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An Ethnography of Logics and Practices of Distribution in a Ugandan Refugee Camp
Author:
*
The open access publication of this book has been published with the support of the Swiss National Science Foundation.
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At a time when rights are increasingly placed on the humanitarian agenda, this book provides a unique ethnographic account of the dynamics of aid to disabled people in a Ugandan refugee camp. By unraveling the complexities of social, material and institutional interdependencies, the author invites us to rethink conventional notions of dependence and vulnerability. Exploring issues of personhood as they relate to the exchange of material goods and care, the book offers a thought-provoking perspective on the seemingly promising shift towards a rights-based approach. A compelling read for anyone seeking to reshape the humanitarian agenda.
The open access publication of this book has been published with the support of the Swiss National Science Foundation.
*
At a time when rights are increasingly placed on the humanitarian agenda, this book provides a unique ethnographic account of the dynamics of aid to disabled people in a Ugandan refugee camp. By unraveling the complexities of social, material and institutional interdependencies, the author invites us to rethink conventional notions of dependence and vulnerability. Exploring issues of personhood as they relate to the exchange of material goods and care, the book offers a thought-provoking perspective on the seemingly promising shift towards a rights-based approach. A compelling read for anyone seeking to reshape the humanitarian agenda.
An Ethnography of Logics and Practices of Distribution in a Ugandan Refugee Camp
Author:
*
The open access publication of this book has been published with the support of the Swiss National Science Foundation.
*
At a time when rights are increasingly placed on the humanitarian agenda, this book provides a unique ethnographic account of the dynamics of aid to disabled people in a Ugandan refugee camp. By unraveling the complexities of social, material and institutional interdependencies, the author invites us to rethink conventional notions of dependence and vulnerability. Exploring issues of personhood as they relate to the exchange of material goods and care, the book offers a thought-provoking perspective on the seemingly promising shift towards a rights-based approach. A compelling read for anyone seeking to reshape the humanitarian agenda.
The open access publication of this book has been published with the support of the Swiss National Science Foundation.
*
At a time when rights are increasingly placed on the humanitarian agenda, this book provides a unique ethnographic account of the dynamics of aid to disabled people in a Ugandan refugee camp. By unraveling the complexities of social, material and institutional interdependencies, the author invites us to rethink conventional notions of dependence and vulnerability. Exploring issues of personhood as they relate to the exchange of material goods and care, the book offers a thought-provoking perspective on the seemingly promising shift towards a rights-based approach. A compelling read for anyone seeking to reshape the humanitarian agenda.
Translating Technology in Africa brings together authors from different disciplines who engage with Science and Technology Studies (STS) to stimulate curiosity about the diversity of sociotechnical assemblages on the African continent. The contributions provide detailed praxeographic examinations of technologies at work in postcolonial contexts. The series of 5 volumes aims to catalyse the development of a field of research that is still in its infancy in Africa and promises to offer novel insights into past, present, and future challenges and opportunities facing the continent. The first volume, on "Metrics", explores practices of quantification and digitisation. The chapters examine how numbers are aggregated and how the resulting metrics shape new realities.
Contributors include Kevin. P. Donovan, Véra Ehrenstein, Jonathan Klaaren, Emma Park, Helen Robertson, René Umlauf and Helen Verran
Contributors include Kevin. P. Donovan, Véra Ehrenstein, Jonathan Klaaren, Emma Park, Helen Robertson, René Umlauf and Helen Verran
Translating Technology in Africa brings together authors from different disciplines who engage with Science and Technology Studies (STS) to stimulate curiosity about the diversity of sociotechnical assemblages on the African continent. The contributions provide detailed praxeographic examinations of technologies at work in postcolonial contexts. The series of 5 volumes aims to catalyse the development of a field of research that is still in its infancy in Africa and promises to offer novel insights into past, present, and future challenges and opportunities facing the continent. The first volume, on "Metrics", explores practices of quantification and digitisation. The chapters examine how numbers are aggregated and how the resulting metrics shape new realities.
Contributors include Kevin. P. Donovan, Véra Ehrenstein, Jonathan Klaaren, Emma Park, Helen Robertson, René Umlauf and Helen Verran
Contributors include Kevin. P. Donovan, Véra Ehrenstein, Jonathan Klaaren, Emma Park, Helen Robertson, René Umlauf and Helen Verran
A Rhythm that Connects our Hearts with God
Author:
Vibrant worship music is part of the Charismatic liturgy all around the world, and has become in many ways the hallmark of Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity. Despite its centrality, scholarly interest in the theological and ritual significance of worship for pentecostal spirituality has been sparse, not least in Africa.
Combining rich theoretical and theological insight with an in-depth case study of worship practices in Nairobi, Kenya, this interdisciplinary study offers a significant contribution to knowledge and is bound to influence scholarly discussions for years to come. The book is a must-read for anyone interested in Pentecostal worship, ritual, and spirituality.
Combining rich theoretical and theological insight with an in-depth case study of worship practices in Nairobi, Kenya, this interdisciplinary study offers a significant contribution to knowledge and is bound to influence scholarly discussions for years to come. The book is a must-read for anyone interested in Pentecostal worship, ritual, and spirituality.
A Rhythm that Connects our Hearts with God
Author:
Vibrant worship music is part of the Charismatic liturgy all around the world, and has become in many ways the hallmark of Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity. Despite its centrality, scholarly interest in the theological and ritual significance of worship for pentecostal spirituality has been sparse, not least in Africa.
Combining rich theoretical and theological insight with an in-depth case study of worship practices in Nairobi, Kenya, this interdisciplinary study offers a significant contribution to knowledge and is bound to influence scholarly discussions for years to come. The book is a must-read for anyone interested in Pentecostal worship, ritual, and spirituality.
Combining rich theoretical and theological insight with an in-depth case study of worship practices in Nairobi, Kenya, this interdisciplinary study offers a significant contribution to knowledge and is bound to influence scholarly discussions for years to come. The book is a must-read for anyone interested in Pentecostal worship, ritual, and spirituality.
Author:
Abstract
The Dutch neo-Calvinist mission (Zending) on Sumba in Indonesia, an area known for its Marapu ancestor religion, started in 1902. The independent Sumbanese church (Gereja Kristen Sumba, GKS) was established at the 1947 Synod. One century later, by 2002, two out of three inhabitants were Christian. The research question is whether the rise of a vital GKS was facilitated by education and ‘antithetical’ notions of freedom offered by neo-Calvinist Zending. The answer is that the Zending empowered Sumbanese Christians to decide for themselves whether to preserve traditional customs (adat), so they could build the GKS from the bottom up. This answer is based on archival material – including the unexplored archive of Rev. P.J. Lambooij – and on a dozen semi-structured interviews with Sumbanese spokespersons in 2006, 2016 and 2019. Macro-level explanations – capitalism, modernity, or colonialism – hardly appear to account for the transformation to Sumbanese Christianity.
In:
Exchange
Abstract
Amid mounting assaults on political freedom and self-determination – both on the African continent and further afield, the work of the Pan-African Gorée Institute for Democracy, Development and Culture in Africa is more urgent than ever. This article reflects on the first thirty years of the Institute’s existence. It pays special attention to gorin’s creative projects, developed under the motto ‘Imagine Africa’, and reflects on South African poet Breyten Breytenbach’s formative role in the establishment of gorin’s cultural activities. The article concludes with a call for renewed engagement with gorin’s pan-African democratic endeavours.
In:
Afrika Focus
Author:
Abstract
The article investigates the social and cultural practices of Sira production and consumption in the later Middle Period. It probes into the place held by Sira regarding the veneration of the Prophet, especially in relation to Hadith. Its first part shows that in the Middle Period Sira was intended as a vast literary repository characterized by fluidity of format, diverse social fruition, and plurality of practices in transmission and consumption. It was a literary field characterized by narrative malleability and creativity, for which there was popular demand and scholarly dedication.
The life and work of the Šāfiʿī scholar and Hadith expert Ibn Nāṣir al-Dīn al-Dimašqī (d. 842/1438), in particular his Ǧāmiʿ al-āṯār fī l-siyar wa-mawlid al-muḫtār (The Compilation of Traditions on the Life and Birth of the Chosen One) occupies the second part of the article. Here, Ǧāmiʿ al-āṯār is taken as a written exemplification of the tight relationship between Sira, Hadith and devotion to the Prophet typical of the period, of 14th-15th century Damascus in particular.
Overall, the article argues that the intended meaning and use of a text as rich as Ǧāmiʿ al-āṯār can be fully grasped only when we put it in close conversation with the Hadith culture and veneration for the Prophet of the time. It suggests the existence of a pervasive “Sira culture” binding people in a relationship of meaning to their shared memories of the life of the Prophet. Such culture was nurtured by remembrance of the Prophet’s excellency and life milestones. It aimed at cultivating salvific feelings of love for the Prophet that would assure believers a secure place in the Afterlife.
In:
Arabica
Ikisiri
Makala hii inaangazia historia ya maendeleo ya bonde la Kilombero na hasa, dira juu ya maendeleo ya bonde hili lililoko kusini-kati mwa Tanzania. Tangu kipindi cha mwanzo cha ukoloni, bonde lilisifiwa kuwa na rutuba ya kutosha na mipango mingi iliandaliwa kuitumia rutuba hiyo kwa uzalishaji mazao. Matumizi ya ardhi hii yalitarajiwa kuleta mageuzi makubwa vijijini na kuboresha maisha ya watu. Ili kuelewa vyema dhima na umuhimu wa mipango ya awali juu ya bonde la Kilombero, makala hii inaangazia historia ya maendeleo kupitia mipango ya siku za nyuma ili kuona namna mipango hiyo ilivyosaidia maendeleo ya sasa na siku zijazo. Dhamira kuu nne za historia ya maendeleo zimeainishwa na kujadiliwa. Dhamira hizo ni: uimarishaji wa kilimo; udhibiti wa ikolojia; miundombinu; na makazi. Makala hii inaleta mtazamo mpya kuhusu Kilombero, lakini mtazamo huo unaweza kutumiwa katika historia ya maendeleo ya mahali popote nchini Tanzania.
In:
Utafiti
Author:
Abstract
The chapter inquires into the duality of metrics in contemporary Yorùbá life. I begin with an experience had by the author in a Yorùbá primary school classroom in a southwestern Nigerian city where a class of children near the end of their primary school career showed expert capacity in working the two very different metrics of contemporary Yorùbá life together. This ethnographic story provides a framing and offers preliminary data. In the body of the chapter, first I summarise the very different arithmetical workings of the Yorùbá language metric compared to the standard modern decimal system taught in schools and associated with English language. Then I show how numbers sit in the workings of Yorùbá language quite differently than the way decimal numbers sit in the English language. In making something of these differences, after briefly developing the idea that as cultural resources, metrics are linguistic-arithmetical meshes which have life through the sociomaterial happening of numbers in the here and now, I present accounts of bilingual children telling how they see differences between the metrics—literally; they tell of having an embodied sensibility of difference between Yorùbá numbers and decimal numbers. I relate the felt sociomaterial differences to difference between iconic and indexical numbers, noting iconic numbers feature in trade, whereas indexical numbers feature in experimental science.
Abstract
This text presents a dialogue between Omar Séne, an activist-artist from Senegal, and two researchers, Sandrine Gukelberger from Germany and Anna Grimaldi from the UK. The intention of this particular collaboration is to interrogate the relationship between Pan-African activism in the present and the modes through which they relate to the past. It combines and recontextualises various artefacts, narrative interviews and extracts of Séne’s personal archive (including photographs, dance choreographies and on- and offline texts). The aim is twofold: on the one hand, we provide a situated perspective on the pathways of becoming a youth activist in Senegal today, and on the other, we explore one individual’s experience of a collective identification with Pan-Africanism. Through this text, we demonstrate how figures of the past are mobilised to drive youth engagement in the present, and how these inherited struggles are perpetuated through bodies.
In:
Bandung
Author:
Abstract
The term digital divide is used to describe the social, political, and economic effects that result from the decoupling or only partial integration of entire regions and populations. It is assumed that currently only about half of the world’s population has the necessary technical prerequisites to be able to use digital services reliably. Many Sub-Saharan countries are affected by this. Against this backdrop, I will follow the hypothesis that new forms of digital work in African contexts promote, and in some cases accelerate, the decoupling and the inequalities that arise from it. In order to be able to examine this ethnographically, I will engage with the work of Samasource, a globally operating impact sourcing company. Since 2012 Samasource, a San Francisco based organisation, operates a crowdsourcing and digital micro-work factory on the campus of Gulu University in Northern Uganda. About three hundred students and graduates work in twelve-hour shifts assigning specific digital attributes to large amounts of data (also called annotation work). What I refer to as data enrichment practices refers to both the circulation of commercialised raw data for machine learning or training data, as well as specific types of broadband internet used in low-resource contexts. The paper aims to find out how this form of neo-tayloristic, anti-innovative, “taskified” work relates to global and local discourses on wage labour and digital education. The conceptual framework of the paper attempts to critically situate this new form of digital mass labour as part of a particular form of post-colonial technopolitics.