Chapter 10
A Travelling Model and its Appropriation for the Creation of a Pan-African Network
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Abstract
In this chapter, I set out to analyse the success of Lions Clubs on the African continent, with a focus on the political aspects of membership. The choice for a political approach has been based on field observations at local club meetings and international events, where it was observed how the Lions Club has a role for the social ascent of individual members but also how African leaders strive for a better position of the Africa-based branch within the global organisation. Lions Clubs International was created in the United States and exported and imposed all of its codes in Africa, where the continental leadership applies them—albeit that in certain circumstances they also modify the rules in view of the objective to gain more African clout within the organisation. It is, therefore, a travelling model (Behrends et al. 2014) whose modification by the African leaders highlights the latter’s agency and ability to appropriate (Gewald 2012) and to trick (Latouche et al. 2004; Jerven 2015). However, this also poses the question of submission to an extra-continental model (Bayart et al. 1992). Is, then, the Lions Clubs model one that travels, or, on the other hand, is it externally imposed? Is it a local translation of a generic matrix reinterpreted by the members in order to create an autonomous network, or rather, an opportunity for the African leaders to showcase their own talents at the expense of their members in a process of extraversion?