Bessie Head was born in 1937, in Natal, South Africa, to a white mother and a black father. Her mother was institutionalized in a hospital, under claims that she was mentally ill, as relationships between people of two different races were at the time illegal in South Africa. Her mother died in 1943 and Mrs. Head was given into foster care.

In 1964, after she was estranged from her husband, she left South Africa on exit permit for Serowe, Botswana. In Serowe, she would write all her major novels and stories: When Rain Clouds Gather (a fictionalized autobiography that focuses on the life choices of a South African refugee in Botswana) – 1966 -; Maru (a book I have yet to read, published in 1971), A Question of Power (a fascinating introspective quest that the author once called “a private philosophical journey to the sources of evil.”) – 1973 -; The Collector of treasures and Other Stories (a beautiful collection of short stories whose protagonists all live in the rural areas of Botswana) – 1977; Serowe: Village of the Rain Wind (which I’m currently reading) – 1981; and A Bewitched Crossroad (a book I consider a fascinating source for political and social commentary, despite the fact that the author had often denied having any interest in politics) – 1984.

Bessie Head died on April 17th 1986 when she succumbed to hepatitis, at age 49. Yet her writings will, without a doubt, inspire many generations to come, among them, even one random Romanian guy.

Well, here’s the thing. Despite the fact that Bessie Head was born in South Africa she is considered the most famous Botswana writer. Now, that is ironic because Head herself had her deal of troubles with the Botswanan government. In 1975 she wrote that “[n]othing can take away the fact that I hav never had a country; not in South Africa or in Botswana where I now live as a stateless person.”

That being said, Bessie Head was without a doubt one of the most prescient authors of hr generation. She dreamed of a free South Africa, of racial tolerance and a better future for all people living in Africa.

In the next couple of days I will compile a list of my favorite quotes from her work. For now, I just want to share with you what Bessie Head thought of the apartheid regime in South Africa long before the apartheid was over. Bessie Head wrote the following fragment in 1972:

It is impossible to guess how the revolution will come one day in South Africa. But in a world where all ordinary people are insisting on their rights, it is inevitable. it is to be hoped that great leaders will arise there who remember the suffering of racial hatred and out of it formulate a common language of human love for all people. Possibly too, Southern Africa might one day become the home of storyteller and dreamer, who did not hurt others but only introduced new dreams that filled the heart with wonder.

It is a shame that this great woman did not live to see her prediction come true. Yet there is still so much we can learn from her great work.

How “we”, Western scholars, relate to “them”, African subjects, in an attempt to accurately depict their realities in ways that would be beneficial to a more comprehensive understanding of African affairs, is a contentious issue. In Whose Life is it, anyway? Issues of Representation Life Narrative Texts of African Women, Kirk Hoppe argues that the life narratives gathered by a Western researcher are not actually “true” stories of these women. The stories an ethnographer has access to only represent the unfolding history of the relationship between Africans and their Western counterparts and how the West analyzes Africa in order to redefine its own identity. Consequently, to him, life histories are not useful resources for determining the historical truth with respect to African women’s lives. In Truth Telling and the Politics of Women’s Life History Research in Africa: A Reply to Kirk Hoppe, Haidi Gengenbach argues that Hoppe’s analysis is inaccurate because African women use and reaffirm their agency in ways that Hoppe is incapable of understanding or incorporating in this article. After giving various examples of African women’s agency, Gengenbach concludes that life history research is in fact a valuable methodology which can help us better understand African (women’s) realities.

In this essay I will analyze the main arguments brought up by the two scholars and argue that both their analyses are, in fact, incomplete. In determining what ethnographic data is historically accurate, one should definitely look at how various power relations unfold in real life and to what extent the “unseen” and “untold” daily events and rituals can complicate the narrative and the data a scholar in studying (as Gengenbach suggests). However, this is not the only factor that shapes the accuracy or the value of an ethnographic account. Those of us interested in ethnographic research are not only responsible for recording what people say to us but also for accurately analyzing and explaining the context in which our respondents make a statement. What both Hoppe and Gengenbach come short to conceptualize (though Gengenbach gets very close to it) is that a scholar should never accept and report the surface narrative presented by his/her subjects. Doing ethnographic work is not only about asking questions but also about paying close attention to what people say, when they make a statement and under what circumstances they do it. After all, I argue, a scholar should not extract specific episodes from life history narratives as a mechanism designed to achieve accurate forms of truths. Instead, the ethnographer is supposed to understand those episodes, and the experiences they are referring to within the narrative created, including the specific context in which those experiences occurred and when the narratives were retold.

In his analysis of the encounter between the Western ethnographer and the African respondent, Kirk Hoppe is dubious of both the scholar’s goals and expectations (Hoppe, p. 624) and of the African women’s agendas in relation to the researcher. (Hoppe, p. 625-626) Consequently, he argues that “[t]he spoken narrative is informed by motives and by understanding and misunderstandings or intentions.” (Hoppe, 628) In doing so, he underestimates the context in which an ethnographic research is conducted and he, perhaps, confuses an ethnographer for a journalist. A news reporter goes to Africa with the intention to cover a particular topic that would cater specifically to the audience he is writing for. The journalist will, most likely, not have formed a relationship of trust and mutual friendship with his respondents and s/he would spend relatively little time among the people required for his research. In that context, I believe Hoppe’s analysis would be correct: in a short period of time it is quite likely that the outcome of the investigative research would be severely altered by the goals and expectations of the two actors involved (journalists versus the subjects interviewed). But ethnographers do not fall in the same category. Many of them spend extensive periods of time among the people they study. In some cases, they progressively become members of those communities or at least people acknowledged by the locals as being something more than a journalist looking for a sensationalist story. In the process, Africans and Western scholars interact on a daily basis, share intimate stories and forge different types of personal relations with each other. Hoppe does not account for the striking difference between “unknown” and “familiar” given by the fact that, in time, a scholar becomes more than a simple stranger to the people he observes and interacts with.

Seen from a different perspective, some scholars might share the same hesitant view on historical accuracy when it comes to the type of information transmitted by the informers of an ethnographic research, as Hoppe does. I myself, doing research on the informal sector in Uganda, have struggled with the inconsistencies in the data reported by those I was studying. For example, in 2008, I was gathering data with respect to an informal, inter-connected economic network that made the supply and distribution of tourist crafts possible in Kampala. By the end of my initial stay in Uganda, I hired Hassan, a local young man to serve as my research assistant. Three weeks after my departure, I asked Hassan to go back to the same shop sellers and ask them exactly the same questions I used in my questionnaire. Whereas he received mostly the same answers that I had recorded, two questions generated different data. As Hassan used to be one of the shop sellers on site, the other entrepreneurs gave them different prices for the crafts they were selling in their shops. The prices reported to Hassan were generally 40 to 50 percent smaller than the once I was told would be paid for a craft. Yet when it came to a question regarding shop sellers’ monthly wages, the vast majority of them inflated the figures reported, thus claiming they were making more money than what they previously told me. To me, the discrepancies in the data were not the consequence of being lied to. I interpreted it in the light of where I, as an ethnographer, was positioned in relation to those whose lives I was observing. And, indeed, six months later, when I returned to the research site, some of the local entrepreneurs were able to comprehensively explain those inconsistencies. As some of them argued, telling me that a commodity is more expensive than it actually is was the result of the fact that I was initially seen as a foreigner and as a potential buyer for the crafts sold in those shops. Consequently, shop sellers expected that I would eventually buy some products from their shops and wanted to maximize their share of profit when the time came for me to buy crafts. On the other hand, these entrepreneurs had no reason to hide the salaries they were receiving from the shop owners as that would not have altered the way they saw me. Yet when Hassan asked them about their salaries, given the fact that he used to be a shop seller, his peers wanted to overplay both their status in the community and the salary they received at the end of the month. This episode is indicative of a social phenomenon that is completely neglected by Hoppe. Since I eventually turned out to be more than a simple tourist on site, I had to constantly negotiate and renegotiate my position in that community through numerous interactions with various local actors in different moments in time and in various social contexts. The result of my research was not the same as the research itself. In addition, despite the fact that the local shop sellers knew exactly what I was after they did not actually shared the information that was key to my research until I became what one of the sellers called “a legitimate partner for discussion.” In the process, in search for a more accurate understanding of the informal sector I was analyzing, both I and the people I was interacting with exercised our agency as we saw fit. Furthermore, on my end, I did not simply take their declarations for granted, but I tried to see beyond the initial surface narrative I was provided with.

As Heidi Gengenbach correctly suggested, Hoppe is also mistaken when it comes to African agency (Gengenbach, p. 623-624). Power relations are expressed both between Westerners and Africans but also within African communities. Consequently, Gengenbach is right to argue that there are other factors that affect women’s interaction with the ethnographer, such as the gender divisions between men and women, and the cultural background in which an interview is conducted. In addition, I also side with Gengenbach’s astute observation that “all knowledge is socially situated.” (Gengenbach, p. 627) Yet I would have perhaps wanted a more thorough analysis of how this particular observation practically changes the way ethnographers analyze or should analyze the narratives they are recording. In fact, the limitation of Gengenbach’s article ultimately comes from the fact that she is arguing against Hoppe, and thus for African women’s agency and the important of life history research, instead of looking at the broader picture of the scholar – informant relation, its consequences and contradictions.

In his discussion of “the telling” Hoppe argues that the researcher’s behavior, questions and facial expressions transmit a clear message to the respondent with respect to the type of information the researcher is looking for.  Yet that somehow contradicts his later argument that the narrator will only answer based on her understanding of what the scholar means (Hoppe 630). In the first case, we are being told that a respondent will give her answer knowing what the scholar is after, yet in the second case it appears that the narrator might misinterpret the scholar’s questions intentions and expectations, thus not following the path imagined by the researcher. So which one is it? Hoppe never bothers to clarify his position on this issue.

When recording and analyzing a life narrative, it becomes rather obvious that this is not a unidirectional process. Those interviewed for a particular research topic will not simply give an ethnographer the data s/he expects to receive, in the terms prescribed by the scholar. By telling his/her story, the subject will give a nuanced version of the events which might not follow the history, as we know it, ad litteram.  But what Hoppe fails to acknowledge is that this is, in fact, one of the most important reasons why life narratives should be used by historians in the first place: by introducing life histories in academic work, historians are able to bring in a new set of data coming from those subjects which are left out of conventional histories. In addition, as Gengenbach was correct to point out, the content of the narrative is also important for the research conducted, yet Hoppe does not seem concerned with this reality, either.

Given the fact that the informants of a research project will interpret the events and episodes in their lives as they sit fit, by exercising their right to choose how and under what circumstances a story is told, the scholar has the mission to find the optimal way to interpret the research material. The narrative shared by the person being interviewed sets out the context in which meaningful stories are shared, yet it is the role of the ethnographer to accurately interpret the events and the experiences told within the narrative of a life history. In that process, the interactions between the two actors become the essential factor that will determine the quality of a research project. It isn’t a matter of true or false stories, as Hoppe wrongly suggested. It is about how a story is interpreted in the light of the role it places in a life history, and in the historical context in which that experience has occurred. The role of the interpreter can be assigned to both the narrator and the researcher, but it the latter’s mission to accurately contextualize the story in such a way that a life narrative can be seen as a contribution to a field of study.

Lastly, by calling African women’s stories false, Hoppe is actually distancing himself from the actual responsibility of an ethnographer, instead of accurately conceptualizing the problem at hand. After all, if life narratives are not actually “true,” and potentially incorrect interpretations are caused by the “disingenuous” stories of the African people. That is a false yet convenient excuse for scholars like Hoppe who frame a problem based solely of their own understanding of African realities, thus failing to adapt to the local realities, narratives and discourses that people in Africa and elsewhere might employ in their lives. Once African agency is acknowledged, it becomes apparent that both scholars and locals are equally engaged in creating and actively nurturing the context in which the ethnographic research is conducted. The communication between the two is in fact the result of an informal partnership and not the consequence of the unfolding history of the Western ethnographer in relation to his African respondents.

To sum up, I agree with Heidi Gengenbach’s argument that Kirk Hoppe ignores African women’s agency and the ways in which African women accomplish their goals without jeopardizing the pre-existing power relations or other socio-cultural norms and understandings of masculinity that often govern the social relations in a local setting. In addition I also believe Kirk Hoppe does not accurately conceptualize the relationship between the scholar and the informant, the context in which it occurs and the types of bonds that are created between the two actors. Furthermore, I argued in this essay that the role of the ethnographer has also been underestimated; that it is the scholars’ mission to read between the lines and form a thorough understanding of the community and the life narrative s/he is studying. Looking for “truths” in ethnographic research might be appealing from a historian’s point of view, but that should not be the primary focus of such a project. Instead, I suggested that interpreting various experiences and episodes within the narrative and the context in which these were produced and recounted would ultimately lead to a much more valuable contribution to how people see, interpret, and position themselves in relation to their individual and communal history.  Not employing this method undermines both the agency of the ethnographer and of his/her subjects, how we see the relation between scholars and narrators, and, consequently, the quality of the ethnographic research as a whole.

Reference list:

Hoppe, Kirk, “Whose Life is it, Anyway?: Issues of Representation in Life Narrative Texts of African Women,” International Journal of African Historical Studies, 26:3, 1993

Gengenbach Heidi “Truth-Telling and the Politics of Women’s Life History Research in Africa: A Reply to Kirk Hoppe,” The International Journal of African Historical Studies, Vol. 27, No. 3, 1994

Miescher Stephan, Louise White and David Cohen, eds., African Lives, African Voices: Critical Practices in Oral histories, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001.

The who debate can be listened to by clicking here.

Angelique Kidjo taking a crowd bath, Chicago, Il, March 4th

Angelique Kidjo is one of my favorite African singer along with Salif Keita and Cesaria Evora. Of those who are no longer among us, I also love Miriam Makeba, Lucky Dube and Brenda Fassie. Last night, Angelique Kidjo had a concert in Chicago and I obviously went to the performance. The ticket was 30 dollars and it was worth every single cent. Mrs. Kidjo gave an unforgettable performance. She was energetic, sang like an angel and danced like a real professional dancer. She had the rhythm, the attitude and made use of her impressive wisdom to charm us all. Those of you who are interested in Africa and live in America should do your best to attend one of her shows. She’s on a spring tour which continues in some of the major American cities. You can find her concert schedule at the end of this post.

In two hours, Mrs. Kidjo did not only surprise us with her beautiful voice but also with her life lessons. In between songs, she argued that racism is a waste of energy; that educating women in Africa is crucial for educating African nations; that countries cannot develop without women empowerment; and that African men should lead by example, just like her father did. She also mentioned that African Americans are an integral part of African culture.   Mrs. Kidjo did not forget to pay tribute to Miriam Makeba which she called a symbol of African culture. See her live performance of Malaika below:

Angelique Kidjo also confessed that she enjoys Bollywood movies. She likes them so much that she went to India to find a song that’s been on her mind for decades. She eventually found it and then made her own Hindi song. See her stunning performance and find out why she likes Indian movies, below:

Don’t you simply love the way she dances??? I certainly do.

Towards the end of her performance, she invited some of the members of the audience on stage who had a great time singing and dancing with her. Below, you will see just how much fun you will have if you go to her next show. Mrs. Kidjo is singing her famous song: Agora.

Angelique Kidjo singing Afrika, Chicago, Il, March 4th 2010

Angélique Kidjo was born on 14 July 1960 in Ouidah, a small town on the coast of Benin. She went to school in Paris before she emigrated to the United Stated. She has a 16 year old daughter. What struck most about her was that she is in fact a very articulated feminist. She is brilliant, entertaining and has an overwhelming voice.

Mrs Kidjo is famous for songs like Aye, Congoleo, Wombo Lombo, Afrika, Agolo or Wele Wele.

Her new album, Oyo, will be released next month. It features guest appearances by Dianne Reeves, John Legend or Roy Hargrove.

The upcoming concerts will take place in the following cities and at the following locations. If you have the chance, go and see this wonderful artist. I guarantee she will convince you that life is indeed beautiful and that we have a duty to live it with dignity and modesty.

Mar 05 Miami, Fladrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts

Mar 26New York, NY The Town Hall

Mar 27 Washington, DC Lisner Auditorium

Mar 28 Wilmington, DE Grand Opera House

Apr 01 Troy, NY Troy Music Hall

Apr 02 Somerville, MA Somerville Theatre

Apr 03 Somerville , MA Somerville Theatre Apr 16

Cully, Switzerland Cully Jazz Festival

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Photo Credit: ehow.com

The recent SDP congress was one full of contradictions. Let personal vendettas and political shenanigans aside, this event was used to mark a new episode in the “witchcraft of politics” or the “politics of witchcraft” phenomenon which is slowly showing its mantra in Romania. This is an excerpt from a translated version of an email I received from an old friend who participated at the congress:

“After more than an hour of staying in line, I finally entered Romexpo. The first thing that struck me was not the red ties and red banners so reminiscent of a cursed era in Romania’s history, but the group of witches practicing what they call white magic. They were all there – maybe five of them or so – reciting incantations and exorcising the purple flame curse from the building. I thought to myself: what the fuck is this? I have never met witches in real-life and I have to admit I was a little bit taken by surprise. And I felt rather disturbed by the whole episode.”

Who were these withes? What were they doing there? Who brought them there? I am still a little bit unclear on the details as the reports coming from Romanian media are also rather incoherent. This is what I was able to find out.

1. The witches claimed they came to the congress in order to make sure that the event will happen “quietly and happily.”
2. They marketed themselves as famous and reputable witches with great power to stop esoteric forces.
3. They were wearing little crosses and other Christian symbols and had flowers, baskets and candles on them.
4. They were present at the venue of the congress in the early morning and then returned in the evening when the voting session begun.
5. They claimed they knew who will win and gave Geoana as winner. “Shockingly” they were wrong.
6. They did not mention who invited them to the congress but since they were inside before my friend arrived there, they definitely had the clearance to enter the building.

Who brought them there and why is less relevant. I’m going to go ahead and assume that it was Geoana and Hrebenciuc’s teams and if I will be proven wrong, I will admit it here on my blog.

I am going to translate what they had to say at the congress when journalists asked them what they were doing at Romexpo.

The Purple flame exists inside the building, people in purple got inside. It could have been really bad, but with our power we managed to stop them. We entered the building and we neutralized the fights.

We have bigger powers which are required to stop these forces. In there, you find older witches who will begin some rituals. The purple flame is black magic and it’s inside the SDP but we, with the white magic, will stop the purple flame.

As you can see, we are not random witches, we are famous in Romania and in Bucharest, we use the white magic not the black magic in our work.

Now you make whatever you want to make of this. I have seen various journalists dismissing this phenomenon, but I think it is rather important to look into the connection between Romanian politics and witchcraft rituals. They might actually tell us more than politicians themselves. My view is that these witches are indicative of the deep anxieties that various politicians feel as they are losing their grip on power. I think they are trying to tame an invisible monster – which could be fate, historical irony or simply a historical accident – that governs Romanian politics. In the process, they are looking for explanations, solutions and new way of acting upon the world. I wonder if they actually found them.

Photo Credit: www.apropo.ro

“New Situations Demand New Magic…”[1]

In Witchcraft, Oracles, and Magic Among the Azande, E.E.  Evans Pritchard analyzes a society which is broadly characterized by unchanging traditions. However, various events that are out of the immediate control of the Azande occur.  When that happens, its subjects are forced to make qualitative and quantitative observations which redefine their position, the way they interact with each other and, ultimately, how they attempt to preserve their existing modes of understanding of in order to convey what are in fact radically changing conditions. This is an uneven process, not devoid of contradictions in which personal and communal anxieties play a defining role in the social space, in which the Azande operate as a community. At a first look, though admirable for its relative social cohesion, the world of the Azande appears to be strikingly different from the one we inhabit. After all, we have different social norms, priorities and ways of acting upon the world, not to mention the fact that we live in a very different historical moment. However, seen from a different perspective, while the history of the Azande is distinct from our own in the West, when we analyze the historical processes of socio-political and economic changes that both the Azande and the people in America experience we notice some  interesting similarities.  In this essay, I argue that by studying Evans Pritchard’s work on the Azande we can detect patterns of organizing behavior that can shed some light on how people from our own society, the America of the 21^st century, interpret and react to the unavoidable succession of events that out of our control. I also argue that by virtue of our similarities, the Azande and the Americans have similar ways of reacting to the unknown. Consequently, the story of the Azande could in fact inform and allow us to overcome some of the obstacles we in America are currently facing.

In the history of the Azande, the transition from a small-scale, autonomous form of organization to a larger, integrated social and political system was an event of great importance, as the Azande were forced to reevaluate their role and existence within a much larger project. Their unilateral focus on their own community required a major shift as they were no longer only related to their peers and community but to other actors and series of events which they could not fully control. Not only could they not control everything that was happening to them, but the Azande were also unable to stop the social transformation from taking place, though they were not in fact concerned with it. One then asks oneself, is that significantly different from what we experience in the United States, one century later? Aren’t traditional institutions also changing and we have no power to control or contain them? Do concepts of marriage and family have the same values and meanings that our community attributed to them only twenty years ago? Is the economy, a force and structure that we were once so confident in, enjoying the same consideration and faith now as it did four-five years ago? Something has changed even if the actors were the same and even if we pretend that it didn’t. The story of the Azande suggests that what changes is our ability to control the events and phenomena that we once thought we mastered and perhaps to some extent we did. In the process, we generate new explanations that allow us to regain control at least at a discursive level over what is happening to us.

We, as a community, just like the Azande, will not simply accept social change but try to tame it, control it or at least rationalize and explain it in the terms that we see fit. Let’s take the example of the American economy and see how our behavior changed in the past few years and ask a critical question: what is that change indicative of? The economy is an invisible force. We cannot point to its material origin but we can feel its effects. If the economy performs as expected, we, as a community, prosper. In recent times, due to the global economic climate, our lives have been negatively impacted by a series of economic shocks that have directly affected our existence. This is something the Azande have also experienced throughout history and the term used by Pritchard to explain the social phenomenon and the effects this force had on people is “witchcraft”. As it turns out, “witchcraft” might be to the Azande what “economy” is to us. From Adam Smith onwards, many economists, politicians and in general educated people look at the economy and think of the invisible hand, the force that guides the free market capitalism. Basically, Adam smith had this to say about the invisible hand:

By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was not part of it. [2]

Let’s look at a passage from Pritchard’s work and simply replace the word “witchcraft” with “economy” and “Azande” with “people living in America”. As we will notice, an apparently distinct world will become strangely familiar:

I had no difficulty in discovering what Azande think about witchcraft, nor in observing what they do to combat it. These ideas and actions are on the surface of their life and are accessible to anyone who lives for a few weeks in their homesteads. […] There is no need to question Azande about it, for information flows freely from recurrent situations in their social life, and one has only to watch and listen. […] [W]itchcraft was one of the first words I heard in Zanzeland, and I heard it uttered day by day throughout the months.[3]

For the Azande, witchcraft was and most likely still is a form of sociality, the means by which people interacted with each other. Today, the economy is on everyone’s mind and it expresses a series of anxieties that we all have with respect to our present and future. In addition, we also mention it on a daily basis and we are worried about its implications and course of action. But most importantly, the economy, just like witchcraft, is fairly consistent with human responsibility.[4] In America, we have not simply blamed the economy for our personal misfortunes. Before reaching the point in which we attributed our bad luck and economic hardships to the economic climate, we took the conventional path so familiar to the Azande. We tried to live our lives, carry on with our economic exchanges and we did, in fact, followed and implemented the same techniques that we successfully used before the economic crisis. When those failed we attributed our hardships to the economy. Is that in any ways different from the Zande’s attempt to use witchcraft as a way of explaining “why bad things happened to good people?” Are we not trying to negotiate our differences and our sudden and unexpected change in our social and economic lives by attributing what is happening to us to an external force on which we have absolutely no control but which we are forced to acknowledge and respect?

The story of the Azande is not only indicative of our relation to the economy but also of an even more critical aspect in our lives. In writing Witchcraft, Oracles, And Magic Among the Azande, Pritchard was concerned with what he wittingly identified as a paradox: how is it possible that people who are clearly intelligent, rational and pragmatic often resort to ideas and beliefs that fail any empirical test? Pritchard goes ahead and settles this paradox by arguing that the Azande use witchcraft as a defense mechanism. Witchcraft allows them to not only explain unfortunate events in their lives but also protect their core beliefs from being rejected. In practice, the Azande rule out events that threaten or undermine their fundamental beliefs about the world they inhabit. [5] That is precisely what we, in the United States, do when we think of the effects of the economic crisis and the rogue global economic trends. By attributing our misfortunes to external factors – the economy, the careless bankers, the aggressive investment bankers and consultants etc – we rule out the other possibility which could potentially contest our most basic beliefs. China, an authoritarian state, managed to avoid the economic crisis until very recently and they are most likely going to get out of the economic recession ahead of us but under no circumstances will we ever consider being a part of a tyrannical state. South Africa, another protectionist state has also limited the negative effects on their economy by allowing the state to play a very prominent role in the economy. We wouldn’t and perhaps we shouldn’t consider that alternative either. But this shows a clear pattern which should not go unnoticed. We blame the economy for what is happening to us because otherwise we might have to question sensitive issues that could affect the way we see the world. Put differently, if we didn’t have the economy to invoke as a cause of our misfortunes – this witchcraft of the West – what would we think of concepts so dear to us like democracy, neo-liberalism, trade or state deregulation? And if we were to question those concepts, wouldn’t the consequences be more detrimental to our well-being as a whole? In other words, isn’t it perhaps better to hold the economy responsible for our misfortunes than to question the most fundamental sets of rights and beliefs in our lives, which are so valuable and precious to us?

The last comparison between the two worlds that I would like to make here is related to our similarity in how and by what means we try to reconcile the cause and effect of the events that affect us directly. We all do that by resorting to an authority that is expected to mediate our differences and restore our well-being. The Azande empowered a witch-doctor with that mission. We, on the other hand, chose the state to fulfill that mission. According to E.E.Pritchard:

The Zande witch-doctor is both diviner and magician. As diviner he exposes witches; as magician he thwarts them. […] As a diviner he discovers the location of witchcraft, and as a leech he repairs its ravages.[6]

In America, we identified the economy as being the problem and we are seeking a remedy. Some argue that this remedy should come from the private sector, but many believe the state should play a role in it. Perhaps in a Zande context, this debate would be on whether the problem could be solved directly through consultation among various members of the community or if the mediation should be conducted by a higher authority. In the United States, we hope that the Obama administration will make the right choices that will put the economy back on track. Just like the Azande, we have reached a point in which we look up to the higher authority that we entrusted with our well-being, and we are waiting for the direly needed solution. And many of us hope that no matter what decisions the state will make, we will once again be allowed to prosper and go on with our lives.

The world of the Azande is as complicated and contradictory as ours is. Independent of the decisions people take and how they attempt to solve their problems, both Westerners and the Azande are trying to minimalize and limit the detrimental external effects that shape their social and personal lives as members of a given community. Arguably, there are many things that set the Americans and the Azande apart. In this essay I focused on the similarities between the two worlds, but this does imply that I do not acknowledge the differences and variations that differentiate us.

Both the Azande and the people living in this country have a similar way of acting upon the world when they feel that they are losing control over some of the events that influence their lives. Which is, in fact, why Pritchard’s astute observation that “new situations require new magic” still stands. In practice, we all tend to hang to our exiting beliefs and almost naturally denounce everything that challenges our predisposed assumptions about the world. In this process, both Azande and us develop a faith and trust in experts or oracles of one sort of another. When in trouble, the Azande resort to witchdoctors but we also did the same when we requested the beliefs of other types of “diviners” such as economists, professors, economic consultants, and so on. When these actors failed we blamed the professional segments that these “diviners” came from and the institutions they represented: banks, governments, consultancy firms. By doing so, what we tried to avoid most (and succeeded in doing so) was what makes the Azande so similar to the people living in America: we blamed individual events instead of questioning the system of beliefs (i.e. finance capital) that these actors represent.

Lastly, by studying the Azande, we can perhaps retain our hope for a better future. The Azande experienced structural transformations that threatened the very social fabric of their societies. They managed to overcome the extremely difficult obstacle in their lives, i.e. the transition from an enclosed society to a social cell that was part of a much larger political and economic project. In the 21^st century America, we are all researchers limited by our temporal orientation as subjects of the world we wish to study which clearly brings along a series of limitations and contradictions. However, by studying the Azande, we might just find the answers and the strength to overcome what is after all the most challenging obstacle in our recent times. And the fact that others have succeeded should at least allow us to hope that we will too.

[2] Adam Smith, Wealth Of Nations, Book IV, Chapter 2, Prometheus Books (December 1991) p. 487,

[3] E.E. Evans Pritchard, Witchcraft, Oracles, And Magic Among the Azande, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1976, p. 1

[4] Pritchard, p.30

[5] Professor Jean Comaroff makes this argument in a convocation speech titled “The Uses of “Ex-centricity”: Cool Reflections from Hot Places”

[6] E.E.Pritchard 66

Hi guys

In the last week or so I have been going through my interview notes from my Africa travels, spanning over the last five years of my life – the best five years I would say. I was also going through my old diary – yeah, at one point I had a diary, now the blog seems to be enough.  I was honestly impressed with the amount of amazing quotes that I had recorded but not seen in a long time. Since I am a very cynical person, at the time I recorded those quotes I found them interesting but did not think about sharing them with other people. They suggested a type of wisdom and, in some cases cynicism, which was so familiar to me. After all, I lived in a country which is comparable to a large extent to many African states I have been to as the contradictions of modernity and post-oppressive systems are, in many cases, quite similar. As things have changed and new online tools became available, I decided that this should become public knowledge. I will do my best to publish one such short quote every day on my twitter account. Should the quotes be too long, I will post them on this blog. If you’re interested in this exercise / experiment, you are welcome to follow me on twitter at  twitter.com/csarsene

To a get a sample of the type of material you will find on my twitter account please read the first two twitter posts uploaded today and yesterday:

“Is banning gay the most important issue we Ugandans face today? I thought my poverty was more important, but it turns out I was wrong.”

An old friend from Dar es Salaam: “If I hear Sacks talking about saving Africa one more time, my brain cells will commit mass suicide.”

Well, if you think you’re interested, go ahead and add me on twitter.

twitter.com/csarsene

Best,

Codrin Arsene

Update: I just finished transcribing ten quotes from my 2006 East and Central Africa travels so expect to see one updated African quote on Twitter every day, at least until then.