Romanticizing Poverty the Representation of African Countries by Western Development Organizations
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Romanticizing Poverty The Representation of African Countries by Western Development Organizations Michiel van Schagen Master thesis International Relations 1 | Romanticizing Poverty Romanticizing Poverty The Representation of African Countries by Western Development Organizations Master thesis International Relations University of Amsterdam, 2015 Author: Michiel Van Schagen Student ID: 5871638 Course: Postcolonialism and Development Supervisor: Said Rezaeiejan Second reader: Nanke Verloo Cover photo: Paul Bruins - Mnweni Rays; Drakensberg, South Africa 2 | Romanticizing Poverty 3 | Romanticizing Poverty “My point is not that everything is bad, but that everything is dangerous.” Michel Foucault 4 | Romanticizing Poverty Contents Introduction ............................................................................................................................7 Part I: Theory and Methods .................................................................................................. 15 1. On Africa.......................................................................................................................... 16 1.1. Postcolonialism .......................................................................................................... 16 1.2. Orientalism ................................................................................................................ 19 1.3. Africanism ................................................................................................................. 20 2. On Development ............................................................................................................... 24 2.1. Underdevelopment ..................................................................................................... 24 2.2. Postdevelopment ........................................................................................................ 27 2.3. Reflexive development ............................................................................................... 31 3. On Representation ............................................................................................................ 35 3.1. Re-presence................................................................................................................ 35 3.2. Framing...................................................................................................................... 38 3.3. Identity ....................................................................................................................... 40 4. Methodology .................................................................................................................... 44 4.1. Discourse analysis ...................................................................................................... 44 4.2. Dramaturgical analysis ............................................................................................... 48 4.3. Data ........................................................................................................................... 50 4.4. Limitations and considerations ................................................................................... 55 Part II: Analysis and Conclusions ......................................................................................... 59 5. Historical Development Representations of Africa ............................................................ 60 5.1. The Ethiopian famine ................................................................................................. 60 5.2. Pornography of poverty .............................................................................................. 63 5.3. Identities of Development .......................................................................................... 68 5 | Romanticizing Poverty 6. Contemporary Development Representations of Africa ..................................................... 73 6.1. Setting ........................................................................................................................ 74 6.2. Scripting .................................................................................................................... 80 6.3. Staging ....................................................................................................................... 84 6.4. Context ...................................................................................................................... 87 6.5. Performance ............................................................................................................... 91 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 95 Bibliography ........................................................................................................................ 96 List of Primary Literature .................................................................................................. 108 6 | Romanticizing Poverty Introduction The last decade race has resurfaced as an important theme in politics and the public debate in Europe and the United States. In Europe, several countries are reported to witness a ‘resurgence of racism’ in the wake of economic crisis, as right-wing political parties opposed to immigration gather increasing popular support with slogans as extreme as “So we can rid this land of filth” (Ames, 2013). In the United States, president Barack Obama has questioned the notion of the ‘post-racial society’, in a response to multiple instances of disproportional and even deadly police violence against black youths and the resulting outrage in the African American community (Obama, 2013). Increasingly, these debates concerning race and racism focus on issues of representation and stereotypes. In the United States, mass media were criticized for stereotypically portraying the black victims of police violence as “thugs […] flashing gang signs” instead of using more neutral or even positive images such as graduation photos (Stampler, 2014). On universities across the world, as Harvard, Oxford and the University of Amsterdam, in an effort to break stereotypical imaging, students of color satirized the prejudices they encounter on campus, in campaigns as the I too am Harvard movement (Butler, 2014). In the Netherlands, the ‘Black Pete’ controversy stirs up every year, when critics protest the stereotypical blackface-like representation of a black servant with big lips and an afro-style wig accompanying a wealthy benevolent white man on a horse during the ‘Sinterklaas’ tradition (Pearson, 2014); a Dutch ‘colonial hangover’ as some put it (Bergman, 2014). A recurring object of comparable critique and ridicule in the public debate is the dominant representation of African countries. A variety of actors has challenged the “one- dimensional view” (VSO, 2001: 15) of Africa that is perpetuated through stereotypical accounts of the continent in Western media. Recent examples include the campaign The Real Africa: Fight the Stereotype, which reminded audiences that ‘Africa is not a country’ by emphasizing the enormous differences between its 54 countries and billions of people speaking an estimated 2000 languages (Kermeliotis, 2014); and Nigerian novelist Chimamandie Adichie who warned the world of ‘the danger of a single story’ about Africa, a story of catastrophe, in a TED talk that has accumulated over 8.5 million views (Adichie, 2009). In very similar vein, a South African co-host of the popular US television program The Daily Show, mocked the common misconception that “Africa is just one giant village full of Aids, huts and starving 7 | Romanticizing Poverty children” (Comedy Central, 2014). In 2012, after a CNN report on a terrorist attack in Nairobi gave viewers the impression that violence was disrupting yet another conflict-ridden African country, Kenyans took to Twitter to explain the world that this stereotypical coverage was exaggerated and oversimplified, under the ‘hashtag’ #SomeonetellCNN (Nyabola, 2013). Drawing a comparison with the colonial 1906 addition of a Congolese man to the New York Bronx Zoo’s attractions, one journalist concludes that “today, the ‘savage nature’ of Africa is still on display, in American headlines” (Moore, 2012). An important source of information on Africa for the European and American publics besides mainstream media accounts, are the fundraising campaigns of charities and other development organizations (Alam, 2007: 60). An increasing amount of criticism for propagating the stereotypical images of the African continent, is directed at these Western NGOs. Often, these critiques are a combination of humorous cynicism and genuine frustration. Recently, British philanthropist pop star Bob Geldof re-released his famous charity hit Do They Know Its Christmas? to raise awareness and money for NGOs in the fight against the Ebola outbreak in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. However, his well-intended endeavor was dismissed as “clumsy, patronizing and wrong in many ways” (Adewunmi, 2014) and found to be contributing to the well-established “pop culture of aid” that is orchestrating world-wide pity around negative stereotypes of developing countries (Moyo, 2009: 26)1. Another recent controversy arose when the American NGO Invisible Children launched their KONY2012 campaign with an emotional video appeal that was watched by more than 32 million people in four days, to stop the rebel warlord