pocket of diversity. A banana garden allows various landraces and species to be planted together. It can accept both landraces in large number of plant and those in small number. It takes a long time to accumulate the landraces in household. People recognize the landrace name and the spatial position of each individual plant with knowledge of soil condition, appearance of the plants and the genealogy. In addition to it, the garden evokes various emotions and memories. They associate their experience with the specific plant or position in the garden. It is common that they make graves in the garden. They make rituals on death of head of a household, avoidance of curse, and a good harvest. Cognitive maps of their garden show that they associate the garden with their life designs. Banana gardens can be expression of farmersf lives.

 

Conclusion

In two topics, I find that creativity belongs to two domains in their agriculture. The first is the aesthetic sensibility of farmers toward banana plants and banana gardens. The second is peculiar interrelation between human and the plants, or social exchange between relatives or friends.

This study showed that people perceive minute differences of the plantsf appearances, and take a keen interest in differentiating them. Their sensitivity and tendency are cultural bases to embrace the mutation and the diversity in their gardens. Their landrace and homegarden also stimulate various imaginations.

Banana plant has large herbaceous stem, is perennial, requires a long maturation period, and demands extended and continuous management. However it is quite tough to classify the plants and control the growth in the garden, it is attractive material for them to observe continuously. I also contend that creation and management of landraces and homegardens are profoundly social and mental. The homegarden in Buganda has ensured both accumulation of landrace and farmersf knowledge in their span of life. Both cultural and biological factors contribute creative aspects of the agriculture.

Because of current problem including population pressure, shortage of labour, declining soil fertility and pest outbreaks, Uganda witnessed drastic yield decline during 1970s and 1980s (Karamura 1998). The period of management in a garden has become shorter. These changes imply that the mode of their attitude to the crop has also been converted. This process is not visible, and is difficult to be recognized. I suggest that we should pay more attention to creative aspects in their agriculture. That understanding can also encourage the contemporary banana farmers.

 

References

Karamura, D.A. 1998. Numerical Taxonomic Studies of the East African highland Bananas (Musa AAA-East Africa) in Uganda. Ph. D Thesis, University of Reading.

Tothill, J. D. 1940. Agriculture in Uganda. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Tushemereirwe, W, Karamura, D.A, Ssali, H, Bwamiki, D, Kashaija, I., Nankinga C., Bagamba, F, Kangire, A, and Sebuliba, R. 2001. Bananas (Musa Spp). In Mikiibi J. (ed.) Agriculture in Uganda. Vol. II. Crops. Fountain Publishers/ CTA/ NARO.

 

 

 


B-3

MUTHUNGUCI: DANCING THROUGH A CULTURAL LANDMINE AMONG THE KIKUYU

 

Mike Kuria

Department of Humanities, Faulty of Arts, Daystar University, Kenya.

E-mail: mkuria@daystar.ac.ke

 

Keywords: Literature, Oral poetry, Kikuyu, Traditional music,

 

Music/poetry was the means through which the Kikuyu expressed their consciousness. It was through music/poetry that they expressed their societal values whether religious or secular. There would hardly be any event that was not accompanied by music and dancing.  The words of Osadebey et.al as quoted by Miruka (1994, 87) saying: gwe sing when we fight, we sing when we work, we sing when we love, we sing when we hate, we sing when a child is born, we sing when death takes a tollh definitely ring true for the Kikuyu. Music was the means through which they were and had their being to paraphrase St Paul. In the words of Cagnolo (2006, 47) the g[t]he Agĩkŭyŭ community was one of singers par excellenceh. When colonialism came and begun its attempt to depersonalize the Kikuyu or to redefine them using western values, the Kikuyu used music as a vehicle of resistance. Naturally the colonialists reacted by banning the songs. The Kikuyus counter reacted by inserting subversive messages in the Christian tunes approved by colonialists. This is how they resisted being defined by the other and asserted their selves.

 

Kikuyu music is classified into genres and which are age specific and sometimes gender specific. My research findings suggest that nearly every age group had its own kind of music. Young uncircumcised boys had Muthuu, middle aged married men and women did Muthunguci, young men danced to Kibata, old women had Gitiiro, and old men had Gichandi. From a very early age the Kikuyus learnt to express themselves through music. Learning through music started early and the children learnt through observation, participation and then graduated into teachers. The content of the music was determined by the genre and therefore was age specific.

 

The genre being examined in this paper is a prime example of how form and content are interlinked in Kikuyu music. Muthungucifs main preoccupation was wooing or what the kikuyu call gnyimbo cia umbanih. Inevitably, the subject of sex is inseparable from such a genre. Through this genre the Kikuyu expressed themselves as sexual beings. In this paper I examine how muthunguci was used to navigate around what I am calling a cultural land mine: sex. I call it a cultural land mine because even though it was central to the Kikuyu, yet a mishandling of the rules of engagement drew very serious and far reaching consequences.  This was not only so if you breached the rules of engagement in practice but also in speech. Individuals had to balance between liberty and control. We have to remember also that adult rated content could hardly be censored for the children because the singing and dancing took place in the open and in most cases during the day. Adult content therefore, rather than being rated as is done with adult movies and TV programs these days was censored by levels of language. This paper demonstrates how, by employing different levels of language, performers of Muthunguci were able to liberally discuss sexuality within a very culturally restrictive environment. It also demonstrates how the Kikuyu defied being defined by colonialists and used music to assert and preserve their independence and identity.

 

Muthunguci needs to be understood in the context of two practices that appear contradictory in reference to sexuality among the Kikuyu. First it was taboo for an unmarried woman to have a baby outside wedlock. This was considered so irresponsible that if such a thing happened the woman had very slim chances of finding someone to marry her. She was derogatorily referred to as a ggichokioh meaning a reject. It meant that such a person was shunned by contemporaries and could not participate in social functions of her age mates. Songs were composed to warn others against making the same mistake that such a person had done.

 

The paradox of the situation is that the youth were encouraged to socialize, fondle and engage in foreplay without ever engaging in sex. This practice has been captured by Jomo Kenyatta in his classic Facing Mt Kenya. It is known as gngwekoh. It involved young unmarried men being allowed to spend nights together with women they liked and who were potential wives but only engage in fondling. The women would wear a special garment known as gmwenguh that would be tied tightly around the waist and which the young men were never to undo. If any man ever tried to undo mwengo in the process of performing ngweko and was reported to his peers, the man would be ostracized and derided by his peers, both men and women, and he too would have slim chances of finding a marriage suitor. Sexual self control was therefore central to the Kikuyu way of life.

 

The second context in which Muthunguci should be understood relates to a practice among the Kikuyu where a woman was legally allowed and even expected to have one child outside wedlock. This would not be done in secret or behind the husbandfs back, otherwise this would, paradoxically, be understood as adultery (utharia) which was not approved. The husband would be fully aware and had to approve his wife having a baby with another man, usually his best friend and agemate. It has been argued that this practice was done to ensure that should a disease that members of one family were genetically prone to sweep away a homestead; then there would at least be one child whose genetic composition would be different and therefore would survive and ensure that the family lineage was not completely wiped out. This means that the child was reared as a legitimate family member and would never be made to feel like an outsider, indeed it was unlikely such a child would ever find out that he was not a biological product of his gfatherh. This practice is, as is obvious, in sharp contrast in its sexual liberalism to the previous case of pre-marital sex.

 

If the reader is aware of the duality of liberalism versus restriction in matters of sexuality, s/he will find it easier to understand Muthunguci. Muthunguci was danced by two people of the opposite sex who, though married, were not man and wife. In the words of one of the most famous Kikuyu folk song singers, Joseph Kamaru, when it came to Muthunguci, the scene was completely liberalized.  There was no such thing as man and wife in terms of who danced with whom? However, although a woman could dance with anyone she liked, she was not obliged to accept an invitation to dance if she did not want to. Men who were able to convince as many women as possible to dance with them were held in high esteem and referred to as gciumbanih meaning they were experts at wooing women. The words of Muthunguci, like many other Kikuyu songs, involved linguistic parrying with a process of coding and decoding information.  The two singers would dance and converse in riddles, parables, and metaphors related to sex and in so doing also pass some of the Kikuyu values.

 

Some of the values I have able to isolate from the songs collected include a sense of responsibility where women were warned against going to dance without fulfilling their domestic roles such as taking care of animals; and men were encouraged to work hard and to accumulate wealth otherwise they would be seen as irresponsible and therefore not worth dancing with. In other words a work ethic was inculcated in the people through the words of Muthunguci. It is interesting that even now the Kikuyus are known for being hard working, business minded and given to the pursuit of wealth. Poverty was looked down upon among the Kikuyu. Muthunguci also encourages people to practice responsible parenthood. Women would be warned against being too close to men who were given to leaving their gseedsh every where. It is also clear that the Kikuyu loved knowledge and wisdom. Messages were coded using metaphors and to be a good dancer/singer/poet, one also had to be able to grasp and interpret the coded messages as well as respond in coded messages too. This was also the way in which the matter of sex was discussed in front of children without being offensive or vulga. They borrowed from their immediate environment and cultural practice such that a woman could be seen as a garden or  a farm and the man as a farmer. Children in their role as hindrances against their parentsf romantic and gunholyh escapades would be metaphorically referred to as known plants in the community that were difficult to deal with.

 

In short then, this paper deals with genre of Muthunguci and its role in the identity construction of a Kikuyu as a sexual self operating in a society that was both restrictive and liberal in handling matters of sexuality.  Special attention is given to the language of Muthunguci and the ways in which this borrowed from the environment to come up with metaphors that ensured only those well versed in the language and mores of the people could understand and participate in the creation and performance of the genre. In the process the Kikuyu not only chronicled their history and culture but also transmitted the same through well known participatory teaching and learning methodologies such as question and answer; testing, monitoring and evaluation; reward and motivation amongst others.

 

 

 


B-4

KARIOKI SHOW: THE NEW POPULAR ENTERTAINMENT IN KAMPALA

 

Midori Daimon

Graduate School of Asian and African Area Studies, Kyoto University, JAPAN

E-mail: daimon@jambo.africa.kyoto-u.ac.jp

 

Keywords: Urban culture, Stage, Performance, Interaction, Sympathy

 

1. Introduction:Karioki show in Kampala

eKarioki showf is the popular entertainment in Kampala. It is often performed at the stage of restaurants, bars, or clubs. You can say karioki show is one of club culture, but usually clubs in Africa is for rich people, because you have to pay much money for the entrance fee. However, the entrance fee of karioki show is free or ranges 1000~2000Ush (Ugandan Shilings). Karioki show is open for everyone, and actually people who watch it are men and women of all ages, its performers are young people in their teens or twenties though. Therefore, you can call it one of popular culture in Kampala.

This show has started in Kampala at the end of 1990fs. Currently, it becomes the very favorite in Kampala. When we try to understand the reason why this show is so popular, it is not enough to say that ebecause the entrance fee is cheapf. I think it is important to consider interactions with people which karioki show has. So this time I will try to describe those interactions and in conclusion I would like to suggest the situation of karioki show where who is watching / being watched is not settled makes people enjoy themselves.

 

2. The Space of Karioki show

Karioki show is a kind of performing arts, which is played at a stage. It is usually done at night time for about three hours. At the show around 50 songs are played(each song is around 4 minutes) and they do various actions to those songs, for example, emimingf (moving lips to the song to imitate real singing), dance, and ecomedyf (moving lips to the song and representing the meaning of the lyrics humorously according to a performerfs interpretation). There is always a big sound of songs and MC talking from speakers. People come to the space where there is karioki show with their friends, partner, and children, and they can enter and go away freely anytime. After finishing karioki show or at around the end of karioki show, workers at a performance place start to clear away chairs, and clean up for closing.

In the space of karioki show, there are other entertaining facilities not only karioki show. There are usually TVs or big screens on the right and left side, above, 90 degrees side, or the opposite of a stage. Generally those TVs and screens show soccer games of Europe, Nigerian or American drama, movie, or eBig Brotherf which is a popular program, you can not hear any sounds from TVs or screens because of big sounds from karioki show though. Besides the space also has a pool table at the side or opposite of a stage. Seats are plastic chairs, most of which are arranged facing the stage, but some of which facing tables, or TVs and Screens. People can turn the direction of chairs according to what they want to watch. And of course, this place is a restaurant, bar or club, you can eat and drink. So there are many choices at this space in addition to watching karioki show, like playing pool tables (1 game costs 500~1000Ush), watching pool tables or TVs, making conversations, eating something, and drinking alcohol. People choose what they want and enjoy it. Mostly they select not only one thing but more than two things at the same time.

 

3. The Interaction between Karioki show and People 

As stated above, in this space where there is karioki show people can do other things. Therefore you can not say all people concentrate on the show. It looks at first people enjoy pool tables, TVs, beer, dishes, and conversation, and ignore the performance on the stage or consider it as one of TV programs. However, through observing how karioki show and people are related, we can see their way of enjoying it, which is supposed to be one of the reasons why karioki show is now very common in Kampala. Then, concretely I try to watch interactions between performance / performers and people who are in the space.

The reaction of people is not the same. Each person has a different response. For example, after each performance which changes each song, usually they donft clap performers. According to each performance, one, five, or twenty people clap them. There is, however, a rare case when all people clap. Then sometimes people give some money (100 ~ 1000Ush) to performers. There are different ways of giving; e.g. throwing money from where people sit, stretching out their hands and then waiting the performerfs coming, asking a worker of the place, going near a stage, or going on a stage. Sometimes if they go on a stage, they give money while dancing with a performer. And people give performers not only money but also beer, ground nuts which they can buy at that place or candies. Performers continue their performance while taking things which are given.

At times performers go down from a stage and invite people to come to a stage. Not often but sometimes performers succeed in taking people to a stage. And people who go on a stage and dance with performers are given money by other people who are watching the show. Even when performers donft invite, people may go on a stage and start to dance. Then performers immediately make performance with them.

As above, although people donft have the same reaction, but each person watches or takes part in a show according to what they feel like. From their behavior you can get people enjoy a show not only by performance but also by themselves. It seems that clapping and giving money to performers show not only people praise performance but people are happy needless to say about going to dance with performers. And you can see performers who flexibly deal with those reactions from people and creating performance, and at the same time people who enjoy other peoplefs reactions and its performersf responses.

 

 

4. The Interaction between the Space of Karioki show and people

People can also react to something which is not related with performance and performers. For example, the moment a certain song for karioki show starts, sometimes one or some people shout for joy and wave their hands. Some of them go and give money to a performer immediately when he/she has just started his/her performance. It seems that money is not for performance or performers, but for that song or the original artist who sings it. There are also people who stand and start to dance in the place they sit. These dancing people mostly donft watch a show but start to do miming performance for other people. Besides people react to the program of TVs. Especially to soccer games, they raise and clap their hands, and shout. Joy of getting goals by the team which they support and cheer makes them dance with songs used by karioki show.

And sometimes performers also change programs influenced by the situation made by people. For example, after the upsurge by a soccer game, they try to put the support song for the soccer team on their performance program. And then people rejoice at that performance with the support song and start to give money. Like this, people react not only to karioki show, but also to all sounds and all visual matters, so that the reaction has a possibility to change and make a new performance. In short, people come to enjoy that place including karioki show, not karioki show itself.

 

5. Conclusion

The observation, which I have noted above, shows that in the space of karioki show you can not say performance/performers on a stage and people are independent or unrelated. People can participate in performance, go on a stage, have interactions with performers, and enjoy other things, all of which make that place more amusing.

 Considering these observations, that space doesnft give any power to someone (cf. performers) and some place (cf. a stage). It means people can choose what to see, what to do and where to go. The reason why karioki show is popular is not because performers / performance or stages themselves attract people, but because people can represent their joyfulness by themselves like dancing with performers, and what they do also makes other people sympathized happily. You can also say the position of watching / being watched can easily change at the space of karioki show. Moreover, people enjoy karioki show by being seen by other people, both on the stage, performers and outside the stage, audience.

In this observation, it was found out that performers are also influenced by reactions from people and make some change impromptu. So in future, considering the back grounds of performers, I would try to think how performers challenge karioki show and how they consider about being seen on a stage. I would like to approach meanings and senses of watching humans or being watched through this study. In my approach I will consider the details of karioki show performance, for example, how to make emimingf and ecomedyf, and social situations where these performances have been produced.

 

 

 


C-1

TRADITIONAL AND MODERN MEDICINE IN THE FIGHT AGAINST HIV/AIDS SCOURGE

 

Wotsuna Khamalwa

Faculty of Art, Makerere University, UGANDA

E-mail: wotsukham@yahoo.co.uk

 

Keywords: Healing, HIV/AIDS, Medicine, Beliefs, Women

 

There has traditionally existed mutual suspicion and latent hostility between traditional healers and modern medicine practitioners. This is partly a result of the colonial mentality where anything African was perceived with suspicion and associated with backward ways, with demons, etc. Traditional healers were given the general appellation of witchdoctors, implying, not so subtly, that they were more associated with death than life, killing rather than healing. Given the fact that in Africa healing and medicine are closely linked with religion and rituals, these became targets of ridicule and attack, to be supplanted so as to make way for the planting of the gospel. It is informative that even today, many decades after political gindependenceh, there is still widespread suspicion about traditional methods of healing. It is equally informative that traditional medicine is referred to as galternative medicineh in its own homestead.

HIV/AIDS has so far no cure and it is decimating the most productive sector of society, namely between the ages of 15 and 49. Uganda has been credited with being the first country to have brought down the infection rates from the upper twenties to single digit levels, around 6%. This success can be traced to the concerted efforts of many stakeholders, including inter alia government, educational institutions, religious groups, civil society groups, and artists, to mention but a few. But above all, the need to fight this great enemy, however, seems to have provided the forum for traditional healers and western medical practitioners to forge a united front against this scourge. In Uganda, these two medical antagonists pooled their resources in an organisation known as Traditional and Modern Health Practitioners Together against AIDS (THETA).

HIV/AIDS infection rate is highest in sub-saharan Africa, which also happens to be the poorest part of the world. As if that is not bad enough, this part of the world lacks sustainable ability to fight this war. The health sector in sub-saharan Africa is not well developed and receives little attention from respective governments, leaving the few and run down medical facilities gasping for air to remain afloat, given the large numbers that inundate them. But worse still, the garmyh of medical personnel who would be required to fight this war are fast breaking ranks to seek survival in the west. Pushed away by a gdying wageh, poor health infra structure and huge numbers of patients, these medical personnel are attracted to the west where they have better medical facilities, invest more money on health facilities, and pay their medical personnel a gliving wageh.

Women are more disadvantaged than their male counterparts since they do not own wealth producing assets such as land and income generating activities. Due to financial constraints, where both the husband and wife are infected, the man will probably access the life prolonging ARVs while the wife does not, yet she will continue to nurse the husband and do other domestic chores such as producing food, fetching water and firewood etc.

Traditional healers command a lot of respect from all and sundry, and even people who profess foreign religions such as Christianity or Islam, will tend to consult them when in crisis, albeit in secret. In Uganda, the modern doctor to patient ration is 1>20,000 patients or more, while that of traditional healers to patient ratio stands at 1>100 patients. More and easier availability makes traditional healers the medical practitioner of choice for a big sector of Ugandans. Consequently, traditional healers are now playing an important role of filling the gap in the modern doctor to patient ratio. What they need is to be empowered by government and NGOs in their important service to community. There is need to train them in methods of diagnosis and dosage, and to monitor their services to weed out possible quacks among them.

A comparison of HIV/AIDS policies in Botswana and Uganda highlights the kinds of policies necessary to come to terms with the pandemic in Africa, where it is already a public health disaster. This comparison also helps to focus attention on the question of whether condom use or the ABC method is the more effective.

 

 

 


C-2

CULTURE, SEXUAL VALUES AND AIDS RISK AMONG THE BATORO(1), WESTERN UGANDA(2)

 

Charles B. Rwabukwali

Department of Sociology, Faculty of Social Sciences, Makerere University, UGANDA

E-mail: crwabukwali@ss.mak.ac.ug

 

Keywords: Culture, Sexual values, HIV/AIDS, AIDS risk, Fidelity

 

Many sexual values, behaviors and attitudes of sub-Saharan African cultures have implications for AIDS infection and transmission (Caldwell, et al. 1989).  Among the Batoro traditionally, premarital virginity and postmarital fidelity in females was highly prized, while males were given more sexual leeway (Perlman, 1975; Taylor, 1962).  With this background in mind, a number of questions were asked regarding sexual values of the women in this study.  Each of the 76 married women was asked if she had ever had sex with anyone other than her husband.  The majority of the women, 71 (93.4), responded in the affirmative to this question.  However, for most of them, this was before they had married. Seventy-four (97%), of the married women in the sample denied currently having a boyfriend.  When asked why they did not have a boyfriend, most of the women reported that they feared that they husbands would beat them up or leave them if they found out that they have a boyfriend.

Women in the study were asked how many different men they would estimate that they had sex with in the last twelve months and in the last five years.  Overall, the majority of the women, 64 (53.3%), reported having sex with only one man in the last twelve months.  Forty-six (38.3%), reported that they did not engage in any sex at all in the previous twelve months.  Similar results were obtained with regard to the womenfs sex history during the previous five years, with 65 (54.2%) of the sample reporting only one sexual partner and, 32 (26.7%), reporting on sexual activity in the past five years.

It should be pointed out that it is extremely difficult to know whether this information is completely reliable.  Women may fear to reveal complete details of the number of their sexual partners for fear of being labeled prostitutes (gmalayash) which is stigmatizing.  If on the other had, they are telling the truth, this might reflect behavior change in the face of the HIV epidemic.  At the same time, it is important to note that there were age differences among the women in the sample with respect to behavior change in the face of HIV/AIDS.  For example, the greatest proportion of women reporting on sex in the last 12 months was among the old women than the younger ones.  Of the 15 women aged less than 20, three (20%), reported no sex in the last 12 months, while among the 15 women aged between 31-35 years, 9 (60%), reported having no sex in the same period.  In sum, therefore, most abstainers are older women.  It seems younger women have not modified their sexual behavior as much as the older women, suggesting that this change may be related to life stage.

Published data demonstrate that a sexual double standard exists in most East African societies, Toro inclusive, that permits men to engage in extramarital liaisons and to practice polygamy, while expecting women to refrain from extramarital relations, display patience, respect, and obedience to their husbands despite their husbands infidelity (Kilbride and Kilbride, 1990; Rwabukwali, et al. 1990; Kisekka, 1976; Southold, 1973).  However, when asked if they thought their husbands might be having sex with other women, only 22 (18.3%), of the married women replied in the affirmative, which seem rather low.  Often, these women learned of their husbandfs extramarital affairs from reports from friends and relatives.  But in a few cases the women caught their husbands in the act of having sex with other women.  A few of these women divorced their husbands, but most decide to stay.

Men were reported to have more sex partners than their wives over the past 12 months and in the last five years.  While most women reported having sex with only one partner, both in the past 12 months and in the last five years, 11 (9%), of the women thought that their husbands had sex with at least two women over the last 12 months and 15 (12.5%) of the women thought that their husbands had sex wit at least two women in the last 5 years.

When asked how old they were when they first had sex, 52 (43.3%) of the sample stated that they had their first sexual experience before age 15.  Since marriage in Toro society is relatively early, this first sexual contact is most likely to be within marriage.  In most cases women have their first sexual encounters with a man who is older, with 32 (26.7%), of the sample reporting that their man was between sixteen and twenty years of age.

At times there is discrepancy between cultural ideals and reality.  For example, when asked how old should a girl be before she has sex, most women, 82 (68.3%), said the girl should be between sixteen and twenty years before sex.  When asked why this should be the case, when many of the women had begun sex at earlier ages, it was pointed out that times have changed.  Both older and younger women in the study agreed that these days a girl needs to complete school before she can begin thinking of sex and marriage.  Moreover, with the advent of deadly diseases such as AIDS, a girl has to be careful who she has sex with.  Most respondents, 81 (67.5%), thought that a boy should be between sixteen and twenty years before he has sex.  Most women pointed out that by this age, a boy has completed school, and is old enough to have children, pay taxes, and manage a family.

Further insight into the sexual values and practice of the women in this sample was obtained by asking the women to describe occasions when they might have sex with another man other than her husband.  Some of the occasions/reasons why a woman may have sex with someone other than her husband include: influence of alcohol, husbandfs absence for long period, to avenge a cheating husband, and if the husband is impotent.  However, the most commonly mentioned reason was failure by a husband or boyfriend to meet all the necessary material and economic needs of his wife and family.  In Toro society, men are expected to provide proper housing for their families, buy sufficient food, buy clothing for the wife and family, and meet medical expenses.  If a husband fails to meet these obligations, then a wife may be justified in getting an outside lover who is willing and able to meet her economic needs.  Women in this sample also mention that some women take on extra lovers because they are naturally sexy (gbasihanih) and cannot be satisfied by one man alone.  It was also reported that if a marriage is gshakyh, in that the man shows no intention of regularizing the union by paying bride wealth, the woman may seek additional sexual partners as a hedge should the current union collapse.

Respondents were asked to name any occasion when a woman is expected to have sex with someone, not her husband.  Most women stated that currently in Toro there are no occasions when a woman is expected to sleep with someone other than her husband.  However, the women pointed out that in the past there were such occasions.  For example, the paternal aunt of a girl was expected to have sex with her niecefs new husband to gcheckh if the man was able to gperformh his sexual duties properly.  It was also pointed out that in the past, certain types of persons, for example, the brotherfs of onefs husband, were permitted to have sex with the wife of their brother.  However, the majority of the women agreed that currently this is not widely practiced.

When asked if there are times when it is wrong for a woman to have sex with anyone, even her own husband, occasions mentioned include: when the woman is in her menstrual period, when a close relative or friend dies, when either the woman or the man is sick or tired, while the woman is nursing a baby, and during pregnancy.  Violations of these prohibitions are thought to cause illness, but not death, as in the case of the Baganda of Central Uganda (McGrath, et at. 1993).  Most of the customs, prohibitions, and injunctions described so far, were regarded by the women in the study as no longer operable in current Toro society.  They were perceived as old traditional customs that are widely ignored by women, especially those in urban areas.  However, this does not mean that these traditional customs and practices are completely irrelevant to Toro society.  To the extent that these cultural rules provide a range of conditions regarding what is appropriate and inappropriate sexual behavior, they serve a guide to sexual conduct.

When asked if infidelity is a common reason for a woman to leave her husband, and for a man to leave his wife, women reported that infidelity is not a common reason for a woman to leave her husband.  The woman may quarrel, but she will not leave her husband.  On the other hand, women reported that infidelity can lead a man to leave his wife.

It is clear therefore that in Toro society, infidelity by a woman is less tolerated than that of man.  Reflecting a cultural value in many Ugandan communities that put a premium on a wifefs docility and fidelity, while accepting or even expecting a man to have more than one sexual partner McGrath, et al. 1993; Obbo, 1980; Parkin, 1966).  Several reasons were given why a woman is likely to tolerate a cheating husband.  Women pointed out that, if a woman chooses to leave her husband because of his infidelity, she would have to leave her children behind, since by custom, children in Toro society belong to the husband and his lineage.  Secondly, many women are poor and depend entirely on their husbandfs income. If they left, they would be denied this support and their welfare would suffer.  Moreover, as the women pointed out, if a woman leaves, then she will be paving the way for the man to bring in his lover as the new wife.  For these reasons, most women decide to remain with their husbands despite their husbandfs infidelity, although in this study I cam across some women who did leave spouses who cheat.

As can be seen from the above presentation, the cultural sanctions against a womanfs infidelity are more serious than that against a manfs.  These sanctions can include severe beatings, and other forms of mistreatment.  Nevertheless, despite these sanctions, women do have affairs, and the respondents in this study gave me specific instances where husbands caught their wives having extramarital sex.  Some of the reasons why a woman may have sex with someone other than her husband have been presented in the previous section.  But, mainly they revolve around the failure of husband to meet the economic needs of his wife and family.  Those charged with HIV/AIDS Control need to take this into account.

 

Notes

(1) gMutoro: (Singular), gBatoroh (Plural) are people who inhabit the Kingdom of Toro in Western Uganda.  Their language is gRutoro.h

(2) Data on which this chapter is based was collected during 12 months of fieldwork is Kabarole district, Western Uganda, during the 1996 – 97 period.

 

References

Caldwell, J. et al. 1989. The Social Context of AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa. Journal of Population and Development Review. (15): 185 – 233.

Kilbride, P.L. and Kilbride, J.C. 1990. Changing Family Life in East Africa: Women and Children at Risk. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania Sate University Press.

Kisekka, M.N.1976. Sexual Attitudes and Behavior Among Students in Uganda Journal of Sex Research (12): 104 – 114.

McGrath, Janet W., Rwabukwali, C.B, Schumann, D.A. et al. 1993. Anthropology and AIDS:  The Cultural Context of Sexual Risk Behavior Among Urban, Baganda Women in Kampala.  Social Science and Medicine. 36(4): 429 – 439.

Obbo, C. 1980. African Women. Their Struggle for Economic Independence. Zed Press. London.

Parkin, D. 1966. Types of African Marriage in Kampala Africa. (36): 269 – 285.

Perlman, Melvin L. 1975. Children Born out of Wedlock and the Status of Women in Toro, Uganda. Rural Africa (29): 95 – 119.

Rwabukwali, Charles B. et al. 1990. International Cooperation on AIDS Research: The Social Organization of Risk Behavior in Kampala, Uganda. Presented at the Annual Meeting, National Council for International Health, Washington DC.

Southwold, M. 1973. The Baganda of Central Uganda, In Cultural Source Materials for Population Planning in East Africa, Vol.3. Nairobi: Molnos, A. (Ed.). East African Publishing House.

Taylor, B.K. 1962. The Western Lacustrine Bantu. African Ethnographic Series.Oxford University Press

 

 

 


C-3

THE WHEREABOUTS OF TRADITIONAL CUSTOM "LEVIRATE" AMONG KENYA-LUO SOCIETY

 

SHIINO Wakana

Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies

E-mail: wakana@aa.tufs.ac.jp

 

Keywords: Widow, Levirate, Custom, Pro-husband, Gender, Initiative, HIV/AIDS, Kenya-LUO

 

I would like to discuss the custom called "levirate" or "widow inheritance" in social anthropology. This is the custom currently called "wife inheritance" by media, such as the papers and radio and often seen in East African societies including Kenya-Luo society which I have been doing anthropological field work.

In rural Luo communities of Kenya, a widow is called echi liel, or "a wife of the grave", and is expected to begin a ter-relationship with a jater, or "a man of ter", soon after her husbandfs death. Through this ter-relationship the widow gets a new man as a pro-husband, and she is supposed to get any kinds of supports by him. The offspring she conceived are understood to be the children, not of the jater, but of the widowfs deceased husband. The ter-relationship is formed within the context of her prior marriage, because Luo do not regard that union as ended with the husbandfs death.

This ter-relationship had been referred as "widow inheritance" or "levirate" by social anthropologists. These two anthropological terms was defined by the structural-functionalists as Radcliffe-Brown [1950:@64].

Since Modern-Anthropology began in the 1920s led by Western people, it has been rare to treat the matter concerning widows. When it became the center of attention, they mainly treated it in the context of the method of continuation of the descent group, and called it "levirate" or "widow inheritance".   

Thus, this traditional custom on widows has been considered that the left behind wife is expected and prepared to keep having the child who inherits the deceased husbandfs name in cooperation with his brother when a marriage, which is an important social system for a human groupfs reproduction, is interrupted for a married malefs death. Also, in an additional meaning, it has been thought to be the system to decide a certain male who is supposed to support a life of a married woman in case she becomes a widow. In this meaning, it seems that the life of a widow has been decided by her husbandfs relatives. However, I wonder if that is really true.

Most of them did not pay attention to widows in the community because mostly their studies based on menfs view. Very few studies have been concerned to widows themselves. But if widows were dealt with, previous studies have tended not to view these relationships from the widowfs perspective, preferring instead to see them from the vantage point of men. Indeed, only a small number of studies have focused specifically on widows.

In the village where I did fieldwork, as a matter of fact, I witnessed widows chose the male partner on her initiative, which made me have doubt about the way widows were treated in modern-anthropology.

Surely, as for Luo society, it is strongly believed that a married woman who lost her husband should have a fixed partner rather than be alone, and consequently, Luo women could have difficulty to choose their lives freely. However, in spite of being such determinate circumstances in which there is "Luo-morals", a widow is not necessarily allocated a certain male.

Although a new partner of a widow should be a man who called "brother" by her deceased husband, it can not be missed that there is surely the existence of widowfs independence, as a widow has a right to choose her favorite man as her partner as long as we see it with a broad interpretation of such an idea and a viewpoint which goes back into their genealogy. Widows adhere to the traditional idea that they should have partners instead of the deceased husband, at the same time, they make a choice to start new phase of their lives by finding their favorite men as their new partners. In such a meaning, though it is under the limited condition, it may be able to be said one of the "emancipation" for Luo women.

Moreover, when the relationship with the man who she chose goes bad, she decides to separate from him and find another man with whom she can feel better. That is, a widow produces the tactics of life so that she can have her initiative and independence with taking advantage of the idea which she should have a substitute husband rather than be alone. It could be said just "creation"-act.

Therefore, I can not approve of the viewpoint of modern-anthropology in which Luo peoplefs "ter" was called "widow inheritance" on the assumption that a widowfs passive nature. It is based on my experience that I lived with widows and caught a glimpse of their tactics. I would rather claim that naming it "pro-husband choice" having a widow as the subject, is more suitable for Luo society.

However, the problem as a serious obstacle in recent years is the existence of the AIDS which has been threatening widowsf initiative. What threatens the life of Luo people is not only HIV/AIDS but malaria, amoebas, cancers, traffic accidents and so on, and it is also true that the young lose their life easily. HIV/AIDS occurs much more often than other places in the district near to the Lake Victoria as everyone knows.

In addition, it can be said as the current matter that Luo men tend to have an irresponsible relationship with widows. In many cases, they ignore the traditional role of them; as a new partner of a widow, he is supposed to support her life instead of the deceased husband, which is one of what Luo people expect the social system "levirate". Therefore, it can be also said that "emancipation" for Luo women will be completed when an environment that will enable Luo women to have initiative or be independent, if they want to, is put in place.

However, as a matter of fact, in village society, the surveillance and cultural pressure on behavior of widows are still strong. This reality is pointed out as the so-called gender matter especially of neglect of female initiative and, moreover, a cause of spread of the HIV/AIDS caused by continuation of "levirate". As for the illness of HIV/AIDS, it is needless to say that achieving moral consensus on the reality of illness and how to treat the sick in the local level is necessary.

From now on, it is expected to create their original new method to cope with the disease which suite the present situation and also is in the advantage of traditional custom. In this presentation, I am going to introduce some states of various "levirate" in Luo society with using field data. Outsider for Luo people such as Media and some people who do not belong to a village society have reported the "problem" concerning "levirate" (ter-relationship) with an institutional comprehension. I would like to show that there are various aspects of the system including the advantage and disadvantage by treating the concrete examples in the village.

The various aspects of the system indicates complexity of the "problem" with which the present age Luo people faces and, at the same time, it may be able to be expected that Luo people themselves solve the "problem"; Luo produce the tactic from within their society.

 

 

 


C-4

MASCULINE SELVES AND THE CIVILISING MISSION: eRACEf, EDUCATION AND SEXUALITY IN ZAMBIA

 

Anthony Simpson

The International Centre for Contemporary Cultural Research, University of Manchester, UK

E-mail: Anthony.Simpson@manchester.ac.uk

 

Keywords: Discourse, eRacef, Modernity, Masculinity, Christianity

 

This paper draws upon my ethnography of a Catholic mission boarding school for boys in Zambia in the 1990s (Simpson 2003) and upon my longitudinal study of a cohort of students whom I first taught in the early 1980s and who came to adulthood in the shadow of AIDS.  I call the school eSt. Antonyfsf; students in the 1990s called the school eHalf-Londonf – a nickname that for them encapsulated all their great expectations of what a mission education should deliver.  Their dream was that education would transform them into new and eeducatedf selves.  Their desire for education was a desire to become Other in all kinds of ways.  Their education became their own evoyage outf from their childhood pasts and towards a desired place of ereciprocal recognitionsf (See Fanon 1986:218) in the order of the postcolonial state.  In their refashioning of selves, students revealed that they were willingly caught within at least part of a contested discourse.  In their ambivalence towards their Africanness, they exposed the distance they desired to place between themselves and their rural origins.  Their eblacknessf was often read by them as a curse. Mudimbe (1988) has analysed the manner in which the colonial project cast Africa and Africans as essentially Different and Other.  This discursive formation, I argue, has indeed remained a powerful force in much postcolonial education in Africa.  It could be witnessed in the way in which many students in the 1990s were seduced by the narrative of education as a civilising process, a process that inevitably entailed a profound sense of alienation and a pejorative evaluation of themselves as eAfricansf.  Sousa Jamba, who grew up and was educated in Zambia, speaks of this self-denigration as ethe African Diseasef (1989:9).  An early edition of the American Catholic New Testament used in teaching religious education at St. Antonyfs was entitled Good News for Modern Man.  As well as excluding women, the title ironically points to the ways in which various expressions of Christianity are often appropriated in Zambia as signs par excellence of all that is considered to be emodernf and ecivilisedf. 

Like Mudimbe (1994a, 1994b, 1988), I find Foucault egood to think withf but also egood to think againstf.  Foucault ([1969] 1977) argues that institutional spaces such as prisons and schools effectively create edocile bodiesf, constructed from discourses which inform the physical structure of the institution and the practices within it.  The subject in Foucaultfs discourse is produced by the gaze of authority.  I follow Foucaultfs fine insights into attempts by the institution of a Catholic mission school to impinge and inscribe itself upon the body and thus to achieve an interiorisation of control.  However, as has been noted by several commentators (see, for example, McNay 1992, 1994; Giddens 1982), in Foucaultfs early work there is a marked absence of a fully developed theory of subjectivity or agency.  In his early denial of agency and choice, Foucault often fails to allow sufficient space for revolts against the gaze.  In his last interview, Foucault recognised that in his early work he had left aside the problem of the subject (Kritzman 1988: 243; 252).  From a sociological perspective, Foucault rejected any notion of the edeep selff or enaturef that has to be deciphered (Taylor 1989: 488).  However, the ethics and aesthetics of the self that is faced with the challenge of reinvention are ideas that dominate Foucaultfs final period.  Recognising that individuals always retain a space in which to resist the process of subjectification, the subject who was once conceived of as simply an effect of discursive power relations now achieves an active role.  At St. Antonyfs there were myriad micro-practices, often conducted in eback regionsf (Goffman 1959), by which power and authority were subverted and where spaces were created for actors to try on other roles, not least in contests over Christianity.  St. Antonyfs was thus a space characterised by both heteroglossia and disjunction.  However, for St. Antonyfs students in the 1990s, there were limits to the space of re-creation.

The role of the political economy in subject formation is highlighted in my discussion.  Zambians in the 1990s often blamed themselves for Zambiafs sharp economic decline (see also Ferguson 1997: 146; 1999).  Many of the students of St. Antonyfs, surveying events in Zambia and elsewhere on the continent, compared themselves to the emusunguf, the white man, and found themselves and other Zambians sadly wanting.  Many believed that their failure essentially lay with being eumuntuf, eAfricanf.  They longed for the good life that education might still deliver but they were haunted by a discourse of failure as the tangible effects of the collapse of the Zambian economy and the consequences of the AIDS pandemic made themselves felt.  Many students at St. Antonyfs asked why God had been so unfair as to curse Africans and yet show his favour to musungus (whites/ eEuropeansf).  Like Mudimbefs students (see Mudimbe 1994a), students at St. Antonyfs suspected that the curse of Ham remained inescapable.  Yet how far-reaching has this process of alienation and self-denigration been and what resistance have African students and former students offered?  My paper demonstrates an unending contest at St. Antonyfs for the moral high ground, especially in religious matters, for the right to discern Godfs purpose, for the claim of etruef conversion.  Much of the work of conversion, as I explain in the paper, was conducted, not by the Spanish Catholic missionary Brothers who ran the school, but by Born-Again and Seventh Day Adventist students who established schools within the school and who who used the missionaries as exemplars of tepid, inauthentic – and therefore false - Christians.

Students exhibited their desire to be eeducatedf and emodernf and, at least publicly accepted the discipline of the Catholic mission school.  They actively assisted schooling their subjectivity within the process in which they, too, wanted to find themselves – the civilising process.  However, the informal education that newcomers received at the hands of other students through the practice of emockeryf revealed the manner in which many students rejected the value of virginity and celibacy promoted by their missionary educators dedicated to the Virgin Mary.  Many students rejected being made into the puerile image, and thus denied the power of the institutionfs attempts to objectify and subjectify.  The students acted on their own on the bodies of newcomers (in the student argot ekwiyosf).  They worked their own transformations; in turn, they were transformed, as they acted to socialise newcomers in ways which at times reinforced the master narrative of the institution and, at times, expressed values that were at variance with it.  I will outline some aspects of emockeryf.  The kwiyo was required to demonstrate, in Herzfeldfs phrase (1985:16), that he was egood atf being a man and, in this context, this demanded an account of sexual knowledge and experience.       

My continuing longitudinal study of a cohort of former students traces their education in masculinity, through life-histories and interviews, from childhood and adolescence to their mid-forties.  I explore constructions of masculinity in contemporary Zambia and consider their consequences in the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Many men identified sexuality as a site of difference between eAfricansf and eEuropeansf.  eAfrican sexualityf was variously evaluated as either superior to, or inferior to, eEuropean sexualityf.  The concept of etraditionf was often employed to suggest what was authentically African.  Along with etraditionf, the Bible was invoked as the moral arbiter of sexual acts and as evidence of menfs gsuperiorityh.  I briefly map out menfs reported experience and discuss their sexual preferences and their attitudes towards various forms of erotic behaviour in order to draw attention to the relevance of their sexual practices for HIV/AIDS transmission. Performance anxiety, readily apparent in youthful sexual activity, continued to haunt many men well into their adult lives.   

I briefly highlight the father-son relationship in childhood and adolescence within the household, a relationship that most men characterised as one of fear.  Boys witnessed often-troubled relationships between their parents.  Violent discipline at home taught the adolescent the importance of toughness, of hiding fear and pain in the presence of others.  This discipline did little to foster communication and the development of relationships of trust and care.  For many men this would have profound consequences, particularly in their relationships with wives and other sexual partners; when they suspected that they might be HIV positive, they were unable to share their fears.  The relationship with the mother, who often acted as a buffer between a boy and his father, was a notable exception.  He was sure that she would always care for him, whatever the circumstances.  This closeness between mother and son would endure.  However, while husbands would readily reiterate the phrase, eYour wife is your motherf, few of the men appeared able to establish such a relationship of trust with their wives or with other women who became their sexual partners.  The spoken and unspoken lessons of childhood and adolescence recalled by these Zambian men – and partially witnessed by me during their teenage years – provoked for many a restless anxiety to conform to an ideology of hegemonic masculinity.  Among the consequences was sexual activity that put both men and women at risk in the HIV/AIDS pandemic. 

Former students of St. Antonyfs struggled, with varying degrees of success, to perform their allotted role of gbreadwinnerh in difficult economic circumstances and to demonstrate to peers and family members that they, not their wives, made all the major decisions in the household.  Most men received an extraordinary degree of care from their wives.  While I witnessed the very real affection and friendship between partners, the absence of trust in many marriages, particularly in sexual matters, was palpable. Despite their expectations prior to marriage, almost all the men in this study engaged in unprotected extramarital sex.  The absence of communication between husbands and wives, despite many wivesf fears that their husbands would give them AIDS, was a familiar pattern.  Most wives felt they couldnft speak, and few felt they could escape from their marriages.

There is no space here to describe the manner in which men and their wives, in their grief and loss, strove to understand the HIV/AIDS pandemic in the context of their religious understandings of human experience nor to discuss in any detail responses of former students and their wives towards HIV prevention campaigns where esexf is constructed as a particular kind of gmoral objecth (Pigg and Adams 2005).

My research reveals that many menfs sense of their manhood is something that has constantly to be achieved and reclaimed in the performance of masculinity in public and in intimate spheres.  Indeed in both spheres, masculinity may best be seen as a fragile entity, encompassed by a deep sense of insecurity most acutely felt within, and indeed particularly produced by, life within the male peer group.  HIV/AIDS has brought particular challenges to the hegemonic construction of heterosexual masculinity in Zambia.  My study demonstrates that, even within a small group of former mission school students, men are variously positioned in relation to this construction, some contesting it and maintaining a greater distance from it than others. I argue that many more might be ready to challenge dangerous ideologies of masculinity.  This offers hope for continuing efforts to combat the pandemic in Africa.

 

References

Fanon, F. [1970] 1986. Black Skin, White Masks, with an introduction by H.H. Bhabha. London: Pluto.

Ferguson, J. 1997. eCountry and City on the Copperbeltf, in A. Gupta and J. Ferguson (eds.) Culture, Power, Place. Durham and London: Duke University Press.

Ferguson, J. 1999. Expectations of Modernity: myths and meanings of urban life on the Zambian Copperbelt. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Foucault, M. [1969] 1977. Discipline and Punish: the birth of the prison. New York: Pantheon; trans. Alan Sheridan-Smith of Surveillir et Punir: naissance de la prison. Paris: Gallimard.

Giddens, A. 1982. Profiles and Critiques in Social Theory. London: Macmillan.

Goffman, E. 1959. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Garden City, NY: Doubleday Anchor.

Herzfeld, M. 1985. The Poetics of Manhood: contest and identity in a Cretan mountain village. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 

Jamba, S. 1989. eThe African Diseasef, The Spectator, 9 September 1989.

Kritzman, L. D. (ed.) 1988. Michel Foucault: politics, philosophy, culture, interviews and other writings, 1977-1984. London Routledge.  

McNay, L. 1992. Foucault and Feminism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

McNay, L. 1994. Foucault: a critical introduction. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Mudimbe, V. Y. 1988. The Invention of Africa. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Mudimbe, V. Y. 1994a. Les Corps Glorieux des Mots et des Etres: esquisse dfun jardin africain a la Bénédictine. Montreal: Humanitas; Paris: Presence Africaine.

Mudimbe, V. Y. 1994b. The Idea of Africa. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Pigg, S. L. and V. Adams. 2005. eIntroduction: The Moral Object of Sexf. In Sex in Development: Science, Sexuality, and Morality in Global Perspective, ed. V. Adams and S. L. Pigg. pp.1-38. Durham and London: Duke University Press.

Simpson, A. 2003.  eHalf-Londonf in Zambia: Contested Identities in a Catholic Mission School. Edinburgh University Press for the International African Institute, London.

Taylor, C. 1989. Sources of the Self: The making of the modern identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

 

 

 


Special Speech

On the Idea of Humanity IN THE NAME OF SIMILITUDE(1)

 

V.Y. Mudimbe

Department of Literature, Duke university, USA

E-mail: vmudimbe@duke.edu

 

Ideo iuravi in ira mea:    

non introibunt in requie meam

—Ps. 94

I.

gI lie, I speak,h such is the beginning of an article by Michel Foucault on gLa pensée du dehors,h in an issue of Critique (229,1966).  To apprehend the singularity of a contemporary imaginary space, that of fiction, and to think this fiction in its own right, instead of claiming to relate it to an absolute truth, or thinking about the truth according to the expectations of paradigmatic hypotheses, the French philosopher invokes the good old argument of Epimenides about a liar.  Facing an allegory, the gexodush of Africa as represented in the fifty years that separate us from the 1955 Nehru discourse in Bandung, and how this image has been reflecting the unfolding, an outgrowing narrative of a destitution, looking at what it symbolizes in our common history, I thought that I could emphasize its dramatic significance by rephrasing Foucaultfs astonishment for the modernity of the Epimenidesf effect.  From within the limits of a series of margins, I heard, in effect, Charles Manson in the interviews he gave to Neul Emmons about his life, and transcribed in Manson in His Own Words (Grove, 1988), saying this: gthe more I speak, the more I lie; the less I speak, the less I lie.h  Its rapport to the pertinence of the Greek citation, Epimenidesf liar expressing a truthful statement when stating it to be a lie, seems obvious, for sure manifest.  Its submission to the well-known classical decoding, on which elaborates the French philosopher, on the speaking grammatical subject versus the object spoken about, goes also without saying.  What is less visible, at least immediately, is the deviation that the statement actualizes: in Epimenides as well as in Mansonfs self-judgment, the acting subject who is also the cognitive subject separates itself from the object of cognition, and makes any observer wonder whether the whole exercise might not be sheer fiction.  As a result, one does not know any longer where to look for a credible well-trained moral subject, and demures at the suggestion of any responsible performer bearing witness to the truthfulness of an activity.  One understands then how, deducing a lesson from Epimenidesf paradox, Foucault could hypothesize that the speech of a speech leads us through literature, but perhaps through other paths, to this outside where the speaking subject disappears. 

It is in the 1950fs and 1960fs, contemporary with the Bandung project, and often blinded by it, and judgmental of measures from an international economy that, in the subsequent years, will marginalize its alterity, and folklorize it in a more efficient manner than during the colonial rule, that the discourse of an African difference surges, combative and perplexing at the same time. From the outset, it is multiple, diversified in competing theories. Heterodox, these theories are often framed by reflectors and schools of thought which are generally mainstream, and whose intellectual and spiritual genealogies are stable, good mirrors of humanist assumptions and values; self-referential, these theories are conceptualized and expressed frequently in foreign languages, and addressed primarily to a non-African audience; insurrectionary, these theories are testimonies for the promotion of a human condition and its particular interpretations, but within the historicity they claim to challenge.  Thus, their outsidedness.  In fact, these theories for a difference are an exegesis on an organism and its contrivances in a teleological history, its discursive procedures and the variety of its postulations.  Their overall configuration could be qualified convincingly thanks to the singularity of three entries.  There is, firstly, the process of temporalizing the organism as an object of knowledge in a retrojecting parole caught between an alienated present and its invented glorious antecedent achievements, a technique well magnified in the fantastic myth building of the work of Cheik Anta Diop, the Senegalese nuclear physicist who, in the 1950s, turned cultural anthropologist and historian of pharaonic Egypt.  There is, second, the demand of expressing onefs own concrete existential experience and its humanity, and translating it into the language of a gwill to truthh, expecting it to be a truthful discourse for-oneself; and discovering that, by the logic of its own requirements, even in its own intemperance, such a discourse, true or false, even in its most affective dimensions, is also and necessarily a discourse for-others.  The indigenization of Marxism in the African socialisms of Léopold Sédar Senghor in Sénégal and Julius Nyerere in Tanzania might stand as the best illustration of this procession.  In the same way, linked to Anta Diopfs mythographies or not, expounding its recurrent otherness pledges in Africa or in America, the Afrocentrist theory, in what it negates or affirms about racial identity, automatically obligates its own validation or rejection in the intermediation of an alter.  Why on earth, American institutions, immersed in the most consistent capitalist rationality for normalizing a global world, would not support a school whose tenets might seem prone to bungling its axiomatic cultural canons, if without doubt, the movement in what it values accomodates efficiently a variety of possibly expedient discourses for-others? In any case, from its relation to the abstraction of an inclusive order, it could be compared analogically to a unit of connectionist networks with learning abilities.  The validity of Afrocentrist propositions may seem controversial, and its postulates criticized or disputed, what they stimulate does not necessarily take to streets against capitalism.  Finally, there is a third extasis, a most telling allegory about the subject and its potential multiplication.  In a critical self-detachment perception from herself or himself, the subject cannot but identify with a tension between two polarities, the thinking I and the I thought about, the subject ego and the direct object, a me; and indeed, the veracity of this divided-self withstands the very limits of reason. The best of contemporary African practices in philosophy bears witness to the rigour of such an exercise.  In its proximity, one would readily integrate explorations in regional psychodynamics, and the extraordinary patience of the work of a Frantz Fanon. Somewhere in a gradually opposite direction, and concerned with the fate of the city, the political discourse, faithful or treacherous, appears as a fold of something else: of the mute estrangement of millions of people who cannot assume their own subjugation as that which is firstly contained by their own polarities, a self and a for-others, and then empirically submitted to external determinations, how to comment about it without apprehending oneself as imprisoned in bad faith?

A history of this outsideness can be traced back as far as the imagination of anyone allows a reading.  As students of a recent history of an unintentionally engineered major economic imbalance and its manifestations, probably an effect of a possibly widespread trained incapacity, we document it as a history of not so rational procedures determining present conditions of the African presence in the world.  The journey through the decolonization is not a negation of the Western journey through economic time, as well suggested by John Kenneth Galbraith in his gfirst hand view,h A Journey through Economic Time (Houghton Mifflin, 1984). Metaphorized on a scholastic table of logical relations, summarized and, say, reduced to what they might analogically express, as theses in mediate or immediate inferences from standard categorical propositions, indeed the African theories could stand, from the arrangement of the traditional square of opposed propositions, as universal or particular, affirmative or negative; and determined by their reference, as contrary or subcontrary, subaltern or contradictory.  Moreover, one could find, frequently used as instruments in arguments for revising the nature of interests in political economy, thematics of conversion or obversion, contraposition or inversion.  Without doubt, the first set, with conversion and obversion, seems the most popular.  Conversion in alterity theories is generally understood as a simple interchange of the first concept, the West and her virtues as subject, with a new historical subject, Africa; in this sense, it cannot be confused with its technical usage in logic. And obversion, the most constant, administers the clearest operative value, closer to its canon in logic, namely the counterpart of a proposition obtained by exchanging its affirmative quality for the negative, or the negative for the affirmative, and then negating the predicate.  It is from this background that, situated vis-à-vis imperial power and its justifications in the colonial library, Aimé Césairefs Discours sur le colonialisme (1995), Kwame Nkrumahfs I Speak of Freedom (1961) and Towards Colonial Freedom (1962), or Julius Nyererefs Freedom and Unity (1968) for example, are said to have obverted the colonial ideology. 

 

Notes

(1) I am indebted to E. Corinne Blalock, my assistant, and want to express enormous gratitude for her help and support.