In de zomer van 2010 heb ik mijn scriptie ingeleverd als afronding van mijn Master Culturele Antropologie. Toen begon het, het zwarte gat. Dag in, dag uit was ik bezig geweest met die scriptie en had ik mezelf maar weinig rust gegeven. Ik vond het schrijven geweldig, alle herinneringen aan mijn afstudeeronderzoek in Suriname heb ik hierdoor telkens weer opnieuw beleefd. Maar nu was ik klaar. Suriname klaar, scriptie klaar, studeren klaar. Wat nu?

Ik kreeg de mogelijkheid om tijdelijk in een huis in Amsterdam te wonen en heb hiervan gebruik gemaakt. De eerste stap naar volwassenheid, een huis, check. De volgende stap was werk, wat vrij essentieel is als je stap één, een huis, hebt gezet.

Ik werkte al in een kroeg in Amsterdam en ging ernaast in de thuiszorg werken. Ik zette mijn CV op meerdere websites en na nog geen maand werd ik benaderd door een bemiddelingsbureau. Ik werd aangenomen als Office manager maar in een compleet andere sector, de staalindustrie. Maar werk is werk en voor het eerst in mijn leven had ik een volledig volwassen salaris. Kortom stap twee, baan, check.

Tja, en dan??? Het was een hele omschakeling om van een intens onderzoek, een scriptie schrijven, flexibele werktijden en afstuderen, direct door te schuiven naar het full time werken en de sleur van het dagelijkse leven. De winter kwam er aan en ook al had ik het allemaal onder controle, ik miste iets. Normaal gesproken zou ik de winter ontvluchten voor minstens 3 maanden. Voorheen zei ik mijn baan op en ging reizen van al het geld wat ik gespaard had en in het laatste jaar was ik op buitenlands leeronderzoek geweest. Maar dit jaar was dat geen mogelijkheid, ik had net een baan en nog niet genoeg geld gespaard om lang weg te gaan. Dan maar in Nederland blijven. Maar ik wilde iets nuttigs doen, iets betekenen en met mijn studie bezig zijn. Maar hoe?

Precies op dat moment werd ik benaderd door een stichting waar ik ooit mee naar Ghana ben geweest, Voluntary Childaid. Deze stichting zendt vrijwilligers uit naar Ghana en tegenwoordig ook naar Guatemala. Ze biedt verschillende projecten, van lesgeven en naschoolse opvang tot werkzaamheden in een ziekenhuis of weeshuis. De stichting was op zoek naar een bestuurslid en dit was precies de uitdaging die ik zocht. Ik heb gereageerd en ik werd uitgekozen samen met nog een andere vrouw. De organisatie bleek op een laag pitje te draaien en de activiteiten waren nihil. Mijn uitdaging was dan ook om deze stichting nieuw leven in te blazen. Het oude bestuur stopte er al snel mee en de stichting werd aan mijn collega en mij overgedragen.

Mijn eigen stichting, wat wilde ik nog meer! Maar het was/is een lastige taak om een stichting in deze tijd weer op de been te krijgen. Dit koste veel tijd en aandacht en we hebben er nog een bestuurslid bijgenomen. We zijn nu 6 maanden verder en het gaat erg goed! Er komen weer nieuwe aanmeldingen van vrijwilligers en ons stageprogramma is ontwikkeld zodat ook stagiaires bij onze stichting terecht kunnen. De stichting krijgt weer de structuur en aandacht die zij verdient en ik ben er met veel plezier mee bezig. Het kost veel tijd, moeite en geld maar het is het allemaal zeker waard!

Het verloren gevoel, oftewel het zwarte gat, heeft hierdoor gelukkig niet lang geduurd. Het is even zoeken en ploeteren, vergelijkbaar met leren fietsen, maar ik heb mijn draai gevonden. Ondanks dat ik niet betaald werkzaam ben als antropologe behoud ik door deze stichting mijn connectie met mijn vakgebied en doe ik een hoop ervaring op voor de toekomst. Beter vrijwillig aan het werk dan de connectie met je vakgebied compleet verliezen! Ik raad het iedereen aan, als je de passie hebt, ga ervoor!

Linda Kroeze studeerde Culturele Antropologie aan de VU. Zij studeerde af in 2010 op een onderzoek in Suriname naar de identiteitsvorming van Ndyuka Marrons in Paramaribo.

Foto Maybritt Alpes

Een interview met recent gepromoveerde Maybritt Jill Alpes door redacteur van het NRC Handelsblad Dick Wittenberg.

Door Dick Wittenberg. Jonge Kameroeners willen geld verdienen in westerse wildernis. Naar Europa, tegen elke prijs. Dat is de instelling van veel jonge Kameroeners. Europese maatregelen om immigratie te beknotten, vergroten juist de aantrekkingskracht van het continent.

Het westers beeld van mensenhandel klopt niet. Het reduceert vrouwelijke migranten tot willoze slachtoffers die gedwongen of misleid naar het Westen reizen waar ze uitgebuit worden. Deze voorstelling gaat voorbij aan de motieven, problemen en keuzes die tot hun vertrek hadden geleid. Dat ontdekte de Duitse Maybritt Jill Alpes in de tijd dat ze in Parijs met de International Organization for Migration samenwerkte. Bushfalling: How young Cameroonians dare to migrate. Dat is de titel van de dissertatie waarop Alpes op 4 november  is gepromoveerd aan de faculteit Sociale Wetenschappen aan de Vrije Universiteit van Amsterdam. In haar proefschrift verklaart ze waarom jonge Kameroeners kostewat het kost naar het buitenland willen. Ze beschrijft welke hordes ze moeten nemen en welke rol de staat, de markt en de familie spelen bij hun vertrek. Voor het veldwerk heeft ze dertien maanden in Engelstalig Kameroen gewoond en Pidgin-Engels geleerd, de plaatselijke variant van het Engels.

Wat is bushfalling, het eerste woord in de titel van uw proefschrift? „Bushfalling is in Engelstalig Kameroen sinds eind jaren negentig de Pidgin-term voor migratie.Het betekent letterlijk: de wildernis intrekken om met rijke jachtbuit thuis te komen.”

Veel jonge Kameroeners zijn geobsedeerd door migratie. Hoe komt dat? „Dat heeft te maken met het gebrek aan vooruitzichten in eigen land. Dat westerse landen het steeds moeilijker maken voor niet-westerlingen uit armere landen om binnen te komen, vergroot juist de aantrekkingskracht. ”

Hoe weet u dat zoveel jongeKameroeners weg willen? „Ik heb een enquête gehouden.80 procent van de mensen die reageerden, wilde naar het buitenland voor werk, 29 procent had het geprobeerd. 5 procent was het maar gelukt. De hunkering naarmigratie zie je terug in de namen van populaire horecagelegenheden: snackbar Le Visa, restaurant Schengen Place, Bushfaller Bar. Voor 38 eurocent koop je een zakje whisky van het merk Visa.”

Vrouwen weten hoe moeilijk het is om Europa of de Verenigde Staten binnen te komen en dat ze het risico lopen ter plaatse te worden uitgebuit. Dat weerhoudt hen niet? „Mijn onderzoeksassistente Delphine wilde naar Zuid-Afrika of Europa omverder te studeren. Terwijl ze een van mijn interviews zat uit te werken, sprong ze op en schreeuwde: ‘Je veux go à tout prix.’ Daarmee verwees ze naar de titel van een film Paris à tout prix, een film die de schaduwkant van migratie laat zien, inclusief ongewenste seks en deportatie.”

Dat klinkt onbegrijpelijk in westerse oren. „Je kunt goed geïnformeerd zijn. Maar wat jemet die informatie doet, hangt af van of je die vertrouwt en
hoe je die interpreteert. Verhalen over hoe moeilijk het in het buitenland is zonder papieren, worden niet geloofd. Ze komen voort uit jaloezie. Of mensen die het hebben gehaald, willen hun voorspoed niet delen. Zo wordt geredeneerd. „Daarbij komt dat het typisch westers is om te denken dat illegale migratie wel moet uitdraaien op deportatie of andere ellende. Kameroenezen
schrijven deportatie toe aan pech, slecht gedrag of luiheid. Wie vertrekt, is ervan overtuigd dat zij het gaat maken. Velen lukt dat ook, min of meer.”

Wat hebben ze te winnen?
„Een succesvolle bushfaller stuurt regelmatig geld naar huis. Daarmee kan schoolgeld worden betaald. Of medicijnen. Of voedsel. De familie ziet haar als een held.”

Elke maand komt er in Europa wel een boek uit over de verschrikkingen van mensenhandel. Waarom lezen we alleen die kant van het verhaal?
„Dat zijn de verhalen die opgepikt worden. Ze sluiten aan bij het huidige politieke klimaat, net zoals de dubieuze term mensenhandel. Tegen migratie. Tegen prostitutie. Als je buitenlandse vrouwen wilt beschermen, doe dat dan door goede arbeidsomstandigheden te waarborgen, zonder naar verblijfsstatus te kijken . ”

Welke les zouden Europese politici uit uw proefschrift kunnen trekken?
„Migranten blijven komen, hoe moeilijk je het ze ook maakt. Geef niet-westerse migranten meer mogelijkheden legaal in Europa te komen
werken. Dat kan voor een bepaalde periode met steeds wisselende groepen. Bushfallers willen hier niet blijven. Ze vinden het hier veel te koud en het eten te smerig. Ze willen geld verdienen en terug. Dat ze hier niet legaal kunnen werken, maakt hen juist zo afhankelijk van regelaars en kwetsbaar voor uitbuiting.”

Significantly, in South Africa, the truth of images was recently thrown into sharp relief when the Sunday Times ran with the story of “Wanted – Facebook Racist”. The article centred around an image culled from the popular social networking site, Facebook. It depicted what appeared to be a rifle-bearing white hunter kneeling proudly over his prize, a lifeless black toddler. The Sunday Times claimed that the image had been found on the online profile of a user who had identified themselves as ‘Eugene Terrorblanche’ – a pseudonym that played on the name of the late leader of the right wing Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB), Eugene Terreblanche. ‘Terrorblanche’ had a well established online presence. He had previously operated under the online name of ‘AWB Wit Wolf’, and claimed that he was self-employed, selling self-defence products such as “stun guns and pepper spray”.

Subsequent investigation, however, revealed that the ‘Posing Hunter’ photo had already been covered by another well established newspaper, the Mail and Guardian, almost two years before. Using the headline, ‘Ek is Wit en Trots Daarop’ – I am White and Proud of It – the Mail and Guardian drew on the image as an entry point into right-wing, racist social networks operating on a range of internet platforms. As reported at the time, one Facebook group called “Ek Laaik Nie a Houtkop Nie Sou What” – I Don’t Like Stupid Blacks So What had employed an image of “a young white man, posing next to what appeared to be the body of a black youth, like a hunter with a trophy” to affirm the group’s values and ideals. Employed in these fora, the ‘Posing Hunter’ seemed to signal a roiling undercurrent of racist discontent stirring among South Africa’s Afrikaner youth.

As far as the ‘Posing Hunter’ was linked to the online profile of ‘Terrorblanche’, the image also seemed to register the death of Eugene Terreblanche and a broader debate about rhetorics of violence that had shot through the South African public sphere. On Easter weekend, 2010, Eugene Terreblanche was murdered on his farm near the town of Venters Dorp, North West Province, allegedly by two of his black farm labourers. Right-wing Afrikaners latched onto Terreblanche’s death as evidence of a widespread pattern of farm murders that was indicative, more broadly, of a slow genocide being perpetrated against this apparently threatened proportion of the population. That Julius Malema, the African National Congress (ANC) Youth League leader, had revived the controversial struggle song ‘Shoot the Boer’ in the run up to Terreblanche’s death – despite making no direct reference to Terreblanche – only added impetus to these claims. Malema was taken to the Equality Court by the Afrikaner civil organisation Afriforum who argued that in the context of the violence being perpetrated against white farmers, the singing ‘Shoot the Boer’ boiled down to hate speech. Subsequent media coverage of the protracted court battle sparked heated public debate about these rhetorics of violence, values of reconciliation and judicial measures of freedom of speech.

What of the ‘Posing Hunter’ and the child that he so proudly lay claim over? A week after the Sunday Times broke their story, City Press was able to report on the circumstances surrounding the production of the image: “On a sunny afternoon on a farm in Bloemhof, in North West, a 19-year-old man carrying a rifle sees a little eight-year-old boy sleeping in the grass. He stands over the boy and one of his companions photographs the scene with a cellphone. The little boy’s father and three of the boy’s friends stand by, laughing, while watching the incident unfold”. The hunter was identified as Mr A.C Strauss, a farmer from the North West province, while the child, was revealed as being the son of the foreman on Mr Strauss’s family farm. Mr Strauss appeared to be the real world contrast of the white Afrikaners who had appropriated his image online. As the child’s father explained, Mr Strauss was a “cool person” who “likes playing around with the black children and takes them along when he goes around the farm”. Mr Strauss also seemed to be engaged in intercultural dialogue and exchange with the young people on the farm, as, during the course of these trips, the children taught him “Setswana and he [taught] them Afrikaans”. But it was the foreman’s son that Mr Strauss had singled out for special attention. “He loves my son” the foreman said, adding that “when he does well at school he gives him money”. As the ‘Posing Hunter’, however, Mr Strauss could be seen as taking up beyond his farm on a tour demonstrating the mysterious transvaluation of images as cultural artefacts that circulate in a range of different meaning systems, and hence referring us to type of authenticating register that transcended debates about the intentions of image producers.

Duane Jethro is a PhD student at the department of anthropology and member of the NWO project heritage dynamics. He is working on cultural heritage in South Africa, specifically on Freedom Park and the Sunday Times Memorials. He published earlier on standplaatswereld on post-Apartheid memorials and the soccer world cup in South Africa.

By Rhoda Woets

It had been several years since Almighty God travelled to Orvieto, a picturesque town in Italian Umbria, as one of the participants of an exhibition entitled The Return of the Magicians. The Sacred in Contemporary African Art (1999-2000). Almighty God received a cash advance upon his arrival in Orvieto but could forget about the 4,200 dollars that remained. Almighty God did not sign a contract with Sarenco; he had simply taken the man for his word, like he did with other customers: Ghanaians and foreigners alike. “Sarenco spent the night in my house with my family,” said Almighty God, with an intense expression on his face, “I did not expect somebody that I welcome to my house to cheat on me.” When I came face to face with the black and white painting that Almighty God hauled down for me, I could not help but laugh. It showed the notorious Sarenco with a white beard, lying in a wooden coffin though looking very much alive (see picture). Almighty God’s face peeked around the coffin’s lid, looking down on his debtor in full earnest. “Why OH!! Sarenco,” read the text, “you are alive, don’t pretend… may the lord give you long life. Please pay me.” Back in Amsterdam, I laughed again (cynically this time) as I discovered some quotes made by Sarenco in an essay that was published in a catalogue of Almighty God’s work. In the essay, Sarenco decried a French artist who did not pay Almighty God for his work; and who had, above all, the dirty guts to pose as Almighty God when he exhibited paintings back home in France. “Not even the appalling British colonialists behaved quite so badly,” Sarenco wrote. “But Africa will not allow its plunderers to go unpunished,” he gloomily continued, “Terrible revenge is being devised (..)” (2007:41). Almighty God’s revenge and protest came from what he knew best (in addition to preaching, that is) which was painting. He used his creativity as well as his ability to depict exact representations of people and objects to cut Sarenco down to size.
Sarenco was not the only art dealer who owed Almighty God money. And Almighty God was not the only wayside artist who waited in vain for unpaid bills from overseas to be settled. There were more constraints in the communication between wayside artists and the foreigners who flocked into their open-air studios. Artists sometimes appeared in books and catalogues without being previously informed and the cited information was often incorrect due to the short periods collectors usually spent in the country. I often noticed that wayside artists had little idea of how their foreign customers would use their work anyway. Nevertheless, processes of globalisation, in which some of Ghana’s wayside artists gained recognition abroad and became enmeshed in a western gallery system, also brought positive changes and gave artists more agency. Almighty God was well aware of the prices paid for his work in an international art market, for instance; he persuaded all his visitors to collect his paintings using the argument that their monetary value would triple when sold abroad.

In my dissertation I go deeper into the ways in which artists like Almighty God, who do not belong to the “high” art worlds in their own country, attained international repute. I discuss the growing foreign interest from western collectors and trace this intrigue back to a re-framed – though enduring – quest for alterity and authenticity, a new kind of primitivism so to speak.
This is just a tip of the iceberg. In my dissertation I furthermore explore the underlying ideological premises upon which the category of Contemporary Ghanaian Art has been based since its inception in colonial times. I unravel the positions that artists took in discursive and social fields, in temporal as well as in spatial contexts, to gain insight into the manner in which this category was constructed and contested. Throughout this study, the remarkable resilience of a recurring discursive field in which “traditional” and “modern” art, as well as “Africa” and the “West,” were essentialized and presented as opposites becomes apparent. In the era of globalisation, this resilient frame came to be severely challenged, reinterpreted or reinforced in various different contexts. These contestations coincided with a process in which the category of Contemporary Ghanaian Art became increasingly more heterogeneous and came to include new art forms, such as conceptual, “indigenous” and “wayside” art. The socio-historical route taken in this study seeks to explain why artists who take alternative paths, sometimes on unfamiliar grounds, meet with resistance, acceptance or ignorance. The contestations that revolve around the work of Ghanaian artists can be traced back to an a history of colonialism, a process of nation building that emphasized the value of “culture” and “tradition,” as well as dominant modernist ideals of technical proficiency and aesthetics of beauty.

Rhoda Woets has been a PhD student at the department of social and cultural anthropology until 2011, and is now working as a postdoctoral fellow for the project Creativity and Innovation in a World of Movement (CIM). She will be defending her PhD theis in the auditorium of the Vrije Universiteit  on Tuesday 27 September 2001, 13.45

By Linda van de Kamp In 2007, Madam Gracelina (45 years old) was going to open a business with her husband in Maputo, the capital of Mozambique. She had managed to rent a nice building for their company at a central location in the city centre and had bought all the necessary equipment. There were also some possible future customers Dona Gracelina was in contact with and she was all ready to start. However, after having dealt with the right government department in Maputo for several months, government officials would not hand over the required licence. She suspected that the officials were waiting for her to pay them an additional sum of money to proceed, but she refused. In the Brazilian Pentecostal God is Love Church that she frequented, she handed over the project file with the company plans and copies of all the papers she had to arrange for the licence to a Brazilian pastor. He would take it with him on his travels until he was back in Brazil where the church’s founder was going to pray for her. During the service it was revealed that an evil spirit stood behind Dona Gracelina and this was following her wherever she went. The pastor expelled the spirit and proposed a programme of prayer, offerings and fasting to defeat the demon.

Studies on religious transnationalism have addressed the role of religion for migrants in maintaining the link between the home and host society. A central question is how transnational religion plays a role in preserving a sense of cultural continuity or in encouraging cultural change in contact between migrants and the new society in which migrants are subjected to a forceful public agenda that usually emphasizes integration. In this context, it has been argued that transnational Pentecostalism encourages stability in situations of mobility and provides for cultural continuity by offering migrants a ‘home away from home’.  

In the case of Brazilian Pentecostalism in Mozambique we are not, however, dealing with a migrant community. Mozambican converts continue to live in their own society while participating in a setting where relations are developed and maintained that link Brazilian and Mozambican societies. What exactly is the relevance of transnational religion and related questions on cultural (dis)continuity and (dis)integration in such an environment?

In the case of transnational Pentecostalism in Mozambique, converts’ cultural nearness to the local society appears critical. Brazilian Pentecostalism in Mozambique demonstrates the locally embedded meaning and development of transnationalism. Being part of the local society, unlike in situations of migration, many converts struggle to understand how their Pentecostal morality and spirituality can remain unaffected or even ‘uncaptured’ by local circumstances, powers or cultural realities. They want to become independent of locally binding forces, i.e. to become more culturally and socio-economically mobile and to cross boundaries. One example is the case of Dona Gracelina.

Madam Gracelina felt paralyzed because of the power the government officials had over her: she was being kept by ‘evil national powers’. It was through transnational Pentecostalism that she would be able to break out of this situation, something that was made real with the business papers that would leave the country to receive a blessing in Brazil. In this context Dona Gracelina was made aware of the negative impact of national spiritual connections: through her possible links with ancestral or other spirits her project was failing but by engaging in transnational Pentecostalism she could move away from these ‘origins’.

As outsiders, Brazilian pastors confront Mozambicans in a variety of ways with what their culture or life looks like. To question the power of local healers, the pastors mimic the behaviour of the healers when they are in a trance. They bring objects into church that local healers work with and show that they can touch them without any negative consequences. In the traditional Mozambican context this is considered offensive and dangerous but the pastors show that one should not be afraid if one is in the sphere of influence of the borderless power of the Holy Spirit. Another example is the so-called therapy of love (‘terapia do amor’). The therapy is a public meeting that resembles a church service but is dedicated to the subjects of marriage, love and sexuality. Thousands of people participate every week and most of them are young (aged 15-35). During one therapy session, the pastor imitated the behaviour of Mozambican couples who, according to Brazilians, are shy, do not have the courage to look each other in the eyes or to touch their partner in public spaces. Then the pastor held hands with his wife, embraced her and gave her a kiss to show what love is but also to demonstrate the shortcomings of local customs. By doing all this openly, the pastors want to force open cultural values as a way of bringing about transformation. They urge converts to cross cultural and spiritual boundaries, extending the tradition that spiritual practices involve boundaries that can be transcended.

Mozambicans do not travel literally to cross boundaries. Brazilian pastors have done so and it is their trajectory that creates a space of mobility. The dislocation by Brazilian pastors within and outside Brazil who leave their homes and families to preach the gospel  is valued as an important strategy of spiritual development because, by leaving one’s family, it is possible to be fully dedicated to the missionary project. The geographical journey facilitates a radical break with one’s former life and allows for the formation of a new person. During services in Mozambique, Brazilian pastors often used their personal journeys as an example of what faith looks like and what it can achieve. To transform, one has to travel and transcend the familiar, including one’s family and culture, and suffer hardships to create new possibilities. By participating in Brazilian Pentecostalism one embarks on a journey. Mozambican believers leave elements of local culture behind, begin to experience their lives differently and see things in a new light. Since converting, Dona Gracelina had started to walk through the city with a particular attitude, alert to all the (evil) influences that could affect her. Even though bodies remain in the same location physically, the subjective dislocation and the transnational positioning have the same effect as embarking on a real journey regarding social and cultural perceptions, values and practices.

Between 2005 and 2008, Linda van de Kamp did research in Mozambique as part of the research programme ‘Conversion Careers in Global Pentecostalism:  A Comparative Study in Four Continents’, funded by the ‘The Future of the Religious Past’ programme of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) and hosted by the department of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam and the African Studies Centre, Leiden. On September 16^th, she successfully defended her thesis ‘Violent Conversion: Brazilian Pentecostalism and the Urban Pioneering of Women in Mozambique’. 

door Lidewyde Berckmoes

Het nieuws bereikte me via Jean-Marie, één van de jongeren uit mijn onderzoek in Burundi. Zondagavond stuurde hij me een mailtje als antwoord op mijn vraag hoe het met hem ging:  “Ik weet niet hoe ik het moet zeggen, zojuist ook, 2 uur geleden, ben ik mijn neef in Gatumba verloren, samen met meer dan 40 andere personen. De situatie is erg.”

“De regering houdt vol: Er is geen rebellenbeweging. Er is geen oorlog. Er komt geen onderhandelingstafel.”

Bubanza, een van gebieden waar de onveiligheid groot is (door Lidewyde)

De aanslag komt in een periode van ‘relatieve vrede’. Verkiezingen in 2005 markeerden het begin van een transitieperiode die het land uit een 12-jaar durende burgeroorlog moest trekken. Vorig jaar, in 2010, vonden verkiezingen plaats die de transitie naar een land in vrede verder moest bestendigen.  De aanslag van afgelopen zondag laat op harde wijze zien dat dat idee te optimistisch was.

Het treurige nieuws van Jean-Marie’s neef van komt niet in een vacuüm van geweldloosheid. De doden van zondagavond mag je optellen bij een lange reeks slachtoffers die de afgelopen maanden zijn gevallen. Veelal slachtoffers van confrontaties tussen de partij aan de macht en een groep oppositieleden die erkenning zoeken om aan een onderhandelingstafel met de regering te schuiven. Ooggetuigenverhalen en mensenrechtenrapporten laten bijvoorbeeld zien dat in de periode na de verkiezingen de Burundese overheid steeds repressiever is gaan optreden. Politiek opposanten, leden van de voormalige rebellenbeweging FNL en mensenrechtenactivisten ondervinden intimidatie en worden met regelmaat uit de weg geruimd. Oppositiegroepen die de wapens hebben opgepakt, nemen wraak en doden leden van de partij aan de macht, de CNDD-FDD. De regering houdt echter vol: de doden die vallen zijn slachtoffers van bandieten. Er is geen rebellenbeweging. Er is geen oorlog. Er komt geen onderhandelingstafel.

Betekent de aanslag van afgelopen zondag, waarin mensen los van hun achtergrond of politieke kleur de dood hebben gevonden, een brute poging voor erkenning van een nieuwe rebellengroep? De aandacht die het incident in lokale en internationale media krijgt laat zien dat deze tactiek wellicht potentie heeft, een tactiek die overigens vaker is gezien in het verleden in bijvoorbeeld Sierra Leone: Hoe afschuwelijker de misdaden hoe effectiever het mobiliseren van de internationale gemeenschap. Of is het, zoals ook wel gesuggereerd wordt, een poging van de regeringspartij tot het legitimeren van de toenemende repressie? Zoals vaker in Burundi verhullen tegenstanders zich tactisch in geruchten die de waarheid betwisten.

Voor Jean-Marie betekent de aanslag een persoonlijk verlies en een bevestiging van de toenemende onhoudbaarheid van leven in Burundi. Een paar maanden geleden is hij eindelijk begonnen met een opleiding aan de universiteit, een droom die hij al jaren koesterde. Hij betaalde de opleiding zelf met een baantje bij een bedrijf dat hangt op investeringen. De laatste tijd overweegt hij te stoppen met zijn baan en zijn opleiding. Hij schrijft me: “Het is niet zo dat ik wil stoppen met de universiteit omdat ik het niet kan, integendeel, mijn cijfers zijn heel goed. Ik wil vluchten naar een andere plek, het is moeilijk voor mij om het collegegeld te vinden omdat mijn zaken nergens toe leiden gezien de onveiligheid.” Toen ik hem gistermorgen belde om hem te condoleren en te vragen naar zijn plannen, vertelde hij dat hij overwoog te vluchten naar Zambia of Malawi. Ik waarschuwde hem voor het harde leven in vluchtelingenkampen. “Dat weet ik,” antwoordde hij, “ik heb tijdens de oorlog al in Congo en Tanzania gezeten. Maar het is beter om te lijden in een kamp dan te sterven in Burundi.”

Sinds 2009 werkt  Lidewyde Berckmoes aan haar promotieonderzoek over jeugd in Burundi bij de Afdeling Sociale en Culturele Antropologie van de Vrije Universiteit. Over haar onderzoek schreef ze eerder ook  berichten voor Standplaatswereld.nl.

© Copyright foto's: Rufus de Vries

Op 16 september verdedigt Linda van de Kamp haar proefschrift over de groei van Braziliaanse pinksterkerken in Maputo, de hoofdstad van Mozambique. Het pentecostalisme groeit vooral snel in de stedelijke gebieden van Afrika, Latijns-Amerika en Azië. Waarom zijn pinksterkerken daar zo populair? Deze vraag beantwoordt Linda van de Kamp in haar proefschrift ‘Violent conversion: Brazilian Pentecostalism and the urban pioneering of women in Mozambique’.

“Een belangrijke reden voor bekering is de droom van een mooi huwelijk”

Van 2005 tot en met 2007 verbleef Van de Kamp in Mozambique, waar al snel bleek dat de pinksterkerken vooral sociaaleconomisch succesvolle vrouwen aantrekken. Via participerende observaties en diepte-interviews ontdekte zij dat veel van deze vrouwen de kerkdiensten bezoeken vanwege problematische liefdesrelaties. Braziliaanse pinksterpastors doorbreken lokaal een taboe door openlijk ‘kwade’ geesten te bestrijden die verantwoordelijk worden gehouden voor de seksuele problemen van deze vrouwen en de spanningen in hun relaties met partners en verwanten.

De pinksterkerken zijn ook populair omdat het een van de weinige plekken in de samenleving is waar vrouwen worden gestimuleerd om carrièrekansen te benutten en sociaaleconomische posities te veroveren die voor hun moeders en oma’s ondenkbaar waren. In tegenspraak met de meeste studies over de pinksterbeweging, ontdekte Van de Kamp dat veel van de bekeerde vrouwen geen steun en welvaart vinden in de kerken. Integendeel, het bekeringsproces blijkt vaak gewelddadig uit te pakken door de pentecostale nadruk op geestelijke strijd. 

Een belangrijke reden voor vrouwen om naar de Braziliaanse Pinksterkerken te gaan is dat ze dromen van een mooi huwelijk.

De verdediging vindt plaats om 13.45u in Aula van de Vrije Universiteit.

Linda van de Kamp is als promovenda verbonden aan de afdeling Sociale en Culturele Antropologie van de Vrije Universiteit. Eerder verschenen op standplaatswereld is het artikel ‘van de prins geen kwaad‘.

Photo from documentary ‘Can I kick it?’ (2010)

While studying in South Africa for one semester I was involved in a development project called “Girls and Football South Africa” (GFSA). This sparked my enthusiasm and interest for the use of sport as a tool in development initiatives and inspired me to write my Bachelor’s thesis on this topic.

By Siri Lijfering It was exactly one year ago that I left Amsterdam to go to South Africato do a minor in development studies at the university of Stellenbosch. During my studies there, I became closely involved in the GFSA project that aimed at providing girls from a township between 9 and 12 years of age, the opportunity to develop their football skills, personal qualities and self esteem (www.girlsandfootballsa.com). In the past few years, several ‘sport for development projects’ have been set up in townships, but none for girls, who are considered to be the most marginalized. Due to the parents’ long working hours, the large amount of single-mother households, and the common drug and alcohol abuse by adults, children, and especially girls, are parentalized – having an overdeveloped sense of responsibility for others – at a very young age which often results in social isolation. Hence, providing these girls with a safe space where they can play and talk with peers can prevent this.

As I set out on my quest to research the workings and potential of sport for development, I soon realized the ‘sport for development movement’ is up and coming. Numerous events, conferences, forums, e-debates and other meetings are being organized on this topic and in the last few years a mushrooming of development agencies with sport for development as their mandate has occurred. Also, I found out that one of these conferences was organized by the United Nations and would take place this May inGeneva. I knew that if I really was to know everything about the sport-for-development movement, I had to go there.

I was quite anxious, but even more excited about attending this significant international event. The list of participants was long and included more than 400 names ranging from NGO representatives to country representatives to university academics. My enthusiasm soon turned into deception however when it became clear that this forum was rather an occasion to publicly celebrate the sport for development movement than an opportunity to discuss and evaluate it. The slightly more critical talks and questions, posed almost solely by the academic participants of the forum, were either ignored or discarded. In fact, it even seemed any critique was out of place, as if that would mean discrediting the movement in general. I found this worrying, because if we aren’t critical, how can we ever expect to realize the full potential of sport as a tool for development? One simply has to be critical in order to improve.

The experiences from both the forum and the GFSA project, inspired me to set out on a mission to critically assess the movement from an academic viewpoint in my thesis. For this purpose I used both academic and development literature which I complemented with my own experiences in the field. What I soon realized is that the image of sport as the ‘magical solution’, exceptional in its approach to development, is built upon a number of assumptions. These form the pillars that support the movement’s legitimacy. The whole discussion whether sport is a beneficial development strategy or not is also centred on these assumptions. One example is the assumption that sport promotes partnership in development. These envisioned partnerships can be roughly categorized in three categories; between development organisations, between the Global North and the Global South, which includes the relationship with the local community, and between the development practitioners and academics.

However, although sport might facilitate the formation of partnerships in some respects, it impedes the establishment of genuine relationships in other, perhaps even more important aspects, and so -as critics duly point out- the unique ability of sport to create fruitful partnerships between different development organizations is questionable to say the least. Particularly the fierce competition organizations face to secure funding and to ‘stay in the game’ leads to a worrisome lack of cooperation and unequal power balances. As a volunteer for GFSA this aspect became more than just something I had read in academic publications; it became a reality we had to work with everyday. When approaching NGOs working in the same area and in the same domain, desperately few were cooperative and willing to share their knowledge. Most did not even respond or bluntly stated they did not want to work together. This appeared strange to me and Niki, one of the volunteers I interviewed, shared my opinion: “…if they really were all aiming for the same goal which is improving the lives of people, they would not want to compete with each other but they would work together and gather their strengths. It makes you wonder what it is they want then.”

Making a critical assessment of the sport for development movement of course ultimately leads to the question of whether sport is useful as a development strategy at all. Analyzing both sides, I did not feel I was getting any closer to finding a conclusive answer. To date, there is no consensus on the effectiveness of sport for development and it seems that for every argument in favour, a counterargument can be presented.  I found myself at a crossroads and asked myself the question: what to make of all this? It was then that I realized that we have been looking in the wrong direction and cannot provide answers just yet.  We first have to take a step back and look at the overall discussion of the workings of sport as a development strategy. Doing this, we see that the discussion is mainly ideological in nature and based on short-term, mainly quantitative, donor-driven evaluations. Measuring the effectiveness of development program-based notions such as ‘empowerment’ are not only problematic because they are non academic, ill-defined, and highly contested, but also because it implies a structural change in behaviour and state of mind, something which does not occur overnight and therefore cannot be measured on a short term basis. Consequently, it becomes evident that the current way of analyzing is not satisfactory and there are certain issues that need to be addressed in this regard.

In sum, something has to change; we need a fundamentally new approach to the subject. One aspect that needs to be incorporated, according to one of the informants I interviewed, is cultural sensitivity. According to Jos, it is the number one priority to know the community you are working in; “you have to be ready to learn and respect the culture.” Sport is perceived by the volunteers, including myself, not as a ready made solution, a blueprint that could be used in the same way in every community, but instead as a tool that has to be employed differently in every community and for which the workings are dependent on the context it is employed in. InSouth Africa for example, one has to bear in mind the legacy of Apartheid which could hamper the impact of sport on bridging the different racial groups.

In my thesis I argue that employing an anthropological perspective could be part of this solution. A shift in research methodology from being based on predominantly short-term quantitative research data to an approach that compliments the quantitative analysis with long, in-depth qualitative analysis is necessary. In this way, the workings of sport as a development strategy will be constructed on the basis of locally articulated experiences, taking the dynamic and situational nature of sport into account along with the agency of the local community. Providing the movement with a stronger theoretical base will enhance the trust and belief in sport-for-development, which is crucial for the sustainability of the movement, and will prevent it from ultimately being discarded as another seemingly good idea that just never quite made it. It is in this regard that I speak out my hopes that we, anthropologists, can make that difference!

Siri Lijfering has just finished her Bachelors degree in Cultural Anthropology and Development sociology at the VU University and now studies Africa and International Development at the University of Edinburgh.

At the end of February, armed Libyan rebels assembled in front of the work site and commandeered two trucks. The Chinese workers assembled into units armed with crowbars and bricks; they barricaded the entrance with more trucks and threw stones over the wall. The attackers retreated, but the offices at another, unguarded work site were looted. The article refers to these Libyans as thugs and provides no political context, but the engineer is quoted as saying that Chinese workers have encountered hostility and have even been thrown stones at before. He attributes this to causing a rise in the price of consumer goods such as cigarettes: the price of Rothmans has doubled since Chinese visitors have been buying them up. The article quotes a Chinese researcher, Liu Zhirong, as saying that the Chinese media’s portrayal of African friendliness towards Chinese is skewed. The reality, it suggests, is more mixed, just as Chinese see Africa in a mixed light (they like that cars let pedestrians cross the road).

The engineer featured in the article makes $1,700 a month, or 3-4 times what he made in China, plus a “substantial” living allowance, and has almost no expenses since accommodation, meals, and transportation are provided by the company. In less than a year in Libya, he has saved over 100 thousand yuan, while his total savings before he left China were just 5,000 yuan. An ordinary construction worker makes 4-5 thousand yuan a month, while a skilled carpenter makes around 10 thousand, or over $1,500.

Workers have 2 days off in a month. At these times, the company sometimes organised a barbecue at a nearby restaurant, a shopping trip to Benghazi, or a trip to the sea. They are not allowed to leave the site on their own — to avoid incidents such as a mass fight between Chinese workers and Algerians in Algiers in 2009. (Another article says that at a work site in Mali,  there is also a sign saying ”It is not allowed to become too close to local women.”)

It is not clear if the reporters, Zhou Peng and Wu Guixia, actualy visited  Africa, or if the article is based on interviews. The fact that Lome, the capital of Togo, is described as being on the Mediterranean coast raises suspicions of the latter.

Boeklancering  

Over het boek (dat vervolgens overal – onder meer in de VU-boekhandel– te koop zal zijn), het volgende:

“To make way for a strategic U.S. military base, the Chagossians were evicted from Diego Garcia and other islands of the Chagos archipelago in the Indian Ocean in the 1970s. The U.K. made the islands available to the U.S. and the population was secretly evicted to Mauritius and the Seychelles, about 2000 kilometres away, where many have experienced poverty and difficult life situations. They are not allowed to go back home, only some short trips have been organised since 2006. Recently, the rich marine environment and coral reefs of the Chagos archipelago inspired the U.K. government to transform the status of the Chagos region into the world’s largest Marine Protected Area. But what about the Chagossians, who are locked in a political and legal battle for the right to return to the islands and recognition as a people to live in diaspora? After several law suits against the British government, the Chagossians have vested their hope on the European Court of Human Rights which will rule shortly.”

Het boek zal aangeboden worden aan Bernadette Dugasse, die onlangs het privilege had haar thuisland te bezoeken.  Het programma van de middag ziet er als volgt uit: om 14.00 uur het welkomstwoord van Sandra Evers. Om 14.10 een lezing door Wilbert van der Zeijden (van IKV Pax Christi, zie hieronder), getiteld “The centrality of Diego Garcia in U.S. military infrastructures”. Vervolgens om 14.40 een exerpt van een radiodocumentaire gemaakt door Saar Slegers (journalist).

Om 15.00 volgt dan een interview door Marry Kooy met Atman Ramchalaon, een  Mauritiaan die zich inzet voor de Chagossians, waarna er tijd is voor vragen. Om 15.15 is er dan de echte boeklancering: het boek wordt aangeboden aan Bernadette Dugasse, waarna een high tea reception.

De abstract van de lezing van  Wilbert van der Zeijden (IKV Pax Christi, politicoloog gespecialiseerd in de ontwikkeling van internationale militaire infrastructuur, atoom-ontwapening en de reacties van civil societies daarop) is:

“The U.S. maintains a global network of military outposts, counting more than 800 facilities and spanning most of the globe. Diego Garcia has always been – and still is – a crucial pawn in that military infrastructure. It is the primary launching point for reconnaissance missions and bombing missions for an area covering most of the Indian Ocean waters, the Horn of Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia and South Asia. Additionally, Diego Garcia is a main hub for maritime maneuvers, intelligence operations and for some matters the U.S. hopes to keep concealed from the public view – such as the extraordinary rendition practices of a few years back.  Foreign military facilities impact local populations. From Puerto Rico to Greenland, from Italy to Okinawa and from Guam to Chagos, people are standing up against the negative effects. This lecture will discuss such fates with a particular focus on the Chagossians who were forced to give up their homeland for the U.S. military base on Diego Garcia.”