Pub Date : 2021-10-02DOI: 10.1080/17531055.2021.1989135
D. Bryceson, J. B. Jønsson, M. Shand
ABSTRACT This article interrogates migrants’ economic and emotionally entwined decision-making regarding migration and settlement in unfolding stages of a gold mining boom. Three Tanzanian gold mining settlements representing temporal, spatial and scalar differences along the gold mining trajectory are contrasted: an artisanal rush site, a mature artisanal mining settlement and Geita town, site of a large industrial gold mine. Our data derives from in-depth interviews with miners, traders, service providers and farmers supplemented by a household survey. Interviewees’ verbatim narratives describing their work and family life are laced with feelings of both anticipation and apprehension. Strategic calculations and contingency thinking combine with emotional anxiety as they pursue efforts to ‘get ahead’ during the mining boom. Amidst the uncertainty of stressful work lives, and obstacles to secure housing and residence in infrastructurally deficient, unsafe and polluted mining environments, a ‘deferred sense of home’ surfaces in many mining settlement residents’ narratives. Seeking a ‘comfortable and secure home eventually’ is a coping mechanism for bridging the gap between initial high expectations and their current material reality.
{"title":"Mining habitat, house and home during an East African gold boom: economic and emotional dimensions","authors":"D. Bryceson, J. B. Jønsson, M. Shand","doi":"10.1080/17531055.2021.1989135","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17531055.2021.1989135","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article interrogates migrants’ economic and emotionally entwined decision-making regarding migration and settlement in unfolding stages of a gold mining boom. Three Tanzanian gold mining settlements representing temporal, spatial and scalar differences along the gold mining trajectory are contrasted: an artisanal rush site, a mature artisanal mining settlement and Geita town, site of a large industrial gold mine. Our data derives from in-depth interviews with miners, traders, service providers and farmers supplemented by a household survey. Interviewees’ verbatim narratives describing their work and family life are laced with feelings of both anticipation and apprehension. Strategic calculations and contingency thinking combine with emotional anxiety as they pursue efforts to ‘get ahead’ during the mining boom. Amidst the uncertainty of stressful work lives, and obstacles to secure housing and residence in infrastructurally deficient, unsafe and polluted mining environments, a ‘deferred sense of home’ surfaces in many mining settlement residents’ narratives. Seeking a ‘comfortable and secure home eventually’ is a coping mechanism for bridging the gap between initial high expectations and their current material reality.","PeriodicalId":46968,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Eastern African Studies","volume":"15 1","pages":"663 - 684"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2021-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42620447","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-10-02DOI: 10.1080/17531055.2021.1987698
Mehdi Labzaé
ABSTRACT During its 28 years of rule, the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) had built a strong system for controlling the Ethiopian state and civil society. This article looks at how the party first managed to keep control over the civil service. It analyses the functioning of civil servants’ evaluations called gimgema. Such evaluations comprise the filling of evaluation forms and sessions of criticisms and self-criticisms during which bureaus’ employees have to publicly acknowledge their mistakes and accuse colleagues. Bureau heads who are also party officials then decide on the employee’s future. The article describes the functioning of gimgema, its political efficiency, and some resistance strategies put in force by state agents. Born in a Marxist-Leninist ideological framework, gimgema is an Ethiopian variation on the global socialist evaluation theme, now fitting perfectly with neoliberal injunctions to ‘good governance’, ‘commitment’ and ‘transparency’. As a symbol of the EPRDF’s ideological evolution, gimgema exemplifies the ideological indeterminacy of government techniques.
{"title":"Gimgema: civil servants’ evaluation, power and ideology in EPRDF Ethiopia","authors":"Mehdi Labzaé","doi":"10.1080/17531055.2021.1987698","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17531055.2021.1987698","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT During its 28 years of rule, the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) had built a strong system for controlling the Ethiopian state and civil society. This article looks at how the party first managed to keep control over the civil service. It analyses the functioning of civil servants’ evaluations called gimgema. Such evaluations comprise the filling of evaluation forms and sessions of criticisms and self-criticisms during which bureaus’ employees have to publicly acknowledge their mistakes and accuse colleagues. Bureau heads who are also party officials then decide on the employee’s future. The article describes the functioning of gimgema, its political efficiency, and some resistance strategies put in force by state agents. Born in a Marxist-Leninist ideological framework, gimgema is an Ethiopian variation on the global socialist evaluation theme, now fitting perfectly with neoliberal injunctions to ‘good governance’, ‘commitment’ and ‘transparency’. As a symbol of the EPRDF’s ideological evolution, gimgema exemplifies the ideological indeterminacy of government techniques.","PeriodicalId":46968,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Eastern African Studies","volume":"15 1","pages":"546 - 567"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2021-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46603762","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-10-02DOI: 10.1080/17531055.2021.1987699
Robert Madoi Nasaba
ABSTRACT Much of the appeal of advertisements or adverts derives from a capacity to satisfy a primordial wish for pleasurable looking. An advert essentially sets out to impress on its audience a sign with easily readable mythic meaning. The unconscious of society, however, structures materiality of adverts in such a way that recognition could quite easily be overlaid with misrecognition. This paper uses semiotics to discover where and how the visual presence of adverts works against their intended hegemonic positions. Drawing upon a poststructuralist theoretical framework, the paper’s findings depart from claims to comprehensiveness and instead show a deferral of meaning. They also embrace plurality whilst questioning the validity of authorial authority. Results indicate that the alienated subject – MTN Uganda’s TV adverts – gave rise to other identification tags because its target audience knowingly and willingly wanted to have agency over their stories. The counternarrative that this paper unearths in part owes its existence to social media’s calling card, social endorsements or affordances, which trigger several decision heuristics. The poststructuralist situated knowledges in this case open themselves for new, unthought-of, and, perhaps, unexpected forms of knowledge production, unfolding from interrelated material-semiotic nodes.
{"title":"How do I chase away this man? From Bosco to Dismas, unpacking the situated knowledges of MTN Uganda’s adverts","authors":"Robert Madoi Nasaba","doi":"10.1080/17531055.2021.1987699","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17531055.2021.1987699","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Much of the appeal of advertisements or adverts derives from a capacity to satisfy a primordial wish for pleasurable looking. An advert essentially sets out to impress on its audience a sign with easily readable mythic meaning. The unconscious of society, however, structures materiality of adverts in such a way that recognition could quite easily be overlaid with misrecognition. This paper uses semiotics to discover where and how the visual presence of adverts works against their intended hegemonic positions. Drawing upon a poststructuralist theoretical framework, the paper’s findings depart from claims to comprehensiveness and instead show a deferral of meaning. They also embrace plurality whilst questioning the validity of authorial authority. Results indicate that the alienated subject – MTN Uganda’s TV adverts – gave rise to other identification tags because its target audience knowingly and willingly wanted to have agency over their stories. The counternarrative that this paper unearths in part owes its existence to social media’s calling card, social endorsements or affordances, which trigger several decision heuristics. The poststructuralist situated knowledges in this case open themselves for new, unthought-of, and, perhaps, unexpected forms of knowledge production, unfolding from interrelated material-semiotic nodes.","PeriodicalId":46968,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Eastern African Studies","volume":"15 1","pages":"624 - 644"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2021-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45282853","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-10-02DOI: 10.1080/17531055.2021.1987701
Magnus Treiber
ABSTRACT After the end of the Ethiopian-Eritrean border war (1998–2000) life resumed in Asmara, where the young generation flocked to cafés, bars and nightclubs after work or study. During my ethnographic fieldwork (2001–2005) I identified three larger social milieus that pursued and staged their own ideas of a good life: the chic, the shabby and the pious. Until the ‘political spring’ of summer 2001, young people looked forward to building up promising life careers inside the country. Eritrea needed young professionals more than ever before, and not everyone had fallen out with Eritrea’s guerrilla government. 2001s clampdown quickly changed future prospects for individuals, families and for society as a whole. In the different milieus’ meeting places, these events were well observed and cautiously discussed. Social life went on, but from now on performed visions of a good life became unreachable in real life. Migration appeared as the only answer. An existential view of selected protagonists and ethnographic sketches from the early 2000s will help to re-interpret the youth life-worlds of Asmara’s recent past in a regional history of ongoing violence.
{"title":"Tentative lifeworlds in Art Deco: young people’s milieus in postwar Asmara, Eritrea, 2001–2005","authors":"Magnus Treiber","doi":"10.1080/17531055.2021.1987701","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17531055.2021.1987701","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT After the end of the Ethiopian-Eritrean border war (1998–2000) life resumed in Asmara, where the young generation flocked to cafés, bars and nightclubs after work or study. During my ethnographic fieldwork (2001–2005) I identified three larger social milieus that pursued and staged their own ideas of a good life: the chic, the shabby and the pious. Until the ‘political spring’ of summer 2001, young people looked forward to building up promising life careers inside the country. Eritrea needed young professionals more than ever before, and not everyone had fallen out with Eritrea’s guerrilla government. 2001s clampdown quickly changed future prospects for individuals, families and for society as a whole. In the different milieus’ meeting places, these events were well observed and cautiously discussed. Social life went on, but from now on performed visions of a good life became unreachable in real life. Migration appeared as the only answer. An existential view of selected protagonists and ethnographic sketches from the early 2000s will help to re-interpret the youth life-worlds of Asmara’s recent past in a regional history of ongoing violence.","PeriodicalId":46968,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Eastern African Studies","volume":"15 1","pages":"585 - 603"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2021-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47518231","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-10-02DOI: 10.1080/17531055.2021.1989136
John R. Campbell
ABSTRACT This paper examines the litigation strategies adopted by Eritrea and Ethiopia before the Eritrea-Ethiopia Claims Commission convened at The Permanent Commission of Arbitration at The Hague between 2001 and 2009. I pursue insights from the work of Laura Nader concerning how, through binding arbitration, the international community imposes its power on disputing parties as opposed to allowing their competing legal claims to be fairly decided. The claims examined by this paper concern who started the border war and that Ethiopia denationalized ‘Eritrean’ nationals and unlawfully deprived them of their property. I conclude that the PCA’s decisions on Eritrea and Ethiopia were flawed and that its deliberations need to be viewed in a much wider political context; furthermore its decisions contributed to further political instability in the Horn of Africa.
{"title":"The limitations of international law at the Eritrea-Ethiopia Claims Commission and its implications for future conflict","authors":"John R. Campbell","doi":"10.1080/17531055.2021.1989136","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17531055.2021.1989136","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This paper examines the litigation strategies adopted by Eritrea and Ethiopia before the Eritrea-Ethiopia Claims Commission convened at The Permanent Commission of Arbitration at The Hague between 2001 and 2009. I pursue insights from the work of Laura Nader concerning how, through binding arbitration, the international community imposes its power on disputing parties as opposed to allowing their competing legal claims to be fairly decided. The claims examined by this paper concern who started the border war and that Ethiopia denationalized ‘Eritrean’ nationals and unlawfully deprived them of their property. I conclude that the PCA’s decisions on Eritrea and Ethiopia were flawed and that its deliberations need to be viewed in a much wider political context; furthermore its decisions contributed to further political instability in the Horn of Africa.","PeriodicalId":46968,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Eastern African Studies","volume":"15 1","pages":"604 - 623"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2021-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41481287","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-10-02DOI: 10.1080/17531055.2021.1992173
Andreas Greiner
ABSTRACT This article uncovers the colonial past of the Bagamoyo Caravanserai, a historic site in the Tanzanian town of Bagamoyo. Situating the origin of the building, as well as that of a similar structure in Dar es Salaam, within the context of both German colonial rule around 1900 and the wider history of colonial camps in Africa, it argues that the colonial authorities conceptualised caravanserais as spatial tools of demobilising and concentrating the non-sedentary group of porters working in the East African caravan trade. Based on primary sources from Tanzanian and German archives, the analysis contends that it was the aim of these tools to disentangle the thousands of transport workers, staying in the towns during the annual trade season, from the urban population for the purpose of social and sanitary control. The analysis also discusses the limitations of this regime, revealing the struggles over space and the ways in which African workers subverted colonial urban transformation.
{"title":"Revisiting a colonial landmark: caravanserais as tools of urban transformation in early colonial Tanzania","authors":"Andreas Greiner","doi":"10.1080/17531055.2021.1992173","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17531055.2021.1992173","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article uncovers the colonial past of the Bagamoyo Caravanserai, a historic site in the Tanzanian town of Bagamoyo. Situating the origin of the building, as well as that of a similar structure in Dar es Salaam, within the context of both German colonial rule around 1900 and the wider history of colonial camps in Africa, it argues that the colonial authorities conceptualised caravanserais as spatial tools of demobilising and concentrating the non-sedentary group of porters working in the East African caravan trade. Based on primary sources from Tanzanian and German archives, the analysis contends that it was the aim of these tools to disentangle the thousands of transport workers, staying in the towns during the annual trade season, from the urban population for the purpose of social and sanitary control. The analysis also discusses the limitations of this regime, revealing the struggles over space and the ways in which African workers subverted colonial urban transformation.","PeriodicalId":46968,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Eastern African Studies","volume":"15 1","pages":"685 - 706"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2021-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47337752","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-10-02DOI: 10.1080/17531055.2021.1989137
Fantahun Ayele
ABSTRACT Using untapped archival documents from the Däbrä Marqos provincial archives in Gojjam, and the archives of the Ministry of National Defence (MOND) in Addis Ababa, this study attempts to investigate the untold stories of militiamen drafted into the Ethiopian army in 1977 on the eve of Somalia's invasion of Ethiopia and in the wake of the fall of many towns in Eritrea in the hands of insurgents. These men played a critical role in reversing these threats (temporarily in the case of Eritrea, on a much longer-term basis in that of Somalia), and their impact on the region's history was massive. The archival evidence gathered from the former Gojjam province sheds new light on their personal lives, and the dislocation for those left behind, which is often missing from the larger histories of the Därg's wars. Those stories have been substantiated by interviewing ex-militiamen. Many of the stories revealed in the archives are quite disturbing – broken marriages, emotional distress, separated families and the like. This study, thus, attempts to show the importance of ‘history from below’ in the construction of narratives of the Ethiopian revolutionary wars.
{"title":"The untold stories of militiamen from Gojjam, Ethiopia: voices of distress and desperation from the Ogaden and Eritrean fronts, 1977–1991","authors":"Fantahun Ayele","doi":"10.1080/17531055.2021.1989137","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17531055.2021.1989137","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Using untapped archival documents from the Däbrä Marqos provincial archives in Gojjam, and the archives of the Ministry of National Defence (MOND) in Addis Ababa, this study attempts to investigate the untold stories of militiamen drafted into the Ethiopian army in 1977 on the eve of Somalia's invasion of Ethiopia and in the wake of the fall of many towns in Eritrea in the hands of insurgents. These men played a critical role in reversing these threats (temporarily in the case of Eritrea, on a much longer-term basis in that of Somalia), and their impact on the region's history was massive. The archival evidence gathered from the former Gojjam province sheds new light on their personal lives, and the dislocation for those left behind, which is often missing from the larger histories of the Därg's wars. Those stories have been substantiated by interviewing ex-militiamen. Many of the stories revealed in the archives are quite disturbing – broken marriages, emotional distress, separated families and the like. This study, thus, attempts to show the importance of ‘history from below’ in the construction of narratives of the Ethiopian revolutionary wars.","PeriodicalId":46968,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Eastern African Studies","volume":"15 1","pages":"568 - 584"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2021-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47970781","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-09-29DOI: 10.1080/17531055.2021.1982301
R. Gaudioso
ABSTRACT This article focuses on the textual aesthetics of the Congolese-born (later Tanzanian naturalized) Swahili singer-songwriter Remmy Ongala. In the first part, I argue that a textual approach is also important for songs. The theoretical discussion is mainly based on the studies by Karin Barber, which offer a fundamental perspective on these issues. On this basis, I propose a more literary perspective, related to the ideas of the father of aesthetics Baumgarten (1714-1762), the American writer Susan Sontag (1933-2004) and the Swahili writer Euphrase Kezilahabi (1944-2020). Since Ongala belongs to different textual traditions, Congolese and Tanzanian, I use texts from these traditions for a comparative analysis of style and thought. On the Congolese side the comparison is based on elements of oral literature, like folk tale and song, both in relation to the proverb Kipendacho roho hula nyama bichi (A soul in love eats raw meat), while on the Tanzanian side the comparison is based on Swahili literature of that time.
{"title":"Verbal art beyond categorization: inductive and aesthetic approaches to Remmy Ongala’s songs","authors":"R. Gaudioso","doi":"10.1080/17531055.2021.1982301","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17531055.2021.1982301","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article focuses on the textual aesthetics of the Congolese-born (later Tanzanian naturalized) Swahili singer-songwriter Remmy Ongala. In the first part, I argue that a textual approach is also important for songs. The theoretical discussion is mainly based on the studies by Karin Barber, which offer a fundamental perspective on these issues. On this basis, I propose a more literary perspective, related to the ideas of the father of aesthetics Baumgarten (1714-1762), the American writer Susan Sontag (1933-2004) and the Swahili writer Euphrase Kezilahabi (1944-2020). Since Ongala belongs to different textual traditions, Congolese and Tanzanian, I use texts from these traditions for a comparative analysis of style and thought. On the Congolese side the comparison is based on elements of oral literature, like folk tale and song, both in relation to the proverb Kipendacho roho hula nyama bichi (A soul in love eats raw meat), while on the Tanzanian side the comparison is based on Swahili literature of that time.","PeriodicalId":46968,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Eastern African Studies","volume":"15 1","pages":"645 - 662"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2021-09-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48163677","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-07-03DOI: 10.1080/17531055.2021.1949118
D. Mains, Robel Mulat
ABSTRACT Tens of thousands of young Ethiopian women have migrated from small towns and rural areas to work in the Hawassa Industrial Park (HIP), where working conditions and wages are far below their expectations. Low wages and a high cost of living mean that workers face severe challenges in meeting their basic needs for food and shelter that are necessary for reproducing their own labor. Attention to struggles over the reproduction of migrant women’s labor at the HIP generates insights into the practices of the Ethiopian developmental state. The developmental state actively makes and reproduces cheap labor to attract international capital and support economic growth. The state protects international textile manufacturers from the burden of reproducing the labor that manufacturers rely on for profits. The case of the HIP is a necessary complement to recent scholarship on urban Africa that has focused overwhelmingly on the informal economy. The precarious nature of factory work leads some young women to search out stability with small scale, often informal, entrepreneurial work, a process that disrupts conventional narratives of economic development. The complex relationship between wage labor and self-employment suggests possibilities for pro-poor policies that go beyond reproducing labor for international manufacturers.
{"title":"The Ethiopian developmental state and struggles over the reproduction of young migrant women’s labor at the Hawassa Industrial Park","authors":"D. Mains, Robel Mulat","doi":"10.1080/17531055.2021.1949118","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17531055.2021.1949118","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Tens of thousands of young Ethiopian women have migrated from small towns and rural areas to work in the Hawassa Industrial Park (HIP), where working conditions and wages are far below their expectations. Low wages and a high cost of living mean that workers face severe challenges in meeting their basic needs for food and shelter that are necessary for reproducing their own labor. Attention to struggles over the reproduction of migrant women’s labor at the HIP generates insights into the practices of the Ethiopian developmental state. The developmental state actively makes and reproduces cheap labor to attract international capital and support economic growth. The state protects international textile manufacturers from the burden of reproducing the labor that manufacturers rely on for profits. The case of the HIP is a necessary complement to recent scholarship on urban Africa that has focused overwhelmingly on the informal economy. The precarious nature of factory work leads some young women to search out stability with small scale, often informal, entrepreneurial work, a process that disrupts conventional narratives of economic development. The complex relationship between wage labor and self-employment suggests possibilities for pro-poor policies that go beyond reproducing labor for international manufacturers.","PeriodicalId":46968,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Eastern African Studies","volume":"15 1","pages":"359 - 377"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2021-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/17531055.2021.1949118","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47629321","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-07-03DOI: 10.1080/17531055.2021.1950749
Natascha Mueller-Hirth
ABSTRACT This article examines transitional justice in Kenya, drawing on interviews and focus groups with survivors of the post-election violence of 2007–2008. Focusing particularly on the experiences of women and internally displaced persons (IDPs), it explores how survivors understood and negotiated waiting for reparations and analyses the effects of temporal uncertainty (around timing and scope) and of inequality (in relation to waiting times). Uncertainty and inequality contributed to survivors’ senses of passivity and exacerbated their feelings of marginalisation. To delay reparations for an uncertain time contributes to senses of continuity with the past, which transitional justice precisely seeks to disrupt. However, the study also demonstrates that waiting is not only endured, but at times actively resisted or rejected, which might be understood as a claim to ownership of local peace and exercise of peacebuilding agency but also as resistance against the dominant temporality of transitional justice. By framing survivors’ experiences with the scholarship on time and power and the “politics of waiting”, the research contributes to the literature on local experiences and understandings of transitional justice and to recent debates around its temporalities.
{"title":"Reparations and the politics of waiting in Kenya","authors":"Natascha Mueller-Hirth","doi":"10.1080/17531055.2021.1950749","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17531055.2021.1950749","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article examines transitional justice in Kenya, drawing on interviews and focus groups with survivors of the post-election violence of 2007–2008. Focusing particularly on the experiences of women and internally displaced persons (IDPs), it explores how survivors understood and negotiated waiting for reparations and analyses the effects of temporal uncertainty (around timing and scope) and of inequality (in relation to waiting times). Uncertainty and inequality contributed to survivors’ senses of passivity and exacerbated their feelings of marginalisation. To delay reparations for an uncertain time contributes to senses of continuity with the past, which transitional justice precisely seeks to disrupt. However, the study also demonstrates that waiting is not only endured, but at times actively resisted or rejected, which might be understood as a claim to ownership of local peace and exercise of peacebuilding agency but also as resistance against the dominant temporality of transitional justice. By framing survivors’ experiences with the scholarship on time and power and the “politics of waiting”, the research contributes to the literature on local experiences and understandings of transitional justice and to recent debates around its temporalities.","PeriodicalId":46968,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Eastern African Studies","volume":"15 1","pages":"464 - 484"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2021-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/17531055.2021.1950749","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46449772","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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