Abstract：Voices for the future: African Area Studies in a globalizing world
Abstract：Voices for the future: African Area Studies in a globalizing world
【Speaker 1】 Kadya Tall (Research Fellow, IMAF-EHESS)
Presentation Title:
Asian presence in the religious sphere in West Africa: Some observations
from Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso and Benin
Abstract:
Well-known is the Moon Church’s awarding of peace diplomas to traditional healers and various religious leaders in countries such as Côte d’Ivoire, Benin and Togo from the late 1990s; likewise, Sukyo Mahikari is popular among West African urban elites since the 1970. Dating back the 2000s is a more recent yet growing African interest for Asian churches or meditating practices such as Sahaja Yoga and Sokka Gakkai Buddhism. True to say, Asian imagery has been present in West Africa since the XIXth century through cults such as Mami Wata: the Mermaid has often been painted as a Malay beauty. What is knew, though, is that Indian deities are now named and incorporated into the vodun pantheon in Mami Wata temples, as I discovered a year ago during the White Stone Festival in Aneho (Togo).
We can observe two major trends. On the one hand, some Asian churches and Muslim revivalist movements such as the Presbyterian Corean Church, Tabligh Jamaat or Ahmadiyya Muslim Mission are competing in the religious market with all the Christian and Muslim fundamentalist movements fighting for the moralisation of both the public and private spheres. On the other hand, a new generation of urban healers and soothsayers, looking to free themselves from practices riddled with sorcery suspicion, are noticeably attracted by some Asian practices such as vegetal offerings in place of blood sacrifices, and meditation in place of trance possession, etc.
To sum up our preliminary hypothesis: Asian presence in the religious sphere is increasingly visible today owing to globalization processes and the circulation of people between the African continent and the different Asian regions (India, China, etc.), but also to a search for therapeutics and religious practices not tainted by witchcraft and sorcery.
【Speaker 2】 Éloi Ficquet (Associate Professor, EHESS-CéSor)
Presentation Title:
Some observations on long-distance interactions in the history of Islam and the models they can provide for understanding Africa-Asia relations
Abstract:
In a series of lecture given in 1967 and published in 1971 under the title of Islam Observed, the American anthropologist Clifford Geertz compared two Islamic countries that he intensively studied, Indonesia and Morocco. By describing the evolution of Islamic religious practices in each society, Geertz concluded that the destiny of a universal religion was to loose its unified character by following divergent local trajectories leading to the alteration of the original unifying pattern. As he highlighted diverging aspects and drew some parallel lines, Geertz excluded from his perspective the distant connections through direct or indirect contacts that have taken place between North-West Africa and South-East Asia because of their sharing a common faith and common tools of communication. For example, the 14th c. Moroccan traveller Ibn Battuta reached the Straits of Malacca in 1345, or the Shadhili spiritual movement that emerged in Morocco was widely spread amongst Muslim Asian communities, including Indonesia. Such remote bilateral contacts or influences have played a minor role in the dynamics of evolution of each society, but their participation into a wider network of peer-to-peer interactions, all Muslims being virtually equal, offered an infinity of opportunities that have been a powerful driving force. On the basis of the comparison developed by Geertz, and other assumptions absent from his observations, this presentation will consider how the social codes and worldviews elaborated within the realm of Islam channelled flows of persons and ideas between regions of Africa and Asia. We will see to what extent this long history can provide interpretative and, potentially, predictive patterns for the study of the current processes of convergence between Asia and Africa.
【Speaker 1】 Frédéric Joulian (Associate Professor, CNE-EHESS)
Yann-Philippe Tastevin(Research Fellow, LISST-CNRS)
Presentation Title:
Wood and engines: Elementary actions on matter and transfers of know-how between cultures
Abstract:
This presentation will retrace some points we proposed last January on the occasion of Kyoto -workshop « Technologies and Nature: Asia-Europe in Africa crossed perspectives »- around the technical knowledge related to the waste economy (“Fixing the World” book, 2016). We will also rely on Mikaela Le Meur fieldwork in Vietnam (on the plastic industry) and Annabel Vallard (on an anthropology of materials – silk and gems) and Remi Reboux in Nairobi (on Ewaste).
For this international meeting the idea is to propose a new grid of analysis of technical gestures in order to bring back to the forefront the know-how more than the objects and merchandise, and to set a framework in the aim to be able to describe the gestures and compare them through close or distant cultures. This instrument can serve as a basis for a collective debate with Japanese and African colleagues.
One of the challenges is to make visible the extreme richness of praxical skills in Africa, Asia (and Europe) and to question their possible valorization and transferability from one culture to another, from one continent to another; and because this praxical cultural dimension is usually neglected by the major projects of development or of technological transfer.
Our approach is analytical and critical, but historical as well. We will show the success and failures on that topic of the various attempts made by the anthropology of techniques, ergonomics or the sociology of work in Europe, Africa and Japan.
We will distinguish the heuristic dimensions of the project from the applied dimensions and attempts to give examples borrowed from the know-how linked to the traditional economies (that of vegetable and wood in particular) or modern (that of mechanics -auto and drilling).
We will become more complex on the question by questioning the notions of technical and social “milieux”, ecological, economic and political environment as well, and examine the conditions of technology transfers from the point of view of local gestures and know-how in different modes of production (hunter-gatherers, agricultural, artisanal or industrial). Transfers and exchanges are welcome from a non-hierarchical point of view (usually high-tech from North to low-tech to South) but horizontally, from West to East or from South to North and vice versa.
【Speaker 2】 Olivier P. Gosselain (Professor, Cultural Anthropology Center, Université libre de Bruxelles)
Presentation Title:
Young, wealthy, and beautiful: A multiscalar history of Asian enamelware in West Africa
Abstract:
This paper draws on fieldwork done in southern Niger and northern Benin between 2005 and 2015, as well as a survey of the anthropological literature and colonial reports. It documents the use of Asian enamelware in marriage trousseaux and room decoration in rural communities between the Niger River and the Lake Chad areas. During the last two decades, enamelware (whose Asian origin is seldom known by rural populations, unlike other categories of goods) has been incorporated in a set of practices far removed from the intended functions of such products. It has in turn played an increasing role in the dynamics of gender and inter-generational relations, the construction of urban and rural identities, the expressions of wealth, and the aesthetics of female spaces and material culture.
Besides retracing the odd trajectory and impacts of Asian enamelware in West Africa, this paper seeks to show the benefits of a multiscalar approach for analyzing the circulation and local insertion of exogenous goods. We will see that the adoption, transformation, or rejection of a new element in a given social space depends on the characteristics of the element itself, the characteristics of the vectors through which it was introduced, and the characteristics of the context within which it is introduced. In order to make sense of such irreducibly unique combination of determining factors, such phenomena have to be approached as a combination of processes that take place at various geographical scales and according to their own logics. It is the specific way in which these different factors combine or inhibit themselves that gives rise to the particular distributions observed.
【Speaker 1】 Marin Ferry (Research Fellow, DIAL-Paris 9-Dauphine)
Presentation Title:
Post-debt relief financing: A focus on the Asian-African partnership
Abstract:
Asian countries have been increasingly involved in the financing of African economies over the past decade. Yet, most of the African countries have benefited from massive debt relief in the early mid-2000s. A recent paper by Ferry et al. (2016) has shown that bilateral donors reduced their financing flows and tightened their lending conditions for beneficiary countries in reaction to debt relief. This gradual withdrawal might be explained by the fact that these donors cancelled some of the claims they had on African HIPCs through the HIPC initiative and have experienced public finance crises, leading them to ask for higher returns on their loans.
The focus of this study departs from this type of donors to focus on the reaction of those that were less involved in these debt relief initiatives as compared with occidental countries, namely Asian economies. Given the increasing partnership between African and Asian countries, unaddressed questions remain about the role of Asian economies in the financing of African countries post-debt relief.
Did these economies help African countries to face their increasing financing needs after debt relief or did they mimic occidental donors by tightening the financing condition and gradually reducing their financial assistance? This study tries to answer these questions by looking at bilateral financing from Asian countries to African HIPCs, as compared with financing from these countries to non- HIPCs.
【Speaker 2】 Kae Amo (Ph.D. Candidate, FFJ-IMAF-EHESS)
Presentation Title:
Japanese humanitarian workers in Senegal: The cases of JICA volunteers
Abstract:
Based on case studies and interviews, this contribution aims at examining the relationships and controversies existing between the different actors involved in the world of humanitarian assistance and development aid in Senegal. These include: scholars (researchers, experts, students…), NGO workers, agents and volunteers from governmental organizations (JICA, Japan International Cooperation Agency).
Today, all these actors regularly work on the same field at the same time. Academics as well as local and international NGOs have been creating knowledge about local societies, suggesting if not sometimes helping build new development aid strategies, while producing know-how that is very often collected with the support of members belonging to these local communities. Local NGOs play also a critical role in these relationships. Part and parcel of Senegalese society and managed by Senegalese people, they are not only contributing to the economic and social development of their country, but they are also playing the role of “fixers” for foreign scholars and agents, helping them link with other local actors and groups living in the different regions of Senegal.
What are the roles of humanitarian workers from Japan? What are the perceptions of local people vis-à-vis these volunteers? How these different actors construct a every-day relations in Senegal?
Based on the observations and interviews with JICA volunteer staffs and local population, but also with scholars working on Senegal, this paper attempts to highlight the methodological, epistemological and ethical problems to understand the complex relationships between the local people and humanitarian actors.
【Speaker 1】 Facil Tesfaye (Assistant Professor, African Studies, The University of Hong Kong)
Presentation Title:
Circulation of medical knowledge in the Indian Ocean World: The Ethiopian example
Abstract:
In the past few decades, scholars have acknowledged the importance of the Indian Ocean (IO) as a geographical space of intense interaction that gave birth to the first global economy. For Africa historians, the study of the interactions in the IO has increasingly become an analytical tool that help re-think the role of the continent in history and propose an alternative continental historiography.
This paper is a continuation of my previous research in which my colleagues and I attempted to trace histories of medicine and healing in the IOW. In this project, we argued that medical knowledge and healing practices were among the items that were circulating in the IOW, both in the medieval/early modern period but also in the modern period.
Starting with the general framework of the circulation of medical knowledge in the IOW, my paper will focus on the discussion of the medical history of an Ethiopia. This example will not only highlight the historical connection of Africa with the IOW in the particular field of medicine and healing. By looking into documented Ethiopian traditional medical practices, this paper will not only demonstrate Ethiopia’s IO connection in this field, but also of underline the importance of traditional medical practices in the medical history of the African continent.
【Speaker 2】 Pascale Rabault-Feuerhahn (Research Fellow, CNRS-ENS)
Presentation Title:
African studies and Oriental studies:Intermingling and disciplinary divide through the prism of the history of international scientific congresses
Abstract:
Founded in Paris in 1873, the International Congress of Orientalists had been originally designed as a meeting of different people interested in Japan: scholars, but also diplomats or traders. But already at its first session, the geographical scope of the Congress was greatly expanded. From its origins, this international gathering was confronted with two questions regarding the definition of Oriental studies: the one concerning their theoretical or practical nature, the other regarding their geographical extension. The ambition of the Congress was to integrate the entire world in the field of knowledge. Consequently, as from its subsequent gatherings, sections on sub-Saharan Africa were added. But this inclusive definition of the Orient posed serious epistemological challenges. Could the methods and objectives of African studies really be the same as those of the traditional, much older branches of Oriental studies? On the one hand, the inclusive definition of Oriental studies confirmed the importance of the then nascent to African studies. But on the other hand, it revealed an ethnocentric vision: one in which all regions outside of Europe were considered as a whole. In the context of decolonization and the Cold War, these tensions and contradictions broke out and culminated in the creation of an International Congress of Africanists independent of that of the Orientalists. The entangled history of both Congresses gives new insights into the emergence and affirmation of area studies.
【Speaker 3】 Rémy Bazenguissa-Ganga (Professor, IMAF-EHESS)
Presentation Title:
Tenrikyo, Japanese presence-absence in Congo-Brazzaville
Abstract:
In this presentation, I will examine the relevance of the area studies for research on emerging objects which articulate two “areas” such as, for example, Africa and Asia. My hypothesis is that, in this case, it is necessary to use, in a more metaphorical sense, the notion of space in order to be able to deduce the concrete and punctual form of these areas differences from the circulation of that specific objects.
I propose to demonstrate this through the case of one the Japanese temple Tenrikyo in Brazzaville. For more than 50 years, this church has been present in a southern district of the Congolese capital. This imposing, shining structure is an empty shell due to the small number of its believers and, paradoxically, by the exceptional building maintenance. The presence of this temple has redefined certain elements of Congolese social and political history.
I will first address how Tenrikyo’s presence intervenes in the narrative of post-Cold War and the reconstruction following the end of the one-party regime. For example, Tenrikyo is now the name of neighbourhood. This name replaces two former names: “Camp Meteo”, which refers to the unfortunate reminder of the Civil Defence forces barrack, located in front of the temple, which was dismantled in the 70’s, and “Angola libre”, the name of the clandestine radio where the Angolan forces broadcast their messages of resistance during their war of independence against Portugal.
Then, I will present to what extent Tenrikyo is now a popular academic institution. Finally, I will highlight how the practices that refer to it contribute to the reconstruction of social relations. In this respect, it is also considered a “traditional” court of justice against witchcraft. The explosion of these practices was related to new economic realities imposed by the Structural Adjustment Programs.
Panel 1 (Organizer: Shinichiro ICHINO)
Panel title: How does long-term field study contribute to biodiversity conservation in Madagascar?
Abstract:
Conservation of biodiversity in the African tropical forest has come to be considered a global environmental issue. Madagascar has unique flora and fauna with high rates of endemism. In spite of the uniqueness, it is estimated that more than 90% of natural forest of Madagascar has disappeared and most animals and plants are facing a high risk of extinction. As such, Madagascar is considered to be one of the biodiversity hotspots where high-priority conservation efforts are required. Despite the current expansion of Madagascar’s protected forest areas, the most forests already have been fragmented. In such area, typical conservation biology cannot be applicable and it is necessary to find the way to maximize the potential of the remaining forests. In this symposium, we discuss how to maximize the potential of Malagasy forest for biodiversity conservation. Especially, we focus on relations between long-term field research and biodiversity conservation. Some long-term field studies of ecology and primatology have been conducted in Madagascar and the activity is expected to contribute to biodiversity conservation in the area. In spite of such expectation, we still have not clarified what kind of activities and scientific findings by the long-term field research contribute to biodiversity conservation in the area. Accordingly, clarification of the relations and the background situation may help to understand the way to enhance values of the remaining forest for biodiversity conservation.
【Speaker 1】 Mr. Tojotanjona RAZANAPARANY (PhD student, ASAFAS, Kyoto University)
Presentation Title:
Behavioral research and major threats to the brown lemurs (Eulemur fulvus) in north western Madagascar (Ankarafantsika National Park)
Abstract:
Lemurs are endemic primates to Madagascar and they are classified as endangered by the IUCN red list due to environmental destruction. We conducted a long-term ecological survey on the common brown lemurs in Ankarafantsika National Park (ANP). This site is located in northwestern Madagascar. During the research, we found several evidences of illegal hunting for lemurs, such as wire traps, blow pipe and darts in the protected areas. We also encountered poachers with hunting dogs in the forest. Based on these findings, we will argue the conflict between the National Park Manager and local people under the Man and Biosphere (MAB) program. The MAB program is launched by UNESCO, to improve the relationship between people and the environment as a roadmap into a sustainable development and protection of the nature. It has multidisciplinary domain such as natural and social sciences, economic and education. The biosphere reserve in ANP is composed by two main types of habitat: dry deciduous forests and wet lands. The park was mainly designed to be core areas for strict conservation but some buffer zones can be used by locals for their livelihoods. Many villages inside and around ANP depend on those natural resources for their everyday’s life. The park was also made for tourists visit purpose. Enhancing the life condition, the dissemination of education to local people and the improvement of established management plan would be the better way to manage the park to reach the MAB goal. Many organizations are actually supporting and working together with the park to foster a sustainable management of its natural resources.
【Speaker 2】Dr. Shinichiro ICHINO (Research Fellow, CAAS, Kyoto University)
Presentation Title:
Potential of small forest: long-term field study and biodiversity conservation at Berenty Reserve, southern Madagascar
Abstract:
In a 14.2-ha study area of Berenty Reserve, southern Madagascar, ring-tailed lemur (Lemur catta) troops have been studied for 28 years on the basis of individual identification. This long-term field study has been originally started by Professor Naoki Koyama, Kyoto University in 1989 and has been continued by his students and colleagues. The population size fluctuated between 43 (in 2011) and 116 (in 2006) individuals with a tendency of population increase for the first 17 years and sudden decrease in 2007. All individuals who had been identified in 1989 disappeared from the main study area by 2007 and therefore, now we know the exact age of all females and most males who were born within the area. Based on the demographic data, we estimated lifespan of female ring-tailed lemurs of the population. The mean lifespan of the females was very short (4.9 years (n=77)) because of high mortality rate in the immature period. The longest recorded lifespan in the population was 20 years. During the long-term study period, we recorded some changes of the forest and health conditions of lemurs: mass mortality of large Tamarind (Tamarindus indica) trees, alopecia syndrome in lemurs which was extensively spread in 2001–2003, and decrease in body mass of lemurs in the last 20 years. Thus, long-term field study would provide fundamental data for conservation of the endangered primate species.
【Speaker 3】Prof. Hajanirina RAKOTOMANANA (Professor, Department of Science, University of Antananarivo)
Presentation Title:
Twenty-year development of zoological and botanical research topics in the University of Antananarivo: implication for future challenges of biodiversity conservation
Abstract:
The role of the Department of Zoology and Animal Biodiversity and the Department of Plant Ecology and Biology, Faculty of Science, University of Antananarivo, Madagascar), in education and conservation of flora and fauna was assessed from 1995 to 2015. Those departments, through different collaborations with overseas institutions have collected large quantity of biological data corresponding to 571 doctoral dissertations and master theses (277 from the field of zoology and 294 from the field of botany). Ninety five percent (95%) of the studies were funded by international or national private agencies. Only eleven (11) students defended theses on genetics, seven (7) on Plant-Animal interactions and one (1) on Animal physiology, probably due to high cost of modern biological technologies or a bias in funding priorities. Only seven percent (7%) of the studies were carried out in all marine, mangrove and coastal forest areas whereas most of the studies (60%) were conducted in dense forest. However, research topics are less diversified in dense forest than in other areas like coastal forest area, wetland, town/city, etc. To conclude; the results from this study are expected to help the conservation policy-makers and the users of information determine and set the priorities in the future. During twenty years, those departments (1) have produced a meritable generation of Madagascar natural scientists who can provide expertise on conservation issues, (2) can be identified as a good networking system through fostering collaborations with the foreign institutions, and (3) can be considered as data collectors.
Key-words: Botany, Conservation, Department, Madagascar, Role, Zoology,
Panel 2 (Organizer: Koji SONODA)
Panel Title: Child Socialization and Learning Environment in Africa
Abstract:
The aim of the session is to bring together anthropologists and social workers to engage in a discussion on child socialization and the learning environment among children in Africa, focusing on children’s experiences and their lives. The African continent is home to diverse cultures, languages, values, and religious practices. Therefore, the theme of this session enables us to engage with the notion of child socialization and view children’s learning environment from a wide perspective. The learning environment refers to not just educational institutions or the home; rather, it represents all everyday practices in which children participate and engage. Everyday practices vary across livelihood systems (hunting and gathering, pastoral, farming, fishing, any other commercial activities, etc.), religions, and communities. Therefore, in this session, we consider a variety of examples from both villages and cities.
Looking for a broader analysis of these aspects, for this session, we invite papers to engage with the following topics: child socialization, local educative practices, acquisition of cultural values, cultural practices of children, the gap between schooling and education in families, etc. By doing this, we attempt to address the question of the role of the field worker, the key questions in the field, and the learning we can gain from children.
【Speaker 1】Dr. Koji SONODA (Research Fellow, CAAS, Kyoto University)
Presentation Title:
Language Socialization among Baka children in eastern Cameroon
Abstract:
In this paper, I examine the process of socialization among the children of Baka hunter-gatherers, who live within the tropical rainforest in the eastern part of Cameroon. Focusing on the face-to-face interaction between children and adults, I try to describe the socialization process embedded in everyday activities among the Baka children. According to the language socialization approach, children understand the social organization of everyday life and cultural ideologies through acquisition of language use, that is, socialization through language, and socialization to use language (Ochs, 1988).
Hunter-gatherers are often considered to value personal autonomy and egalitarianism. In this paper, analyzing their conversation is valuable as it helps us gain an in-depth empirical understanding of people’s practices regarding personal autonomy.
While a government-imposed sedentarization program in the 1960s triggered sedentarization and agriculturalization among the Baka in Cameroon, they spend at least several months of the year in the forest and engage in hunting and gathering activities for contributing to their cash income and household consumption. Baka children also perform these subsistence activities and gain ecological and cultural knowledge.
I collected data by making a video recording of naturally occurring interactions between adults and children when children participate in everyday activities such as hunting and gathering and any other housework or play.
Reference:
Ochs, E. 1988. Culture and language development: Language acquisition and language socialization in a Samoan village. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
【Speaker 2】Dr. Xiaojie Tian (Researcher, Tsukuba International Academy for Sports Studies (TIAS), Tsukuba University)
Presentation Title:
Weaving the Landscape of People-Cattle in Savanna: From the Daily Practices of Maasai Children in Southern Kenya
Abstract:
As herders who make their living through seasonal livestock grazing, pastoral Maasai has long developed the human-livestock-biota relationship in the arid and semi-arid savanna. In Maasai society, children are expected to take initiative roles in daily pastoral chores and housework and make subsistence contributions to households with local gender-age labor divisions. Understanding the learning and socialization of children in Maasai society thus, need to ask whether and how children take their initiative roles in concurrent dynamic social and natural environmental contexts.
Focusing on children’s daily empirical experiences in a Maasai village in southern Kenya, my study aims to understand the learning and socialization of Maasai in current complex social and natural environmental contexts. Through an ethnographic approach, I found in a village where land use is still communal-based, children actively take their initial roles in seasonal livestock tending, herding, housework, as well as formal education. They learn through exploring and creating new children-livestock-biota interactions spatial-temporally. These results emphasize the importance of accessibility to the land in the process of socialization of children in current Maasai society. In this paper, capturing the landscape of children as sociocultural shaped places and spaces where they develop embodied experiences and weaving as the processes of these sensory experiences of individual child and peers, I explain how the accessibility of Maasai children to land has influenced their learning and socialization with ethnographic details.
【Speaker 3】Dr. Miku Ito (Assistant Professor, Institute for Regional Promotion, University of Hyogo)
Presentation Title:
Koranic School in Djenne, Mali
Abstract:
This presentation aims to show actuality of koranic school and pupil’s life in the town of Djenné (Mali) and rethink of the social role of religious learning. The town is famous for distinctive adobe architecture and its over a thousand years history of Djenné-Djeno, the site of one of the oldest known towns in sub-Saharan Africa. Djenné was designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1988. The town embraced Islam from the 12th century and became one of important centers of trade and Islamic learning in West Africa, alongside its ‘twin city’ of Timbuktu.
In Djenné, with the population of about 15,000, there are over 50 koranic schools and about 75% of school age children go to two schools, “école (school in French)” and “tirahou (house of religion in Songhay language, koranic school).” Djenné’s koranic schools have been also attracted students from outside the region.
Koranic school and tie with his/her teacher have been embedded in people’s lives in Djenné. The koranic school is a place for leaning and a window to become a member of community as well. Teachers of koranic school are called as alfa. They don’t only teach the reciting and writing the Koran but take important roles in pupil’s life events such as circumcision and marriage. But along with the modernization, the koranic schools and children’s lives of Djenné are facing its transition.
Panel 3 (Organizer: Haruka ARII)
Panel title: The relationships between women’s life courses and school education
Abstract:
International trends relating to educational development in sub-Saharan countries reflect great concern regarding the issue of female education. Importance of promoting the education of girls in Africa is often argued as a way of the empowerment of African women, achievement of gender equality, and social development. However, school education cannot automatically trigger the empowerment process, and it is necessary to consider the individual women’s experiences and examine the role of school education in local contexts. This session focuses on the cases of Ethiopia. Over the last two decades, the Ethiopian government has focused on dealing with gender disparity in education. As such, significant strides have been made towards achieving gender parity in terms of the access to the primary and secondary education. These days, increasing number of women are attending school, and have become salaried employees in rural area. Expansion of school education affects gendered values and roles in the community. At the same time, various local context and decision-making within individual’s life courses contributes to accepting school education. How the spread of school education in the community affected woman’s life? How decision making on education relates with other life events such as marriage, childbearing, and employment? In what context do they make a decision on their schooling? This session aims to discuss the relationships between women’s life courses and educational development within the local context from multi perspectives.
【Speaker 1】Dr. Haruka ARII (Research Fellow, CAAS, Kyoto University)
Presentation Title:
Reconsidering women’s life: Personal narratives of girl’s education and gender relations in Maale, southwestern Ethiopia
Abstract:
This paper aims to clarify how the expansion of school education in rural Ethiopia influenced the lives and gendered value of women. To this end, the case of a woman without formal education who supported her eight daughters to attend school in Maale, southwestern Ethiopia is examined. In her narrative, I focus on her expressions to represent the ideal livelihood of women and interpretation of her own life. Specifically, I focus on a message from parents to their daughters at their wedding ceremony, namely yerqamitsi in the Maale language. This message often includes the idea of ideal womanhood that mothers try to pass to their daughters. With this message and the life story it distils in the background, I examine how one woman interprets her life and her view of ideal womanhood. In addition, I clarify the impact of the expansion of formal school education in Maale. First, it helps them view their lives objectively and thus to resist conventional wisdom. On the other hand, it strengthens the dilemmas emerging from social categories. The introduction of school education facilitates the reorganization of this self-evaluation by providing the categories of “the educated” and “the uneducated.” Reflecting on themselves as uneducated and comparing themselves to the educated, Maale women are gaining the motivation to learn or to send the next generation to school. In this way, these women generate their own positive life stories based on objectification and reinterpretation of social categories in terms of the newly introduced device of formal school education.
【Speaker 2】Dr. Aynalem Megersa (Assistant professor, Center for Gender studies, Addis Ababa University)
Presentation Title:
Rural women’s employment and marriage: The case of Sebeta Hawas woreda, central Oromia, Ethiopia
Abstract:
Due to increasing women’s job opportunity as a result of increasing access to education and the expansion of export industries in the country, Ethiopian rural women have had wider chances of engaging in income earning activities. This paper examines the effect of women’s employment on marital instability using a retrospective longitudinal data collected from 765 ever married women residing in five rural kebeles (villages) of Sebeta Hawas District located in central Oromia region in Ethiopia having employed event history analysis. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, Kaplan Meir’s Plot and discreet event history modelling. Qualitative data were also collected and analysed to substantiate the statistical findings and explain outcomes multi-dimensionally. The results show that the effect of employment on marital instability varies by their employment category. While wage employment significantly increases marital instability, self-employment does not have significant effect. The study also shows that the positive relation observed between wives’ wage employment and higher likelihood of marital instability disappears with the addition of a variable tapping to women’s marital happiness. This implies that the decision to exit or remain in an existing marriage is a very complex process, one that probably hinges much more on noneconomic factors. It requires evaluation of marital relationships in terms of socio-cultural and other factors much more than financial considerations.
【Speker 3】Prof. Gebre Yntiso (Professor, Addis Ababa University/President, Jinka University)
Presentation Title:
Women’s access to higher education in Ethiopia: The participation of female students in two institutes of technology
Abstract:
The 1994 Education and Training Policy of Ethiopia provides for the access of women to education. Likewise, Proclamation No. 391/2004, which was promulgated to provide for the organization of a technical and vocational education and training (TVET) system in the country, makes reference to the need for devising a system under which women are afforded special attention. The Ministry of Education employs an affirmative action to increase the participation of female students. There exists room for universities to employ further affirmative action to increase the participation of female students. Traditionally, however, engineering and technical fields were perceived as the domain of male students. Hence, many students joined universities and TVETs with the preconceived idea that engineering or technical programs would be difficult for female students. The pre-college perceptions and other limitations coupled with post-admission challenges are reported to be affecting the participation female students in technological and technical fields of study. With all these information in mind, this paper sheds light on the participation of female students in two institutes of technology (IoT) in Ethiopia: Addis Ababa IoT and Bahir Dar IoT.
Panel 4 (Organizer: Junko MARUYAMA)
Panel Title: Land issues, Local livelihood, and Nature Conservation in Africa
Abstract:
Land issues have been one of the most serious challenges among the hunter-gatherers, pastoralists, and small-scale farmers in Africa. In many cases, because of their mobile lifestyle and unique livelihood activities that was widely believed as backward, inefficient or nature destructive, their land uses have rarely recognized by colonial and post-colonial government official, while the land closely links with their cultural values and the lives of the members.
They have challenged this difficulty in many ways, and during the last two decades, some of their land rights movements have achieved, with attempts of democratization and decentralization, or by using the global indigenous/human rights discourses. Simultaneously, recent neoliberalization of nature further new type of land grabbing and growing number of the communities have displaced from their land by establishment of commercial farms, tourism development in nature reserves, and mining venture.
This panel examines the impact of this current paradoxical situation on land use and livelihood of hunter-gatherers, pastoralist, and small-scare farmers in Eastern and Southern Africa. Particularly, we are examining the paradoxes of the nature conservation that, on one hand, have attempt to create opportunities for the communities to be recognized their land uses and livelihood activities through land registration schemes, community based natural resource management policies and their related projects, on the other hand, have gave the government, private companies, and powerful communities/individuals an excuse to occupy the land and destroy livelihood of the local peoples.
【Speaker 1】Mr. Kariuki Kirigia (Ph.D Candidate, Department of Anthropology, McGill University)
Presentation Title:
Privatisation in the Postcolony-Land subdivision and its implications for pastoral livelihoods and biodiversity conservation in Narok County, Kenya.
Abstract:
The Maasai of Kenya have experienced numerous land challenges since the colonial period, and despite Kenya’s independence in 1963, land challenges have only increased. The establishment of group ranches (GRs) by the Kenyan government in 1968 to ostensibly insure pastoral landholdings and stimulate livestock production appeared as a genuine state concern for pastoralists. The GRs were, however, poorly managed. Consequently, widespread demand for land subdivision by disgruntled GR members to apportion individual parcels ensued. A male-dominated subdivision process saw elites conspire to grab valuable parcels whilst also illegitimately apportioning land to non-members. For many Maasai pastoralists, the unjust land allocations critically stifle pastoralism, the primary activity for nutritional and socio-economic wellbeing, raising grave concerns about the viability of pastoral livelihoods. However, it has also been advanced that individual land tenure creates opportunities for individuals to independently and rationally participate in markets, such as through leasing land for the establishment of conservancies, in ways that were inconceivable in the commons.
These occurrences in Maasailand pose critical questions about what indeed are the implications of land privatisation and individuation of land tenure for pastoral livelihoods and conservation initiatives in the biodiversity-rich Maasai rangelands, a context in which local and global forces are increasingly at play. Further, the extent to which land injustices during GR subdivision may have eroded the sense of ‘community’ among the Maasai, potentially foreclosing possibilities for community based development initiatives and establishment of conservancies, demands critical investigation, a call to which this field research responds.
【Speaker 2】Junko MARUYAMA (Associate Professor, Department of International and Cultural Studies, Tsuda University)
Presentation Title:
Nature conservation, land access and economic disparities among the San hunter-gathers in Southern Africa
Abstract:
One of the typical schemes of modern nation states to control mobile hunter-gatherer societies has been relocation and sedentarization, and indeed, many of San have been displaced in Southern Africa. In the late 1990s, one of the San communities were relocated from a nature conservation area to government-planned resettlement sites.
After the relocation, some families, with support of the global indigenous rights movement, won the court case to return to their land in the conservation area, while some others remained the resettlement but created informal mobile dwellings in the surrounding bush land, where they engaged primarily in hunting and gathering.
My continuous field research elucidated that economic disparities among the San have become widened with the years, and the gap has started to influence their land uses. In the nature conservation area, wealthy individuals who could arrange their own transportation and other necessity are able to live in their land, while others found that they could not make a living in the conservation arera without welfare services. Some of the riches remaining in the resettlement site, using a scheme to control overgrazing, were given a huge area to set up ranches in surrounding bush area, but many of the residents were excluded from such opportunities, and their access to the land is becoming difficult.
In this presentation, the current dynamics of land uses and economic disparities among the San will be examined, and the impact of conservation policies on their land access and livelihood activities will be discussed
【Speaker 3】Dr. IWAI, Yukino (Associate Professor, The Hirayama Ikuo Volunteer Center, Waseda University)
Presentation Title:
Continuous Land Loss: Wildlife Management Area in Tanzania as Green Grab
Abstract:
Since 2000s, Tanzania has implemented wildlife management areas (WMAs) as a new wildlife policy, which is following the principles of community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) as a means of reducing poverty in rural communities through tourism benefit sharing. WMA is an area of communal land set aside exclusively by member villages as a habitat for wildlife. Currently there are 17 WMAs established, involving 148 villages and 440,000 of residents.
This presentation examines what kind of impact has been brought about by WMA on member villages for 10 years since the establishment. The research was conducted in IKONA WMA adjacent to Serengeti National Park, which is considered as the best practice of WMAs because of the extra bigger income of US$500,000 in 2012. Despite the continuous annual increase of the income, 4 challenges are pointed out in IKONA; 1) lengthy and costly establishment process, 2) less tourism benefit than before WMA, 3) vulnerable governance, and 4) hardship of changing the land use plan. Ultimately, I argue that a WMA works as a tool of land grabbing which is the sequence of conservation intervention in the Serengeti ecosystem since the colonial era.
【Speaker 4】Prof. Galaty, John G. (Professor, Department of Anthropology, McGill University)
Presentation Title:
Conservation Landscapes in East Africa
Abstract:
Debates over institutional strategies for wildlife conservation in East Africa often pit ‘Fortress’ conservation against ‘Community-based’ conservation. But these two models for anchoring conservation sites usually co-exist in a concentric pattern. Protected areas –usually National Parks and Game Reserves – are usually created around dry-season water and grazing resources, while at their periphery one finds community-based conservancies established on wet season grazing. So areas held by and managed by the State represent core wildlife areas, while the communally or privately-held dispersal areas within much larger zones of wildlife use involve cohabitation with human communities and their livestock and crops. Conservation landscapes have several ecological profiles, from highlands to lowlands, swamps and forests to dry rangelands, escarpments to valleys. But these landscapes are equally symbolic, embodying ways of thinking about and discursively relating to the interplay of territories and wildlife, always through a prism of how people occupy, move through or temporally use, and think about, the landscapes at hand. Beyond the duality of ‘Fortress’ vs. ‘Community-based’ conservation, this paper will draw from sites studied in the “Institutional Canopy of Conservation Project’ in adopting a regional perspective on how the Rangelands in southern Kenya and northern Tanzania are perceived and conceived in terms of ‘Conservation-Scapes’, defined by seasonal wildlife movements and tourist tours, along paths that intersect with movement cycles of people and livestock. Related transects of property, land fragmentation, and human-wildlife friction spatially represent the axes of conflict and collaboration that define the field of conservation today.
Panel 5（Organizer: Yanyin ZI）
Panel Title: Bridging African Economic and Social Relationalities at the Regional, Transnational, and Global Scales
Abstract:
As forces of globalization penetrate deeply into societies throughout the world, the mobility of people and goods are becoming increasingly complex. This change is most evident in developing countries. In the formal sector, the production of goods is increasingly organized along global value chains, in which different stages of the production process are fragmented across countries. In the informal sector, trade systems and networks are extensively expanding across country borders and continents. In this globalized age, people have easier access to new technology and opportunities for social networking, while simultaneously exposed to more uncertainty and new challenges. This panel aims to stimulate research on the relationships between economic activities and social relations at the regional, transnational, and global scales. Four case studies will reveal how African people apply indigenous knowledge, adopt new technology, and create new business systems to survive in a globalized society. In the first part of this panel, two papers focus on changes in the grassroots market system in Africa. In the latter part, two presentations focus on the trading network and business system concerning African traders in Asia.
【Speaker 1】Mr. Shingo TAKAMURA (Ph.D. Candidate at Kyoto University)
Presentation Title:
Functions and structures of the periodic market system in the Northeastern Congo.
Abstract:
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, conflicts have devastated the distribution infrastructure such as roads and bridges, which has stymied the rural economy. The current state of urban-rural distribution processes must be determined to rehabilitate local communities. However, the perspective of such determinations is unclear. This presentation, therefore, describes and analyzes how conflict impacts on urban-rural distribution, periodic market functioning, and indigenous distributional activities based on qualitative and GPS data collected from an extensive area survey. Observing 500 km of main roadways from rural villages to the capital of Orientale Province by motorbike, I present a study of urban-rural distribution. Today, a mass of rural residents travel to periodic markets through forests and engage in long-distance peddling to connect with the urban economy while petty traders advance their commercial activities. Using waterborne transportation, such as dugout canoes, traders sustain urban-rural commodity interexchange. The collapse of the pre-conflict distribution system has caused the periodic markets to become influential regional economic nodes. These observations indicate that local people reorganize alternative distribution systems utilizing indigenous knowledge and ecological environment
【Speaker 2】Prof. Dr. Peter Dannenberg ( Professor, Department of Human Geography , University of Cologne)
Presentation Title:
How value chain conditions influence the effectiveness of ICTs on the integration of East African farmers
Abstract:
Insufficient access to markets, limited financial transactions, and a lack of information and knowledge often restrict opportunities for small-scale farmers to link up with commercial value chains in Sub-Saharan Africa. Advances in Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), especially mobile phones and the internet, have expanded the possibility to communicate across geographical distances and to integrate into commercial value chains. By using a novel combination of conceptual considerations on ICTs, value chains, and relational proximity, this paper assesses: 1. how ICTs are affecting the integration of small-scale farmers into the value chains and 2. to what extent the use of ICTs is influenced by different value chains’ conditions. Our findings showed that even simple ICTs (phones) can lead to improvements for farmers to integrate into the chain as they facilitate simple information and complex knowledge flow, financial transactions, and market access, even though a greater structural transformation was absent. However, our results showed that the extent of the effects depends on the different conditions in the value chains, in particular their structure, coordination, and the relational proximity between the actors. In this way, this paper contributes to the conceptual discussions on information and communication for development (ICT4D) and the dynamics in value chains.
【Speaker 3】Dr. Yanyin ZI （Research Fellow, CAAS, Kyoto University)
Presentation Title:
Challenges and Opportunities for Chinese Business Upgrades in Botswana
Abstract:
Many Africans tend to consider industry and manufacturing as areas in which Chinese investors can make their greatest contribution. Similarly, Chinese entrepreneurs identify manufacturing as the area with the greatest business potential in Africa. However, why does Chinese investment focus on trading and fail to succeed in the industrial and manufacturing sectors in many African countries? Botswana is no exception. Despite four decades of rapid economic growth, the economy still lacks diversity and is mainly driven by natural resources and primary products generating expensive import bills. Therefore, the government of Botswana initiated projects to reduce the import bill and develop an entrepreneurship culture for business growth and enhanced citizen participation in the economy in the long term. Since the 1990s, China shops in Botswana have created jobs for citizens of the country and provided cheaper daily goods for the local people. However, in recent years, the government of Botswana has restricted foreign trading businesses while encouraging foreigners to invest in industry. In this process, most Chinese merchants tend to bemoan the unstable business policy environment and continue their trading business in the competitive environment, rather than shifting to industry and manufacturing. This ongoing research explores the factors that hinder the Chinese in expanding their businesses. It emphasizes the important role of daily micro-level interactions and micro-economic policy in the potential of Chinese investment for Africa’s development.
【Speaker 4】 Dr. Sayaka Ogawa (Associate Professor, Graduate School of Core Ethics and Frontier Sciences, Ritsumeikan University)
Presentation Title:
The logic of “open reciprocity” in the business practice and communality of Tanzanian traders in China and Hong Kong: with the special reference to the used car trading through the crowdfunding
Abstract:
From the beginning of this century, the grassroots of transnational informal trades between China and African countries are rapidly taking place. African traders who flocked to China, while conflicting with intellectual property rights, immigration and commercial laws, etc., purchasing a variety of products, including copied, knockoffs and counterfeits, and transport them to their home countries. The Tanzanian traders in China and Hong Kong formed their own unions intended to 1) rise the fund for meeting contingencies such as illness, death, forced repatriation and so on; 2) obtain the various information of the home country; 3) solute various conflicts with the host societies; 4) facilitate transnational commercial transaction by providing assurances for cash and commodities transfer. However, these unions include a multitude of the “commercial travelers” those who coming and going between China/Hong Kong and Tanzania while the core member of the union is the relatively long-stay broker/middlemen. The business of China has high speculative nature so that some of traders never come back again to China/Hong Kong. Therefore, the membership of the union has a high fluidity. They can’t invite the members’ contribution to the union based on expectation on reciprocity. In this presentation, I discuss the continuity between the logic of highly uncertain informal business and the logic of “gambling on open reciprocity” in their unions formed in China/Hong Kong to discuss the uniqueness of their business system using the social networking services and crowdfunding.
Ryoma OTSUKA
The Effectiveness and Challenges of Human-Gorilla Conflict Resolution Program (HUGO) In Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, Uganda
Abstruct:
Human-Wildlife Conflict is one of the major concerns in the field of conservation. In Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, which is home to extremely endangered mountain gorillas (Gorilla beringei beringei), it has been reported that gorillas often come to community land and raid crops (mainly Bananas and Eucalyptus trees). In this study, I focused on local volunteer groups called HUGO (Human-Gorilla Conflict Resolution Program/ Teams) which have been pushing gorillas back to the forest from the community lands since 1998. The aims of this research were 1) to understand people’s perception of crop-raiding by gorillas, 2) to evaluate effectiveness of HUGO, and 3) to understand current challenges people are facing with.
Field works were conducted during September – November 2016, and July – October 2017. Data were collected through participant observation, focus group discussion with 2 HUGO groups, semi-structured interviews with 150 respondents (3 park staffs, 43 HUGO members and 104 people in the villages adjacent to the park).
People around the park recognize that gorillas bring income through tourism and they don’t have strong ill-feeling towards gorillas even though their crops have been destroyed by gorillas. HUGO members have been working hard voluntarily with some support from UWA (Uganda Wildlife Authority) and 2 NGOs, but it is difficult to say that their work has been stable. However, most people appreciate their works and HUGO is highly recognized as something special for local communities. There are some new challenges such as night visits by gorillas or too much reliance on HUGO.
Azeb Girmai
Tourism as a sustainable livelihood diversification option: A case study in South Omo Zone, Ethiopia
Abstruct:
This poster presents an outcome of a preliminary fieldwork that highlights the importance of income earned from tourism activities at two selected villages in South Omo Zone. The objective of the study is to look into the significance of tourism as a livelihood diversification option taking two cases: a peri-urban highland village within the zonal city and a remote pastoralist lowland village. The three weeks preliminary fieldwork from August to September 2017, involved in-depth interview and observation of two female-headed households. The study identified that both households are earning cash from their direct interaction with tourist that substantiates their livelihood, considering the amount they earn from their main livelihood activities. In the case of the peri-urban village, a single mother of one child, struggles to make a living from income of her Areke, distilled alcohol, making business as her main livelihood that runs on a loss. Her earnings from tourists therefor is providing an amount that substantiates her income. On the other hand, in the pastoralist household a mother of eight children has totally discontinued her rain-fed cultivation in the past five years, which was her main livelihood option, to focus on earning from tourists claiming that it provides her sufficient income. These findings from the two cases propose the working assumption to the next research that cash earned from tourists is not the temporary income, but regularly offering households an opportunity to fill the growing needs for extra income to make their ends meet.
Key Words: Tourism, Livelihood diversification, Female headed household, Ethiopia
Hitomi Kirikoshi
Commercial Network Built on Distribution System of Kola in West Africa
Abstract:
The kola (Cola nitida) is a caffeine-containing fruit and is famous as a trade product in West Africa. An important characteristic of kola is that of the separate locations of the areas of production and consumption. The centre of production is located in the south of the West African forest area, and the Akan produce the crop. Many Akans are Christians. The area of consumption lies in the north of West Africa, in the savanna and Sahel regions, and the consumers are Muslims including the Hausa and the Mossi. Thus, the kola is transported across climate zones, ethnic groups, and religions. The long-distance kola trade developed during the 18-19th century and we can recognize historical relationships between multi-ethnic groups in the modern kola business of West Africa. Kola has high value in several West African Muslim society, and is routinely chewed in the savanna and Sahel regions. Kola are cultivated in cocoa forests around Kumasi in southern Ghana. This is a largely Asante region and they carry out cocoa cultivation. Hausa and other merchants from savanna areas buy kola in southern Ghana and transport them north to Burkina Faso, northern Nigeria and Niger. In the long distance trade, it is necessary for the kola merchant to keep the commercial network and collaborate with other people beyond climate zones, ethnic groups and religions. The merchants apply the commercial network of kola for other trade: used bicycle, used motor bike or inland crops.
Miki Yoshizumi
Caregiving to Children with Disabilities in Rural Area:Case Studies of an Organization in Samburu County, Kenya
Abstract:
In September 2015, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development that includes 17 Sustainable Development Goals. In Goal 10, which aims to “reduce inequality within and among countries,” empowerment and promotion of the social, economic and political inclusion of persons with disabilities (PWDs) is mentioned. PWDs have less access to health care services, so institutional-based rehabilitation is one of the effective approaches to address disability issues. WHO advocated that Community-Based Rehabilitation is also important to enhance the quality of life of PWDs, combining PWDs, their families and communities. However, presenting caregiving to PWDs strongly tends to be provided at the institutional level in African countries.
In Samburu County in Kenya, there is an organization supporting children with disabilities. The presenter has conducted her fieldwork at this organization to learn how children with disabilities are assisted at the time of meal, bathing, change of clothes, etc. She worked as a volunteer caregiver when she conducted participatory observation and in-depth interviews in this organization, which extended assistance to 75 children. This presentation focuses on 10 children with cerebral palsy and examines how they were assisted during meal time. Collected data shows that caregivers were spontaneously formed on the spot. It means that not only one but also several caregivers assisted one child. Children with disabilities also assisted others. Though there were no rules to allocate one specific caregiver to one child in this organization, these 10 children were never suffered from neglect to get meal assistance.
Aya Yokotsuka
How Local Perceptions Of Bonobos Become Diversified: Comparison Between Inside And Outside Of Luo Scientific Reserve, Dr-Congo
Abstract:
Bushmeat hunting is the biggest threat to great apes in Central Africa. Although some ethnic groups traditionally avoid the eating of apes, these customs are recently disappearing. The Bongando ethnic group in Democratic Republic of Congo traditionally has a taboo against eating bonobo (Pan paniscus). The Luo Scientific Reserve, which is located in the Bongando residence, was established in 1990 to protect bonobos, but was affected by regional wars from 1991 to 2003. This study aims to examine how local perceptions towards bonobos have changed within and beyond the Luo Reserve, through wartime. I interviewed residents of two Bongando villages: (1) Village W, located inside Luo Reserve(N=125), and (2) Village S, located outside the Reserve(N=126). The study was conducted for 7 months in total, from 2014 to 2015. Residents were asked about the relationship between bonobos and humans. Results show that the perceptions towards bonobos among these 2 villages diverged. In Village S, people hunted bonobos especially during the period of conflict in 1990’s, whereas people in Village W maintained traditional values against bushmeat hunting, and bonobos were able to survive through the wartime. Village W, being located inside the reserve, gets support from bonobo researchers. These encourages the person living there and preserve their traditional beliefs that in turn protects bonobos.
Ebata Okubo Mareyuki
Coexistence of different religious traditions in Doany worship: A case of the sacred site Mangabe in the Central Highlands, Madagascar
Abstract:
According to Ichiro Hori (1971), “Folk Beliefs [Folk Religions] have a strong ‘digestive power’ that can coexist both homogeneously and heterogeneously and where all possible syncretic phenomena are seen.” It can be said that folk beliefs of Madagascar (Doany worship), which we have been investigating, also share such characteristics. Doany worship is based on Malagasy traditional religion but also contains elements of Christianity and Islam. It is also the religious practice conducted at the sacred site named “Doany.” Malagasy royal spirits and various spirits are enshrined in Doany, and followers practice spirit possession rituals called “tromba.” There are many priests (mpiandry: guardians of Doany), witch doctors, and astrologers involved in Doany worship. Well-known Doany have attracted numerous pilgrims from Madagascar and abroad.
Currently, conflicts between different religious traditions are frequent in Africa. Coexistence between them is one of the important themes. Under such circumstances, it is meaningful to more deeply consider Doany worship because it ensures that different religious traditions coexist peacefully. Therefore, in this poster presentation, we will provide a concrete example from the Doany worship sacred site, Mangabe, in the Central Highlands (Imerina district: Merina residence area). We will examine the disposition of religious symbols inside the shrine and the composition of the precincts of the sanctuary. We then address how diverse elements of different religions such as Christianity and Malagasy traditional religion are juxtaposed and what kind of world view is presented by priests (mpiandry).
Bekele Haregewoin Mekonnen
The social and cultural perspectives of solid waste management in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Abstract:
In this presentation, social and cultural factors influencing the municipal solid waste management in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia is elaborated from the view points of meaning and attitude of solid waste related practices at household level and among waste workers in relation to the standard set by the city administration. The preliminary field work was conducted in Bole Sub-city, Woreda(equivalent to district) 09, in August and September 2017 targeting a waste workers union called TabotMaderia and eight households. Interviews with waste workers, eight household heads and four helpers of the households; and two focus group discussions with waste workers were undertaken. The 13 days of participant observation of daily activities of waste workers contribute to grasp the community practice. The major findings were; four households recommended by waste workers adhered the rules and sort their waste. The other four households did not sort their waste even though they were given the same instruction. In this regard, waste workers’ perspective highlights that the community is less concerned about handling of waste and dignity of the waste workers. While the selected households observed adhering to rules but the greater part of community does not strictly follow rules and regulations of the city on solid waste management. This contrast may be reflected as part of the serious ongoing problem in the city. The findings lead the next research question on how heterogeneous practices of solid waste disposal occurred among households, as a standpoint to further understand the root cause of the problem and implication in the context.
Kyeri KIM
Reflecting Afro-Brazilian Diaspora: Candomblé and Umbanda
Abstract:
Africa has the history of population movement for a lengthy period. In Africa, national boundaries had not meant a lot before Berlin Conference(1884~1885) and does it also in this transnational era. Regarding African diaspora, Brazil takes the first place in terms of the its total number in the world. Accordingly, this study pursues the African descendants in Brazil with its special focus on their Religions i.e., Umbanda and Candomblé.
Diaspora study concerns itself much with identity issues. ‘gap between things as they are and as they ought to be’, which Clifford Geertz mentioned in his volume of The Interpretation of Culture (1973: 106), can be overcame throughout religious practice and symbol thereof. In that sense, Afro-Brazilian religions are the most appropriate tools to observe how they have adopted themselves in realities. And that these religions have taken the key role of maintaining the African traditions and creating Black consciousness in Brazil is clearly seen in many literatures.
Yoruba and Bantu have preserved and established their identity through their own religions derived from west and southern of Africa. From Transatlantic Slave Trade, Yoruba flowed mainly to Bahia and Bantu flowed to Rio de Janeiro. Hence, spatial selections are their capital cities i.e., Salvador and Rio de Janeiro and temporal selection is from 15th century to contemporary.
The respective ways that Candomblé and Umbanda have settled down in Brazil reveal significant differences. This study aims to figure out the relations between their diasporic experience and circumstance and religious development with anthropological perspective.
Nuri Jeon
The Modernization of the African Traditional Festival: In the case of the Reed Dance (Umhlanga) in Swaziland
Abstract:
The Reed Dance, also called as Umhlanga in SiSwati, the native language is one of traditional festivals of Swaziland. Every year thousands of maidens from all regions of Swaziland gather at Lobamba, the cultural capital of Swaziland to participate in the Umhlanga. For seven days, maidens have a journey to fetch reeds from the designated field of reeds and bring it to the Queen Mother’s royal residence to contribute their labor and express their respect to her. The last day all maidens celebrate it and appreciate their purity wearing colorful attire. The Umhlanga was created in the 1940s in Swaziland under the rule of Sobhuza II and it took place in secured and ritualistic form that only family and relatives are able to attend. This study focuses on the modern aspects of the Umhlanga. For the study, a field work was conducted from August to September of 2015 in Swaziland. I attended the Umhlanga of 2015 and conducted interviews with maidens and the government people. The findings of the study indicate that the Umhlanga functions as a national festival rather than a secured ritual and it has an economic and political role. Today, the government promotes it to attract visitors and invites maidens form neighboring countries for building a political cooperation. The government provides transportation from the village to the Lobamba for the convenience of the maidens. The study concludes the Umhlanga has been influenced by modernization of the world and gradually changed into a form of modern festival.
Kikuko Sakai , Shoko Suzuki , Yasuaki Sato , Makoto Nishi
Community Response To Nodding Syndrome In Northern Uganda
Abstract:
Nodding syndrome (NS) is a seizure disorder affecting children in parts of East Africa. The most recent epidemic has been observed in the Achwa river basin in northern Uganda. Poor access to health facilities, resistance to anticonvulsants, and progressive mental disabilities are among major factors that hamper the patients’ quality of life. As a local response to the problems, a community-based organization (CBO) was established in 2013 by families affected by NS in Lakwela village, Gulu district, located near the Achwa river. We conducted ethnographic surveys to describe community response to NS in northern Uganda, especially that village between September 2014 and September 2017. The survey across 97 households (565) revealed that epilepsy affected 8.8% of children and adolescents (33/374). Most patients have stopped schooling, while those who continue schooling have severer problem in keeping up with learning. Patients experience difficulties in fully pursuing household duties required for household members at their age and sex. Families of patients are affected due to loss of workforce, excessive care burden, and persistent stigma against the NS symptoms. The CBO has played a leading role in mobilizing local resources to improve the living conditions of these families, though it has limited access to resources and knowledge of appropriate care. The burden of family members may be reduced by reinforcing the community response—that is, providing the CBO with essential resources and knowledge of appropriate care.
Mamadou Sadio Diallo
Social Impact of Ebola Epidemic on Local Communities in Guinea
Abstract:
The purpose of this study is to examine the local context of Ebola outbreak in the localities of western and eastern part of Guinea which was one of the most affected countries by the Ebola epidemic of 2014-2016 in West Africa. This research was conducted from August 3rd to September 27th, 2017. It mainly focused on 5 villages (3 Ebola-affected and 2 non-affected villages) from which 50 people including 35 dwellers, 5 doctors, 3 outreaches and 7 officials from government to international institutions were involved in field activities. I mainly collected data through the community observations, focus group discussions, and interviews. Findings at the community level revealed: only 70% of respondents in the Ebola-affected areas thought that epidemic was a natural disease. Whilst, 85% of people in non-affected areas were sceptical about the origin, and the way of spread, believing that virus was man-made and its outbreak was motivated by political and economic reasons. Moreover, discussions with doctors in these 5 villages have revealed that Ebola outbreak in rural areas has led to distrust between medical facilities and local population, which is strongly expressed by the fact that few locals want treatments or participate in vaccination campaigns monitored by these health centres. Although the findings indicate the different views of Ebola hemorrhagic fever between Ebola-affected and non-affected area, locals in both areas avoid going to health center for receiving medical treatment and preventive inoculation. The findings elicit the next research questions how disparities of perceptions and opinions to Ebola impacts could be caused in rural areas, and how different actors, such as community members, doctors, and officials in both affected and non-affected area consider the relationships between existing social problems and Ebola impacts.
Ran Muratsu
Witches and Demonic Possession: A Case of the New Church in Sud-Benin
Abstract:
As the world changes, the strategies and manifestations of witches seem also to change. Witches in Benin are commonly considered to have an evil nature, always watching for a chance to harm family members following decisions made in nocturnal meetings. People typically consult fa divination to learn if their misfortunes have been caused by witches. Since witches are considered to be capable of causing all types of misfortune, fear of witches remains high. This is one reason why “l’église catholique de Jésus Christ’’ (hereafter, Church J), founded in 2009, has rapidly gained popularity in Benin; it emphasises the elimination of all demons, which are mainly identified as witches and vodun divinities. However, some practices of Church J, such as “deliverance,” actually play a role in extending and re-forming the reality of witches. This presentation focuses on the case of a woman who is “delivered” from a witch through Church J’s deliverance and analyses how the witch’s existence is realized through bodily and sensory experiences, as well as discourse. In this case, the witch herself speaks through the “patient’s’’ mouth. This is uncommon in conventional witch-related practices, where witches are seen as persons and not as some intangible, disembodied possessive spirit. In this presentation, I explore modifications in the reality of witches adapting to the Christian influence.
