RETHINKING AUDIENCES: Visual Representations of Africa and the Nigerian Diaspora
Edward Adedamola Adeleke Ademolu, 2018
A thesis submitted to the University of Manchester
for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Humanities,
Global Development Institute, School of Environment, Education and Development
Table of Contents
Abbreviations and Acronyms………………………………………………………………………6
Figures and Tables…………………………………………………………………………………...7
Images …………………………………………………………………………………………………7
Abstract………………………………………………………………………………………………...9
Declaration and Copyright………………………………………………………………………...10
Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………………………………11
CHAPTER 1: Introduction and Research Background……………………………………….12
1.1 Introduction to the Research………………………………………………………….12 1.2 Research Aims and Objectives of the Research……………………………………14 1.3 Research Significance…………………………………………………………………15 1.4 Narrating the Research’s Story: Situating the ‘Self’ ……………………………….16 1.5 The Background Story: A Reflective Journey……………………………………….17 1.6 Organisation of the thesis………………………………………………………..……23 1.7 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………23
CHAPTER 2: Literature Review…………………………………………………………………..24
2.1 Introduction……………………………………………………………………………...24 2.2 Understanding Representations: meanings and Language……………………….24 2.3 Theories of Representation…………………………………………………………...25 2.4 The Power of Representations: Discourse and Ideology…………..……………...27 2.5 Docile Masses or Active Appropriators? Audiences and Representations………30 2.5.1 Understanding Audiences…………………………………………………………..31 2.5.2 Effects vs Encoding/Decoding: The oscillation between passive and active….33 2.6 Representations of Development: NGO fundraising Images and Audiences…...36 2.6.1 What is Development?...... 36 2.6.2 ‘Shock-effect’ images and public donations………………………………………39 2.6.3 Relationships between audiences and distant people…………………………..41 2.6.4 Development representations and public perceptions…………………………..42 2.7 Situating Diaspora in the study of Development Representations……………….43 2.7.1 Towards a conceptualisation of Diaspora and their identities…………………..44 2.7.2 Understanding Diaspora identities…………………………………………………45
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2.7.3 Diaspora and Development………………………………………………………...47 2.8 Conceptual Framework and Research Questions………………………….………48 2.9 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………....51
CHAPTER 3: Contextualising Nigeria Diaspora and Development Representations…53
3.1 Introduction…………………………………………………………………………….53 3.2 Nigeria: Country and Demographic Profile…………………………………………54 3.3 Nigeria, Colonialism’s Imagining? Nigeria and Colonialism……………………...60 3.3.1 Imposition of British Colonialism and the Establishment of Nigeria…………...60 3.4 Migration………………………………………………………………………….…….63 3.5 Nigeria(ns) and Development Representations……………………………….……67 3.6 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………….………..71
CHAPTER 4: Methodology and Methods………………………………………………………..73
4.1 Introduction……………………………………………………………………………...73 4.2 Ontological and Epistemological Orientation………………………………………...73 4.3 Qualitative Methodology and Methods……………………………………………….74 4.4 Sample…………………………………………………………………………………..76 4.5 Conducting the Research……………………………………………………………...77 4.5.1 Planning the Focus Groups………………………………………………………….77 4.5.2 Conducting the Focus Groups………………………………………………………78 4.6 Interviewing Participants……………………………………………………………….81 4.7 Online Ethnography…………………………………………………………………….83 4.8 Ethical Considerations………………………………………………………………….86 4.8.1 Positionality and Research(er) Reflexivity………………………………………….88 4.9 Data Recording and Analysis………………………………………………………….89 4.10 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………..94
CHAPTER 5: Development representations and diaspora knowledge and perceptions of their place of origin………………………………………………………………………………....95
5.1 Introduction……………………………………………………………………………...95 5.2 Helplessness……………………………………………………………………………95 5.3 Primitivism………………………………………………………………………… ….103 5.4 Homogenous and Undifferentiated……………………………………………….…106
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5.4.1 Territorialised Rurality…………………………………………………………..….106 5.4.2 Spacio-culturally Monolithic: ‘Nigeria as Africa’………………………………….111 5.5 Dual and Multiple Perceptions and Understandings………………………………112 5.6 Indignation of, and Ethno-Racial Identification with Representations…………...116 5.7 White British Audiences………………………………………………………………123 5.8 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………..125
CHAPTER 6: Development representations and diaspora engagement with development in their place of origin…………………….…………………………………....130
6.1 Introduction……………………………………………………………………………130 6.2 Diaspora mistrust of international development organisations…………………………………..…………………………...……………..131 6.2.1 Oversimplified Africa……………………………………………………………….131 6.2.2 Discouraging Messages……………………………………………………………134 6.2.3 Racist Imagery………………………………………………………………………138 6.3 Remittances ‘as’ Development? African Diaspora and ‘Homeland’ Remitting…142 6.4 ‘Faith-full’ Support: The Role of Religion in Diaspora Engagement……………..146 6.5 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………..148
CHAPTER 7: Diaspora audiences producing, shaping and/or challenging development representations………………………...…………………….…………………………………....153
7.1 Introduction…………………………………………………………………………….153 7.2 #Twitter = Digital Re-presentation? Diaspora Microblogging and Image- Sharing……………………………………………………………………………………..156 7.2.1 Children and Childhood……………………………………………………………160 7.2.2 Food and Cuisine…………………………………………………………………..163 7.2.3 Property……………………………………………………………………………..167 7.2.4 Industrialised Cities…………………………………………………………….…..172 7.2.5 Tourist/leisure attractions………………………………………………………….175 7.3 #United Diaspora……………………………………………………………………..180 7.3.1: #United Diaspora Against ‘White Media’………………………………………..183 7.4 Video Sharing on YouTube………………………………………………………….187 7.5 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………….194
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CHAPTER 8: Development Representations and African Diaspora: Summary, Contributions and Ways forward……………………………………………………………………………………..…….198
8.1 Introduction…………………………………………………………………………….198 8.2 Summary of the Empirical Findings…………………………………………………200 8.3 Empirical Contributions……………………………………………………………….202 8.4 Theoretical Contributions…………………………………………………………….206 8.5 Limitations……………………………………………………………………………..211 8.6 Suggestions for further research……………………………………………………212 8.7 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………….214
References ...... 215
Appendices ...... ………………………230
Appendix 1: Tables showing diaspora focus group participants……….……………....230
Appendix 2: Tables showing white focus group participants……………………..……..233
Appendix 3: Focus Group Discussion Prompt Sheet………………………..…………….234
Appendix 4: Table showing online diaspora interview participants……………..……..235
Appendix 5: Table showing interviews with NGOs and development organisations..236
Appendix 6: Interview Prompt Sheet for NGO professionals / Key Informants……….237
Appendix 7: Interview Prompt Sheet for online diaspora…………………………………238
Appendix 8: Focus Group NGO Representations…………………………………………..239
Word count: 81, 883
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Abbreviations and Acronyms
CRT Critical Race Theory
DFID Department for International Development
IMO The International Organisation for Migration
INGO International Non-Governmental Organisation
ITN British Independent Television Authority
NGO Non-governmental Organisation
SNS Social Networking Sites
UK United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
UNICEF United Nations Childs Emergency Fund
USA United States of America
VSO Voluntary Services Overseas
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Figures and Tables
Figure 1: Sign Model…………………………………………………………………………………………27
Figure 2: Satellite View and Map of Nigeria showing Abuja……………………………………………..54
Figure 3: Map of Nigeria showing its 36 states……………………………………………………………55
Figure 4: Map of Nigeria showing the boundaries of 1914………………………………………………61
Figure 5: Graph showing countries of origin of African migrants in the UK (2008)……………………65
Table 3.1: Total Number of Nigerian-born emigrants between 1960 and 2015……………………….57
Images
Image 1.1: First visit to Lagos, Nigeria (1995)………………………………………………………………19 Image 3.1: London Metro Newspaper Headline, August 2015: ‘African migrants a threat to our way of Life’…………………………………………………………………………………………………66
Image 3.2: The Sun, June 12, 1968, pp. 2-3. Reproduced with permission of News Syndication……69
Inage 3.3: United Action for Nigeria/Biafra, 19th December 1969. Reproduced with permission of News Syndication……………………………………………………………………………………………………...70
Image 4.1: “The Africa the media never shows you – in pictures”………………………………………..84
Image 4.2: Reflective Journal………………………………………………………………………………..90
Image 5.1: WaterAid ‘Malawian Crisis’ (2016)………………………………………………………………86
Image 5.2: Concern Worldwide, ‘Free Children from hunger’ Appeal (2015)……………………………88 Image 5.3: Oxfam (2012)……………………………………………………………………………………...93 Image 5.4: Oxfam (2012) ‘Food For all’ Campaign…………………………………………………………98 Image 5.5: Comic Relief (2016)……………………………………………………………………………..108 Image 7.1: #TheAfricaTheMediaNeverShowsYou Tweet………………………………………………..157 Image 7.2: ‘Our little ones are happy’………………………………………………………………………160 Image 7.3: “Africa isn’t about starving and malnourished children”……………………………………..160 Image 7.4: “The Joy of African Children”…………………………………………………………………..161 Image 7.5: “African Kids do have childhoods”…………………………………………………………….163 Image 7.6: “Street food in Zanzibar”………………………………………………………………………..164 7
Image 7.7: “Kenyan Cuisine…………………………………………………………………………………164 Image 7.8: “It’s a fruitful country! Uganda”…………………………………………………………………166 Image 7.9: ‘Who says famine is everywhere in Africa’……………………………………………………167 Image 7.10: ‘Africans live in mud houses’………………………………………………………………….168
Image 7.11: ‘Yeah we live in “HUTS”……………………………………………………………………….169 Image 7.12: ‘Not everyone lives in mud houses in Africa’………………………………………………..170
Image 7.13: “What hut What shanty house?”……………………………………………………………...171
Image 7.14: “Nairobi, the City under the Sun”……………………………………………………………..172
Image 7.15: ‘That’s our “Jungle”. Angola-Luanda’………………………………………………………..172
Image 7.15: “Not all of Africa is bleak”……………………………………………………………………..173
Image 7.16: “Lots of people in the world think Africa is the commercial seen on TV”………………..174
Image 7.17: “Chapunga sculpture park Harare, Zimbabwe”…………………………………………….175
Image 7.18: “The Canopy Walkway in Ghana”……………………………………………………………176
Image 7.19: “This Kigali view in Rwanda”………………………………………………………………….176 Image 7.20: “Well, would you look at that”…………………………………………………………………178
Image 7.21: “Africa is full of unexplored history!”………………………………………………………….179
Image 7.22: “British Africans let’s band together”…………………………………………………………180 Image 7.23: “Why we letting Oxfam tell our narratives”…………………………………………………..181 Image 7.24: “Calling all Diaspora”…………………………………………………………………………..182 Image 7.25: “White Media and its accomplices”…………………………………………………………..182 Image 7.26: “It’s mainstream media aka “White Media””…………………………………………………184 Image 7.27: “Let’s show a different Africa ‘cus white-man media wont”………………………………..184 Image 7.28: “One image at a time let’s challenge Africa’s image under white media’s thumb………185
Image 7.29 ‘What’s Up Africa’ home page…………………………………………………………………186 Image 7.30 ‘BBC’s Africa Coverage Sucks’……………………………………………………………….187 Image 7.31 ‘The Worst African Charity Appeal’…………………………………………………………...189 Image 7.32 ‘Epic Fail from Oxfam (Again)’………………………………………………………………...190 Image 7.33 ‘Back to Ikenna’s Roots’……………………………………………………………………….191
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Abstract
Rethinking Audiences: Visual Representations of Africa and the Nigerian Diaspora.
This thesis explores the relationship between development representations and diaspora audiences. It brings together literature on representations, with concepts of audience, diaspora and identity to provide an in-depth study of how and with what effects, visual representations of development in NGO fundraising campaigning that depict Africa, impact on Nigerian diaspora audiences. This study challenges the tendency in much of development literature in this field to homogenise British audiences of NGO communication. This has imagined audiences as some form of monocultural Western-situated community, coextensive with the ‘general’ British public. It further assumes audiences read, interpret and are impacted by NGO representations in very similar ways. This assumption precludes critical engagement with the complexities and particularities of audiences and is unable to reflect the multiple and differentiated ways in which audiences think, feel and behave in response to development representations.
By using focus group discussions with UK Nigerian diaspora audiences, one-to-one interviews and online-ethnography as the methodological tool, and postcolonialism as an analytical framing, this thesis reveals the complex and contested ways that individual diaspora subjectivities, positionalities and life experiences are implicated in their construal of development representations and the perspicuity of their impact.
One of the key findings of this study is that development representations impact African diaspora audiences in diverse and complicated ways, that both reproduce and contradict negative and, stereotypical ‘ways of seeing’ and knowing Africa. Furthermore, it highlights how diaspora ethno- racial/cultural identities affect, and are implicated in, the reading and interpretation of development representations of Africa. Indeed, diaspora audiences affirm and challenge their connections or, lack thereof, with their country of origin through these representations. Moreover, the study shows how NGO development representations provide symbolic spaces from which diaspora audiences can articulate their identities as well as, forge relationships among themselves and with their wider communities.
This study builds on Stuart Hall’s ([1973]1980) Encoding/Decoding theorisation on audiences, by demonstrating that Nigerian diaspora audiences of development representations are sophisticated, varied and paradoxical in how they interpret and decipher media representations. Indeed, their socio- cultural positioning, personal histories and lived-experiences inform and shape how they discursively construct perceptions and knowledge of their place of origin through representations. Furthermore, it contributes to postcolonial theorisations of hybridity in diaspora identities, by showing that Nigerians strategically adopt new and preferential ethnosymbolic identities, in response to representations. These re-configurations of the Diaspora ‘Self’ are neither stable or consistent but are nonetheless utilised by Nigerians to subvert development representations and harmful public perceptions and stereotypes about Africans that they shape.
University of Manchester
Edward Adedamola Adeleke Ademolu, 2018 Submitted for the degree PhD
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Declaration and Copyright
No portion of the work referred to in the thesis has been submitted in support of an application for another degree or qualification of this or any other university or other institute of learning.
The author of this thesis (including any appendices and/or schedules to this thesis) owns certain copyright or related rights in it (the “Copyright”) and s/he has given The University of Manchester certain rights to use such Copyright, including for administrative purposes.
Copies of this thesis, either in full or in extracts and whether in hard or electronic copy, may be made only in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (as amended) and regulations issued under it or, where appropriate, in accordance with licensing agreements which the University has from time to time. This page must form part of any such copies made.
The ownership of certain Copyright, patents, designs, trademarks and other intellectual property (the “Intellectual Property”) and any reproductions of copyright works in the thesis, for example graphs and tables (“Reproductions”), which may be described in this thesis, may not be owned by the author and may be owned by third parties. Such Intellectual Property and Reproductions cannot and must not be made available for use without the prior written permission of the owner(s) of the relevant Intellectual Property and/or Reproductions.
Further information on the conditions under which disclosure, publication and commercialisation of this thesis, the Copyright and any Intellectual Property University IP Policy (see http://documents.manchester.ac.uk/display.aspx?DocID=24420), in any relevant Thesis restriction declarations deposited in the University Library, The University Library’s regulations (see http://www.library.manchester.ac.uk/about/regulations/) and in The University’s policy on Presentation of Theses.
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Acknowledgments
While my name stands alone on the front cover of this thesis, I am by no means its only contributor. In many ways this research has been a collaborative effort. There are several people to thank for their invaluable contributions. Firstly, I thank my supervisors Uma Kothari and Dan Brockington – I will always be astounded by the faith you showed in me. As supervisors, your willingness to think about what was possible and what should be, allowed this research to become what it is. The freedom that you gave me to experiment, to not know and to look beyond limitations will never be forgotten. More importantly you allowed me to develop as an individual rather than just as a researcher; I am a much different Edward now than I was at the start of this journey, because of your support and your willingness to always try to say “yes‟ the last three years have proved to be transformative. I couldn’t have asked for better supervision, thank you. Secondly, I thank my research participants. More than anything else, this thesis relies on the testimonies and lived-experiences of Nigerians in the UK. My participants were so generous with their time, their memories and their enthusiasm that they made this work possible.
Special thanks to Nicola Ansell and John Barker of Brunel University London, and Middlesex University London, respectively, - it was through your faith, persistence and glowing references that made all of this happen in the first place and I am forevermore indebted. I would also like to thank Jim Igoe of University of Virginia, thank you for showing enthusiasm for, and championing my work. You provided an unforgettable platform for me to share this research with your students. I will never forget the warmth of your welcome; you opened your heart, your home and family to me and for this I thank you – more than this, you are truly an incredible and awe-inspiring human being.
Of course, I must thank my family for their unending faith in me. I thank you for lending an ear to the several iterations of this thesis, for your late-night proofreading, formatting and continuous encouragement – your support has not gone unnoticed. For my father specifically, given the enormity of detailing all that you have done for me and the challenge of space limitations, I can only say that I want to express my deepest gratitude. Your patience, selflessness and unremitting support know no bounds, put simply I have never met anyone who believes in me more. In many ways this thesis is as much yours as it is mine.
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CHAPTER 1: Introduction and Research Background
1.1 Introduction to the Research
This research explores the relationship between development representations and diaspora audiences. It began with the observation that everyday life is, to a significant degree, infiltrated by visual representations that are imbued with discourses about the global, development and ‘the distant’, as Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) fundraising communications expand their frontier of visibility beyond the boundaries of the local and the immediate. Situating audiences within this context of a mediated global civic space, NGO development representations function as a discursive resource of knowledge about the apparent conditions and realities of distant places and communities therein. Within this framing, this thesis set out to examine the influence that these kinds of representations are having on diaspora audiences who locate their ethno-racial and/or cultural origins in and with the distant places and people that they portray. By bridging together theoretical discourses on representations, audiences, diaspora and identity, in an in-depth exploratory study of British Nigerian diaspora communities, this research has examined how and with what effects, visual representations of development that depict Africa and communities therein, in NGO fundraising campaigning, impact African diaspora audiences.
Representations are proliferating, becoming ever more present and powerful in shaping people’s opinions, understandings and perceptions about themselves, others, the world and their place within it. Representations have become increasingly important for International Development. Visual images by NGOs in their advertisement and fundraising communication productions, for example, help to communicate development-related issues and problems concerning poverty and global inequalities (Smith and Yanacopulous, 2004). Advertising and media campaigning by most development organisations and NGOs today are saturated with visual imageries, some of which are provocative and challenging. Scholarly attention has highlighted the growing significance of these public representations in shaping popular understandings of international development and in conveying particular ideas about the people and places that are portrayed.
Since the 1980s and against the backdrop of the 1983-4 Ethiopian famine, several studies have critiqued visual discourses used in NGO fundraising campaigning and other communications as popularising negative and, often patronising stereotypes about populations in the global South1 and,
1 The “Global South” and “global North” are used to refer to countries and world regions often called developing/underdeveloped, “Third World”, non-Western and developed/Western, respectively. In this thesis, it is sometimes interchanged with the term “developing countries” or “non-Western”. The terms “Western” and “The West” are used also used interchangeably with “global North” in this study. When used the term is placed in 12
especially Africa. Popular representations of Africa as a place of privation, disease, disaster and death are dominant and enduring imaginings from this period, that still frames and shapes the public consciousness and perceptions of contemporary Western-situated audiences (Darnton and Kirk, 2011)
Given the influence that these representations have on how people view and think about other people and places, there is growing recognition within Development studies of the various ways that development and humanitarian representations impact and determine audience’s subjectivities and dispositions in relation to Africa and other ‘distant places’. This has been examined in terms of audiences’ charitable giving (Dogra, 2006; Kennedy, 2009); the forging and/or consolidation of immediate-distant relationships (Boltanski, 1999; Chouliaraki 2006; Silverstone, 2007); or how audiences view and comprehend the global South as places and communities therein, in need of development and humanitarian assistance. (Thompson, 1995; VSO, 2001; Dogra, 2012).
While a range of studies have critiqued popular development representations for shaping and informing public perceptions and behaviours, they have largely looked at this from a ‘general public’ perspective. By this, I mean that, within these studies there is the tendency to conceive British audiences of NGO communication productions, including development representations, as largely undifferentiated. With the inherent assumption being that such audiences are indistinguishable, they simply exist as some form of monocultural Western-situated community, coextensive with the ‘general’ British public. Moreover, these audiences read, interpret and are impacted by NGO representations in similar ways. Understandably, this assumption precludes any critical engagement within current debates and discussions for understanding the complexities and particularities of audiences. So too, how this informs and reflects the multiple and differentiated ways in which audiences think, feel and behave in response to development representations.
As audiences are not homogenous, uniformed or pre-discursive formations that are seemingly self- evident (Gillespie, 2005), but multiple, differentiated interpretative communities, people therefore think, feel and behave in different ways (Hall, 1980). Within this framing, this thesis argues that audiences bring a multiplicity of interpretations, positionalities and contradictions in how they read, respond to, and are affected by development representations. Representations can have different effects on different groups of people.
One such group of people are African diaspora communities living in the UK. Little is known within Development Studies about the impact of development representations on these audiences, who locate their racial and ethnocultural heritages within and with the places and people that are subject to NGO representation. By impact I mean, how these representations are shaping diaspora identities, in
quotation marks. For a detailed discussion of the problems with, and pitfalls of, these terminologies, see Chant and Mcilwaine (2009).
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terms of the complex and contested ways individuals and groups construct understandings and perceptions of their places of origin. I am concerned also with how diaspora identities are being shaped materially by these representations in terms of how and why they engage with, or even against development. Lastly, I am concerned with how diaspora audiences are in turn producing, shaping and informing development representations and their content. This gap reveals limits to development scholarship in understanding the diversity of audiences and how their subjectivities are being constituted through and against popular representations. This study aims to respond to this lack of understanding by examining these connections between development representations and diaspora audiences.
To avoid conflating all development representation by NGOs as being about Africa however, it is important to note that not all humanitarian and development aid organisations put out the same types of representations of Africa(ns) and of people living in the global South. However, this thesis is specifically interested in those images by such organisations which portray Africa and communities therein, and how (and the degree to which) these particular kinds of representations are implicated in the empirical realities of diaspora communities. Included in this, are those various African diaspora individuals – development practitioners - working in humanitarian and international development organisations. Specifically, how those working in campaigning, marketing and other communication productions, negotiate and reconcile issues and tensions of their voices, identities and representational practices within the intra-organisational limitations, politics and conditions within which NGOs operate (see chapter six). This thesis therefore, seeks to examine, understand and account for those diaspora audiences who not only consume NGO African representation but also those diaspora producers, cosignatories and disseminators of development representations who “work behind the scenes” to make these images publicly available.
As such, this thesis moves beyond established uncritical conceptualisations of audiences as seemingly homogenous and as similarly-affected by NGO communication productions. It reveals the complex and contested ways that individual diaspora subjectivities, positionalities and life experiences, in the context of ethnoracial identities, are all implicated in their construal of development representations and the perspicuity of their impact.
1.2 Research Aims and Objectives of the Research
Current literature on development representations on audience subjectivities and behaviours, has mainly focused on an uncritical conceptualisation of audiences as seemingly homogenous and undifferentiated. Furthermore, within critical debates seeking to understand how these representations affect different types of audiences and, specifically African diaspora populations – as distinct from the ‘general public’ - are particularly under-researched. Taken together, these critiques demonstrate the need to bring the development representation, audience and diaspora literature together in a way in which they have not been brought together before to understand these connections. This work
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therefore seeks to contribute to a comprehensive understanding on audiences of development representations by focusing specifically on diaspora. To this end I ask the following over-arching research question which has been discussed with regards to British Nigerian Diaspora communities:
What impact do popular and public representations of development have on diaspora audiences?
The overall research question is addressed by asking the following three interrelated sub-questions in relation to the case of UK Nigerian audiences.
1. How are development representations shaping diaspora knowledge and perceptions of their country of origin?
2. How are development representations shaping how and why diaspora engage with development?
3. How are diaspora audiences producing, shaping and, or challenging development representations and their content?
The decision to examine the empirical realities of British Nigerians was based on a personal interest in Nigerians from being a Nigerian myself. I thought that researching within my “own cultural community” as an insider will afford a greater degree of social and cultural proximity with this demographic (Ganga and Scott, 2006). This privileged insider position allows for flexibility and scope in taking full advantage of, and access to, a variety of personal and social networks within Nigerian communities being a part of the Nigerian community affords a level of access otherwise not given by other diaspora groups. Similarly, it allowed me to develop the most productive relationships that gain access to the most productive knowledge. Moreover, historically and presently Nigerians have been the subject of representation and reporting by development and humanitarian organisations.
1.3 Research Significance
The study of representations and diaspora audiences, while explored in fields such as cultural studies and media studies (Hall, 1997), is largely neglected in Development Studies. Understanding how diaspora audiences are responding to development representations will not only tell us more about the diversity of audiences but also the role that these representations are playing in shaping their identities. This study therefore contributes to Development Studies by effectively bringing together literature on NGO representations and diaspora audiences providing new and important insights into the relationship between the two.
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The study also has material significance. Mainstream and critical development literature have increasingly recognised, incorporated and analysed diaspora with global Southern origins as ‘development actors’ in the multiple and differentiated ways that they support and participate in international and local forms of development. Equally, how diaspora engagement with mainstream NGOs and development corporations have implications for not only their countries of origin but the overall trajectory of global development (Agarwal & Horowitz, 2002; Gaynor et al., 2007; Abdile, 2011). However, this scholarship lacks any empirical insight into how development representations – the visual image productions – of NGOs, affect the relationships or lack thereof, that diaspora audiences may have with development in their countries of origin. Therefore, understanding the role development representations play in the shaping of identities in diaspora audiences opens up understandings of the multiple and contradictory ways individuals and groups may experience, think about and engage in development.
Not only is this study timely but it has a wider empirical justification and contribution to Development Studies as it brings an international development context (i.e. representations) to a domestic setting (i.e. UK-based audiences). This study will contribute to an existing body of literature that critiques representations of development by adding new insights into how representation may have unique and important implications for how diaspora audiences understand and perceive themselves, others and their places of origin.
Additionally, this study has important theoretical significance for critical postcolonial scholarship on visual representations and diaspora including, Said’s (1995) “Othering” concept as well as, Hall’s (1990) and Homi Bhabha’s (1994) theorisation of diaspora identities as hybrid and negotiated forms of self-identification. It does this by situating existing postcolonial literature within the unique context of Nigerian diaspora audiences in relation to development representations.
1.4 Narrating the Research’s Story: Situating the ‘Self’
In many ways this thesis is a historical and anecdotal documentation. In addition to reviewing theoretical discourses and analysing empirical material, this thesis is representative of multiple subjectivities – different interpretations and postionalities intertwined with overlapping but not identical narratives. The loudest and most lucid of these unquestionably my own. Whilst the research is based on ‘other’ voices, there is some obligation, from my opinion, to submit my own personal history for examination. As advised by Turkish-Sephardic philosopher Seyla Benhabib, (1985) in her writing on ‘Others’, our internal disposition, is only comprehended in relational-interactive terms. Our individual interpretations of our priorities, motivations and needs “carry with them the traces of those early childhood experiences, phantasies, wishes, and desires as well as the self-conscious goals of the person” (p. 417). For Benhabib, the ‘Self’ is not an immutable given, rather human relationships necessitate the acknowledgement of the non-self, the other by understanding that “’I’ am not ‘other’ to you and that, likewise, you are an ‘I’ to yourself but an ‘other’ to me” (1992: p. 52). As such, “in this
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respect the self only becomes an I in a community of other selves who are also I‟s. Every act of self- reference expresses simultaneously the uniqueness and difference of the self as well as the commonality among selves. Discourses about needs and motives unfold in this space created by commonality and uniqueness, generally shared socialisation, and the contingency of individual life- histories” (1985: p. 417). Within this framing, it is important to note that before moving on to discuss the multiplicity of ‘others’ within this thesis, it is vital to analyse my own ‘I’ and especially how this ‘I’ has influenced, and been influenced by, the ‘otherness’ of those around me.
My reasons and motivations for deciding to pursuit a doctoral programme, the chosen subject area, and the epistemological approach, are all informed by my interpretations of the world, my lived experiences in my personal and professional life as well as, my values and beliefs. That is, this research is shaped by, and is now a part of, my personal history.
As Freire (2001) notes, we “exercise our capacity to learn and teach so much better for being subjects and not simply objects of the process we are engaged in” (p. 58) and by acknowledging knowledge as intersubjectively produced and that my interpretations of others are relational to my understanding of the Self, throughout the research process I engaged, reflexively with my own subjectivities. Therefore, before detailing the practicalities of this research, I describe and reflect upon the background against which this thesis was informed, moving beyond what was actually ‘done’ to implore questions of ‘why’?
1.5 The Background Story: A Reflective Journey
As a young child of the 90s my introduction to international development, much like the formative years of many adults today, was through watching the performative biennial telethon ‘Red Nose Day’, by the British charity, Comic Relief. This high-profile event armed with prosthetic red noses, mainstream contemporary music, and a slew of largely-white celebrities from film and the pop world fronting particular episodes of black and brown suffering, opened my eyes to distant poverty. While Comic Relief telethons raise, as they always have, millions of sympathy-laden donations from well entertained audiences, my lasting impressions of this programme would always be of a vast horde of shaven-headed undifferentiated masses smiling and waving enthusiastically at the documentary- maker’s camera. I distinctly remember feeling slightly perplexed about why there were so many brown children with no shoes, soiled Disney-branded t-shirts and who had seemingly full stomachs held by very slim frames. On one occasion I would asked my mother, who always watched this programme with half frustration and half baffled amusement, whether my older cousin Seyi2 was among those children, to which she replied, “Why would you ask that?” and I, “Well…, because he lives in Africa, doesn’t he?” You see, televised reporting and representation of poverty and disaster by charities like Comic Relief, shaped my early imaginings of what Africa was like and the communities therein. To me Africa was this far-away place, a twilight zone, filled with happy-poor children in dusty surroundings
2 Name has been changed to preserve anonymity 17
with my and ‘Seyi’s’ skin colour, and who waited enthusiastically to feature in the next instalment of Red Nose Day. Yet while I drew some similarities between those children and myself by way of complexion, there was little if any, further connection.
This naïve interpretation of Africa was compounded by the proliferation of fundraising advertisements by popular development organisations like Save the Children and Oxfam, which showed sensationalised pictures of unidentified starving and sick children, who were paraded as nothing more than curiosities of flesh for £2 a month. So too, my African peers at primary school would passionately deny their African roots, calling all Africans, with great certainty, smelly, unintelligent and equated them to wild animals. These televised images and playground conversations fuelled a certain ideology that being British was more sophisticated, more culturally palatable, which became internalised as some kind of inferiority complex. To admit any association with Africa was some self-admission of being the embarrassingly negative things that these charities, the media and friends portrayed Africans as. One of my aunties, for example, upon returning to London after a short period of boarding school in Nigeria, simply exclaimed: “Back to civilisation …, where there’s 24hr light, orderly queuing and no government-funded thuggery”. While I did not fully understand the particularities of everything she said I drew the conclusion that Nigeria was not a place to celebrate.
For my father, this was the moment he needed to plan our first family holiday to the West African land of his birth, a necessary re-introduction to our roots. In 1995, we visited Nigeria’s financial capital Lagos. I remember the usual things that relatives comment on when visiting equatorial African states; the assault of humid air when departing the aeroplane, which I mistook for engine heat, and the confused smell of dried fish and spice. Most significantly for me however was seeing that everyone was black. Not just the mahogany-hued black skin that often parade charity advertisements but waffle and honey-coloured too, wearing official uniforms – immigration officials, custom officers and policemen. I do not think I had comprehended a reality in which black people and, especially Africans, could be in positions of power and authority.
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Image 1.1: First visit to Lagos, Nigeria (1995)
There was a certain kind of retrospectivism in Nigeria, that was symbolically articulated in the ruins of old, soft-clayed Irish Catholic monasteries, whose unoccupancy was imbued with a historical past. It was present in the deep grooves of tribal scarring worn defiantly by the old and seemingly wizened youth, with each bodily inscription inviting questions of their beginning. It was demonstrated in the intricately beaded hairstyles worn elaborately on women’s heads, and the mosaic cloth that wrapped around their bodies, and which held up new-borns. So too, the palm wine-induced melodic prayers of patriotism chanted incoherently by Igbo3 street dwellers. Yet Nigeria was contemporary, a place of the ‘here and now’, with its Afro-futuristic pop-up art installation stores, Nokia mobile phones, and heavy- fleshed, plump-cheeked teens wielding Styrofoam cups of fizzy pop.
It is clear from my vivid descriptions and poetic recollections as a wide-eyed 6-year-old, that my trip made a lasting impression. This was an Africa, a representation of it, hitherto unknown to me; a Nigeria of both spectacle and ordinariness, hidden from the view of British audiences. This was not the Africa that popular charities presented on television, that my friends mocked, and that which my relatives ridiculed. As Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichi said, in her 2009 ‘The danger of a single story’ TED talk4:
3 Igbo people are ethnic communities who originate from the south-central and south-eastern regions of Nigeria. 4 URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9Ihs241zeg (Accessed: 26/11/15) 19
“If I had not grown up in Nigeria, if all I knew about Africa were from popular images, I, too, would think Africa was a place of incomprehensible people fighting senseless wars, dying of poverty and Aids, unable to speak for themselves and waiting to be saved by a kind white foreigner …, this is the consequence of the single story”.
As such, that first trip to my country of origin shaped my future in ways I could never have anticipated. In the two decades that have followed, I have sculpted all educational, social and professional decisions into a form which has allowed me to gain a deeper, more critical understanding of Africa, communities therein and its mediated representation by continental, diaspora African and Western development perspectives. I read and re-read African literature, attended African art and theatrical exhibitions, studied African politics, organised my schools first Black History Month with a focus on African immigrant contributions, and studied Social Work at undergraduate level with a view to advocate on African refugee transnational sexual exploitation. These things stirred my imagination, opened new worlds for me and inspired an attitudinal shift in how I thought and talked about Africa. However, it was while studying for my Masters degree in Children, Youth & International Development, that I was first introduced to theoretical writing on international development, NGO communication productions, humanitarian/development representations and audiences of international development, contextualised in postcolonial criticism. These teachings gave me the language through which to articulate my experiences (and frustrations) with African representation and allowed me to place them in a theoretical framework. One assignment specifically, under the ‘Critical Perspectives on International Development’ module, asked to critically evaluate the proposition that representations of malnourished children by NGOs is legitimate for raising funds to serve the interests of children living in poverty. This assignment afforded me the opportunity to critically engage with various theoretical and empirical discourses and debates about development representations, especially the idea of representations as ‘spectacle’ and working as ‘virtualisms’ which create as well as depict reality for intended audiences. As such, while I acknowledged that development representations and, the more sensationalised and provocative kinds, are indeed powerful in communicating the severity and instantiation of poverty, often raising huge funds for NGOs. I could not help but ask myself “but whose interests do they really serve?” and “for whom are they produced?” given that these visual productions are often at the expense of black and brown subjects, whose suffering and identities are not only part of a commodified representation, but are racialised in particularly negative and stereotypical ways. This assignment thus allowed me to understand that representations are not just plain ‘things’ that exist ‘out there’ ready to be used by NGOs to communicate need, they are instead, particular narrations, and racialised discourses about assumed differences between ‘self’ and ‘other’ that have real and precarious implications for audiences who racially, and/or ethno-culturally identify with the subjects of development representations.
These critical reflections and critiques resulted in a masters dissertation which examined the subjectivities of British African’s regarding charity images of African children and their childhoods.
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There were several important learning points obtained during the master’s research process, not least that, Back African audiences of development representations have complicated and fraught relationships with NGO images, and this was realised in the different ways in which participants expressed how representations negatively shaped and informed their perceptions and understandings of who they were as people and their relationships with their non-Black African peers. Several participants expressed frustration and distain for representations which they considered racist, stereotypical and disparaging to African communities. As such, this research revealed critical insights into how perceptions of ‘Self’ among different audiences of African origin, were implicated in and constituted through public and popular forms of development representation which had material implications on both a personal and social level. These revelations informed a desire to want to pursue a PhD to further explore the complexities of this issue, and especially given that it was an area hitherto unexamined by other scholars. Following the advice and recommendation of my dissertation supervisor, moderator and the programme convenor, I decided to develop these ideas and thinking on development representations and audiences, that would form the basis for a PhD proposal.
The original proposal was a far cry from the final product of the research process, and necessarily involved the redrafting of research questions and analytical focus. Initially my empirical interests and frustrations with development representations was directed towards depictions of Black African children and childhood, however taking the ‘Representation: Film, Literature and Media in Development’ course as a first year PhD student at the University of Manchester, opened my eyes to the production, circulation and representation of different types of development representations. The course, convened by my PhD supervisors, provided an opportunity to examine visual and textual development imagery in and of environmentalism, nature, crises, and of diaspora communities and migration. All this provided a foundation upon which to add the much-needed level of sophistication for the proposal, as such, instead of limiting my focus to representations of children, I considered all types of development representations used by different NGOs in their fundraising communications. The course also allowed me to sharpen my questions to consider the different ways that representations shape and inform audience perceptions and relationships with Africa and what measures they are taking to challenge and rework these images. This would form the basis of this present research, examining connections between visual representations of Africa and the Nigerian Diaspora.
It is also important to say something about the ‘Nigerianess’ of this study, that is, my interest in Nigeria and the communities of (and) therein, to understand why this thesis looks at its diaspora. Given this study’s focus on development representation-diaspora audience relationships, Nigeria is an exemplary case. Nigeria has been the subject of (and subjected to) development representation, in historical and contemporary development and humanitarian African campaigning by British and European NGOs. The Nigeria-Biafra Civil War (1967-1970) provides the earliest exemplary instance that epitomises how Nigeria, communities therein and its diaspora have been the visual foci of the international development frame. While, recent crises of Islamic fundamentalism by terrorist group Boko Haram, in Northern Nigeria, which saw the slaughtering of over 6, 600 in 2014 and the mass 21
abduction of 276 school girls on the night of 14-15th April 2014. As well as, the outbreak of Ebola Virus disease, also in 2014, has seen Nigeria’s re-emergence in the public and NGO consciousness.
Regarding Nigeria-Biafra representations specifically, these particular images are important with respect to Nigerian diaspora communities, as for many individuals, their intergenerational histories, ethno-cultural identifications and sense of belonging – or lack thereof – with Nigeria and communities therein, are deeply implicated within the historical, social-political, and cultural context of these images. That is, not only have these images (and the atrocities that they represent) shaped, in one way or another, how Nigeria as a country sees itself, it has also constituted the identities of continental and diaspora Nigerians especially in relation to others as well as, their varied connections with their country of origin.
As, Biafra Historian Omaka (2016: p 46) put it,
“Although the Biafra war lasted for three years, the harrowing images and the pain inflicted on the generations of Nigerians both of that time and of the ‘here and now’ will never be forgotten. As a matter of fact, the memories of it and how they have framed how we see and know ourselves will always be told to generations unborn. We are who we are as Nigerians because of where we came from and what that did to us as people”
The study’s interest in Nigeria and of the empirical realities of British Nigerians is also rooted in Nigeria’s influential presence and popularity in Sub-Saharan Africa and globally. Nigeria (and communities therein) has been internationally recognised as a leading economic force and a key player in home-grown cultural production (film, television, literature etc) exported and consumed around the world.
Moreover, coined as the “Giant of Africa”, Nigeria has the largest population of any country in Sub- Saharan Africa, with a quarter of the world’s African population being a Nigerian. So too, 1 out of every 7 black people on the earth is Nigerian (Riley, 2010). Furthermore, historical immigration to the UK and especially its histories of colonialism, has meant that this is home to a vast variety of long- established and newly-formed Nigerian diaspora communities. Being an ex-protectorate of the UK and a current member of the British Commonwealth, the Nigerian diaspora within the UK is very well established, with its concentrated communities in cities such as London, harbouring over 70% (International Migration for Research in London, 2007). While this observation is useful in terms of knowing where to access Nigerian participants, it also says something more broadly about colonisations’ influence on the Nigerian presence in the UK.
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1.6 Organisation of the thesis Following this introductory chapter there will be eight subsequent chapters. Chapter two covers a detailed critical discussion of relevant theoretical and empirical literature on representations, development representations, audiences and diaspora in order to generate the conceptual framework for this study. Chapter three provides an account of the methodological approach for exploring the research questions and the tools for data collection and analysis. In this chapter I reflect upon a range of qualitative methods utilised during the research process, identifying both strengths and weaknesses. Chapter four contextualises UK Nigerian diaspora and development representations. It provides the historical, ethno-cultural and politico-geographical context of Nigeria and communities therein, including its history of representation by NGOs. This is followed by a set of three interrelated empirical chapters, which are organised to reflect on the findings and analysis of the main research questions of the thesis. Chapter five examines the impact that representations used by international development organisations in their fund/awareness-raising campaigns for Africa, have on how Nigerian Diaspora audiences view and understand their country of origin. Chapter six analyses whether and if so, how development representations used by NGOs impact diaspora engagement with their place of origin. In Chapter seven I examine how diaspora audiences are producing, shaping and, or challenging development representations. Chapter eight summarises the research, it discusses the answers to the overall research question and then demonstrates how these findings make broader theoretical and empirical contributions. This chapter also reflects on the research’s limitations and concludes with future research ideas. Overall, this research aims to contribute to debates in audiences of development representations literature.
1.7 Conclusion
In this chapter I set out the background and a short introduction to the study, it raised and addressed the contextual issues surrounding the thesis. I then demonstrated how this research aimed to respond to calls to recognise the diversity and complexities of audiences of development representations through qualitative methodologies with UK Nigeria diaspora communities. The study’s significance, objectives and the three interrelated research questions deriving from it were cogently stated. I then provided a background within which the rest of the thesis is placed. By detailing some key personal experiences and motivations for undertaking this research by way of a reflective commentary, I articulated not only what I did, but also why I did what I did. In the following chapter I widen the discussion with a review of relevant literature.
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CHAPTER 2:
Literature Review
2.1 Introduction
The aim of this chapter is to review three bodies of literature – representations, audiences and diaspora – in order to develop a conceptual framework to examine the impact that popular and public representations of development have on diaspora audiences. It covers a detailed discussion of theoretical and empirical literature. It starts by looking at the broad literature on representation, audiences and the relationship between the two. This material is important, because essential to understanding identities is the concept of representation, as it is by the way of representation that individuals, and audiences in general, negotiate understandings of themselves, others and their environments. It then reviews the scholarship on representations of development, as a type of representation and their impact on audiences, in order to understand current debates and theorisations regarding the various relationships between development representations and their audiences. The last section presents the literature on diaspora, examining debates and perspectives on their identities as well as, connections with development.
2.2 Understanding Representations: Meanings and Language.
Our knowledge of the world is mediated by representations. It is by the way of representation that people make sense of themselves and their surroundings. If we relied on direct experience as our primary source of knowledge we would necessarily know very little (Hall, 1997). This means understanding the world (including its people and places) largely depends on representations provided to us from a variety of sources. There are multiple definitions of representation demonstrating that the concept of representation carries a range of interpretations and usages. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) (2015) three-pronged definition provides a useful starting point. Its definition posits that representation is:
1. An image, likeness, or reproduction in some manner of a thing 2. Something that stands between ‘the real’ and the spectator 3. Stands in the place of and speaks for others
The OED conceives representation as an elastic notion, casting representation as an object “an image, likeness or reproduction” that functions through its ability to resemble something else. In thinking about representations as a likeness or reproduction of something, the definition also implies that representations can be understood as substituting or standing-in for something or someone else. Similarly, because of its ability to symbolise or be the embodiment of something else the OED
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definition also suggests that we can think of representations as types of mediums through which versions of reality are constructed that mediate between ‘the real’ and the spectator.
While the OED provides a useful introduction to representation, cultural theorist Stuart Hall (1997) takes us beyond this basic definition by approaching representation as:
“The production of meaning of the concepts in our minds through language. It is the link between [these] concepts and language which enables us to refer to either the ‘real’ [material] world of objects, people or events, or indeed to imaginary worlds of fiction” (1997: p.3).
Hall’s rather abstract definition challenges approaches that see representation in terms of things that signify themselves with a view of representation as language and systems of language production which work together to produce, exchange and reify meanings (pg. 19). In this context, for Hall, representations can be understood as a process involving two systems of representation. The first involves connecting material and/or abstract objects, people and events with a set of concepts or mental representations that people hold in their minds. Meaningful interpretations of our environments are dependent on these connections. The second is language, for in order to interpret the world meaningfully these concepts need to be translated into a shared language of a culture, its signs (which for Hall, is anything in the form of sounds and images). These signs provide a conceptual roadmap that produces and shares meaning about the social world in which we live (Hall, 1997: 16- 19). Clearly, for Hall then, representation is constitutive of meaning as an event does not have meaning until we speak about it, until it is represented.
Hall’s sophisticated approach for understanding representation draws attention to the complexity of the concept beyond its every day usage. Unlike the first definition, the centrality of representation as a process and a production system gives the term a much more active, ‘working’ role in relation to how people make sense of themselves and their surroundings. Hall’s viewpoint encourages a number of reflections about representations not least, where meanings in representations actually come from and what we are to regard as a ‘true’ meaning. In order to address these reflections, Hall explores how representations can work through three different theoretical approaches.
2.3 Theories of Representation
As alluded to above, for Hall, representations can be looked at in different ways. The reflective approach can be used to explain the relationship between reality and its representation emphasising the closeness of the two. It posits that meaning inhere in things – the objects, people, ideas or events in the material world. Representational forms like visual images function as mirrors reflecting true meaning as it already exists independent in reality. This theoretical position, Schwartz (1996) argues, is assumed by people who understand for instance, documentary photography as a literal, representational truth of reality. However, as Hall (1997: p. 8) contests, while representations might
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have a close likeness to the things in which they represent, visual images for instance, will always be two dimensional representations of the ‘real’ things they represent.
The second approach to representation is called the intentional, which argues in direct opposition to the first. It posits that representations are deliberate constructions made and used by individuals to impose their own unique meanings of the world around them. As is true for television advertising and marketing campaigns, representations function as mediums through which their composers (i.e. speakers, authors) covey their private intended meanings of reality. As such, it is suggested by Marcus (1989) that all representations are at best partial truths, and at worst, persuasive fictions.
Hall (1997) elaborates on this point, arguing that as with the reflective, the intentional approach is also inherently problematic. Given that language is intimately-tied to shared cultural linguistic conventions and codes representations cannot be an arbitrary choice solely dependent on the individual (p. 11).
This critique leads us to the third constructionist approach strongly espoused by Hall. This position emphasises the social nature of language and shared cultural meanings of concepts. As Hall (ibid: p.11) argues, while the:
“material world does exist, it is not the material world that conveys meaning […] things don’t mean”. The material world is very different from that which is represented through symbols and signs.”
Rather it is through our shared cultural and linguistic codes that meanings about the world and our place within it are constructed, negotiated and subverted.
For Hall (1997) then, thinking about representational meaning that is relational rather than inherent, takes into consideration the ‘co-authorship’, agency and interpretational context of individuals and how that figures in this relational process of ‘meaning-making’ (p. 16). Importantly for this thesis, this theoretical approach (unlike its contenders) tells us that while representation may be shaped by their authors, it considers the possibility that audiences bring a multiplicity of interpretations to the readings of representations.
Much of the philosophies associated with constructionist views of representation owes a great deal to the seminal work of the Swiss linguist Saussure (1857-1913). While representation should not be limited to a concern with semantics, for this study, Saussure’s relevance inheres in his broad outlook on representation and how his language theory shaped semiotic approaches to understanding its process (Fairclough, 1995). In brief, Semiotics is the philosophical study of ‘meaning-making’ in signs and symbols (ibid) and has long paid attention to the centrality of representation and its practice.
According to Saussure (Culler, 1976: p. 19), representation is conceived as a sign (images, words, photographs) consisting of a reciprocal relation between a signifier and signified. The signifier is the phonological element of the sign; things that convey/express meaning (e.g. sound-image/word). While the second element the signified is the mental concept - what is evoked in the mind. Saussure
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represented the sign by means of a dyadic or two-part diagram (below), the relationship between signifier and the signified is its signification (illustrated by the arrows). For example, in the second diagram below, where the signifier the word ‘Tree’ correlates with the signified; the mental concept (its manifestation) of an actual, woody plant with a trunk, branches and green leaves.
Figure 1: Sign model.
The Saussurean view insists that both the signifier and signified are required to produce meaning, yet their relationship is only legitimised by the symbols and systems of meaning relevant to a culture (Culler, 1976). Important here, is that Saussure’s line of thinking is not too dissimilar to the constructionist approach. This is further evident in Saussure’s argument that meaning does not inhere in representational forms and representation is sustained through interpretations which may be multiple and differentiated (Hall, 1980).
The Saussurean view and, by implication that of Hall’s draws attention to a very important reflection, not least, that while representations may present and shape ways of thinking, interpretation is a vital component of the process by which meaning is given and taken (Hall, 1980). As Hall suggests, every representation given with meaning has to be mutually intelligible, without this social exchange, representations cease to be, in any useful sense, ‘meaningful’ (ibid). In Hall’s argument, the centrality of giver and receiver with culture mediating somewhere between, points this thesis to the direction of where to navigate next. By engaging with cultural studies and media communication literature on the ‘discourse’ of visual representations and the implications of this for audiences, this will provide critical understandings of the complex giver and receiver interplay between the two.
2.4 The Power of Representations: Discourse and Ideology.
Up until now we have discussed representation in terms of ‘language’ (visual signs, texts etc.). While representations may exist in the form of a 2-dimenational image for instance, an image by (and of) itself tells us relatively little about the systems of thoughts, the narratives implicated within them. Appropriately, we need to understand representation in terms of discourse, especially, given that “representations not only mediate knowledge, but [also] obstructs, fragments and negates that knowledge” (Ezell and O’Keeffe, 1994: p. 203). This is not to suggest that representations produce fictions unrelated to the material world or that we learn nothing from memory and direct experiences. Rather, representations and in particular visual representations are immensely powerful and are
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produced and managed by their creators (i.e. media) and consumers in such ways as to influence civic consciousness (Watson & Hill, 2008). Important, to note here, is that this influence can express itself in both blatant and sometimes subtle and indirect ways (van Dijk, 1995). This is where (and why) discourse is relevant for our discussion.
Academics have written extensively on the issue of discourse(s) however, in the context of this thesis I feel that the definition provided by Lessa (2006: p.285) is one that provides an inroad for our understanding.
“[Discourse is] systems of thoughts composed of ideas, attitudes, courses of action, beliefs and practices that systematically construct the subjects and the worlds of which they speak”.
As Gregory (2000) notes, “instead of seeing the world as independent of ideas about it, with language transparently reflecting a pre-existing reality, theories of discourse understand reality as produced via practices of interpretation deploying different modes of representation”.
However, Gregory also highlights, discourse does not exist in a vacuum – it’s a product of many authors. Indeed, discourse(s) must be understood as being varied and constitutive of their context of production (ibid).
Vital to the discussion, indeed the argument of this thesis is a particular discourse – the discourse of visual representation. The concept of visual representation as discourse has developed from literature that conceives language through visual imagery (and in particular its proliferation and consumption), as having some bearing on our understanding of ‘reality’ (Watson & Hill, 2008). Scholars who have deployed this view generally take a critical approach (Foucault, 1972; Barthes 1977; Fairclough, 1995), in which their work uncovers power-knowledge relations that seek to engage people into particular ways of seeing. While others, who have used this approach focus on these relations as it relates to: gender (Mulvey, 1975); youth (Cohen, 1972; Acland, 1995; Giroux, 1997); Class (McRobbie, 2004) and race/ethnicity (Alvarado, 1987; Hall, 1995).
Despite their areas of specificity, all these theorists refute general assumptions of representation as being univocal articulations of reality. Rather, they argue that it is ‘symbolic content’ which is always imbued with ‘its reason’ – the biases of its creators and wider cultural structures (Fowler, 1991: p.4). As Hall (1986: p.9) reminds us, “it matters profoundly what and who gets represented, what and who regularly and routinely gets left out, and how things, people, events and relationships are represented”.
Lutz & Collier (1993) argue that all representations are backed-up with ideologies. Following Althusser (1984), ideology is taken as the imaginary relationship between individuals and their real conditions of existence. It is a system of representations (i.e. images, myths, ideas or concepts) which work to conflate the demarcation(s) between the real and illusionary. So, ideology then, is at once an allusion to reality and an illusion of it.
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When applied to discourse and representation, Terry Eagleton (1991: p. 223) argues that “ideology is a matter of discourse” and is best understood as “the effects within discourses” where images, as cultural productions, influence peoples’ beliefs and actions.
While there are a multiplicity of approaches taken to interpret the discursive knowledge and practices of representations, relevant to this discussion here is the work of Michel Foucault (1972), Roland Barthes (1977) and Stuart Hall (1982). These theorists argue that commonsensical assumptions, the taken for granted about the world by visual representations are intertwined with questions (and relations) of power and discourse. “This is because the process of giving meaning to events suggests that, potentially, there are multiple definitions of reality” (Croteau & Hoynes, 2014).
For Foucault (1972) discourse is about the production of knowledge through language (representations) and that “nothing has any meaning outside of discourse”. As such, given that, as we have learned from Hall, representation is always situated in discourse, this makes them very powerful in shaping and organising what can (and cannot) be said about something. ‘Meaning’, Foucault argues, is made in discourses, where power produces knowledge and knowledge produces power.
The power wielded in representation is productive in a culture as “it produces reality; it produces the domains of objects and rituals of truth” (Foucault, 1977: p. 27) through their ontological presumptions about the world. For Foucault (1980: p. 98), the relationship between power and representation is an infinite one, and that power is never monopolised by one centre, it circulates and is productive. This claim seems to have some weight given the proliferation and consumption of visual imagery mediated through television, newspapers and more burgeoning forms of internet-based social media.
This everyday image exchange provides a forum through which the powerful discourse of representations are circulated, uploaded and shared, shaping ways of thinking for millions (lutz & Collins, 1993: p. 215).
Similarly, Fairclough (1989) notes, representations which routinely draw upon discourse embody ideological assumptions which come to be taken as what Gramsci (1971) refers to as a ‘common- sense’ view. For Gramsci, according to Proctor (2004: p. 60), “to suggest something is common- sense is to place it beyond question (‘this is how things are’), to present that which is cultural and specific as natural and universal”. Hall (1980: p. 132) claims, this is particularly true of the discourse of photographic or televisual images of say, racial stereotypes, in western media, which are particularly vulnerable as being read as natural and beyond the realm of critique. A process which, Hall argues helps to sustain power relations (between creators and viewers) through the imposition of discursive values and norms which inhere in representations. The position of a photographer for example, argues Lutz & Collins (1993: 188) can be suggestive of the power that the observer (e.g. his choice of subject, composition, vantage point, focus of image etc.) holds over the reader.
Like Foucault and Hall, French critic Barthes (1977) has written extensively about visual representations studying in particular the process of signification in photographic images. For Barthes, images are not objective. Rather, when subjected to semiotic critique images; reveal multiple layers of 29
signs, conventions and meanings that together represent a particular point of view. He argued that images, broadly speaking, have two levels of meaning – the literal or denoted, level and the implied or connotative, level (Barthes, 1977: p. 276-9). It is the second level, that of connotation which can be deciphered using our conceptual classifications of the social world, allowing us to gain an insight into their discursive nature and, as Barthes claims, the myths they speak (Barthes, 1972: p. 119).
In a similar vein, Hall (1986) claims that power is exercised at the level of ideology not just through the use of it. He argues that the mass media are one of the principle sites where the work of ideology in representations is exercised. Media are involved in what Hall (1982) calls “the politics of signification”, in which media have “the power to signify events in a particular way”. The media engage in representational practices that define, re-present versions of reality. As Hall puts it, reality is not simply transcribed in “great unassimilated lumps through our daily dose of newspapers or our nightly diet of television” (Watson & Hill, 2014: p. 160). Rather, he is of the opinion that for the various forms of mass media which he dubs ‘machinery of representation’,
“Representation implies the active work of selecting and presenting, structuring and shaping […] pictures, still or moving; not merely the transmitting of an already-existing meaning but the more active labour of making things mean” (Hall, 1982: p. 64).
As such, Hall believes that media representations are intimately-tied to questions of power and ideology, given that, as he argues, media are cultural sites where elitist ideas are circulated as truth at the expense of competing claims. As a result, Hall says, there is a powerful exchange between an image’s connotation and reader, being that, as products of their authors, representations have the tendency to reproduce the values that underpin their ideology (ibid).
2.5 Docile Masses or Active Appropriators? Audiences and Representations
So far, this section of the literature review has primarily focused on critiquing the discursive nature of visual representations, but what about the perspicuity of its readers? Do we simply accept representations, in (and of) themselves, in unidirectional flows of communication? Or, do we assume much more active, creative roles in this complex process of mediated knowledge exchange? The complex linkage that connects visual representations and audiences’ interpretations of such texts is central to this thesis. Accordingly, we now arrive at another crucial field in which this thesis inscribes itself: audience and media reception research, which tackle questions of interpretations of media-as- texts; with specific emphasis on cultural theorist Stuart Hall (1980). Audience research within the tradition of British cultural studies has been approached from an active audience perspective. The theory posits that audiences are neither passive nor homogenous rather they are diverse and active appropriators of meaning. It argues that different social and cultural groups interpret media text in various ways depending on their personal experience, socio-cultural background, ideological beliefs and repertories (Morley, 1995).
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2.5.1 Understanding audiences
“The problem surrounding the ‘audience concept’ stems mainly from the fact that a single and simple word is being applied to an increasingly diverse and complex reality, open to alternative and competing theoretical formulations” (Schrøder et al., 2003, p. 17).
In Dutch Scholar Len Ang’s (1991) study Desperately Seeking the Audience which analysed television audiences, she critiqued how television and broadcasting institutions generally view audiences as “market” characterised by demographic, spending power, and other factors (Ibid: p. 60). However, such communities are much harder to define in terms of understanding how (or where) textual interpretation is located amid the mediated representation-viewer relationship. As individuals included have converging, and at times, contradictory readings of different aspects of the same text (Moores, 1993). Thus, Ang (1991) argues the concept of a homogenous and economically motivated audience is a discursive fiction and rather problematic. As McQuail (1997: p.2) opines, much as with other seemingly straightforward concepts in the social sciences, the term audience has an abstract and contentious character. In his book Audience Analysis (1997), communication theorist Dennis McQuail states that:
“the word ‘audience’ has long been familiar as the collective term for the ‘receivers’ in the simple sequential model of the mass communication process (source, channel, message, receiver, effect) that was deployed by pioneers in the field of media research” (ibid: p.1).
He argues that there is an established discourse in ‘contemporary’ usage in which this definition applies to “the readers, viewers of, listeners to one or other media channel or of this or that type of content or performance” (1997, p. 1). However, it remains a complex and varied subject fraught with several, often conflicting, theoretical approaches (Schrøder et al, 2003; Gillespie, 2005).
Shaun Moores (1993: p.2) for instance, rejects rigid notions of audiences as unitary and straightforwardly identifiable for observation and analysis. Instead, he suggests a multiplicity of audiences comprised of different social and cultural groups categorised according to their reception of various media and/or by their positioning. Moores’ justification for understanding the conditions and boundaries of audiences as conceptually incoherent (1993: p. 3), centred on Radways (1988) ethnographic inquiry into the origins of the term. In her work, Radway claims that earliest definitions of the term audience alluded to the act of listening in face-to-face interaction with others in a shared locale. In present-day rhetoric, however, she submits that audiences are conceptualised as to include consumers of mediated messages by digitalised technologies (i.e. television, radio and internet). In this ‘modern’ configuration, Radway observes that audiences are both distanced and dispersed thus there are growing conceptual instabilities regarding its nature and concept (1988; p. 359).
These theoretical ambiguities in understanding audiences have left many scholars to query why the nature and composition of audiences has become self-evident (Hartley, 2006; Moores, 1993; Mosco, 1996; Toynbee, 2006). Media Scholar, Vincent Mosco (1996: p. 262) for instance, alleges that
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audiences have become politically economised into analytical categorisations (like gender, class and ethnicity) which he believes are inappropriate, as these are products of media industries itself.
However, Livingstone (1998: p. 198) is highly critical of Mosco’s view as she believes it simply concedes the territory of audience activity to the media industry; by asking: “can we not theorize au- diences just because the term is also used in media industries?” Likewise, she challenges Mosco’s supposed “analytical categorisations” (gender, class and ethnicity) by claiming they are also products of media industry culture. Despite, Livingstone’s criticism, Toynbee (2006) concurs with Mosco claims and insists that audiences are not uniformed, self-selecting or organic materialisations. Rather, he argues that they are visualised, targeted and manufactured by media industries. John Hartley (2006) attempts to un-problematise these questions by arguing (in agreement with Mosco and Toynbee), that audiences are not pre-discursive formations:
“[I]n no case is the audience ‘real’, or external to its discursive construction. There is no ‘actual audience’ that lies beyond its production as a category, which is merely to say that audiences are only ever encountered per se as representations.” (Hartley, 2006, p. 82).
Given these interpretational frustrations (and criticism), what is it exactly that academics understand as audience? Perhaps, Marie Gillespie’s (2005) understanding is the best starting point. She argues that, in reality, the term audience often implies communities composed of listeners and viewers who converge, if only virtually, through shared consumption of traditional and digitalised media technologies and text. Gillespie’s description is subsumed in Livingstone and Lunt’s (1994) interpretation that primarily understands audiences in relation to their comprehension, negotiation and interpretation of media texts, circumscribed both by media and by their social and cultural positioning. These conceptualisations lead to a definition of audience comparable to postmodern understandings of multiple interpretive communities, occupied by individuals who are themselves, multiple in their identity categories (Dittmer & Dodds, 2008: p.446; Rahman & Jackson, 2010: p. 186).
As Gillespie (2005: p. 2) reminds us:
“Different theories of audiences are also based on different models of communication. Some assume that communication is a straightforward transmission of messages between senders and receivers, other see media as involving more complex circuits of communication that actively engage us as audiences in the construction of meaningful social worlds.”
As such, we now understand that audiences are plural and differentiated in multiple ways and that various conceptualisations emerged. However, to gain a critical understanding of the complexities of exploring the diversity of audiences such as diasporas, it is vital that this thesis locates itself within the various theoretical approaches to audience analysis. This is why we now elaborate on a brief discussion of audience studies that exhibit the theoretical binary between media power versus active audiences (Gillespie, 2005; Morley, 1995). This will provide an inroad to better understanding the mediated representation-viewer interpretation relationship among diaspora audiences (Livingstone, 1996) or as Hall (1980) notes, the relation between giver and receiver.
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2.5.2 Effects vs Encoding/Decoding: The oscillation between passive and active
While I appreciate that the origins of the concept of audience has its historical roots (for a succinct overview see McQuail, 1997), I will primarily focus on twentieth-century viewpoints that for the most part has been preoccupied with television discourse and pay particular attention to Stuart Hall’s (1980) Encoding/Decoding framework of communication.
As alluded earlier, historically-speaking, the scholarship on audiences is primarily framed by the cultural and historical debates and assumptions of its time. Katz (1980) uses the analogy of a pendulum swinging from earlier critical discourses, of manipulated audiences and strong effects to more progressive, pluralist views, of interpretative audiences and limited effects (Morley, 1995). Discourses of audience as passive is characteristic of the tradition of effect studies, mobilising a hypodermic-needle model of media influence. According to Gillespie, (2005) this paradigm strives to answer communication theorist Harold Lasswell’s (1948) inquiries: What does media do with people and Who (says) What (to) Whom (in) What Channel (with) What Effect?
Rooted in 1930’s behaviourism; the central thesis behind this communication model is that media is conceived as somewhat deific, endowed with the ideological clout to inject audiences with particular discourses, which cause them to think and respond as intended (ibid). As Gripstrud (1999: p. 104) tells us, in this approach, audiences are arranged, conditioned and (re)configured by “a linear and unidirectional path from sender via message to receiver” (e.g. stimulus-response; agenda-setting and media effects models) (Gripstrud, 1999; Brooker & Jermyn, 2003; O’Neill, 2011). The question of media and audience, under this model had become a question of how elites exploited media to inform, educate, manipulate or coax the laity, with success contingent in part on the efficiency of the channel of communication and the receptivity of audiences (Gripstrud, 1999: p. 104).
While largely considered obsolete today, effect research (in its varying forms) dominated much of the 1940-1960’s and was seen to reflect the cultural and scholarly assumptions of the times. However, it has been criticised (Gillespie, 2005; Katz, 1980). Gauntlett (2002) for instance, argues that the effect tradition is mechanistic and reductionist and fails to acknowledge peoples complex and active engagement with, and interpretation of media text. Similarly, Livingstone (2005) raises a number of criticisms with effects studies. He observes that said models lost sight of the subjective idiosyncrasies, plurality and interpretational context(s) of media audiences.
It was against this critical background that leading Cultural theorist Stuart Hall ([1973]51980) and his Encoding/Decoding model of communication provided a vehicle for the presentation of an alternative manifesto (Morley, 1995). Armed with this alternative theorisation, Hall intended to, as Morley (1995: p. 301) advices, rearticulate, the hitherto dominant audience conversation, from what media-texts does to people to how meaning is interpreted. His seminal Encoding/Decoding model recommended
5 Hall wrote his contribution on E/D in 1973, but it was only effectively picked up in 1980 when it was published in Culture, media, language: working papers in cultural studies, 1972-1979 33
a cyclical framework for media communication studies that synthesised audiences, media-text producers and ‘culture’ as relevant players in the process (Ruddock, 2001; Morley, ibid).
Much in the spirit of the effects studies doctrine, Halls’ model espoused the idea that discourses produced by media industries are imbued with an authority to determine the form as well as the content of civic consciousness. However, this is where comparisons stop. Hall eschews the theoretical obfuscation that mediated communication is a unidirectional activity that injects elitist ideas into the laity (Morely, 1995; Ruddock, 2001, p. 123). In its place, the model demands a cyclic approach to communication which highlights processes (encoding/decoding) on actors (sender/receiver) (McQuail & Windahl, 1993; Nightingale, 2006).
Perhaps, most important for our understanding of his model (and to build upon earlier discussions on semiotics), Hall assumes a semiotic interpretation of media texts in which:
“the range of meaning depends very much on the nature of the language and on the significance attached to the patterned arrangement of given signs and symbols within a culture shared by sender (encoder) and receiver (decoder) alike” (McQuail & Windahl, 1993, p. 146, in Gillespie, 2005).
In this frame, Hall implies (elaborating on constructionist ideas) that media content (its texts) could be appreciated through an understanding of textual form and multiple interpretations (Roddock, 2001). Central to Hall’s ([1973]1980) theorisation was the notion that media institutions encode texts (e.g. visual representations) with a pre-determined or, what Hall describes, a preferred reading intended for audiences. We are told by Roddock (2001) that in communicating this preferred reading media producers draw upon dominant ideologies in a given society that define reality. Unlike hypodermic effect paradigms, Hall ([1973]1980): pp. 136-138) insists that there are no law-like regularities for media audiences who are deemed to absorb encoded messages in invariant and uncritical ways. Rather, audiences who are viewed as socially situated individuals actively decode (read) and frame media messages in line with their own social and cultural positioning. Thus the ‘locus of control’ is re- conceptualised as being situated within individual capacities rather than media (Rotter, 1966; Gillespie, 2005).
Likewise, Hall contends that media texts are not wholly closed around a singular reading, instead they are sign systems carrying multiple meanings. Therefore, while media text may be the products of their authors (i.e. media institutions) Hall acknowledges that audiences bring a multiplicity of interpretations to the readings of texts (Ruddock, 2001). According to the Encoding/Decoding model these interpretations given by audiences broadly fall into three distinct hypothetical positions when decoding media texts.
The first position is a dominant (or ‘hegemonic’) decoding, where audience members share the presumed preferred reading of the media-text producers. Within the position, viewers are located within the dominant point of view and fully shares, accepts and reproduces the intended discourse. Secondly, audiences can assume an oppositional (or ‘counter-hegemonic’), decoding a message that is wholly contrary to and which rejects the producer’s intentions. Third, the negotiated position, where 34
audiences partially accept preferred readings but adds to or modifies readings in a way that reflects their own positions, experiences and interests (Morley, 1983). As such, the ‘Effects’ if you will, of media messages on contemporary audiences is contingent on their individual interpretations of the encoded text. As Hall ([1973]1980, p. 131) opines:
“Before this message can have an ‘effect’ (however defined), or satisfy a ‘need’ or be put to a ‘use’, it must first be perceived as a meaningful discourse and meaningfully decoded. It is this set of decoded meanings which ‘have an effect’, influence, entertain, instruct or persuade, with very complex perceptual, cognitive, emotional, ideological or behavioural consequences.”
Despite formulating an alternative theorisation which privileged individual sovereignty and interpretation, the Encoding/Decoding model was not exempt from critique. Media scholar Poonam Pillai (2006) for instance, highlighted the conceptual flaws in Hall’s presumption of a ‘preferred reading’ and questioned its equivalence to dominant ideology. While Nightingale (2006: p. 363) observes that while the model strives to manoeuvre away from deterministic ideas found in the effect tradition, it compartmentalises the activity of audiences to either a reactive or a response role, suggesting that little room is given for those outside these distinct domains. Furthermore, Nightingale (2004: p. 363) critiques the model’s methodological rigour which she argues is unscientific. Moreover, as Chandler (2006: p. 208) notes, Hall’s Encoding/Decoding model draws on semiotic analyses of media text and as such, “[does not] need to provide empirical evidence for particular interpretations, [as much] semiotic analysis is loosely impressionistic and highly unsystematic.”
Despite these criticisms, Hall’s theorisation has been widely adopted and applied by many audience researchers who have analysed audience reception of media texts and this is implicated in the multiple and differentiated ways people engage with and interpret the media’s content. We learn from David Morley’s (1980) seminal study The Nationwide Audience for instance, that working-class viewers negotiate and reject mainstream, upper middle-class values. While Ang’s ethnographic study Watching Dallas Soap Opera and The Melodramatic imagination (1985) demonstrated that, contrary to the programme’s intent, women readily contest populist ideas of patriarchy. As such, the influence of Hall’s Encoding/Decoding model in subsequent reception studies reinforce the idea that audiences are not cultural dupes but are complex, active appropriators and ‘re-workers’ of meaning (Schrøder et al., 2003, p. 128). Halls empirical insights are useful in supporting the thesis’ argument on the diversity of audiences as it gives some indication that diaspora audiences may negotiate understandings of development representations in multiple and differentiated ways. This understanding also provides some leverage for thinking about the different ways that diaspora audiences discursively construct their perceptions, knowledge and identities in relation to development representations.
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2.6 Representations of Development: NGO fundraising Images and Audiences
As elaborated in the previous sections, knowledge production entails representation and representations create discourses which determine the way particular meanings are received, consumed and even challenged by audiences. This sets the tone for the following section. This part of the literature review combines the theoretical and empirical discussion on representation and audiences to understand connections between representations of development and their audiences. It will, specifically, review studies that have looked at the impact and influences that visual images of international development in public charity campaigns are having on audiences. However, before we begin this discussion, it is important that we understand what is meant by Development. This thesis proffers some thoughts from the standpoint of a postcolonial perspective. Given that this is a thesis about the shaping of diaspora identities by development representations, postcolonial insights are important as they foreground and problematise issues of identity and representation in development discourse (Zaia, 2008).
2.6.1 What is Development?
Development is a concept that is fraught with conceptual and ideological contradictions and ambiguities all of which cannot be provided here (see instead, Kobler & Wimmer, 2006). As a set of historically contextualised discourses, development has undergone terminological shifts in keeping with social changes and transformations. Aram Zaia’s (2001: p. 1297), genealogical analysis of development highlights interpretational shifts of the concept as one preoccupied with economic growth and industrialisation of ‘poor’ countries, in the 1950s and 60s, to an understanding which emphasised structural reform and liberalisation of these places in the 1980s. Shortly followed by a renewed interest in structural reforms, starting in the year 2000, as exemplified in the Millennium Development Goals. Whichever way development was defined in these historical periods, definitions were influential or even predominant which construed the idea of development as an intervention (or series of) in regions of the global South, by the global North, with the explicit aim of ‘improving’ their social situations and realities (Ferguson, 1990; Gaspar, 2004; Pieterse, 2010; Escobar, 2011). This view, scholars argue, has guided much of today’s popular understandings of development, with initiatives like public NGO fundraising campaigns for ‘Third World’ countries for example, becoming signifiers for development among general publics (Scott, 2014).
However, the terminology’s much too simplified, utilitarian-type view of the global South, it’s ‘development problems’ and methods of remedying these, precludes any critical engagement with the role that development plays in the knowing and projecting of ‘Others’6. That is, it’s Eurocentric, cultural
6 The construction of the ‘other’, as demonstrated by postcolonialist Edward Said in his ground-breaking text ‘Orientalism’ (1978), is a way of seeing that imagines, dramatise and distorts perceived differences between the Occident and the Orient. It is through the process of ‘othering’ that any cultural, ethnoreligious, or geographically- defined community can be ‘Orientalised’ by the Occident. Elements of Orientalism are distinctly political, as discussed in imperialism (Ashcroft & Ahluwalia, 2005: p. 47). 36
forms and systems of knowledge production of, and about, the identities and realities of those subject to ‘development’ as being fundamentally ‘different’ to that of the West (McEwan, 2001). Moreover, it precludes any knowledge about how this representation of the global South is influencing how diaspora audiences, who have their origins in these places, define themselves in the construal of these different ‘Others’.
Much of this rethinking of development is founded on postcolonial critiques of development which aim to call into question and problematise its established notions and interpretations (Zaia, 2001). This task is primarily achieved by highlighting how particular ways of seeing and understanding the global South, is shaped by representations rooted in historical discourses of oppression like colonialism (Will & Chrisman, 2004). In this frame, for many postcolonialists, development is simply a continuation of a culturally superior colonial mind-set of the world that marginalises certain identities in respect to others (Hall, 1996). This they argue has created hierarchical differences between the Western ‘Self’ and non-Western ‘Other’ that appear almost self-evident (Briggs & Sharp, 2004). Colonialism was emboldened and legitimised by deploying modalities of difference such as classifications and stereotypes to explain, produce and project distinctions between the colonising ‘Self’ and colonised ‘Other’ (Said, 1993; Hall, 1997).
Much in this spirit, critics argue that these relations of ‘difference’ are expressed, constituted and legitimised in and by development discourses by reminding people in and of the global South of “what they are not” (Esteva, 1992: p. 10). That is to say, development discursively projects Western Europe as – par excellence - the apex of human progress, civilisation and ‘development’. This construal of the Western ‘Self’ is reified by a discourse predicated on predominant ideas of the desirability and need for developing non-Western ‘Others’ that ‘fall short’ of its ideals (Dussel, 1995; Kebede, 2004). These differences in perceived identities are further compounded by underlying presumptions that development cannot occur without the perceived need of external assistance from the West.
For postcolonialists’ this Eurocentric, colonial vision of the differences in identities of the West and its ‘Others’ imbued in development discourse has produced the very concept of the ‘global South’, ‘Third World’ or ‘developing counties’. Moreover, has conceived these places and people therein as being inferior, impoverished, dependent and ‘backwards’ (Brigg and Sharp, 2004). In this frame, these postcolonial reflections on development have important implications for critically understanding how audiences of development representations are viewing, connecting with and negotiating understandings of development. Moreover, how their identities are being shaped in relation to such depictions of places and people in and of the global South that are being projected in these ways.
‘Others’ and Othering are used in this thesis to refer to the construction of an exaggerated sense of difference between categories such as, Britain/’the West’ and Africa/‘non-West’ or ‘us’/’them’ – it is a central principle of postcolonial discourses. 37
As such, a critical, definitional characteristic of postcolonialism as a theoretical approach is its emphasis on revealing the interests behind cultural forms, productions (and systems) of power and knowledge, and introducing an oppositional, alternative criticism that foregrounds, and thereby attempts to retrieve, a multiplicity of illegitimate, disqualified or “subjugated knowledges” (Foucault 1980, p. 82) of decolonised communities. In doing so, postcolonial criticism seeks to acknowledge and investigate the structural relations of asymmetrical power and the associated processes of discrimination and marginalisation that are expressed, manifested, constituted, and legitimised in and by discourses like visual representations. Within this frame, a postcolonial approach is regarded appropriate for examining the empirical realities of diaspora communities in relation to development and its visual representation as it recognises and investigates the interrelationship of power, knowledge and development discourses (through representations) that marginalises and privileges one truth over another, that subject one identity (or a set of identities) to another, that make in short one discourse matter than the next. Postcolonialism then, as a theoretical framing provides a powerful retheorisation of development’s established notions, interpretations and relationships by unearthing its orientalist narratives which produce normative assumptions and authoritative truth claims about non- Western people and places, within which the identities of diaspora communities for example, are relational and constituted (McEwan; 2009; Brigg and Sharp, 2004; McLeod, 2000)
It is also useful in showing how all this is implicated in the complex, contradictory and differentiated ways that diaspora audience identities, perceptions of “Self” and connections – or lack thereof, with their country of origin, are implicated in, and are performed through (and even against) development representations through ideas of ‘sameness’ and ‘difference’ that these imageries produce. A postcolonial approach is therefore critical for this thesis given its shared theoretical and empirical interest in the intersecting complexities of identity by formally colonialised communities (i.e. Nigerian diaspora) and visual representation, in relation to development.
From development practitioners to ordinary members of the public, a vast majority of people are introduced to and learn about development through the proliferation of different types of representations. As Peters (1997: p. 79) opines:
“Part of what it means to live in a modern society is to depend on representations of that society. Modern men and women see proximate fragments with their own eyes and global totalities through the diverse media of social description.”
Representations of development in the form visual images are frequently used by International Development charities and NGOs in their fundraising campaigns. As mediums through which popular understandings of development are presented as well as, the realities people and places subject to representation, visual image are arguably the most popular, arresting and influential (Lewis et al., 2014). This growing recognition has promoted a number of debates and studies which have explored the influential role – the impact – of these representations on spectating publics. Most studies have explored this impact in terms of the relationships and public dispositions among audiences with and
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towards the people and places subject to representation. These debates generally fall within three distinct yet interrelated areas of discussion which this section will review. These are as followed. First, the impact that visual images in charity campaigns have on how publics respond materially, in terms of their charitable giving (Dogra, 2006; Kenedy, 2009). Second, the role charity images play in forging emotional or moral relationships between audiences and distant others (Boltanski, 1999; Chouliaraki, 2006; Silverstone, 2007). Thirdly, how visual representations in public charity campaigns are shaping popular and largely negative perceptions of people and places in the global South (Thompson, 1995; VSO, 2001; Dogra, 2012).
2.6.2 ‘Shock-effect’ images and public donations
Research exploring the impact of visual images on how audiences respond materially, generally critique the use of ‘shock-effect’ images in NGO fundraising campaigns to attract public donations. Cameron and Haanstra (2008: p. 1476), describe such appeals as NGO campaigns which “aim to provoke feelings of guilt and pity in Western audiences through portrayals of extreme material poverty and suffering”. In popular memory, the most frequently cited examples of this, come from the public fundraising appeals associated with the Ethiopian Famine of the early 1980s and the resulting Live Aid concerts (Franks, 2014).
Research by Dogra (2006) which analysed NGO advertisements in British newspapers from 2005-06, highlights that the use of such representations is not a purely historical phenomenon. Rather, graphic images of malnourished children, with distended bellies or flies in their eyes for instance, still “form a substantial proportion of NGO messages today” (ibid; p. 64). They continue to feature on British charity programmes – so called telethons, for example, Children in Need and Comic Relief and often in televised charity campaigns associated with humanitarian crises, such as the 2014 West Africa Ebola Crisis and the Syrian refugee crisis (Tester, 2011).
These types of images that abound in charity campaigns are becoming ever more public and popular because they provide compelling evidence of the apparent ‘plain realities’ of human suffering (Chouliaraki and Orgad, 2011). The need for audience attention favours sensationalism expressed in these types of images especially as they convey development issues of poverty and suffering as “urgent, open to remedy and real” (Radley and Kennedy, 1997: p. 438). Studies have shown that this type of exposure to the raw realities of life, often evokes intended feelings of guilt and pity in audiences, to the extent to which they are compelled to take action, more often in the form of donations (Boltanski, 1999; Cohen, 2001; Chouliaraki and Orgad, 2011).
Unsurprisingly, there are several well-established criticisms levelled at the use of these types of representations of development in NGO campaigns. The first criticism is made on moral grounds and contends that shocking images of human suffering raise important ethical issues as the dignity of people are often compromised for financial gain. There is tension here, however, because while these images are degrading and victim-centred, representativeness is a problematic criterion by which to judge NGO campaigns. As Martin (1994: p. 34) asserts, “parts of Africa are places of famine and 39
disease” and as such, not communicating these realities to audiences creates its own ethnical issues (Save the Children Fund, 1998; Dogra, 2006; Kenedy, 2009).
Secondly, these images have been widely criticised for failing to appropriately contextualise poverty, overlooking structural explanations and focusing attention on the ‘problems’ of the global South over the implications of the North in contributing to those problems. Studies highlight how this constructs and reinforces hierarchies of human life between the lives of spectating audiences and represented subjects (Brooks et al., 2003; Butler, 2009; Chouliaraki, 2005). In light of this criticism, postcolonialists would argue that this hierarchal framing of human life in representational form, is reflective of colonialism’s ideological projection of non-Western ‘Others’ as being fundamentally different, ‘less- than’ or inferior (Campbell, 2011). This colonial vision of consigning non-Western ‘Others’ to ineluctable stages of growth, is further compounded by the iconography of childhood (Manzo, 2008: p. 636). That is, the use of children as victims in shock-effect images, to reinforce ideas of the infantilised, powerless, vulnerable and dependent position of the global South in light of the more mature, powerful and resource-laden North (Campbell, 2011; Burman, 1994). This point is elaborated by Ferguson (1994: xiii) who argues;
“The images of the ragged poor of Asia thus become legible as markers of a stage of development, while the bloated bellies of African children are the signs of social as well as nutritional deficiency ... Within this problematic, it appears self-evident that “Third World” - nation states and starving peasants share a common “problem”, that both lack a single “thing“: “development”.
As such, for postcolonial critics, beyond the cursory level, these images do more than raise funds. They are essentially colonial apparatuses of, or parts of a historical system of representation about, asymmetrical power relations between the West and “the rest” (Hall, 1997).
Thirdly, many also argue that although shock effect campaigns may evoke responses centred on ideas of pity and charity, this is momentary (Kinnick et al., 1996; Tester, 1997). They allege in particular, that these images have more damaging long-term implications for fundraising as incessant narratives of famine, disaster and impoverishment have become banal for audiences (Moeller, 1999). This, many argue undermine any impulse amongst audiences for public action. However, while the South has been increasingly represented through alternative, more ‘positive’ representations (Dogra, 2007), studies highlight they are less effective in encouraging more donations in audiences (Save the Children Fund, 1998; Small & Verrochi, 2009).
While these studies are interesting in their own right they tell us nothing about how charitable action by audiences and their affective responses in the construal of others, are mediated through, or even contested by their identities. Therefore, audiences of development representations are problematised are simply ‘receivers’ or ‘reactors’ without understanding how (and why) different factors such as, identity interweaves in different ways in this process of reception. This further barricade understandings of the multiple and contradictory ways that diaspora audiences may think about,
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participate in, and even challenge development. In this context, their encounters are rendered generalised experiences of all audiences of NGO fundraising images.
This critique reveals the importance of moving beyond an understanding of representations of development established in fundraising, which essentially reflect institutional understandings of how development is communicated. Rather, we need to engage with the different ways in which representations occur in and are articulated through people’s subjectivities – their perceptions, knowledge, identities.
2.6.3 Relationships between audiences and distant people
These silences are also relevant and interrelated with theoretical discussions over the potential of representations of development to forge relationships of moral commitment between audiences and distant ‘others’. These critical debates have been mainly polarised around Chouliaraki’s “optimistic” and “pessimistic” narratives, each one emphasizing contrasting theories about the influential role of visual images like those used by NGOs, in engendering certain relationships between audiences and distant people (Chouliaraki, 2006: p. 23).
The optimistic narrative generally argues that visual representations of poverty, social deprivation and human suffering introduce new forms of proximity, consolidating distances between spectating publics and distant others. In our mediatized world full of visual representations of poverty and suffering, Thompson (1995) argues, has created new kinds of global interconnectedness and responsibilities towards others. He calls this phenomena “the democratization of responsibility”, in the sense that, having concern for the welfare of others that are beyond our immediate environments and experiences is becoming a significant part of the daily lives of audiences (ibid: p. 263).
At the same time, public and popular visual images of distant atrocities, disasters and suffering that abound charity fundraising campaigns, are imparting notions of common humanity and ethos of care (Silverstone, 2002), which are evoking ‘empathetic experiences’ in audiences. Scholars argue that, these mediated feelings brought about from visual representations are expanding the moral horizons of locally situated audiences (Tomlinson, 1999). In this optimistic approach, this expansion of audiences’ moral space, goes beyond geographical and cultural borders forging relations of moral commitments (Ignatieff, 1998; Chouliaraki, 2008).
Scholars espousing the opposing pessimistic narrative, however, argue that no matter how public, arresting or emotionally-provocative that NGO images are, as a medium, they are incapable of bridging the physical and symbolic distance between audiences and sufferers. Despite aforementioned arguments that images expose the plain reality of distant suffering, they criticise this as nothing but a “hyperreality”, which somehow fictionalises the realities of impoverished populations (Scott, 2014). Whereas those subject to representation, lacking in physical form and presence, appear solely as objects of voyeuristic pleasure, with “no strings attached” (Bauman, 1993: 178). In the context of a viewing experience then, these visual images, the argument goes, fails to effectively commit audiences to those who are distant (Kyriakidou, 2011: p. 22).
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Moreover, the actual distance felt between audiences and distant others shields spectators from the represented reality. Proximity with distant others then becomes fathomless because of “the unimaginability of this [kind of suffering] happening to you or your loved one” (Cohen, 2001: p. 169).
Both narratives have their own important limitations. First, in the optimistic thesis there are taken-for- granted assumptions of moral universalism, assuming that empathetic feelings towards images of other people’s suffering is automatic in audiences. This premise places normative constraints that define how people ought to feel vis-à-vis the suffering of others. Second, there is the assumption within the studies that subscribe to the pessimistic approach that reality is clearly distinguishable from its mediated representation. This argument ignores that knowledge of reality can be subjective and constitutive of people’s identities and therefore representations can shape different visions of the world for different types of audiences (Hall, 1997).
A common problem between the two contrasting approaches, is that they largely ignore the ‘work’ of representations as being transformative “in which meanings and value are constructed” (Silverstone, 2002: p. 761). Both approaches assume that meaning resides within the medium itself and, by implication, how audiences respond are already predetermined by development images. There are two important and interrelated weaknesses stemming from this proposition. First, there is an assumption of a uniformity of visual images depicting development issues, neglecting the heterogeneity of these types of representations and the way they shape and make different demands on audience’s sensibilities (Boltanski, 1999; Chouliaraki, 2006; Cottle and Rai, 2008). Second, the above argument largely overlooks the understanding that audiences are not homogenous but multiple, differentiated and much more complex than the theoretical arguments that frame the relevant debates seem to imply. The question of how different types of audiences, like diaspora audiences, read and are shaped by these images in unique and varied ways largely remains untested. As such, there is much speculation and assumption about audiences of development related images, but little is empirically known.
2.6.4 Development representations and public perceptions
Other studies have explored audience perceptions and understandings of people and places in and of the global South. Research by the Department for International Development conducted UK-based focus groups in order to explore “patterns of understanding and belief [about the global South] and to trace the origins of these” (DFID, 2000: 174). Mainly focusing on African countries, the group discussions revealed preconceptions about Africans underpinned by “neo-colonial beliefs” such as, assumptions of primitivism and political instability (Kyriakdou, 222: p. 28).
Similarly, the Voluntary Service Organisation (VSO) report The Live Aid Legacy found that 74% of a survey of 1,018 British adults, believed developing countries “depend on money and knowledge of the West to progress” (ibid, 2001: p. 3). The qualitative findings of the study also provided evidence that:
“When British people think of the developing world, Africa is their starting point. TV images of famine, disaster and Western relief …starving children with flies around their eyes, too weak to brush them off instantly spring to mind” (ibid: 3). 42
The researchers concluded that these “stereotypical beliefs and outdated images have a vice-like grip on British understandings of the developing world” (ibid: 3).
Equally, findings gathered by Van der Gaag and Nash’s (1987) study, conducted fifteen years prior to VSO, reinforces the powerful influence of development representations on public consciousness. In a series of visualisation exercises about Africa, the predominant imaginings by workshop participants were overwhelmingly ‘Africa starving’ or ‘Africa primitive’ (ibid: p. 11). As Darnton and Kirk’s (2011: p. 5) latest study opines, even after the aftermath of the Ethiopian famine and the Live Aid, “people in the UK understand and relate to global poverty no differently now than they did in the 1980s”.
Interesting in their own right, these empirical insights highlight how development imageries are shaping audience perceptions and understandings of development and the global South. However, across these bodies of work, there are silences on how the meanings of development and the South are shaping diaspora identities and their forms of engagement with development. Equally, an underlying assumption of all these studies is the idea of audiences who are characterised by a “homogenous and mono-cultural, Euro-centric Britishness” (Dogra, 2012: p. 125), who receive, view and interpret representations of other people and places similarly. This, assumption precludes any critical engagement on their part for understanding the diversity of diaspora audiences.
However, as a point of departure, postcolonialists may argue that these studies’ findings reinforce the idea that representations of development embody dominant hegemonic discourses about the identities and lives of people in and of the global South. This is clearly exemplified in the particularly negative, patronising and stereotypical ‘ways of seeing’ and understanding ‘Others’ that are colonial- informed, and which have become normalised in public perceptions. In this frame, these empirical insights are useful for critically understanding the impact that development representations may be having on the identities of diaspora audiences who have their origins in the places that are being represented and perceived in these ‘problematic’ ways.
2.7 Situating Diaspora in the study of Development Representations
As the previous literature overview showed, whilst there are ongoing critiques of development representations and how they impact and influence audiences in various ways, less attention has been given to how these representations are shaping the identities of diverse audiences. There is the assumption within the literature of a homogenous audience who view, are impacted by, and understand development in almost identical ways. This does not reflect the diversity and complexities of contemporary audiences. As Hall (1997) reminds us, people bring a multiplicity of interpretations and dispositions to the readings of representations, including their identities. In view of this, this study argues that individuals may read representations differently and that representations themselves have differential effects on diverse groups of people. One such group, this thesis argues, are diaspora audiences whose perceptions and knowledge of themselves and others are potentially being shaped
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by development representations that are depicting places in and of the global South that they originate from.
Appropriately, this section reviews diaspora literature and is divided into three parts. Section one briefly reviews conceptualisations of diaspora. Section two reviews the scholarship on diaspora identities including debates on the different ways they are being shaped. Lastly, using Development literature, section three examines the various practices (social, cultural and economic) through which diaspora communities engage with development.
2.7.1 Towards a conceptualisation of Diaspora and their identities
Paul Gilroy (1993) ‘The black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness’ provides a useful starting place for understanding diaspora. In exploring themes of cultural nationalism, Gilroy draws attention to the concept diaspora as being ancient. Diaspora has a long history (see, Cohen (1997); Braziel and Mannure, (2003), and has often been intimately linked with experiences of displacement, dispersion and migrancy (Karim, 2003). Etymologically, the word ‘diaspora' is of Greek origin and means the “scattering of seeds” while this definition might conjure crude agricultural imaginaries, it originally described displaced communities of people who had been unsettled from their places of origin (or native homeland) through the movements of migration, immigration or exile (Karim, 2003; Tsagarousianou, 2004).
As an early historical reference, the term ‘Diaspora’ was initially used in Hebrew Scriptures for the Hellenic Jewish communities in Alexandria, Egypt (circa 3rd century BC) to delineate Jewish populations living outside of their homeland of Palestine. Here, the concept has religious significance and describes the predicaments of Jews living in exile of Palestine. Thereby, suggesting a displacement from the nation-states or geographical place(s) of birth and a relocation to different nation-states, territories or countries (Braziel and Mannur, 2003: p. 1). The black African diaspora experience (circa 16th century) is another historical reference in which West Africans were forcibly moved from their native, ancestral homeland and resettled into the ‘New World’ (i.e. the Americas and Europe). These references, along with many others of colonisation, demonstrate that diaspora at its simplest, refers to the movement of people from their traditional homeland (Braziel & Mannur, 2003).
However, other scholars argue in our increasingly globalised and interconnected world, diasporas make up new, reconfigured transnational communities around the world. In this respect, new prominence is given to early understandings of diaspora which problematically implies a natural association between emigrants and the places they left behind. Rather, in contemporary usage it is applied to migrant communities who have settled (and in the case of their offspring, born) in locations that are not their original or ancestral homeland (Wahlbeck 1999; 2002; Dufoix, 2008). In this thesis, I follow this contemporary and conceptually open interpretation of diaspora.
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2.7.2 Understanding Diaspora identities
“The construction of diasporic identity, as is all identity, is inherently a socio-political process, involving dialogue, negotiation and debate as to ‘who we are’, and moreover, what it means to be ‘who we are.” (Mandaville, 2001: p. 169)
These conceptual differences in defining diaspora has prompted much scholarly discussion and debate around the identities of contemporary diaspora populations. Traditional theorisations of diaspora identities have argued that diaspora self-identifications are fraught with and characterised by ongoing conflicts of feeling stuck or lost between two homelands (Wolf, 1997; Clifford, 1994). Scholars attribute this ‘in-between’ frustration to a direct link to the historical displacement of diaspora populations from their ancestral homeland to new and foreign places. Connor (1986) for example, maintains that this has had a direct impact on how diaspora negotiate understandings of how they view themselves in relation to their original homeland. In most cases, this is articulated in an insurmountable sense of needing to readjust the tensions felt of living “here” (host countries) yet being from “there” (places of origin).
As Safron (1991: p. 83) puts it,
[They feel] “they are not and perhaps cannot be fully accepted by their host society and therefore feel partly alienated and insulated from it or that …they regard their ancestral homeland as their true ideal home and as the place to which they or their descendants would (or should) eventually return.”
However, this perspective of diaspora identities has received much criticism for its attempt to homogenise, reduce and fix identities to absolute ideas of here and there. This dualistic understanding, it is argued, is not reflective of diaspora identities which are instead multiple, differentiated and ambivalent (Hall, 1990; Gilroy, 1993; Lowe, 1996). This perspective is strongly espoused by postcolonialist theorists such as, Homi Bhabha’s (1994) who conceptualises diaspora identities in terms of hybridity. Hybridity is by far one of the most widely used yet contested notions, which continuously destabilises ideas of essentialism and fixity that often accompany traditional theorisations of diaspora (see Bhabba, 1994; Karim, 2003). As part of broader global processes of migration and increasing and diverse consumption of transnational media content and communication technologies, hybridity, Bhabha (1994) claims, can be viewed as a cultural particularism of these global conditions. It is the merging and blending of different cultures to create original and reworked meanings and identities. Subsequently, hybrids confuse, conflate and transcend established cultural parameters in processes of fusion or creolization (e.g., black British Africans) (Abdile, 2011). This hybridity has formed alternatives spaces within which diaspora subjectivities and identities are negotiated (e.g. Clifford, 1994; Hall, 1993; Radhakrshnan, 2003). In this way, hybrid (national and 45
transnational) identities are positioned with many other identity categorisations and disconnected from static, nativist identities intimately-tied to constructions of homeland and nation (de Block & Buckingham, 2007).
As such, within the literature, hybridity has been explored in relation to diaspora identities, ethnicities, nationalities, language and even the concept of culture itself. In Hall’s (1990) ‘Cultural identity and diaspora’ for example, he suggests that hybrid forms of identifications and experiences by diaspora are constantly being re-produced through processes of transformation and difference. He claims that diaspora populations assume double (or even multiple) identifications that are constitutive of this process of cultural difference and mixture.
“The diaspora experience is defined, not by essence or purity, but by the recognition of a necessary heterogeneity and diversity; by a conception of identity which lives in and through, not despite, difference; by hybridity. Diaspora identities are those which are constantly producing and reproducing themselves anew, through transformation and difference.” (1990: p. 235)
This so-called “producing and reproducing” of hybrid identities in diasporas are being shaped by many things including, their histories of generational mobility, the locations and communities in which they live, cultural and religious practices (Adriaens, 2012; Adbile, 2011; Anthias, 1998). However, nothing is known about the various ways in which diasporas’ identities are being shaped by representations of development.
Similarly, literature on diaspora identity and modernity (Lampert 2010; Davies, 2007; Abbott, 2006) reveal the transformative potential, contextual and contingent nature of diaspora identities as demonstrated through processes of perceived differences (and sameness) between continental African identities and those of diaspora (including emigrants and returnees) communities. In his ethnographic work on Nigerian diaspora professionals, Harris (2006) for example, found that Nigerian emigration to London, UK, produced class-based hierarchical differences between the assumed identities of emigrants and expatriates and “those left behind”. According to him, travelling outside of Nigeria was symbolic of success, status elitism and privilege, a perception compounded by British- raised Nigerian returnees who often have the financial resources to purchase and self-build property in gated and exclusive communities for their immediate and extended families, and who could flaunt the fruits of their British acclimatisation in Nigerian society. In fact, these returnees and those still residing in the UK, are viewed by many as local celebrities.
Similarly, as noted by Ayankojo (2010), transnational migration is synonymous with social recognition and upward mobility among Nigerians. While Adeyanju and Oriola (2012: p. 953), observed that being British-raised Nigerian diaspora is, for a continental Nigerian “the best that could happen to an African” as they are the aspirational barometer for which social class is measured and legitimised. Interestingly, Alakija (2016) notes, while some British-raised Nigerian diaspora happily appropriate these newly found, elevated identity reconfigurations upon returning to Nigeria, they equally find it difficult to reconcile this status with their ascribed racial sameness with a seemingly collective ‘black’
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racial identity that is often marginalised, discriminated and considered the proletariat under-class in Britain.
Related literature around the ‘Othering’ of the home country population by the diaspora suggest that some diaspora identities are un/consciously configured and constituted through perceived and imagined differences between the assumed lives and lived-realities of continental Africans and those of the diaspora. In his examination of Somali diaspora identities Abdile (2011: p. 52), found that British-raised Somali youth often viewed Somalia and communities therein (including their own relatives) in largely negative, and often stereotypical ways. According to Abdile, Somali diaspora differentiate themselves from their continental counterparts by reproducing differences based on their assumptions of poverty, helplessness, “cultural backwardness” and social disfunction, all of which they do not wish to associate or identify with. While Adedeji (2014: p. 453), found that some second- generation Nigerians distance themselves from Nigerians in their home country “who are all poor and starving” by underplaying their Nigerian identities in favour of their English or London identities, while others renounce their association with Nigeria all together.
This literature on diaspora identity, modernity and Othering is interesting, not least in respect to how Nigerian audiences may be interpreting development representations by NGOs, but also how they perceive and negotiate understandings of their country of origin through these images. So too, how diaspora identities are constituted, reconfigured and negotiated through perceptions of difference and sameness and how this is implicated in the degree to which they connect or disconnect with Nigeria and communities therein, which they locate their ethno-cultural origins. Additionally, this literature invites critical insight into how some Nigerian diaspora may produce hierarchical fragmentations and new forms of marginalisation among themselves in response to their perceptions of ‘Self’ in relation to a seemingly different and “Other(ed)” Nigeria and continental Nigerians.
Albeit largely theoretical, understanding diaspora identities in the context of hybridity offers useful insights and conceptual tools for thinking about how the multiple and contradictory identities of diaspora are being shaped in relation to development representations. This is especially important as these representations are depicting places in the global South that diasporas populations originate from and can have implications on how they view, understand and participate in development in these places.
2.7.3 Diaspora and Development The development literature concerning diaspora is relatively little, however studies that have addressed diaspora have explored this in the context of diaspora relationships with their places of origin. Studies have highlighted the important roles that these individuals and communities play in shaping and contributing to the development of their countries of origin (see for example, Agarwal & Horowitz, 2002; Gaynor et al., 2007; Abdile, 2011). Intra-family remittances, providing new and innovative ideas in peacebuilding and development, and participating in political and economic
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advocacy, lobbying and fundraising both in countries of origin and residence, are key practices which diasporas engage with and contribute to the homeland (Agarwal & Horowitz, 2002; Mohan and Zack- Williams, 2002; Lainer-Vos, 2010).
UK based Diaspora-led development and third sector organisations for example, such as, The African Foundation for Development (AFFORD); Somaliland Focus and Diaspora for African Development (DFAD) have engaged African diaspora communities/groups in development-related issues. Such organisations and diaspora practices of homeland relationships bring to the fore the dynamic interplay between development in their countries of origin and diaspora communities themselves. Moreover, these negotiated encounters have allowed for the producing and reproducing of diaspora identifications vis-à-vis homeland in both public and private spheres (Lainer-Vos, 2010).
Similarly, the growth of internet-based social media in recent times has provided opportunities for diaspora connectivity, engagement and identity-formation with their places of origin (Bernal, 2006). Social Networking Sites (SNSs) such as, Facebook and Twitter for example, have profoundly reshaped the multiple and imaginative ways in which diaspora individuals and communities engage intellectually and materially with development issues in their places of origin both at the international and local levels (Karim, 2003; Bernal, 2006).
2.8. Conceptual Framework and Research Questions
The bodies of literature reviewed has provided some useful insights and well-conceptualised tools for thinking about diaspora communities as audiences of development representations. Taking as a point of departure, the tendency in much of International Development literature in the field of audiences and NGO communications, to treat and understand audiences as seemingly self-evident, undifferentiated and as similarly influenced and positioned in their engagement with mediated development communications. Furthermore, by highlighting the interrelationship of power-knowledge, development discourse and NGO representational practices which are deeply implicated in historical discourses of colonialism as well as, constitutive of identities (and difference in its production). This thesis uses a postcolonial theoretical approach as its overall guide, drawing specifically from Edward Said’s (1995) “Othering” concept and Homi Bhabha’s (1994) “hybridity” theory of diaspora identities. It also draws from and applies cultural theorist, Stuart Hall’s ([1973]1980) Encoding/Decoding model to empirical data to address its central aim:
What impact do popular and public representations of development have on diaspora audiences?
This approach and key concepts will not only tell us more about the diversity of audiences of development representations but also how NGO representational practices – their images – are constitutive of, or at least legitimate the discourse, power and reifications of colonialism. So too, what role this plays, and how this manifest in, and through diaspora identities, perceptions and understandings of their country of origin as they interpret and engage with development representations.
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Within this framing, the justifications for using a postcolonial approach as a guide for this thesis, is founded on a common source of interest and theoretical aspiration that this study shares with postcolonialism and many of the authors referred above in the literature review. That is in revealing, critiquing and problematising seemingly normative assumptions and narratives about decolonised communities and their places of origin, through cultural forms and systems of knowledge within representations of international development by NGOs for instance. As such, a postcolonial framing is both necessary and useful in this thesis for examining the empirical realities of Nigerian diaspora audiences, as it calls in to question, re-evaluates and problematises development notions and interpretations by highlighting how particular “ways of seeing” and “of knowing” the global South and of, in the case of this thesis, Nigeria specifically, and communities therein, is shaped by visual representations that are rooted in historical discourses of colonialism.
It further does this by emphasizing its historical contingency and the constitutive role of identity (and difference in its production). This interrogation and problematising by a postcolonial approach is critical for this thesis given that it is primarily concerned with engaging critically and qualitatively with the intersecting complexities of identity and representation, in relation to development. So too, how these identities are marginalised or privileged in respect to others through oppositional binaries and dichotomies of difference or ‘Othering’ such as in discourses of “Us and Them”, “West and Non- West”, “Black and White” and “Developed and Un(der)developed” for example, and how this becomes meaningful, implicated in and constituted by different audiences.
This latter point undergirds the usefulness of Said’s (1995) “Othering” concept in this thesis for examining diaspora audiences. This is because it problematises and provides a theoretical context from which to examine how “Othering” through formation of stereotypes for example, in textual forms such as development representation by Northern/Western-situated organisations, re-produce and codify knowledge about formally colonised people and places through discourses of sameness and difference. As such, the application of ‘Othering’ provides a useful conceptual framework for exploring the potential implications of this in terms of understanding the varied impact that development representations are having in informing and (re)shaping diaspora identities who have their racial and ethnocultural origins in the places and with the people that are subject to development representation.
While the relevance of Bhabha’s (1994) “hybridity” theory to this thesis is demonstrated in not only showing that diaspora identities are relational and constitutive of representations, but also that these identities are constantly being reproduced and transformed through the processes of sameness and differences that they create.
While Critical Race Theory (CRT) could be used as an alternative theoretical approach for this thesis, as it looks at the intersectionality of race, representation and power from sociological perspectives which, in combination, holds the potential to expand each perspective in unique ways when applied to diaspora ethnoracial identities, development representations and the power imbued within NGOs as apparatuses of development discourse. However, a postcolonial approach was regarded as more appropriate given that unlike CRT, which is primarily concerned with uncovering and critiquing racism 49
and racially oppressive conditions, meanings and ideas of the 1970s and 1980s from a sociological position, postcolonialism examines oppression and discrimination as reproduced by social structures and cultural meanings which are deeply implicated in the materialisms and historical discourses of colonialism and which manifest in contemporary forms like NGO representations (Pyke, 2010; Delgado and Stefancic, 2012). Unlike CRT, for postcolonial approaches issues of race is but one area of interest and examination, rather their mission is to critique and subvert dominant Western styles of thought, imagination, and theorizing for the purposes of introducing an oppositional criticism that draws attention to, and thereby attempts to retrieve the voices of formerly colonised communities. A postcolonial framing was also deemed more appropriate as unlike CRT it historicises issues of identity and representation not only in respect to representations of international development but from the perspective of and as it relates to diaspora communities who are directly and indirectly affected by development.
Similarly, as detailed in this chapter, Stuart Halls’([1973]1980) Encoding/Decoding theorisation suggests that audiences – as multiple interpretive communities – actively appropriate, negotiate and contradict meaning from mediated communication productions. This Cultural Theory understanding of audiences necessarily repositions the “locus of control” from what the media “does” to audiences to “how” and to “what extent” the interpretive context of individuals and communities are implicated in how they engage with information that they receive. Within this framing, Hall’s theorisation suggests that mediated communication like visual representation is not a unidirectional activity of “Sender- Message-Receiver” that simply injects meaning into seemingly passive audiences. Rather, people actively, consciously and critically engage with, interpret and challenge media text, in line with (and against) their own ethno-cultural identities, experiences and other subjectivities.
As such, applying Hall’s Encoding/Decoding model for this thesis, is both necessary and useful in understanding the empirical realities of Nigeria diaspora communities, in their varied engagement with development representations. I say this because, it complements, builds on and provides a theoretical context for the thesis’ central argument that audiences (of development representations) are and should not be imagined as some form of monocultural Western-situated community, devoid of individual articulation of unique intent and who are seemingly coextensive with the “general” British public. Moreover, that audiences do not read, interpret and are impacted by development representations in largely undifferentiated ways. Rather, by applying Hall’s model we better understand whether, and if so, how and to what extent, Nigeria diaspora audiences are sophisticated, varied and paradoxical in their conscious, intellectual engagement with, and interpretation of, development representations as a form of mediated communication. Indeed, how their socio-cultural positioning, ethno-racial identities, personal histories and other individual idiosyncrasies interweave with, are constituted in, or even against development imaginaries and how these are manifested in particular individuals and communities.
Against this backdrop, postcolonial theory as a conceptual framework for this study will address the central aim by focusing on three interrelated issues as laid out in the following research questions:
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Research Questions
1 How are development representations shaping diaspora knowledge and perceptions of their places of origin?
This research question is primarily interested in understanding how (and with what effects) development imageries of the global South are influencing diaspora identities in terms of how individuals perceive and negotiate understandings of their places of origin. A postcolonial framing of ‘Othering’ will help to understand how (and to what extent) diaspora knowledge and perceptions are predicated on, or influenced by colonial discourses of ‘difference’. This question is also important as it allows for an exploration of how diaspora negotiate understandings of the ‘Self’ in the construal of development representations.
2 How are representations of development shaping how and why diaspora engage with development?
This research question explores the role that development representations play in shaping the identities of diaspora audiences in terms of their material impact in their form and levels of participation/engagement with development issues concerning their places of origin.
3 How are diaspora audiences producing, shaping and/or challenging development representations and their content?
The third and last question builds on the previous two by taking a step further from a position of exploring what diaspora say that they know, think or feel in relation to development representations to what they do or how they act on the back of this. By addressing this question, we move beyond understandings of audience reception and interpretations of representations to an understanding of how this becomes meaningful, constituted and ‘practiced’ in their everyday lives.
2.9 Conclusion
Within this review I provided an overview of the literature within four key areas: i) Theorisations of Representations, focusing particularly on Hall and Foucault’s contributions on power, discourse and ideologies of representational forms, and the socially constructed nature of knowledge; ii) Conceptualisations of audiences, via an overview of Halls’ Encoding/Decoding model and other critical discourses; iii) a detailed look at the main discourses on development/NGO representations and their different influences on audiences, looking particularly at how these visual images impact audience subjectivities, dispositions and behaviours; and iv) a review of theorisations on diaspora including their identities and connection with development. Throughout the review I identified how the present research builds upon current knowledge before setting out the aim of the research and relating this to the identified priorities within recent literature. I finalised the review by stating that postcolonial theory and, Said’s Othering concept specifically will be used as the research’s conceptual framing. 51
I will now move on to contextualise UK Nigerian diaspora and development representations. The following chapter will provide the historical, ethno-cultural and politico-geographical context of Nigeria, including its history of representation by development organisations. The first section presents a brief demographic profile of Nigeria. This is followed by a summary of Nigeria’s colonial history, and the three key moments of migration to the UK from the 1950s to the present.
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CHAPTER 3: Contextualising Nigeria Diaspora and Development Representations
“a river never runs so far as to forget its source”
Nigerian proverb
3.1 Introduction This chapter contextualises UK Nigerian diaspora and development representations. It provides the historical, ethno-cultural and politico-geographical context of Nigeria, including its history of representation by development organisations. The first section presents a brief demographic profile of Nigeria. This is followed by a summary of Nigeria’s colonial history, and the three key moments of migration to the UK from the 1950s to the present. This section discusses the different motivations for migration that shape each of these moments. The first phase (of 1950-1970s) mainly comprised the voluntary movement of migrants, largely students, driven by opportunities of educational and professional acquisition. Many of these students subsequently established themselves in the UK following Nigeria’s independence from Britain.
The second phase (1980s-1990s), saw significant wave of migration to the UK, following economic and political instability in Nigeria. While many continued to be driven by the desire for education, many came as refugees. The third period of Nigerians (mid-1990s onwards), consisted of those motivated by economic reasons and the parents and children of second and third generation Nigerians in Britain. While there was migration or forced movement of Nigerians under colonialism, this chapter focuses on movement in the latter days of colonialism and following independence.
The final section of this chapter, discusses the emergence of development representations of Nigeria that emerged through NGO humanitarian and development representations during the 1960s Nigeria- Biafra Civil War. It will show how the events of this period, and especially its print and televised coverage in British media, created new iconographies of sub-Saharan Africa which, some have argued have become the template from which Nigeria is represented in the campaigning of contemporary development organisations.
While this study does not explicitly examine political, social or cultural aspects specific to Nigeria, the UK Nigerian diaspora are necessarily entangled with historical, political and economic developments in their country of origin. These interconnections are evident in and through the construction of their diasporic identities and the extent of their ongoing relationship with Nigeria. As such, this chapter
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provides the context for the examination of the relationship between Nigerian diaspora audiences and their understandings and perceptions of development representations of Nigeria.
3.2 Nigeria: Country and Demographic Profile
In 1914, the Southern and Northern regions of Nigeria were amalgamated into the unitary state of Nigeria under the colonial administration of British soldier, Sir Frederick Lugard, who at the time, had served his second year of a two-year appointment, as the last Governor-General of Northern Nigeria. Nigeria became an independent sovereign state and assumed membership to the British Commonwealth on the 1st October 1960, following years of political-nationalist struggle for independence from the 59 years of British colonial rule. While Nigeria remained a Commonwealth Realm with Elizabeth II as titular head, the adoption of a new constitution on 1st October 1963, exactly three years after gaining sovereignty, declared it a republic. This constitutional development saw Igbo, Nigerian nationalist Nnamdi Azikiwe, as Nigeria’s first president, while Fulani-Muslim politician Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, assumed the position of first Prime Minister and Head of Parliament. Subsequently, Abuja (a planned city) become the federal capital territory, which is conveniently centred at the heart of Nigeria’s 36 states (See Figure 2 and 3). While Lagos, a megacity in the Nigerian state of the same name, and largest within Sub-Saharan Africa, remained the commercial capital. Often designated as the “Giant of Africa” (Adejumoke, 2009), Nigeria is the most populous African nation, and seventh globally, boasting approximately 192 million inhabitants, many of who reside in Lagos (United Nations (UN), 2017). However, innumerable social, political-nationalist and economic issues within Nigeria, have led to varied conspiracies, secessionist movements and military coups, following independence.
Figure 2: Satellite View and Map of Nigeria showing Abuja.
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Source: Nations Online Project
Figure 3: Map of Nigeria showing its 36 states
Source: UN Geospatial Information Section
Considered a multinational sovereign state, Nigeria is inhabited by over 500 ethnic communities, of which the largest are the Hausa-Fulani in the Northern area; the Igbo in the South-central/eastern parts; and the Yoruba in the Southwestern region. These ethnic communities reflect a multiplicity of cultures and speak over 500 different languages, however English, Nigeria’s official language, is a unifying ground (Osaghae and Suberu, 2005). In terms of religious affiliation, Muslims comprise 55
almost 50% of the population and practiced predominantly by the Northern-bound Hausa-Fulani, while the Igbo and Yoruba Southerners, constitute approximately 40% of the Christian population. A minority population, roughly 10%, observe religions and spiritualisms indigenous to their specific ethnicities. The distribution of the Nigerian diaspora within the UK reflects a different mix. According to communities and local government research (Change, 2009) for example, there is a relatively small proportion of Nigerian Muslims in the UK accounting for only 9% of the diaspora (p. 6). As mentioned in the methods, this small representation of Muslims was reflected in my sample population, and implicated in my participant recruitment and retention experiences.
These general categorisations of ethnicity, religious-affiliation and ethno-regionalism, reflect and constitute Nigeria identities, for both continental and diaspora communities. Other secondary categories, such as, age, gender and social-economic stratification, are undoubtedly important and constitutive of one’s identification. However, as Nigerian identities are largely territorialised by ethnicity, cultural-geographical area, and religion, significance is accorded to the pre-colonial, hereditary-traditional, ascriptive and the “titular”, such as, kinship systems (primarily patrilineal), blood relationships, ethnicity and language. In addition to, identities based on chieftaincy, kingship and localised conceptions of nationhood. Social class, gender and age, as non-territorialised identities, are necessarily subsumed in these umbrella categories, all of which are situated and historicised by Nigeria’s experiences of colonialism (Carling, 2004).
Additionally, not only did the material implications of colonialism arrange identities by ethnicity, religion and region, it also produced socially-stratified identities based on a two-tiered hierarchy with the dominant/ruling-elite at the apex, and the dominated, working classes at the bottom. While, according to Osaghae and Suberu (2005), the dominant elite comprised of “bourgeois salariat, intelligentsia, bureaucrats and technocrats” (p. 3), were (and still is) situated within these two broad segmentations; critics debate the existence of such system(s) in contemporary national context. Interestingly, Carling (2004) argued that ethno-cultural identities are often stronger and prioritised over the Nigerian national identity among diaspora Nigerians.
Although a substantial number of Nigerian’s are distributed all over the world, it is nonetheless home to many immigrants driven by employment opportunities amidst the oil boom of Nigeria’s 1970s petroleum industry. If not, those from Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Sierra Leone and Liberia, uprooted by civil war. Similarly, Nigerians themselves were, in 2000-2004, the fifth largest asylum-seeking community in Europe and, specifically the UK and Germany (de Hass, 2006). A partial implication of these movements has seen Nigeria experience a ‘brain drain’, with highly educated and specialist-skilled professionals comprising a disproportionate number of emigrants. Hernández-Coss and Bun (2007) for instance, observes that annually between 500-700 Nigeria- trained doctors and other allied medical clinicians, are emigrating to “developed countries”, with a substantial number practicing in the UK and to a lesser extent Canada. Better salaries, work-life balance and national-government provided health care systems in these places, are key determinants 56
of their decisions to migrate. However, Larkin (2004: p. 298) notes that Nigerian emigration does not wholly reflect the skilled and educated, but also those involved in organised criminal activities, including “sex/human trafficking, contemporary slavery and the smugglers, drug carriers and fraudsters”. Table 3.1 enumerates Nigerian emigration from 1960 to 2015.
Table 3.1 Total Number of Nigerian-born emigrants between 1960 and 2015.
Year Number of Nigerian Emigrants (thousands)
1960 94.1
2000 487.9
2005 972.1
2015 1,199.1
Source: UNDP Human Development Report, 2015
While there are inconsistencies of data on the skill levels of Nigerian migrants, Hernández-Coss and Ogden (2007); Afolayan, 2009; Akinrinade and Olukoya (2011), approximate that in year 2000, 11% of highly and specialist-skilled Nigerians lived and worked in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. A report by The International Organisation for Migration (IMO), that 56% of the Nigerian immigrant population are highly skilled working predominantly in the medical and allied health care field (p. 2009). This observation is substantiated by Clemens and Pattersson (2007) who claim that Nigerian emigrants are largely post-secondary educated, with over 60% with advanced degrees. While Afolayan, 2009, noted a substantial increase in education-driven emigration among Nigerians, between 2000 and 2016, from 10,000 to 22,000 respectively. The majority of which are attendees of UK and USA universities (p: 55).
Nigeria’s highly-skilled exodus, and its micro/macroeconomic implications for national development, is one of several phenomena that Nigeria is reconciling with. As noted previously by Larkin (2004), Nigeria is experiencing transnational crises of human and sex-slave trafficking, prostitution and organised economic criminality. All of which, Carling (2004) argues, is in an upward trajectory with no signs of slowing down or political curtailment, due to Nigeria’s ever-growing population, high impoverishment and institutional violations of human rights. Research on the Gilman (2005) coined, ‘criminal diasporas’ reveal how illegal transnational economic criminalities among continental Nigerians, such as the ‘419’ advanced-fee scam, drug trafficking organisations and child abuse within African churches, are closely-tied to Nigerian, Ghanaian and Somali-diaspora gangs in London (Mercer et al., 2013: p. 60). As such, Nigeria’s international framing has become situated with 57
phenomena and discourses of asylum seeking, brain drain, human/sexual trafficking and the infringement of immigration laws and practices, through passport/visa forgery and counterfeiting (Obasaju, 2014).
Nigerian association with human trafficking, immigration fraud and other forms of transnational criminality, is largely connected to difficulties experienced in securing legal access to European countries (Carling, 2004). Accordingly, Nigeria as a country in addition to, emigrant and British diaspora Nigerians, have had to tolerate the damaging, stereotypical implications of prostitution and crime as, Nigerian pathologies or socio-cultural maladaptations (Mercer et al., 2013). Reporting of transnational drug-trafficking organisations, sex trafficking of women and young girls across jurisdictional and state boarders, credit card and visa fraud, ‘419’ internet scam, and the recent abduction of young girls by the Islamic fundamentalist group, Boko Haram, has smeared Nigerians. Furthermore, Nigeria has received the unwelcomed title as one of world’s top 10 most corrupt nations (Transparency International, 2014; Onuora-Oguno and Egbewole, 2017). Then of course, 22nd May 2013 saw the attempted decapitation of British Amy solider Lee Rigby in South London, by Muslim fanatics Micheal Adebolajo and Micheal Adebowale, who are British of Nigerian descent. As such, continental and diaspora Nigerians continue to endure the assault of negative labelling of criminality that beleaguer their nation’s identity, consequently affecting their perceptions, understandings and levels dis/connection with Nigeria (Mullins, 2016).
Amidst these challenges, there are indeed, commendable aspects to Nigeria, one being that it is currently ranked in first position as Africa’s largest economy, (IMF World Economic Outlook (WEO), 2016), it is also Africa’s biggest crude oil producers and thirteenth in the world, and through its “Vision 2020” programme, aims to be among the 20 largest economies globally (Oxford Business Group, 2013). As it pertains to the cultural arts and entertainment, Nigeria is Africa’s biggest media markets with its direct-to-video film industry, popularly known as Nollywood, being the third largest movie producers in the world, surpassed only by India’s Bollywood and America’s Hollywood industries. Film production is but one example of Nigeria’s vibrant cultural scene, with internationally-acclaimed, studied, and Nobel Prize-winning, novelists and playwrights such as, Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Femi Osofisan, Ben Okri and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, to name a few, making important and novel contributions contemporary Nigerian literature and theatrical arts. These art and entertainment productions have become the symbolic and material means through which diaspora communities in UK connect transnationally with contemporary Nigeria, and negotiate ‘Nigerian-ness’ as a performance of their identities (Ogunleye, 2014).
Despite this brief interlude on what is ‘going well’ in Nigeria, this is overshadowed by other pressing issues. The country is economically dependent on its exportation of crude oil to places like India – its largest importer; has high unemployment rates, misappropriation and mismanagement of public finances, and seemingly insufficient internal diplomacies necessary to generate enough energy- development to mobilise and sustain its political, socio-economic and security activities (Ikuteyijo, 58
2012). Several of its inhabitants, particularly in Lagos and other urbanised areas, are still involved in high-levels of petty and organised crime, including international illicit drug trading, money laundering, internet fraud, extortion and abduction. With little and ineffective enforcement capabilities, poverty and central and local-government collusion, these social problems are fuelled.
The unification of Nigeria’s 250 different ethnic communities speaking over 500 languages into one nation, remains one of the most problematic issues and one of great significance. This well-intended yet quixotic aspiration for ethno-cultural interconnectedness has become the bane of Africa’s multinational state. In the 56 years of Nigeria’s independence, it has endured several successful and failed military dictatorships and civilian insurgency, all of which have impacted migratory patterns, as several Nigerians voluntarily and involuntarily fled the nation during these ethno-political and economic crises.
Impediments in this process of national integration has historically been the ethno-regional rivalries, ethnic cleavages, minority rights, and according to historian-anthropologists Usuanlele and Ibhawoh (2017), “nationalist identities that should form the constituent elements of an all-Nigerian culture” (p. 188). These histories of ethno-cultural divisions, sectional loyalties and inter-regional inequalities, were even reflected during the inauguration of Nigeria’s televised media. ‘Western Nigerian Television’ (WNTV), Nigeria and Sub-Saharan Africa’s first terrestrial television station, established on the 31st October 1959, by Nigerian-Yoruba nationalist Chief Obafemi Awolowo, adopted the tagline “First in Africa”. This was quickly rivalled a year later, with the founding of ‘Eastern Nigerian Television’ (ENTV) by the Igbo-Nigeria president Nnamdi Azikiwe, with the tagline “Second to None”. A slew of other television broadcasts soon followed in succession, including the ‘Broadcasting Company of Nigeria’ (BCNN) in 1962 and the ‘Nigerian Television Service’ (NTS) established by the Federal government that same year. As such, even in the formative years of television media, Nigerian programmes prioritised and served the needs, interests and representation of specific ethno- regional communities.
Despite many national leaders being exposed to theoretical discourses on democracy, and the negative implications of discrimination and colonialism at prestigious universities in England and the United States. Several of Nigeria’s leaders and regional politicians, including the first Prime Minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, were ineffective in applying this. This was because of their personal and conflicting interests, motivations and political aspirations in regional and national positions. As such, political and cultural parameters were demarcated in line with the ethno-cultural priorities and interests of each leader, dually informed by and implicated in the colonial reverberations of ethno- regionalism (Eriksen, 2010). Accordingly, the three regional governments along with the national, had their own individual/ised television and radio broadcasting stations with which they promulgated the partisan and idiosyncratic ambitions of the different political leaders (Ukiwo, 2005). Not only did this ethnic separatism in both its material and media-tised form, dampen any enduring or ephemeral hope
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for a democratisation project, it also in part, cultivated the devastating Nigeria-Biafra Civil War, resulting in mass death and emigration.
While there are difficulties in national unification and, despite its sensitive histories of ethno-regional rivalry looming thick in contemporary Nigeria. Nigeria today, is considered exemplary for its multiculturalism that seemingly “works”, where a multiplicity of different and conflicting identities, affiliations co-exist and are comfortably performed. These different identity configurations reflect the “pick and mix” from the various ethno-cultural and religious heritages that Nigeria is endowed with, which converge to form individual and collective positionalities (Bhabha, 2013; Huchinson and Smith, 1996: pg. 9).
3.3 Nigeria, Colonialism’s Imagining? Nigeria and Colonialism
“Nigeria is a creation of European ambition and rivalries in West Africa”
(Crowder, 1973: p. 21)
3.3.1 Imposition of British Colonialism and the Establishment of Nigeria
Writing about Western European historicism and identities, British historian Emsley (2003: p. 146), maintained that “Europe was an invention of the Europeans to set themselves about from others, and Africans […] did not know their identities as ‘Africans’ until Europeans created the terms, identified the continents and informed their peoples”. While Congolese philosopher Mudimbe, in his postcolonial text ‘The invention of Africa’, critically analyses Africa’s ‘invention’ through Western anthropologist ethnocentrism, colonial epistemologies and ideological systems. Arguing that Africa and communities therein, was established and consolidated through “the domination of physical space, the reformation of native’s minds, and the integration of local economic histories into the Western perspective” (1988: pp. 2, 19). Appropriately, Nigeria, as it is commonly known today, is considered a historical imagining and materialism of British colonial administration. The concept of Nigeria as colonialism’s envisioning, an “imagined community” (Anderson, 1991) that was not always-already, striated, territorialised and ‘there’ but rather assembled “nation by nation” by some collective intentionality, was substantiated by Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, who proclaimed “God did not create Nigeria, the British did” (Onwubiko, 1973: p. 256).
The idea that Nigeria as an imagined community and even its namesake, a conscious invention, is founded on the recommendation of British journalist and commentator of colonial affairs, Flora Shaw, Lady Lugard, (wife of prospective Governor-General of Nigeria, Sir Frederick Lugard), that Nigeria would be an appropriate title for the territories around the Niger coast known as, British protectorates to reflect their collective identity. She writes in an article published in the London Times on 8th January 1987, during the year of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee celebration that: 60
“…the agglomeration of pagan and Mohammedan states which have been brought […] within the confines of a British protectorate. For the “first time in their history, these states need “to be described as an entity by some general name.” (Kwarteng, 2011: p. 273)
As such, contemporary ‘Nigeria’ is the historicised amalgamation of its Northern and Southern regions overseen by Sir Frederick Lugard in 1914 (as aforementioned) (See Figure 4.). The British government’s rationale was, according to Le Roy and Saunders (2006), to pool resources “so that the relatively rich territories of the South could assist their poorer neighbours in the North under the overall British imposition of Colonial Rule” (pg. 199). With this, Nigeria’s ethno-cultural, linguistic and religious diversity today are the makings (and ethno-geographical markings) of British infiltration and colonial determination: “as successive British Emissaries at Lagos sought to advance British motivations and interests” (Kwarteng, 2011: p. 250).
Lugard implemented systemised policies of indirect rule through indigenous-tribal authorities, whose primary responsibilities were revenue collection and other menial and important local activities for the colonial administration. In the impoverished Northern protectorates, inhabited largely by Hausa-Fulani communities, Lugard worked through the traditional chieftaincy and kingship hierarchical systems, who exploited the British as means to retain local power, influence and acquire wealth. As chiefs and kings relinquished accountability for their constituencies in exchange for this self-interested gain; corruption and poverty proliferated. While British favouritism towards Hausa-Fulani Muslims resulted in an unprecedented conversion to Islam, several Muslims saw their Northern, indigenous authorities as mere pawns, exploited by a puppeteering colonial administration (Le Roy and Saunders, 2006) This sentiment is still widespread among contemporary members of Islamist movements concerning Northern leadership (Adeyanju and Oriola, 2011).
Figure 4 ‘Map of Nigeria showing the boundaries of 1914’
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Source: biafarandotorg7
At the same time, an emerging Nigerian-Yoruba intelligentsia who were the recipients and attendees of British, Irish and to a lesser-extent Portuguese, Christian missionary schooling, challenged British imposition in the so-called “rich territories of the South”. The rapid grassroot-uptake of Christianity by Yoruba (and Igbo) communities was largely due to the strategic establishment of local missionary education systems. Nigeria’s colonial administration encouraged conversion to the Christian faith among Southerners, especially Anglicanism, as part of British government’s wider directive to ‘civilise’ African communities. Similarly, it was informed by missionary theologies of salvation and repentance for a seemingly ungodly and idolatrous Africa (Harris, 2006). Christian missionary schools became unadulterated breeding programmes tasked with transforming the intellectual, military, civic and commercial elite into civilised beings, palatable (but never equal to) British standards. These Western, Christian-educated Yoruba, were often promoted by the colonial administration and would eventually be at the helm of Nigeria’s nationalist movement. However, at the forewarning of the Northern Hausa- Fulani authorities, the British forbade Christian missionaries from evangelising there, thus Western education was limited to and exploited by Nigeria’s South. Additionally, this uneven weighting in missionary education resulted in a disproportionate number of Nigeria’s nationalists identifying as Christians (Kwarteng, 2011). As such, communities within Ogun, a state in Southwestern Nigeria, became the first generation of Yoruba literates and intellectuals, and the first recipients of British education in the UK (Aina, 2007: p. 29).
For Nigerian inhabitants, the strength and clout of their ethno-cultural identities, relative to British authoritarianism, determined their access to and exploitation of colonial resources, including commerce, and this enflamed ethno-geographic rivalries. In the relatively wealthy South, Yoruba communities benefited from Western schooling, high literacy rates, experienced economic growth, urbanisation and the emergence of intellectual and skilled middle-class populations. The geographically larger but nonetheless insular North, had on the other hand, extensive agricultural systems, limited access to the intellectual and economic ‘virtues’ of missionary education and poverty of epidemic proportions. As cohesion among the nation’s disparate communities was not a priority or afterthought of the British colonial administration, colonialism left Nigeria profoundly slit; a fragmentation and ethnic distrust that was palatable on the day before Nigeria’s independence in 1960.
Three distinct moments of transnational migration from Nigeria to Britain emerged from this period onward.
7 Available: https://biafrandotorg.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/nigeria-1914.jpg [Accessed: 20/08/2017] 62
3.4 Migration
While, chronologically, Nigeria’s earliest migration is subsumed in historical discourses of 17th century transatlantic slavery, which predate colonialism and which, involved the enslavement, indentured labouring, annihilation, severe persecution and involuntary expulsion of Nigerian’s, from their homeland to what is now the United States of America, the Caribbean and even the UK. (Cohen, 2008). The earliest documented and empirically corroborated instance of ‘voluntary’ migration by Nigerians to Britain, is that of formally-colonised, newly independent students in the late 1950s (Hermione, 2006). This first wave of migration during the period between the 1950s and 1970s – a time when most African countries gained sovereignty, and largely comprised of small numbers of Nigerian elite, intelligentsia, specialist-skilled migrants, and military personnel from various sectors. These communities were among the first black Africa immigrants to come to Britain, and mainly came for brief educational stays under British encouragement, with the intention thereafter, to assume positions and responsibilities in Nigeria left unfilled by the departed colonial administration. Post- independence political instability in Nigeria, such as, the Nigeria-Biafra civil war in 1968 was also a vital determinant for migratory patterns among Nigerian migrants. In fact, the Biafra government sponsored colonial students to study in private and elite British universities (Hermione, 2006).
As Nigeria was colonialised by Britain, the UK was and remains a primarily destination for migrants, as the English language was not a significant barrier given that it was used as the main and official medium of communication by both citizens and the colonial administration. This is different to other immigrant communities such as, Afro-Caribbean’s and South Asians whose transnational activities were motivated employment opportunities. These communities, unlike the educated Nigerians, were strategically recruited by the British government during the post-war years, to fill low-skilled work opportunities, and intended having permanent stay in the UK (Hernandez-Coss and Bunn, 2006). After fulfilling educational and training opportunities abroad, this first set of migrants returned to Nigeria to be part of a new, emerging bourgeois following independence from British colonial rule. However, some stayed permanently following job offers and established their communities primarily in London and, especially the Southern boroughs, as well as, Bristol, Liverpool and Manchester.
The late 1960s/early 1970s, saw a second phase of this first wave of Nigerian immigration, because of the boom in the petroleum oil industry in that country, which afforded many Nigerians financial opportunities to come and study in the UK. Around 70-80% of these migrants remained permanently in the country through marriages. Sanya (2016) notes, unlike those Nigerians that had migrated in later years, “…the first arrivals fared better, often being granted full refugee status, and were better equipped educationally and economically” (p. 1705).
The gendered bias of Britain’s early education system, compounded by the patriarchalism of Nigerian ethno-cultures (and Western Christian faith practices), meant that a disproportionately high number of the student migrant population were male, thus it was primarily men who travelled to Britain for 63
educational reasons. Female Nigerian’s emigrated later to join their significant others with fewer of them arriving independently for educational or training purposes in the medical, nursing or allied health fields which were seemingly easier fields and professions to access, with a guarantee of employment and also because of relatively less discrimination compared to other fields (Sanya, 2016).
In the second migratory wave which occurred during the early 1980s through to the start of the 1990s, there was increase in the numbers of new migrants, although their motivations remained that of education and training (Hernández-Coss and Bunn, 2006). This set of migrants were compromised of a small number of political asylums and refugees, and large numbers of economic migrants, following the economic downtown, popularly dubbed the ‘Oil Doom’ the informal antonym to Nigeria’s ‘Oil Boom’ in the 1970s. Additionally, political tensions caused by military dictatorship in Nigeria ensued causing critical migration numbers to the UK.
Migration in the mid-1990s and onwards, was primarily for education and training opportunities, as has been the case for previous phases, partly due the prestige associated with schooling, graduating and training at European and especially British education establishments (Sanya, 2016: p. 190). This is understandable considering that the former British colonial administration monopolised all businesses in Nigeria and thus Nigerian immigrants valued British education – the legacy of which is still felt in contemporary Nigeria where apart from politicians, company executives, wealthy intelligentsia and the burgeoning middle class, have either graduated from British and European universities or are the recipients of UK specialist-skilled training and still send their children and relatives to study abroad.
This composition of Nigeran migrants are, according to Nwajiuba (2005), the largest in the UK (among all African migrants) and the United States of America. This significant influx of Nigerian’s continued under Labour government in 1997, until 2001 when Tony Blair’s government introduced new visa requirements, restrictions and controls which hitherto did not exist when unprecedented numbers of non-EU populations migrated to Britain. Included in these were Nigerians, many of who were the former colonial students of the first wave and the economic migrants of the second, returning with their children (or to have children) to settle in the UK (Sanya, 2016). As such, as Hernández-Coss and Bunn (2006: p. 3) opine, “[the popular trend among Nigerian immigrants is] “to remain in the UK and become professionals. After a period of stay, some Nigerians become eligible for British citizenship, and often their offspring are British citizens by birth”. As is shown in the graph below (See Figure 5), Nigerians were the largest migrant population among all African groups to the UK in 2008, with almost 130,000 immigrants. Interestingly, we also observe that, unlike the large number of male migrants in the 1960s-1970s (second half of the first wave), there were more female Nigerians emigrating from their home countries, with almost 70,000 compared to 60,000 men. A trend that Sanya (2016) argues is projected to continue in subsequent years, in part due to female and gender-equality advocacy
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campaigning, Nigerian feminist movements, higher educational attainment and employment positions among Yoruba women and delayed marriages.
Figure 5 Graph showing countries of origin of African migrants in the UK (2008)
Source: www2.warwick.ac.uk (in Sanya, (2016): p. 191)
Documentation on Nigerian transnational migration levels is scant in Nigeria, and the data that does exist is inconsistent and unverified. However, increasing pressure by British and European governments and allied migration associations therein, have forced the country to begin compiling this information in their continued attempt to address the worrying levels of human-sex trafficking and undocumented migrants. During the mid-1980s, the Nigerian federal government introduced a nation- wide, anti-emigration media propaganda campaign called “ANDREW” to discourage Nigerian youth, recent graduates and specialist-skilled populations like medical doctors, lawyers, academics and engineers from travelling to the UK and other destinations. Despite their efforts, emigration levels increased. As alluded earlier, for Nigerians emigrating to the UK was emblematic of success, status elitism, compounded by both Nigerian and British-raised returnees who have the financial resources to buy and build houses in gated and exclusive communities for their extended families, and who flaunt the fruits of their British acclimatisation in society (Harris, 2006). In fact, these returnees and those still residing in the UK, are viewed by many as local celebrities. As noted by Ayankojo (2010), transnational migration is synonymous with social recognition and upward mobility among Nigerians. While Adeyanju and Oriola (2012: p. 953), observed that residing in Britain is, for a Nigerian “the best that could happen to an African” as it has become the measure of social class.
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However, recent widespread NGO campaigning regarding human-sex trafficking, exploitation and prostitution in Italy has caused continental Nigerians to re-evaluate their celebration of emigrants. While Nigeria’s 1980s propaganda was unsuccessful in dissuading inhabitants from moving across borders, Carling (2004) contends that, wildly popular transnational Nollywood film ‘Glamour Girls II: The Italian Connection’, prompted an attitudinal shift. Defined as part of the “Africans Abroad” genre, this 1990s production, addressed the illicit and depraved business of international sex trafficking and prostitution, and participated in the construction of stereotypical, largely negative representations of Nigerian settlers. Similarly, negative and sensationalised reporting of African immigrants in the UK in popular tabloids (See Image 3.1 below, for example) circulated on international news and social media platforms have curb the enthusiasm of some Nigerians. As such, the pride that Nigerians once had for emigrants has “gradually been replaced by shame” (Carling, 2004: p. 31).
Image 3.1: London Metro Newspaper Headline, August 2015: ‘African migrants a threat to our way of life’
Source: africanculture.blog
Nonetheless, several young Nigerians are still motivated, and are migrating to the UK either for study or work opportunities and the money they send back home in the form of remittances is an important source of income for their families and wider communities (Adeyanju and Oriola, 2011).
Presently, the children and grandchildren of those Nigerians who migrated to the UK, that is those born and/or raised in the country from a young age, are often conflated with those migrants, who were raised in and who have travelled directly from continental Africa, under the general ethno-racial
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categorisation of ‘black’ or ‘black British’. An official designation which also includes British communities of African/Afro-Caribbean heritage. However, as we have learned from the discussion of the differences in the reasons and motivations for the transnational movements of Nigerian and African-Caribbean migrants; Nigerian migratory experiences and social identifications are vastly different from the latter (Mercer, et al., 2008). While it is important to reinstate that fact that Nigerians were among the millions of Africans who were forcibly uprooted to the Americas, it is equally important to acknowledge that contemporary UK diaspora of slaves brought from Africa to the Caribbean are historically distinguishable from their Nigerian diaspora counterparts, who are in fact descendants of voluntary migration (Cohen, 1997; Ter Haar, 2004).
It is important to note that the elite,1960s post-independent students, grappled with this racial conflation with the ‘West Indians’ (former designation for African-Caribbean communities) by consciously distancing themselves from them. This caused tension between both communities, the legacies of which are still, though to a lesser extent, felt and experienced today (Harris, 2006). During this period Nigerian immigrants had to negotiate an ascribed racial sameness with a seemingly collective ‘black’ race who were all considered the proletariat under-class, with their own self- identifications and ethno-cultural upbringing as wealthy, middle-class, intelligentsia. Their reason for travelling to Britain was for educational and training reasons that would eventually solidify their integration and privileged statuses within middleclass Nigeria upon their return, unlike the African- Caribbean’s who had settled in the UK permanently and who largely occupied menial jobs.
As such, while “both sets of diaspora share similar emotional expression of migration because both groups have experienced a similar sense of marginalization, alienation and racism in the mainstream media and society at large” (Ogunyemi, 2012: pp. 211-212). The incompatibility between how Nigerian’s viewed themselves and how they were viewed by others, meant mediating both a disproportionately white society and their lumped status as “black immigrants” (Harris, 2006: p.36-37; Hall, 1990). Interestingly, this negotiation and incompatibility is discussed in Chapter 5, whereby Nigerian diaspora participants embrace and perform alternative, preferential identities as ‘African- Caribbean’s’ and Jamaicans especially, to distance themselves from negative African representation and to be culturally palatable for their largely white and non-African peers.
3.5 Nigeria(ns) and Development Representations
Nigerians have been the subject of (and subjected to) development representation, in historical and contemporary development and humanitarian African campaigning by British and European NGOs. The Nigeria-Biafra Civil War (1967-1970) provides the earliest exemplary instance that epitomises how Nigeria, communities therein and its diaspora have been the visual foci of the international development frame.
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On the 12th June 1968, contemporaries around the world witnessed the advent of a new, and hitherto unknown, iconography of sub-Saharan Africa: the ‘Biafran babies’. That day, tabloid and broadsheet newspapers exhibited the most sensationalist front pages concerning the Igbo secessionist Republic of Biafra. The British daily newspaper the Daily Mail devoted its front page with a naked kwashiorkor- inflicted infant with the imploring headline ‘Save us’. While, the Daily Mirror devoted its pages to stories and images, including one which showed a painfully malnourished child – again unclothed – with the headline, ‘The boy died only an hour after this picture was taken’ (Harrison, 2013). Similarly, The Sun ran with the capitalised heading ‘Biafra: Where children wait to die’ (See image 3.2 below).
For the first time, large British and international audiences were confronted with horrifying representations of the instantiation of distant suffering of Nigerian/Biafra’s famished children. That evening, the British Independent Television Authority (ITN) broadcasted photographs that political journalist Alan Hart took at Irish priest, Father Kevin Doheny’s missionary station in Nigeria, on its ‘Panorama’ programme. These visual documentations of the humanitarian crisis were the first to air on British television, adding vivid consolidation of the burgeoning rise of newspaper articles emanating from Biafra (Waters, 2004).
As one English observer, at the time, proclaimed in interview:
“This kind of tragedy was new to [television] viewers. Most hadn’t seen a starving child in glorious Technicolor, looking like a matchstick, with a protruding stomach and the reddish- brown hair that signals a slow death from starvation.” (Quoted in Waters, 2004: p.697). Similarly, British journalist in Biafra Fredrick Forsyth, commenting on the influence of Biafra representations, opined:
“Quite suddenly, we’d touched a nerve. Nobody in this country at that time had even seen children looking like that. The last time the Brits had seen anything like that must have been the Belsen [Nazi concentration camp] pictures … The war itself would have never set the Thames on fire, but the pictures of starving children put Biafra on the front page of every British newspaper and from there to newspapers all over the world. People who couldn’t fathom the political realities of the war could easily grasp the wrong in a picture of a child dying of starvation.” (Quoted in De Waal, 1997: p. 74).
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Image 3.2: The Sun, June 12, 1968, pp. 2-3. Reproduced with permission of News Syndication.
Other news stations soon followed. In the ensuing months, Western media feverishly reported about the West African conflict. The print and televised representations of the popularly dubbed “Biafran babies”, anchored “Biafra” in the public consciousnesses of British audiences. So much so, that even the wildly popular children’s television programme Blue Peter reported, in 1968, on the crisis showcasing different images of abdomen-bloated children, and implored viewers to send in wool and cotton for victims (Waters, 2004; Harrison, 2013). As such, at a time when many households were newly introduced to televisions, even children were confronted with the suffering of these Biafran babies, in the intimacy of their living rooms.
In Nigeria, the conflict had entered its second year. Despite Biafra’s concerted determination, the secession had yet to summon international interest. Competing with the Arab-Israeli War, the Vietnamese Tet Offensive, political liberation in Czechoslovakia and, the events of May 1968, Nigeria- Biafra crisis remained marginal in the newspaper pages of politics and international relations. Nonetheless, by mid-1968, this changed exponentially. The reports of correspondents and photojournalists, the fund-and-awareness-raising campaigns of international development and humanitarian organisations, the organising of several religious associations under the umbrella of Joint Church Aid, gave the conflict currency in political and development discourse (Heerten and Moses, 2014). Much like the galvanising of global interest and support amassed by Michael Buerk’s reporting of the 1984 Ethiopian famine on the BBC, many contemporaries in the West, donated money to the relief efforts set up by NGOs such as the Red Cross, Save the Children and Oxfam.
According to Harrison (2013) the motivational frame for many NGOs in the UK was humanitarian. The Nigerian infant – suffering from malnourishment and partially clothed – would be the most effective in maximising financial contributions among audiences. Sensationalist representations of the Biafran 69
children were first “postcolonial archetype of the generic ‘African child’” (Heerten 2017: p.107). that has become the common motif of African representation by development NGOs in Britain today. We see this in the fundraising advertisement below (image 3.3) by ‘United Action for Biafra’, a now defunct (as of 1973) UK charitable organisation, set up jointly in 1969, by the British Red Cross, Oxfam, Christian Aid, the Salvation Army and UNICEF.
Image 3.3: United Action for Nigeria/Biafra, 19th December 1969. Reproduced with permission of News Syndication.
As such, not only had Nigeria become the object of Northern contemplation, it was also a humanitarian concern identified by internationalised representations of human suffering. As Heerten (2017) reminds us, in her reciting of Epictetus’ dictum “it is not deeds that shock humanity, but the words describing them” (pg. 108), events in Nigeria were not just through images but the country and communities therein existed as representation. This is a testament of the power and conscience of development representations as discourses of knowledge-production about Nigeria-ns for spectating publics. As such, while many contemporaries worried about the plight of distant Biafrans in the intimacy of their homes, visual representations transformed Nigeria into a recognisable concept.
Undoubtedly, humanitarian intervention spurred by NGO images saved lives. Yet, it is argued that Biafran representations has had historical and contemporary cultural implications for continental and diaspora Nigerians (Omaka, 2016). In the late1960s, a period in which Nigeria and other African countries become newly independent, Biafra campaigning reduced the complexities of post-colonial politics to images of helplessness, civil unrest, pity and poverty. Whose progression rested not upon its political self-determination, but British intervention, this reinforced the notion that Nigeria lacked the 70
necessary internal diplomacies to address its own issues. The remnants of this development discourse is still felt at the psycho-social level of contemporary Nigeran communities in their daily confrontation of African representation by NGOs in their fundraising advertisements and campaign material (Omaka, 2016).
As such, while Nigeria, since the 1960’s, has remained a relatively marginal status in the print, televised and, now digital, international development’s visual frame. Recent crises of Islamic fundamentalism by terrorist group Boko Haram, in Northern Nigeria, which saw the slaughtering of over 6, 600 in 2014 and the mass abduction of 276 school girls on the night of 14-15th April 2014. As well as, the outbreak of Ebola Virus disease, also in 2014, has seen Nigeria’s re-emergence in the public and NGO consciousness as a country fraught with political and humanitarian concern.
3.6 Conclusion
This chapter provided the historical, ethno-cultural and politico-geographical context of Nigeria. It presented a brief demographic profile of Nigeria and outlined the historical and cultural legacy of colonialism as the initial cause of migration. It has traced motivations for transnational emigration by Nigerians to colonial discourses, ethnic and ethno-geographical inequalities, economic disparities between the West and Africa, and the socio-political and economic aftermath of independence. Aside from Nigeria’s interconnection with British colonialism, one other area that ties Africa’s most populated nation to the United Kingdom is its increasing patterns to England. It is argued that despite the lack and inconsistency of migration data, the United Kingdom is a key destination for, and the largest recipient of Nigeria diaspora communities.
The chapter contextualised these migration patterns through three distinct periods, the first in the 1950s-1970s, largely comprised of formally-colonialised, newly independent students; the second during Nigeria’s post-independent era of the 1980s, and the third reflecting migration of 1990s onwards comprised of returnees, economic migrants, middle-class aspirants and populations driven by the social, economic and political conditions in their home country. These migrants have formed long-established and contemporary Nigerian communities in Britain having had children and grandchildren raised in the country.
The chapter also discussed the emergence of representations of Nigeria that emerged through NGO humanitarian and development imagery during the 1960s Nigeria-Biafra Civil War. It demonstrated how the events of this period, and especially its print and televised coverage in British media, created new iconographies of sub-Saharan Africa which have become the template from which Nigeria is represented in the advertisements and campaigning of contemporary development organisations.
I will now move on to discuss the research’s methodological approach research, including an exploration of the research strategy, the research design, including a discussion on the research
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process, sampling strategies utilised and methods for data collection, and the process undertaken for data analysis and research dissemination.
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CHAPTER 4: Methodology and Methods
4.1 Introduction
I first outline the ontological and epistemological orientation of this research. I then explain the qualitative techniques used, their problems and how these were mitigated. Next, I justify my focus on the UK-based Nigeria diaspora. Finally, I discuss the practicalities of conducting the fieldwork in a way of a reflexive commentary. I also explore some of the ethical dilemmas encountered during the research process.
4.2 Ontological and Epistemological Orientation
According to methodologist Sarantakos (2013), all research is underpinned by philosophical assumptions. At the most fundamental level, philosophical presuppositions include ontology (assumptions about what constitutes reality and its derivation, imploring questions: What is real? and What is it?); epistemology (presuppositions about how we know about that reality and what constitutes acceptable knowledge, asking: What is knowledge?). Lastly methodology, (philosophical assumptions about the research process, that is, the ways of determining how knowledge is acquired). A researcher’s philosophical assumptions about social reality and knowledge production, inform his/her decisions and preferences about what problems or subject areas to research, how to research and understand them, and how to interpret them. Within this framing, it is understood that research must be assessed and contextualised within the theoretical/philosophical determinants that inform it, it is therefore imperative that efforts are made to make this transparent. As discussed in the literature review, Chapter Two, this study is concerned with the relationship between visual representations and audiences, whereby representations are conceived as apparatuses of mediated knowledge for audiences.
Audiences are multiple interpretive communities who actively appropriate meaning in representations in creative and idiosyncratic ways and this conceptualisation is consistent with an ontological assumption which understands that relationality and intersubjectivity constitute reality.
Within this philosophical framing, it is recognised that social realties are provisional, they are produced and reproduced intersubjectivity by, and within, the situationally-driven context of mutually engaged agents (Creswell, 2003). Additionally, as Patomãki and Wright (2000: p. 230) advise, reality as intersubjective and intangible, is highly contingent on structures which are “real and not reducible to the discourses and/or experiences of the agents”. Individuals and communities intersubjectively involved in the construction of social reality are circumscribed, in various and different ways, by these historically-reified structural limitations and therefore, these intersubjectivities are foundationally inequitable. Accordingly, this study is situated within the ontological perspective of an intersubjectively
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produced reality in which individual and community subjectivities and competencies are constituted within structural configurations which, to some extent, shape their social relations (Papilloud, 2017).
Within this context, deriving knowledge about social phenomena necessitates discussions with, or observations of, the subjects whose subjectivities and meaning-making make it legible. It is through the process of assessing a subject’s qualitative state – their personal, individual idiosyncrasies, perspicuity of the lifeworld, and their contextualised experiences and behaviours, that the interconnection between them, in which structural constraints are established, can be studied (Guba and Lincoln, 2005). While, as Checkel (1998) argues, that the structures are materially embodied in form and composition, and thus not singularly or wholly produced by individual subjects, it is the subjectivities implicated within and constituted by those structures, as articulated by subjects, from which knowledge is explicated. Therefore, epistemologically, this research is theoretically orientated by social constructionism and social interpretivism (Wright, 1999).
In terms of epistemology, social constructivism and social interpretivism are interconnected but are slightly differentiated by their respective positions on the construction (or production) and interpretation of the social world by human subjects. Constructionism asserts that ‘truth’ and meaning do not exist “out there” independent of our knowing but are instead co-created intersubjectively by human interactions with the world. Therefore, ‘meaning’ and exploring the realities of individuals is constructed not discovered, “so subjects construct their own meaning in different ways, even in relation to the same phenomenon. Hence, multiple, contradictory but equally valid accounts of the world can exist” (Gray, 2014: p. 20).
In contrast, interpretivism “looks for ‘culturally derived and historically situated interpretations of the social life-world” (Crotty, 1998: 67). This epistemological proposition claims the world is comprehended by the interpretations of people therein, by understanding the meanings of thinking and behaviour of research participants. Social interpretivists assert that humans consider and analyse what they do which in turn allows them to determine and make certain judgments about what it is they would/will say and to whom.
4.3 Qualitative Methodology and Methods
Given that the research is concerned with and, conceptualises the (inter)subjectivities of diaspora audiences of development representations, as knowledge-production, it was important that its methods captured data that was rich in thick description, interpretation and meaning and which was constructed freely by participants themselves. Accordingly, focus group discussions, semi-structured interviews and online-ethnography were chosen to “access [to] people’s ideas, thoughts and memories in their own words” (Reinharz and Chase, 2002: p. 222). The interviewing process of focus group discussions, which in particular, involves asking open-ended questions, less structured forms of talk, reflexivity, and documenting long passages of individual/collective narratives, is sufficiently human centred to allow the production of discourses that are “vividly articulated, negotiated and 74
illustrated” (Kyriakidou, 2015: p. 103). The philosophical foundations and empirical application of a quantitative methodology would have been unsuitable in answering the research questions which are primarily concerned with how, why and with what effects, diaspora audiences are impacted by development representations. This is because, as Gilbert (2008) advises, questionnaires, polls, surveys, computational techniques and other quantitative methods, apply a technicist approach to social life which afford limited responses by participants. As such, in view of the study’s exploratory nature and context-specificity, qualitative methods were considered the most appropriate choice.
Nonetheless, using data derived from qualitative methods is not without criticism. Quantitative methodologists, operating within the pragmatic confines of positivism, caution against the central role that researchers assume with the interpretation process. So too, that data interpretation is necessarily contaminated by their own biases, epistemological interests and posistionalities (Bryman, 2012).
However, others advice that rigour in research need not be compromised by bias; provided that the researcher self-reflexively situates and examines his/her own subjectivities and positionality within the research process. In fact, positivist terms reliability and internal/external validity are irrelevant in qualitative studies, as submitted by Lincoln and Guba (1985). This is because, as aforementioned, qualitative and quantitative methodologies have different ontological and epistemologically assumptions. Instead, they propose alternative constructions of credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability (pg. 12), as criteria by which research should be assessed. In attempt to abate yet yield to intransigent expectations for reliability in research, Wood and Kroger (2000) have recommended an alternative framework (as opposed to replicability) to evaluate reliability in qualitative inquiries. Adopting Riessman (1993) and Lieblich et al., (1998) process of ‘consensual validation’, by which the integrity of qualitative research is judged by the “sharing of one’s views and conclusions” and the degree to which it is intelligible in the “eyes of a community of researchers” (p. 173). Wood and Kroger argue for a reliability that is implicated in and evaluated against the research’s trustworthiness, soundness and the empirical claims it makes.
Trustworthiness is demonstrated in respect to the meticulous and transparent documentation of the research process, in a way that provides a full account of all its facets and phases. This is not to test the research’s replicability rather to understand its claims. In terms of soundness, research is assessed against its grounding in empirical material, theoretical sophistication and the plausibility of its claims (Wood and Kroger, 2000: pp. 169; 171; 174). Reliability is thus determined on the satisfactory adherence to these provisions as judged by all those involved in the research process. To identify, avoid and/or reduce researcher bias, this qualitative research design and epistemological assumption of intersubjectivity in knowledge-production allowed for subject’s narratives including my interpretations of the data to be resent to participants. By doing this, participants as members of the research process, were able to evaluate interpretations of the narratives and referential adequacy. This was accomplished by maintaining contact with several participants and giving them feedback from the raw data in transcriptions and emerging themes. Similarly, a thorough audit trail was kept of the research process, decisions and activities. This involved keeping raw data from audio-taped
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recordings, transcriptions and observational notes and field reflections for cross-checking. Early interview/group transcriptions were reviewed by two supervisors during the PhD supervision process and continuous updates of my research activities were given via email and in supervision. The supervisors also checked for ‘overinterpretations’ of the research findings in their iterative readings of my empirical chapters and cautioned against making authoritative statements ‘for’ and ‘behalf of’ the diaspora participants.
4.4 Sample
Although this research focuses on Nigerian diaspora audiences, the study’s sample comprised of Nigerian and non-Nigerian diaspora participants. This reflected the emergent, or processual nature of qualitative research during data collection and analysis (Onwuegbuzie and Leech, 2007). Taking a more emergent approach to sampling meant that I was able to achieve both breadth and depth in understanding the impact that development representations have on Nigerian audiences. As well as, sufficiently answer each research question, and respond to issues of sampling in online-ethnography. Therefore, I adopted an “emergent or opportunistic” sampling strategy that would allow for the full range and type of subjects necessary to build in “certain characteristics or criteria which help to develop and test theory or argument” (Mason, 2002: p. 124). Moreover, exploit unforeseen opportunities after data collection has been initiated (Patton, 2001: p. 240). In practice, this involved using different samples (and recruitment methods) for the different qualitative methods. During the process of collecting data from the focus group discussions with Nigerian diaspora, for instance, my supervisors advised that I conduct comparative discussions with white British audiences. This was useful in comparing and contrasting the theoretical and empirical realities of diaspora and non- diaspora audiences of development representations, as they emerged thematically in discussions. Similarly, given that representations are as equally important to this research as audiences are, individual interviews were conducted with NGO professionals involved in the production and communication of images.
Purposeful sampling was utilised for the choice of participants in the focus groups so that they sufficiently reflected the epistemological and empirical aims of the research (Clough and Nutbrown, 2012). This theoretical approach to sampling assures the most productive and insightful narratives, based on the researcher’s judgement, compared to random sampling, in which the objective is to collect data that is statistically reliable, valid and representative.
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4.5 Conducting the Research
4.5.1 Planning the Focus Groups
In total, I conducted 9 focus group discussions (See Appendix 1. and 2.) with 41 participants. 7 of these were with UK-based Nigerian diaspora (31 participants), and 2 with a comparison group of white British audiences (10 participants, across all groups). They were conducted during the period between November 2015 and April 2016. Since the study’s purpose, as in all qualitative methodologies, is not the generalisability of the findings to broader populations but rather the exploration of different and multiple interpretations and views as intersubjectively produced by subjects.
The segmentation of focus group members was based on predetermined theoretical propositions, relevant literature and with the greatest variability of individual subjectivities in mind (Gaskell, 2000). This, in regard to diaspora audiences, included participants who were black British of Nigerian origin, who were of first and second generation. In the context of this study, first generation diaspora refers to those who were born or schooled in the UK, having arrived as children; and second generation, to the children of the first generation. Although the inclusion of Nigerian-raised immigrants would have provided an interesting and intersectional comparison, especially how different national and cultural discourses are implicated in the audiences’ interpretation of development representations. Such a decision would have further complicated its analysis by adding additional features, affecting its depth and quality given its necessary limits. Furthermore, as Adjetey (2010: p. 19), advises, there are huge differences between continental Nigerian communities and their “British-assimilated” diaspora, one being that Nigerian’s raised in the UK have become accustomed to a certain type of Western- televised, mediated representation of Africa, that is “unbeknown and unwitnessed for the diaspora’s cousins back home”. As such, it was among these audience members of British Nigerian heritage that efforts were made to ensure the greatest variability of perspectives through the sampling process.
Furthermore, participants had to live in London and specifically Peckham, in the Southern borough. This was the primary location from which Nigeria diaspora would be accessed and recruited. While white British participants, had to come from other surrounding London boroughs, for the sake of logistical convenience when recruiting, planning and conducing discussions.
Participants were accessed in three ways. Most of the focus groups were assembled through a personal and social network of friends, ex-colleagues and acquaintances. The idea was that one person would be the primary point of contact, who would either refer potential diaspora who he thought might be interested in the research. Or arrange a meeting with his own personal network, and further contacts would be secured thereafter through snowball sampling (Denscombe 2010). As such, personal relationships were a “primary vehicle for eliciting findings and insights” (Amit, 2000: p. 2).
In other instances, people were contacted through gatekeepers in the religious and faith-based organisations and community groups they belong to, where I was allowed to announce my research to their members. For example, during the reading of the Sunday bulletin at a Roman Catholic church, 77
I was permitted to introduce my research to the whole congregation from the pulpit. While, at a Nigerian-majority Islamic centre I was only allowed to socialise with the attendants to recruit potential participants. In these examples, there was no prior key contact with the participants rather they were accessed through visits and participation in these organisations. Finally, some participants were accessed by me simply talking about my research at different social settings (for example, two members in Group 5 were recommended by an elderly man upon hearing about my research at a barber shop). Irrespective of the recruitment process, all those selected to participate in the study conformed to the criteria of segmentation as outlined.
4.5.2 Conducting the Focus Groups
Focus groups as a material-gathering methodology were used to answer the first two research questions:
1. How are development representations shaping diaspora knowledge and perceptions of their country of origin?
2. How are development representations shaping how and why diaspora engage with development?
The discussions were conducted in locations suggested by participants themselves, mainly pre- scheduled study spaces in community libraries, but also settings that they would normally socialise, such as a community centre. Other locations included participant’ homes and, on two occasions a rent-to-use conference room in a serviced office building (i.e. Focus Group 8 and 9).
The discussions started with an open conversation about participants’ ethnocultural backgrounds, as a way for group members to get to know one another and for me to ascertain the different and multiple ways that Nigerian diaspora self-identify. This proved insightful for understanding the connections and disconnections that diaspora have with Nigeria, in their readings of representations, as discussions developed. This introduction was followed with the presentation of 8 individual photographs from popular development organisations (see Appendix 8). The sampling of the visual representations was more random than purposeful, as it included images considered to be representative of those used by NGOs in their televised, print and digital fund-and-awareness-raising campaigns.
As such, these images were chosen for the group discussions as they showed different themes of development and humanitarian issues of poverty and inequality commonly showcased by development organisations. They were also contemporary representations that are typical of the different kinds of development imageries used by NGOs in their marketing, fund-and-awareness raising campaigns. These images are publicly available for and made readily accessible by different types of audiences, diaspora and otherwise, via the various multi-media communication platforms
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upon which NGOs operate. This included internet-based images of print and televised advertisements by NGOs as well as, their online campaign images, that are found and publicly available on the official websites and social media accounts (Instagram, Facebook, etc) of popular, publicly-recognised development organisations. As such, these images were judged to be useful examples to include in group discussions to address the thesis’s central questions to examine the empirical realities of diaspora audiences.
Participants were encouraged to openly critique the representations and, were asked a series of questions exploring, for example, their opinions about the kind of messages they felt they conveyed about Africa. This allowed the probing of broader conversations, providing interesting information about diaspora identities and other subjectivities in relation to development representations and their complex relationships with their country of origin.
The semi-structured nature of the group discussions was highly important. Having a prompt sheet allowed me to cover the same broad topics with all members (See Appendix 3.) The semi-structured element of the focus groups afforded discussants the opportunity to roam, concentrate on, and indicate what other issues they considered important (Creswell, 2008; Johnson and Longhurst, 2010: p. 103; Gaskell, 2000). This informality, amid the artificiality of the social situation, nonetheless allowed me to communicate with participants in ways that were unrestricted, more natural and, conversational, and which encouraged the production of authentic and spontaneous narratives (Johnson and Longhurst 2010). As the discussions developed, I incorporated additional, more specific questions, and developed my moderating style. This was made possible given that qualitative methodologies allow for an iterative and emergent social inquiry. Within this frame, I used information gathered from other group discussions conducted earlier in the research process to modify and/or devise new questions for subsequent groups and, where the opportunity arose, with earlier discussants (Kitzinger, 1994). While I had no specified target for the number of group participants I wanted, I continued conducting group discussions until there were no new emergent themes. As such, the selection strategy was informed by ‘theoretical saturation’ (Morgan, 1998).
Some issues did arise during the fieldwork process. Planning and conducting the group discussions proved to be a much less straightforward process than anticipated. The most challenging part of the process was persuading people to participate and ensuring that they showed up as expected for the scheduled day and time. People who were less familiar with focus groups or, the idea of research participation for that matter, were somewhat hesitant about participating, as they assumed that the discussions would assess their intellectual capacity. A few of them were even surprised that their perspectives would be of any empirical value and expressed these anxieties at the start of the discussions. One mature participant even asked whether he should read any preparatory material in advance to ensure his contributions were meaningful and translated well among discussants. While two other participants admitted that they had borrowed a few books from the local library ahead of
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time to sound intelligent (Group 6). Constant reassurance was given before conducting the discussions that I was interested in their individual perspectives as opposed to evaluating their knowledge. It was equally important to have detailed discussions and negotiations before the start of the discussions to allow for specificity and clarity in relation to the hopes and expectations of participants to prevent misunderstandings, confusion and frustration for all involved.
All attempts were made to avoid asking ‘leading questions’ (Bryman and Bell, 2011), by sticking closely to the set of questions in the interview schedule, and when straying from these, I often encouraged discussants to elaborate on their responses rather than asking checklist-style questions which elicit specific, yes/no replies. Similarly, as Mason (2006: p. 64) advises, I was cognisant that ‘‘personal accounts are not the excavation of facts” and that there may be some variability in peoples’ ability and inclination to articulate authentic opinions (Creswell, 2008). As such, I acknowledged at some points during the research process that perhaps participants could have provided information that they thought I (or their group) wanted to hear and, or which fit the study’s hypotheses, rather than information that authentically reflected their own thoughts; known respectively as, the ‘Hawthorne effect’ and ‘Social desirability’ (Creswell, 2008). To mitigate these effects, I tried not to ask coaxing questions that solicited bias responses but rather let issues emerge spontaneously from discussions. Additionally, I used triangulation from one-to-one interviews with non-diaspora, and professional informants and online-ethnography to produce knowledge that was not wholly contingent upon diaspora testimony.
Similarly, on a few occasions I experienced some methodological difficulties with knowing how to best stimulate group discussions that were free, open and critical, and without individual members feeling the need to self-censor or set aside their own personal beliefs and perspectives by adopting and/or conforming to the dominant and seemingly popular opinions of the rest of the group. This phenomenon is called ‘group-think’ and is, according to Janis (1982), a well-known socio- psychological and technical limitation of focus group discussions as research methodology. Mason (2006: p. 66) and Bryman and Bell (2011) advise, that groupthink occurs when the desire for an unchallenged and seemingly self-evident group consensus predominates peoples so called “common- sense desire” to present alternative interpretations, or to critique a different, opposing position, or express an unpopular opinion. To address these issues of ‘group think’ and to mitigate future instances, it was important that I re-framed questions in new and different ways; framed disagreement as a necessary, helpful characteristic of the group discussions; as well as, foster open, critical discussion, encouraging discussants to contribute their thoughts, beliefs and ideologies. In this way, perceived pressure toward (or illusion of) unanimity in group thinking and self-censorship was reduced and monitored. Moreover, this curtailed group members from arriving at premature conclusions or judgments.
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The group discussions lasted anywhere from 40 minutes to over one hour, with one discussion lasting almost 3 hours (2hours and 51 minutes recorded on tape).
4.6 Interviewing Participants
Semi-structured Interviews were employed for ‘cross-method triangulation’ (Clough and Nutbrown 2012) that is, they were used as a different and complementary methodology for the group discussions, to allow for the clarification and enrichment of the diaspora data. Interviews as data collection methods, were also used for ‘between-subject triangulation’ (Clough and Nutbrown 2012) in combination with online-ethnography, where several different African diaspora communities, online, were asked “questions about the same thing […] on the phenomenon of interest – of learning” (Newing, 2011: p. 115). With the latter example, utilised to answer the third and final research question which is discussed further in section 4.7, ‘online ethnography’.
In total, I conducted 39 interviews (See Appendix 4. and 5.) with 39 participants. 29 of these were with online diaspora communities, 7 were conducted with NGO representatives, 2 with African diaspora organisations and 1 follow-up interview with a focus group participant (Focus Group 2).
Given this study’s focus on both development representations and diaspora audiences, it was important that I interviewed fundraising, campaigning and marketing professionals working within UK- based NGOs to examine and understand how and to what extent, their representational and communication practices are implicated in diaspora perceptions/knowledge of and, engagement with Nigeria. As producers, cosignatories and disseminators of development representations, interviewing these NGO representatives, provided an additional data source to triangulate with my group discussions. Identifying and making contact with NGOs was a relatively quick and straightforward process which involved an internet search of popular, recognisable development/charitable organisations within the UK, such as Save the Children and Oxfam. Such organisations were chosen because of their wide-ranging advertising and campaigning visibility and presence in mainstream contemporary media (television, print, digital) and public consciousness. Using the contact information provided on their official websites, and social media accounts, I sent emails, telephoned and messaged key individuals and their respective departments via social media. During preliminary email exchanges, telephone calls and social media correspondences, I was able to explain to participants that I was hoping to speak to them regarding their representations/communication productions and audiences.
Conversely, identifying African diaspora organisations was less-straightforward and more random. I was more au fait with the recognisable and mainstream NGOs than I was with the seemingly less- popular and niche diaspora-led development organisations/associations in the UK. My research started with a broad internet scope of these organisations, by typing internet searches such as, ‘UK African Charities’ and ‘Diaspora development organisations’ in Google. Through this internet 81
research, I was able to gain an overall impression of the activities and development practices carried out by UK African diaspora organisations. Unlike the more popular Save the Children or Oxfam for example, diaspora organisations proved few and far between and predominantly operated in the fields of community engagement, capacity building, entrepreneurship and remittances. It was difficult to find such organisations that worked in fund/awareness-raising and whose visual campaigning and communications included representations similar to those used by the more popular NGOs, of which this research is ultimately interested in. Nonetheless, the organisations that were selected and who agreed to take part in the research proved invaluable in their contribution in understanding diaspora audiences of development discourse and practice and how visual representations specifically, as a form of discourse and practice have potential and/or real implications for these communities.
Before conducting the interviews, I developed a rough structure for the interview which included three main ‘areas of questioning’ relating to the roles and responsibilities of NGO professionals; a description/explanation of the types of representations they use in their communications and; an exploration of their thoughts on current development representations and their impact on diaspora engagement and perceptions/knowledge of Africa. These themes and their corresponding questions were based on the “sensitising concepts” (Blumer, 1954) that derived from the literature review and which informed the study’s research questions that it set out to answer. They provided a general reference and guideline through which the empirical material was collected; that is, as Miller and Brewer (2003) advises, they were signposts in exploring the relationship between development representations and diaspora realities from the perspectives of the producers of NGO African representation and others in the development field. NGO professionals were asked a series of questions such as “whether and if so, how they construe the importance of diaspora audiences in their work” and, whether they had considered the potential and or, actual impact that their visual campaigning have on identifying groups among African diaspora communities (See Appendix 6).
There were some challenges common to interviewing techniques that I encountered during my fieldwork. The first was the length of the interview prompt, which attempted to cover a wide variety of fundamental issues for discussion. After the first two interviews and learning from lessons gleaned from the group discussions, I reworked my strategy by reducing the number of questions, reorganising/prioritising their sequential appearance and allowing more time for the conversation to flow naturally, such that participants’ perspectives were recorded. Secondly, I had issues with maintaining control over the direction of the conversation without interrupting the flow with hastily interjections and anxious babble to ensure all topic areas were answered and to fill seemingly awkward silences. With practice, I was able to manoeuvre the interviews direction towards the boundaries of the study’s aims and objectives. One way this was achieved was by realising that the interviews were not some sort of time-limited competition, and by also staying silent, patient and ‘self- relegating’ to the position of listener (Newman, 1982; Rubin and Rubin, 2012).
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Due to ongoing scheduling conflicts, staff availability, mutual in/convenience and practicalities of arranging appropriate space for the interview, the interviews were carried out via Skype conference calls and telephone and lasted anywhere between 30 minutes to an hour on average.
4.7 Online Ethnography
Online/internet ethnography was used to address the third and last research question. That is:
3. How are diaspora audiences producing, shaping and, or challenging development representations and their content?
I observed innumerable individual diaspora commentaries, ongoing and archived group discussions, and visual image postings on the microblogging and image-sharing, social networking site, Twitter. In addition to this, I identified and conducted formal interviews with 28 Twitter-using content producers, (See Appendix 4), whose visual and textual discourses I used as examples in this research. I also reviewed audio-visual content on the video-hosting/sharing website YouTube and interviewed 1 prominent Nigerian diaspora YouTuber (See Appendix 4).
At the outset of my research, I intended to visit African diaspora-led community projects and workshops as well as, observe (and potentially participate in) meetings with diaspora development professionals whose work concern representations. That is to say, I was interested in those working in fundraising, visual campaigning and communication productions and who are actively and or, intellectually engaged in challenging, reworking and informing development representations. The idea was that by observing such individuals and organisations, not only would I understand how developments representations feature and are implicated in their everyday practices, but also the multiplicity of ways in which diaspora professionals are resisting and responding to them. However, this proved less straight-forward than anticipated. As discussed in section 4.6, identifying African diaspora-led development organisations that use visual representations like those employed by the more mainstream, popular NGOs like Oxfam and Save the Children, in their campaigning was difficult. Similarly, through extensive internet research, I could not find any diaspora organisations, associations or, local/independent community projects in the UK, who were actively involved in and, or challenging development representations, or other kinds of African representation in the media. The organisations I came across informed me that they did not use visual representations in their work apart from those which showed their company/brand logo or photographs annual events that they had held, exhibited on their official website. Equally, they were unaware of any diaspora organisations or community projects that did.
However, I stumbled across an online article in the ‘Working in Development’ section of the Guardian newspaper (below, image 4.1), entitled:
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“The Africa the media never shows you – in pictures: The hashtag #TheAfricaTheMediaNeverShowsYou goes viral on Twitter as young Africans rush to share positive pictures of the continent”
Image 4.1: “The Africa the media never shows you – in pictures” (the Guardian, 2015)
The article detailed how continental and diaspora Africans in the UK were uploading and sharing positive, alternative visual representations of Africa and their specific countries of origin online via Twitter, under the diaspora-driven hashtag initiative #TheAfricaTheMediaNeverShowsYou. With the aim being, to challenge and reconceptualise popular, largely negative African representation in mainstream media and by NGOs. As such, my interest turned towards exploring how online diaspora communities are using internet-based communication technologies such as social networking platforms to challenge, shape and/or inform development representations. Given that Twitter and its user-generated content is publicly available, I was given unrestricted access to what was at the time, in June 2015, over 42,000 textual and visual content uploaded and shared by online diaspora users. Chronicling everything from industrialised cities to tourist attractions, to local cuisine and representations of African children/childhood; I observed how diaspora communities leveraged and appropriated social media to inform and customise their own self-curated ‘online exhibitions’ of Africa as reimagined from their individual perspectives and experiences. So too, whether used for simple pontification, social commentary or information-sharing, I also reviewed how online diaspora ‘talked about’, critiqued and problematised media and development representations and with whom these discussions emerged.
While it was relatively quick and straightforward to access diaspora user-generated, social media data. Identifying Nigerians to interview among the thousands of online diaspora communities was a near impossible task. Given the challenges of digging, sifting and sorting through innumerable Twitter- users and with no software technology/in-built mechanism to assist this, I randomly selected all types of African diaspora users for interviewing. Although, where possible, if a Twitter-user identified 84
themselves as Nigerian and/or had a Nigerian sur/username in the bio description of their twitter account, they were automatically selected for interviewing. Although the latter was treated with caution given that names themselves are not always reliable indicators of one’s etho-cultural heritage. Moreover, most Twitter-users are known to use pseudonyms for public profiles.
Non-traditional participant information sheets and consent permission forms are common for internet- based ethnographic methodologies (Machin, 2002). Xun and Reynolds (2010) ‘direct messaged’ requests for participant consent into online group chatboxs. While Kozinets (2015) recommends emailing, or sending personal and group messages to seek consent. Following this precedent, and having my own Twitter account, I sent a personal message to the address box for all selected diaspora inviting them for an interview. The message included information about my study, its objectives as well as, the particularities of consent and participation. This process was both quick and simple, especially given that multiple users received the message simultaneously, as facilitated by Twitter’s ‘multiple messaging’ feature. All interviews with those participants who agreed to take part in the research, were conducted via Skype or video-call and lasted anywhere between 15 minutes to half an hour. Questions asked during the interviews explored diaspora involvement in the Twitter campaign and the decisions and reasons informing their choice of uploaded/shared visual representation, this included for example; “How did you find out about #TheAfricaTheMediaNeverShowsYou and what made you join?” and “Tell me about your message/image, why did you post it? What, if anything, did/do you want to get across from this posting” (See Appendix 7).
In addition to Twitter, I observed diaspora-made audio-visual content, on YouTube, interviewing one notable Nigerian content-producer in particular, who had over 24,000 subscribers watching his weekly-uploaded YouTube show, called ‘What’s Up Africa’. A satirical news show, which among many different things, showcases, critiques and problematises African representation in its plurality, by highlighting Africa’s complexities, struggles and ‘everyday ordinariness’ to demystify and resist its mainstream media and NGO coverage. Identifying this diaspora participant was relatively simple as I was already aware of his work having come across a few of his videos on the ‘What’s Trending’ section of Youtube’s homepage. Recruiting him for interview, was equally uncomplicated, and involved similar strategies employed for Twitter-using diaspora. Invitations to participate in the study were sent to the Youtuber’s publicly accessible social media and email contact addresses. The interview was conducted via Skype, lasted under 2 hours and involved tailored questions concerning a select few exemplar videos, motivations behind his visual representation choices, as well as, those geared towards his largely African diaspora subscription base and how, if anything this informs and shapes his video content.
Supplementing online-ethnography with additional interviews provided another source of data to triangulate, which was highly important because it afforded opportunities to build on, interrogate and ‘contextualise’ my observations. Specifically, the interviews with online diaspora allowed me to 85
graduate from exploring what diaspora audiences ‘say’ that they ‘know, think or feel’ about development representations (as addressed in the first two research questions via group discussions) to understanding what diaspora ‘do’ or how they ‘act’ on the back of this. As such, exploring the decisions, motivations and reasonings behind diaspora involvement in #TheAfricaTheMediaNeverShowsYou for instance, and the different kinds of representations diaspora chose to contribute in the support of the campaign, allowed me to understand how development representations have become meaningful and constituted in diaspora online practices, identities and everyday lives. So too, internet-based ethnography, as an unobtrusive strategy, allowed me to observe discourses, behaviours and textual expressions as they were intersubjectively-produced naturally, and in ‘real time’ by, among and between interconnected online diaspora communities. As such, observations (and interviews) complemented the ontological and epistemological philosophies of qualitative methodologies within which this study is inscribed.
Overall, I found that online-ethnography combined with interviews made a vital contribution to this research in contextualising the unique, complex and insightful empirical realities of diaspora- development representation relationships. However, as with the other data-gathering methods employed in this research, some issues arose during the ‘data usage’ of online-ethnography. These issues primarily concerned the manoeuvring and negotiation of ethical considerations, when quoting the online commentaries and visual data of diaspora social media users. I was initially confused about consent, or lack thereof, in publishing user-generated social media content in my thesis. Without getting into the continued conflicting discourse on public and private information, I consulted the copyright policies and privacy legislation of individual social networking websites and media companies to assess whether I could freely use Twitter and YouTube information (public information), or whether they required privacy authentications from individual content producers. This helped me to delineate consent seeking strategies and the publishing of diaspora information. Additionally, I sought the permission of individual participants in view of quoting them or using their images or videos, in keeping with good ethical practice (Bryman and Bell, 2011).
4.8 Ethical Considerations
Safeguarding participants from harm during and after the research process is critical. In preparation for the fieldwork, I completed an ethical approval application form within which detailed plan of this study was outlined. The research plan was approved by the University of Manchester Postgraduate Research Committee of the School of Environment, Education and Development. Appropriately, the research was conducted in keeping with the University’s ethics guidelines for research involving human participants. As is recommended, all transcriptions were anonymised and appropriate ethical procedures were adhered to; participant information sheets and consent forms were presented and explained to participants prior to the focus group discussions and interviews. The information sheet and consent form were written in an accessible, jargon-free language for a non-academic audience,
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to help participants make informed decisions regarding research participation. Oral consent was sought at the beginning of every group discussion, individual interview and even for informal discussions. The right to withdraw consent at any stage during the research process was made explicit (Oliver, 2010).
A full risk assessment was conducted and approved by the University committee ahead of the fieldwork. All participants agreed for their discussions and interviews to be audio-recorded and had no further questions regarding anonymity. Interestingly, some online diaspora participants preferred acknowledgment to anonymisation for their textual and visual postings, in either situation, informed consent was sought for data-usage. Sensitivity was upheld in the use of names, and attempts were made to edit personal information and locations in the audit trail to avoid identification through contextual data (Oliver, 2010). Similarly, a verbal memorandum of understanding (confidentiality agreement), was co-produced with group discussants prior to their discussions which established firm group rules around confidentiality (and its limitations) to encourage participants to keep discussions confidential ‘in perpetuity’. Although I acknowledge that even with such an agreement, it is virtually impossible to enforce once group discussions have completed (Ritchie and Lewis, 2003). While this potentiality is beyond my control, I nonetheless thought it was necessary for good ethical practice, to cover all areas regarding confidentiality and participants right for it. So too, because I was mindful that not all group discussants knew each other, and thus personal/sensitive information could potentially be shared among strangers.
While development representations, may not, on the surface, be considered highly-sensitive, or potentially harmful to research participants, I was cognisant that presenting and discussing images of human suffering, impoverishment and environmental catastrophe, could conjure negative, emotional/psychological responses of distress and/or embarrassment among group discussants. While in fact this was not the case, considering this possibility, I monitored any overt signs of distress in participants as they viewed and talked about the representations. In addition, I prepared a resource sheet listing support services in Peckham (e.g. Community General Practice, free counselling services, The Samaritans etc.) for participants to access should they feel the need to access professional, specialist support. Fortunately, this list was not called upon at any point during group discussions or the research process.
In compliance with the Data Protection Act (1998) and University’s own formal guidelines for the processing, management and storage of identifiable information; the original data files (audio-taped recordings, transcriptions, and consent forms, etc.) were stored securely on a password encrypted USB flash drive, personal laptop and on the University’s H drive. Equally, participants were afforded the freedom to access their information, this was important considering the fastidiousness with which researchers broach ethical considerations in terms of data interpretation (Clifford and Marcus, 1986) and ‘crisis of representation’ (Denzin and Lincoln, 2005), particularly for those participants who have received assurances of confidentiality. 87
4.8.1 Positionality and Research(er) Reflexivity
A researcher’s identity or positionality can shape and influence the research process and outcome. This is not only because of their positioning within social structures which frame and inform their own interpretations of empirical information (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992) but also, because the researcher’s identity affects how participants perceive, respond to and engage with them (Creswell, 2008). Within this frame, we understand that issues of identity and positionality are necessarily implicated in researcher-participant reciprocal relationships which, as Kim (2014) argues, “enables and inhibits particular kinds of insight” (p. 24). At all times, during the research process, I was conscious of how aspects of my social and ethno-cultural identifications could potentially affect the different ways in which my participants responded to me in both group discussions, interviews and even in informal conversations. Similarly, how my identity could inform the analytical lens through which I interpreted data.
My positionality and socialisation as a twenty-something year-old, seemingly middle-class, male academic of Yoruba-Nigerian heritage, significantly shaped and informed how I accessed and encountered the field. Included in this are the forms and levels of connection, or lack thereof, with the individuals and communities I met during the research process. I was mindful, and in some instances forced to acknowledge and reckon with, how my positionality relative to those I interviewed, spoke informally with, as well as, the different locations/settings I visited, could affect the empirical material gathered and its interpretation.
On the one hand, there were several notable benefits from occupying an ‘insider position’, as a Nigerian diaspora. In the main, my participants perceived me as, what is best described, in the following oxymoronic designation: an ‘unrecognisable friend’ or perhaps a ‘familiar stranger’. This was realised in participants’ behaviours towards, and cultural references of endearment for me. While there were some participants that were already known to me, for those that were not, they seemed to welcome me with open arms, and without hesitation or suspicion. Some would often describe me as, ‘Ọrẹ ọkunrin’ which is the Nigerian-Yoruba masculine term, for ‘my friend’, or ‘arakunrin lati iya miiran’ meaning ‘brother from another mother’. While others, especially the younger generation, used the expressions ‘fam’ and ‘bredrin’ which are Afro-Caribbean influenced, urbanised London colloquialisms, for ‘family’ and ‘brother’ respectively. Suffice to say, accessing, establishing positive initial impressions and forging a rapport with members of Nigerian communities, was relatively quick, straightforward and required no real ‘grafting’. These relationships were forged by and implicated within shared racial and ethnocultural positionalities, which afforded opportunities to talk with diaspora participants unrestrictedly. So too, I had some local insider knowledge and appreciation for different diaspora practices, behaviours, and the complex subtleties of the ‘how’s’ and ‘whys’ behind certain things said in interviews and group discussions. As such, as Geertz (2009) advises, it is only through a reciprocity of shared cultural identifications, and/or the full immersion of the researcher into the
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lived-realities of the studied population, “could the former authentically grasp the structures of signification of the latter” (p. 9).
While my identity, at times, privileged a certain ability to recognise the often hidden, connotative meaning of diaspora behaviours and verbal expressions, as well as, clarify ambivalences and contradictions that might seem incomprehensible to a non-Nigerian/diaspora ‘outsider’. My honorary membership with these communities and first-hand familiarisation, blinded some participants towards taken-for-granted, common-sense assumptions about me as a fellow Nigerian and my ‘Nigerian- ness’. This was realised in instances within group discussions where some participants found it unnecessary to expound on statements that where seemingly commonplace, ‘already known’ or ‘a given’ among Nigerians or in continental Africa. Similarly, other discussants made rhetorical statements towards me such as, “You know how we Nigerians/Africans are?” or the seemingly self- evident: “There’s nothing more to say about it…, we all intuitively feel it, I’m sure you feel it, don’t you?”. As such, it was instances and comments like this that forced me to confront and critically reflect on some of the complications and epistemological difficulties with being an ‘insider’, especially the potential blurring of the researcher-participant demarcation. Reflexivity on my position within and among these communities allowed me to address these issues. In practice, this involved asking participants to elaborate on their statements and common-sense assumptions.
While most participants perceived and treated me as an unrecognisable friend imbued with ‘insider knowledge’, not everyone considered me to be ‘one of them’ in all respect. Being Nigerian was not, in and of itself, a sufficient eligibility criterion for which one received full membership, it only afforded partial and provisional “insider moments” (May, 2014: p. 117) with the studied population. There were other contextual considerations that differentiated and, at times, alienated me, from my participants and the other Nigerians that I encountered in the field. This included my advanced education and perceived social class/economic status. However, despite these ‘alienating’ experiences, which were few and far between relative to the more positive engagements, overall, I feel my insider positionalities contributed to the strength and legitimacy of the empirical material. Moreover, it encouraged participants to feel comfortable to express their subjectivities in relation to development representations.
4.9 Data Recording and Analysis
Adopting Burgess’s (1984) methodological approach to note-taking in qualitative research, I recorded handwritten methodological and analytical field notes in a reflective journal (a sample of which is shown below (See image 4.2.). This detailed everything from simple pontification and critical commentary on group discussions and individual interviews, including their non-verbal behaviours and expressions, to reflexive notes on difficulties encountered during the research process. Also, how I addressed or mitigated them, as well as, issues of positionality and how these shaped the way I
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accessed and encountered the field. This recording of data was not just a reflective activity but also confessional, allowing me to fully understand the reciprocity between the researcher and the field. These notes were scribbled down initially, often with an uncensored, loose, and hastily-written structure, and/or digitally-recorded in short voice-clips, on my personal dictaphone. They were then elaborated on, through reflection and the application of theory, at the end of the day. All interviews, group discussions and some informal conversations were transcribed and, where necessary, translated from Yoruba and Nigerian Pidgin English (a few phrases) to English. While note-taking via reflective journal was useful in documenting things that were thought-provoking and perplexing, official audio-recordings of interviews/discussions allowed for careful listening and repetition. However, not all the information recorded was relevant to the study, instead my interest and selection of material was informed by what was considered pertinent to the overall research questions, the study’s aims and objectives, and which reflected the empirical realities of participants as interpreted in relation to development representations and diaspora audiences.
Image 4.2: Reflective Journal Sample
While it might appear as though there is some step-by-step, sequential ordering in terms of, gathering and then analysing empirical material, qualitative data analysis is an interconnected, processual and iterative endeavour. I will always remember my supervisor’s comment upon receiving my first focus discussion transcription, during the formative stages of the fieldwork: “I take it you’ve already began analysing what they have said?” don’t wait ‘till the end, data analysis begins now…, at the very start”. As such, travelling and shifting among different locales (Manchester, South East London) and settings (Religious, faith-based organisations, community libraries in Peckham; the Royal Geographical Society; participant’s homes; internet cafes and the ‘Arthur Lewis Building’ at the University of Manchester), changed, and reframed original questions and the study’s phenomenological focus and
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path. I was introduced to new interviewees, different and conflicting knowledge emerged, and research plans were complicated by situations beyond my control. As such, the research process and empirical material gathered is not insulated by the individual researcher and his/her solipsistic experiences, rather it is impressionable and intersubjectively re-negotiated by several competing environmental forces and situations (Bryman, 2012).
No qualitative computer software was used for the data analysis. All interpretive and theoretical coding was performed manually and in some cases with Microsoft Office software, in which empirical material was stored, retrieved and effectively managed.
The data analysis was carried out inductively, even though concepts and theorisations were consulted before (and during) the research process. These functioned as “sensitising concepts” (Blumer, 1954), gleaned from the literature review, through which the research questions were formulated, and which provided generalised references through which the empirical data was collected and interpreted (Bryman, 2012). These theoretical concepts “were refined but not reified” (Alakija, 2016: p. 21), to reflect the subtleties and complexities of diaspora realities, and to remain loyal to the study’s epistemological and methodological ambitions to understand and interpret diaspora perceptions, ideas and discourses of meaning-making (Miller and Brewer 2003). Using a qualitative data analysis coding technique called ‘phenomenological reduction’ (Hycner, 1983), empirical material was analysed for themes in which data were sorted and coded according its guidelines. According to Hyncer (1983: p. 281), Creswell (2007) and Paley (2016), phenomenological reduction applications necessitate the analyst to, as much as possible, suspend (or “bracket”) their presuppositions about the interviewed participant’s world. “It means using the matrices of that person’s world-view to understand that meaning of what was said”, as opposed to finding statements that link to the analyst’s own expectations, experiences and empirical priorities. In practice, this involved the operationalising of material through three typologies: description, analysis and interpretation. To do this, it is advised to undertake verbatim transcription of interview/discussion recordings; while “bracketing” my presuppositions as much as possible; re-listening to the interviews/discussions in their entirety several times; followed by deriving meaning from sentences, and coding thematic commonalities (and differences); and finally linking this to research questions and broader theoretical/conceptual themes.
I first coded for diaspora perceptions and understandings of their country of origin which identified themes of “helplessness”, “primitivism” and “rurality” (see Chapter 5) but also that diaspora identities are both hybrid and essentialised. I then coded for diaspora engagement with their country of origin, which revealed themes of connection and disconnection contextualised through issues such as perceived racism of NGO African representation, as well as, factors concerning diaspora ethno- religious practices (see Chapter 6). Lastly, I coded for how diaspora challenge and inform development representations, which demonstrated, among many things, different visual and textual discourses employed by online diaspora to showcase Africa through themes such as, “childhood” “industrialised cities” and “tourism” (see Chapter 7). The latter coding was supplemented by 91
interviews with online diaspora to contextualise my observations of thematic patterns interpreted in diaspora visual representations, and to gain a deeper, more critical understand of the “why’s” and meaning-making behind their choice of images and as well as, online commentary.
The empirical material was also analysed, in the context of postcolonial theory, the study’s conceptual framing. Applying Said’s (1995) ‘Othering’ concept I looked for thematic discourses of ‘difference’ as realised in diaspora assumptions, allusions to, and narrations of ‘Self and Other’ and ‘us’/West and ‘them’/non-West/African, within diaspora perceptions and knowledge of Nigeria and African generally.
As discussed in section 4.9, handwritten analytical field notes in a reflective journal detailing everything from simple pontification and critical commentary on focus group discussions, and individual interviews, formed an important and large part of the data analysis – a process which was processual and emergent and not something that took part at the end of the fieldwork. Sumathi and Sivanandam (2006) argue that data analysis involves a search for patterns of and within data. This form of “thematic coding” (Gibson and Brown, 2009) was used when analysing my empirical material. As Cope (200: p. 440) describes, coding is “assigning interpretative tags to the text based on themes relevant to the research”. Given the enormity of the qualitative data gathered from interviews and group discussions which were long, exhaustive pages of detailed, rich description, it was first important for me to allocate the time and space to familiarise myself with all this information. This involved me being fully immersed and actively engaged in the data by firstly listening to the recordings (and in some cases re-listening), transcribing the audio-taped conversations, and then reading (and re-reading) the transcripts. It was at this stage that initial thoughts and ideas were jotted down on a notepad (and later transferred to specific “note files” in Microsoft Word). It was important for me to gain a comprehensive understanding of the content that is, the things that people ‘were saying’ in the data to familiarise myself with the breadth and depth of the verbal content. Albeit laborious and time- consuming, I opted to produce a rigorous and thorough “orthographic” transcription that is, a verbatim (word-for-word) account of all verbal data, this was felt necessary to provide an account of the empirical information that reflected its ‘true’ original nature. I also shared my audio-taped recordings, complete transcriptions and jotted notes of initial ideas with my supervisors via email and in supervisory meetings for cross-checking. This crucial introductory stage provided the foundation upon which the subsequent analysis followed.
Once I had read (re-read) and became familiar with the empirical material, I turn my attention to identifying preliminary codes from the data, this involved me producing a list of what was in the data (extracts of the data, i.e., sentences, specific words, phrases and issues etc) that appeared interesting and meaningful and which may form the basis of repeated patterns (themes) across all data collected. I first coded for the different and contradictory ways that diaspora participants spoke about how they view and understand Nigeria in relation to development representations. I then coded for the different thoughts, ideas and opinions that diaspora had regarding how representations
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affected how they connected with their country of origin. Lastly, using the textual and visual material gathered from online diaspora as well as, interview data for these participants, I coded for the different ways that diaspora not only talked about how they challenged and informed their own representations but also, I reviewed the variety of images and commentary by these participants assigning interpretive tags to this material based on their content.
As the coding was done manually, I first coded the material by writing notes in the margins of individually printed transcriptions and used different coloured highlighter pens to indicate potential patterns. Using a word processor – Microsoft Word, I then identified the codes, and matched them up with data extracts from individual transcriptions that best demonstrated that code by copying and pasting the text into separate files within which each code was separated.
The next stage of my data analysis process involved an interpretative analysis of the collated codes. It was at this point that I refocused my analysis at the broader level of themes and not just the codes themselves. In practice, this involved sorting, combing and splitting all the different codes into potential ‘main’ or ‘overarching’ themes, and collating all the relevant transcript extracts within the identified themes. It was useful to write the title of each code down on separate pieces of paper with a brief description (a few sentences) about what should be included, so that issues identified in the data could be sorted in their appropriate places. This iterative exercise allowed me to take a step back from the data and play around with organising it into potential theme piles. This exercise also allowed me to start thinking critically about the relationships between codes, main overarching themes and sub-themes within them. For example, in Section 5.4 ‘Homogenous and Undifferentiated’ I demonstrate how some diaspora group discussants viewed Nigeria and communities therein, as largely homogenous and undifferentiated, while this was a main overarching theme, there were also two related sub-themes within it. Those sub-themes showed that diaspora perceptions of homogeneity and similarity in their country of origin was spoken about (and realised) in two distinct ways one being about rurality (see. 5.4.1) and the other about assumptions about geographical and cultural sameness between Nigeria and the African continent (see. 5.4.2).
Once potential themes and subthemes were identified, I refined and defined them and provided themes names and clear working definitions that best reflected the spirit of each theme in a way that was concise and punchy. I shared these themes with my supervisors via email and in supervisory meetings who checked for ‘overinterpretations’ of data and to ensure that data within the themes cohered together meaningfully while being clear and identifiably distinct from one another. This important given that coding data and identifying themes could go on ad infinitum and that there could be overlaps between themes. By grouping together empirical material which were similar to each other under themes I was able to structure answers to the research questions. These findings are the themes informing the three empirical chapters that follow.
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4.10 Conclusion
This chapter has outlined why the research design was appropriate for answering the research questions which had been developed within a specific theoretical framing. My research design employed qualitative methodologies which I have argued was appropriate for the ontological and epistemological grounds upon which this research is informed, as well as, the ‘exploratory’ nature of the research questions. I also provided justifications for why Nigerian diaspora audiences were an appropriate empirical focus. I demonstrated how my methodological choices were made with a reflexive understanding of their limitations and what actions were taken to address these. Overall this study was designed to ensure methodological rigour and the validity of empirical data. This chapter has also discussed the practicalities of conducting the fieldwork in a way of a reflexive commentary. It gave a detailed account and reflected on some of the challenges experienced during data collection, as well as issues of ethics and positionality.
This chapter has set the premise for the subsequent empirical chapters examining Nigerian audience’ relationships with development representations. The first of which, Chapter 5, examines diaspora perceptions of, and knowledge about Nigeria.
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CHAPTER 5: Development representations and diaspora knowledge and perceptions of their place of origin
“What is ‘out there’ is, in part, constituted by how it is represented”
(Hall, 1992b: p. 14)
5.1 Introduction Drawing on focus group discussions with UK-based Nigerians, this chapter addresses the first research question of, how development representations impact how diaspora audiences view and understand their place of origin. The chapter is divided into seven sections. Following this introduction, section two argues that in their critique of NGO representations, diaspora participants tend to view Nigeria and, Africa generally as helpless. Section three will demonstrate that ideas of primitivism in Africa are common in how diaspora understand Nigeria and communities therein. The fourth section, highlights how some diaspora view and understand their place of origin as being homogenise and undifferentiated. This is understood in the context of diaspora perceptions which frame Nigeria as largely rural and which conflate the country with the whole of Africa. Following this section, the chapter then shows how some diaspora with personal life experiences with, and exposures to their pace of origin, have alternative, more nuanced perceptions of Nigeria. In section six, the chapter demonstrates how issues of race and identity are significant to and implicated in diaspora interpretations of development representations. Indeed, it also includes a discussion on the two comparison groups of white British participants. Lastly, in section seven, a conclusion is provided for the chapter.
5.2 Helplessness A recurring theme among diaspora respondents is that they felt representations showed Africa and communities therein as helpless and that this has influenced their perceptions of helplessness in their place of origin. It was commonly heard by diaspora group members for example, that the sample images and similar others that they had viewed in the media, made them think about Nigeria and Africa generally, as helpless, as they often focus on human suffering, deprivation and hunger within the continent. For some of these individuals, images of this kind and their interpretations of them, were part of their already-existing impressions of Africa as being helpless. These impressions, as diaspora comments will show have, to some extent been shaped by representations like those used in this research.
Responding to images presented in the focus group and with reference to image (5.1) below by the charity WaterAid, one participant stated the following, for example:
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Image 5.1: WaterAid ‘Malawian Crisis’ (2016) “Just look at these images, look how mucky the courtyard is in this picture, just full of swill, dirt and plastic bottles, it’s an eye-sore, just awful, who would intentionally live like this? You see it’s images like this that have made me think about Nigeria, the whole of Africa the way I do …as somewhere where there’s very little that people have, or that they can do by themselves to change their situation. They need help and desperately so, so that they can ultimately help themselves if that makes any sense?
(Male 20, FG7) While 26-year-old Ifeoma8 stated: “With these images they show me nothing more than unadulterated suffering, it’s plain and simple everyone can see it, we all have two eyes and a working brain, that’s Nigeria for you isn’t it? These images are a carbon-copy of how I think about Nigeria in my mind. Just sheer desperation, that is what they [images] tell us on the television, what we know to be true, you know? I think of gaunt children in Lagos somewhere with their skeletal bodies, hungry not much of a life or future. Children with hardly any food to eat, just I don’t know …scraps of whatever they’ve managed to salvage from the ground. I mean look at the whole Ebola crisis thing in Nigeria that spread like wildfire, those children were walking dead, many did die. Just thinking about these things does Nigeria strike any of you guys [addressing group members] as being able to help itself? Nope, I think not. I mean how can you not think about Nigeria, think about Africa in this way? I know I can’t it’s virtually impossible, illogical even.” (Female, FG 6)
There are interesting points raised in this interview material some of which reflect the conceptual/theoretical discussions in the literature review especially the idea that visual representations are powerful cultural productions constituted within meaning that shape the subjects and the worlds of which they speak. That said, we understand from Ifeoma’s imaginings and sample
8 Participant names have been changed to preserve anonymity 96
image-interpretations of suffering, malnourishment and crisis in Nigeria that development representations play an important part in her current perceptions of Nigeria as helpless.
Not only is there a corroboration between what Ifeoma thinks about Nigeria and what she sees in the images but also, that her perceptions are substantiated by these images which for her, seemingly document the unequivocal truth and realities of African helplessness. This provides an inroad for understanding Ifeoma’s interpretation of African helplessness as conveyed by the representations and the credence that she affords them. This is made more acute by the fact that the sample images appear to mirror Ifeoma’s mental impressions of Nigeria as helpless.
The participant’s comments also introduce an implicit evaluative dimension – a directive of some sort, of what is considered rational or appropriate in how Nigeria/Africa is understood and, at the same time attempts to engage others in this kind of construal. Ifeoma’s rhetorical questions: “that’s Nigeria for you, isn’t it?” and “how can you not think about Africa in this way? are indicative of this attempt. ‘Helplessness’ is thus not presented as the subjective interpretation of this individual participant but rather an evaluation about Africa that is assumed self-evident and commonsensical by and for all diaspora. As such, these comments are situated in earlier discussions on Gramsci (1971) and Hall (1980) who argued that representations are particularly vulnerable for being read as natural and beyond question, to such an extent that their content is assumed common-sense.
Similar sentiments were shared by another group member. In his response to Ifeoma’s rhetorical questions as well as his analysis of the images, 19-year-old Ezekiel commented:
“Without question, you’re completely right ... I see the same type of things about Nigeria from these images as you do. When I look at these images they show me that Africa is poor and it needs help and I know this because they are literally showing how Africa is with dying kids, without food, dirty living conditions…you know unclean water. If Africa didn’t need help, images like these wouldn’t really exist. All these images give me the impression in my minds’ eye that Africa is shockingly helpless …like it needs help straight away so that things can improve.”
(Male, FG6)
Likewise, referencing the image (5.2) below by the development organisation Concern Worldwide, 42- year-old Stephanie opined:
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Image 5.2: Concern Worldwide, ‘Free Children from hunger’ Appeal (2015)
“This charity image is prime suspect numero uno, in that it tells us without question that Africa is in dire need of help, it’s written all over it. I challenge anyone to not think that this African child doesn’t need help in the form of nutrition, food and clothing perhaps, look how lifeless, how helpless he or she looks and there’s plenty more kids like that littered in Africa. This is your quintessential ‘give only two pound a month’ fundraising image or the ‘all Fatima wants is an education or a future’ type of image. These types of images tell us that Africa is helpless and gotten itself in a rut.”
(Female, FG3)
Again, as demonstrated in Ezekiel and Stephanie’s interviews, when they review development representations they understand Africa and their place of origin in the context of poverty and helplessness. Both commentaries show that for these individuals, their interpretations of helplessness are influenced by the pictorial displays of African privation as material evidence of a captured truth. Their statements revisit discussions about the apparent ‘truth claim’ of photographic productions – of visual representations, as highly credible sources of information that are factual and which necessarily document the ‘up-to-minute’ instantiation of world situations. As such, in these participant comments, we see that they owe much of their perceptions of Africa/Nigeria as helpless to what is discernible at the cursory level examination of these images. These comments are not isolated but are shared by other participants who equally have an Africa as helpless perception, as evidenced unequivocally, according to them, by these representations.
This is demonstrated in the following excepts:
“How can you argue with photographs aren’t they giving us facts? These images here on this table are hard-concrete evidence that Africa is at a point where it needs support, just look at the people they can’t pull themselves out of their situation.” 98
(Female 23, FG1)
While another participant commented:
“They’re [sample images] clearly not lying they confirm what I already knew …helpless people, helpless Africa these images wouldn’t be put out there if they weren’t true.” (Male 26, FG4) Equally, 32-year-old Akin stated:
“They [sample images] exist to legitimatise how bad things really are out there, Nigeria is just full of poor and helpless communities, large communities of people who are defenceless, these images are shining light on what is occurring out there”
(Male 27, FG7)
Diaspora interpretations of helplessness in Nigeria/Africa also appear to be informed by perceived differences within the images between the Western/British ‘us’ and the non-Western/African ‘them’. This is evident in Stephanie’s observations, who said that:
“When you look at all these different images they show you that Africa is without doubt a helpless and vulnerable continent because let’s be honest they portray Africa as the stark opposite of the UK, Africa is the UK’s worse nightmare.…Even the Victorian Dickensian era of England with all its slumps, sanitation issues and rats was still better than what Africa is and has been for donkey years. In these images, you just see doom and gloom, dumpsites, dirty water, unkempt children all the things that we have the luxury of avoiding here in the UK, things that are not typically present or experienced here …they’re complete opposites, they couldn’t be further apart from each other.” (Female 42, FG3)
This interview excerpt demonstrates that for this individual her interpretations of helplessness in Africa are not just informed by the representations themselves but also by her contrasting the specificities of African privation (e.g. dumpsites, unkempt children etc) as depicted in these images, against her understanding of how and what Britain is. As such, it is Stephanie’s comparison between the two, in specific and simplistic ways that informs perceived differences between a relatively helpless African ‘them’ and a seemingly independent British ‘us’. This perception of difference is compounded by the lens through which Stephanie talks about what she sees in these representations, that is, a lens of deficiency, of what is lacking or ‘bad’ about Africa in a way that she does not for Britain.
Similar assertions are found in other diaspora commentaries, as shown below:
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“It’s blatantly obvious what these images are showing, they are saying that Africa is the British dystopia, it’s less impressive nemesis [laughter]. I know that Nigeria is quite a needy country because these images show Africa hasn’t got much of anything really, they’re just getting by day-by-day. But we [Britain] can live our lives to the fullest they [Africa] can’t. Over here in this country we’re not helpless like Africa there’s always a support system or safety net that stops us from being like Africa. These images show that Africa doesn’t have this privilege like we do.” (Female 29, FG4)
“If Nigeria could help itself the way we [Britain] can then we wouldn’t have these charity images showing them as weak and in need of help. We don’t have images like these for the UK as we have everything and more, our issues are different we have first world problems.” (Male 24, FG2)
While Akin, commented:
“We are truly spoiled here in England compared to Nigeria...what tells me definitively that Africa is helpless is that when I look at these pictures it’s like a game of spot the difference between England and Nigeria [laughter] like for instance, you’d never see wafer-thin kids, raggedy clothes, people living off the land or muddied drinking water...makeshift houses in England, but these images here show that this is the case for Africa. This just goes to show who’s poor and who rich, who’s needs help and who’s got all its shit together.”
(Male 32, FG6)
Again, we understand from these quotes that diaspora interpretations of African helplessness in their critique of development representations are implicated within difference. Much like Stephanie, these individuals contextualise image portrayals of helplessness by describing and checklisting what is absent in and ‘wrong’ with Africa in these representations. Set against their knowledge of what is present within and ‘good’ about Britain. It appears that by pointing out these differences it makes more visible the dichotomy between Africa and Britain in diaspora analyses of images, strengthening their interpretations of African helplessness.
Diaspora interpretations of helplessness in representations through their depictions of difference, reflect historical discourses of colonialism whereby Africa is perceived as fundamentally different and inferior to non-African, Western places. This is substantiated in the series of quotes below:
“These types of images are constant reminders that it is unfathomable, stupid even for me to think that Nigeria can simply survive or function without financial support and the kind hearts of the British public. Nothing about these images say that Africa can afford to simply turn up its nose to British help. We have everything in this country that they don’t necessarily have.” (Female 43, FG3)
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“African survival is in the hands of British communities, it’s like Britain is their lifeline, their support machine and without their help Africa and people over there will just deteriorate into nothing, this message is pretty clear in these pictures.” (Male 24, FG6) “These charity images give me the impression that without the involvement and monetary support of British people Africa is a goner.” (Female 22, FG1)
“They are [these images] showing that Africa desperately needs England on their side it needs them to open their wallets, England has the ability to do that unlike them.” (Male 20, FG7)
In these interpretations, participants reference African helplessness and Africa(ns)’ dependence on British support. It appears that for these diaspora individuals, there is an understanding in their analyses of representations, that Africa requires external intervention, the foreign involvement of Britain for poverty alleviation. With Britain – the West, interpreted as some sort of remedial solution for African privation, invites a dimension of western heroism. This framing is problematic, as it re- produces polarities of difference, whereby Africa is perceived as and consigned to a character of servitude, who is agentless and without internal and adequate diplomacies (Shizha and Abdi, 2014). In contrast, non-African Britain, is assumed the resourceful and benevolent good-doer, potential saviours with the discretionary power to reduce the burden of African poverty (Shizha and Abdi, 2014).
According to postcolonial literature, these interpretations of difference frame Africa/Nigeria as lacking self-determination, in that they are perceived as having no active and meaningful contribution to its own survival. They also centralise Africa into a set of deficiencies, that are assumed to be internal, pathological and thus, solutions must be outsourced from a seemingly capable West (McEwan, 2009 p. 114). As such, these perceptions of difference in diaspora critique of representations, necessarily invites comparison, by which Africa/Nigeria is what Britain is not, and it is this binary opposition that feeds into colonial discourses of difference.
Some participants included an analysis of children in their critique of these representations. These diaspora individuals often invoke or refer to the use of children as representatives of Africa(ns). An observation acknowledged in a discussion between three group members, from which an extract is cited below:
Male 32, – “Just take a quick scan at all these images here on the table and you’ll notice something …” Female 31, - “…and what’s that?” Male 32, - “A lot of them have kids as part of their fundraising issue or campaign …
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Male 20, - “Ah yes, …but that’s hardly surprising.” Male 32 – “True. Whether they’re [children] plastered in the foreground or lurking somewhere in the corner or the background. We know what these images are telling us…they’re asking us to sympathise with Africa as you would with kids. It’s like were being told to see Africa as if they are the most vulnerable people….and, I don’t know about you guys but kids are the most vulnerable humans on earth because they can’t really do much for themselves, can they?” Female 31, - “Um-hum, I agree. These images are what I see on telly all the time, they’re really sly because they display Africa as the dying kids, and the reason why I used air quotes for ‘as’ is because these images are not showing an Africa with dying kids but they are themselves the dying kids. I’m not losing the plot here [laughter] but is true, ...Nigeria is the begging child, is the weak child, is the helpless child.” Male 20, “and bish bash bosh that’s Africa for you in a nutshell [laughter]…just some kid hanging on its mum’s dry breast [laughter]” Female 31, “Yes [laughter] that’s another way of saying it [laughter]…in your millennial remixed way [laughter].
(FG7)
Similar observations are made by 43-year-old Oliver, when he said: “These pictures are hinting to the fact that children are the face of Africa, they are the walking, talking, breathing Africa…so, if these children are sad, crying, knocking on deaths door or whatever else that they’re suffering with …then best believe that Africa is going through the same hell.” (FG5)
As observed in diaspora commentary, they critique these representations for conflating Africa and African privation with children and their perceived vulnerability, in a way that infantilises the continent and communities therein. For these individuals, their interpretations of African helplessness in representations run parallel with their use of children as representatives of, or an idiom for Africa itself. Children, who in their analysis, are presented in images as being just as helpless and vulnerable as the continent they reside in. As such, Africa and children are interpreted by diaspora as being indistinguishable, as one and the same thing in these representations.
Diaspora references to children in their critique of representations showing Africa as helpless reflect a colonial discourse whereby Africa is infantilised. Within this framing, historical metaphors are made for Africa as childlike, as being consigned to a state of perpetual toddlerhood in need of intervention and guidance (Manzo, 2008). This infantilisation, projects Africa as fundamentally different by its perceived vulnerability, helplessness and inferiority. By infantilisation, I also gesture towards the paternalism that undergird postcolonial criticism of Africa as helpless, as the ‘basket case’ that depends on Western heroism (Shizha and Abdi, 2014). Such knowledge promulgates solutions for African helplessness informed by a Westocentric lens, whereby a seemingly mature adult Britain, acts in loco parentis (as a parent) for an immature, childlike Africa (Manzo, 2008).
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5.3 Primitivism
The previous section has shown that some diaspora felt representations showed Africa as helpless and that this influences their perceptions of helplessness in Nigeria.
Some diaspora said that representations show Africa as primitive while in the same vein perceive their country as such. One participant, 27-year-old Simon, demonstrates this in his critique of representations, with reference to the image (5.3) below:
Image 5.3: Oxfam (2012)
“Some of these pictures, like this one here [picks up image] the one with the hut, I kid you not this is basically a replica of the type of pictures that Comic Relief use in their Red Nose day fundraising programme thing…there’s always a picture of a hut family year in year out. Seeing this picture here with this tribal family…if they are a family? And their straw hut for a house and they don’t even have shoes on, they’re bare foot, the picture is basically saying that Africa is tribal or like full of native people you know? People who are how do I say? Not really of our time, as in the present time, the time that we are living in, but are still living like I don’t know…Africa’s version of the dark ages”
He further explained how these representations shaped his own perceptions of Nigeria:
“If I’m honest with you because of these types of pictures not only these ones here on the table, but similar other ones on telly, it’s hard for me to imagine Africa, Nigeria even with electricity, refrigerators…running water in quick supply, or having all the mod cons that we have here in the plenty. It’s hard for me to imagine Nigeria as up-to-date, like we are here…I look at these pictures and think yep that’s Nigeria for you.”
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(Male, FG7) Similar observations were shared by other participants, as shown in the following comments below: “They [the images] show Africa as kinda backward…that it has simple people living there that aren’t too bothered or fussed about what it means to be you know? Modern or forward thinking, or maybe that even if they wanted to they couldn’t, because well, how can they? They live there and not here. Here [Britain] we’re decades ahead of them, they [the images] make me think that Nigeria is probably like this…like it might have people with no shoes, not fully-clothed, probably foraging for some type of strange bush meat or offal as their local delicacy, you know? [laughter].
(Male 24, FG6)
“I think that these images of Africa show it as a place that is still at a stage that other places have moved past a long time ago, it shows Africa as underdeveloped. With these types of images, I can’t help but wonder whether Nigeria follows suit, I have images in my mind of Nigerian people, it’s kinda extreme but ...Nigerian people drinking from cow udders or hunting for strange forest creatures or living in straw huts, people with stretched earlobes and lips. I’ve seen stuff on the telly that show Africa like this.” (Female 22, FG1)
“Quite simply they are depicting Africa as very different to the UK…not modern but very old, still native, still tribal, very old fashioned. This is not too dissimilar to how I envision Nigeria, I see a country that is still doing or having things that are obsolete in wealthier, advanced countries like England or America. We’re more civilised and technologically spoiled here, I imagine the opposite for Africa ..like mobile phones, no internet or poor internet connection if they do have” (Female 36, FG3) While 29-year-old Quentin, said:
“Africa is shown as backward in these images, definitely not part of the twenty first century because if it was then it wouldn’t look so dire, so blah...there’s nothing exciting or interesting there just people living old-fashioned lives like African cavemen…fetching for water, using firewood for cooking, hunting for fish, things like that, things we haven’t done here in Britain for donkey years. People with facial markings made by improvised knives, wearing loin cloths [laughter]. This is what Nigeria is to me in my mind.” (Male, FG5)
Within diaspora commentaries there is a recurring theme, whether this is in their critique of representations or their personal imaginings, and that is, the perception that Africa/Nigeria and communities therein is primitive. This is demonstrated in their visual descriptions and evocations of indigeneity and tribalism in Africa. By this I mean, diaspora interviewees imagine as well as critique representations, for showing Africa as a place with makeshift straw housing and traditional settings and with communities who are naked if not partially. These communities, who are often referred to as ‘tribal’, ‘native’ and ‘simple’ by diaspora as shown in their excerpts, are perceived by them to have
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survival methods, lifestyles and practices that are seemingly out of sync with contemporary societies of non-African, Western places. As such, there is an explicit and generalised perception of backwardness, of primitivism in Africa that is dually evident in diaspora thoughts about their place of origin as well as their assessments of images that show it as such.
Once again, these findings speak to the potency of development representations as potential and actual interpolators of knowledge that appear as universal truths. This is reiterated in other diaspora comments such as:
“The pictures are like microscopes because they’re giving us a proper view, a sharpened view of what it’s really like over there and how they’re not modern yet. The pictures depict Africa living in the past, as being somewhat backward but that’s their way of life I guess, as this is what the pictures have recorded. Thinking otherwise is kinda hard, when these pictures have already done the work for you, if that makes sense?” (Female 31, FG7)
Additionally, the findings are replete with colonial discourses of difference – of ‘Othering’. This is shown in diaspora perceptions of Africa/Nigeria as being technologically void or inferior, and lacking basic amenities and commodities such as mobile phones, internet connection and running water. As well as, the assumption that Africa is an out-dated place with people who, as one participant describes, have “facial markings made with improvised knives” (FG5). While others imagined communities with “stretched earlobes and lips” (FG1) and people with “weird hairstyles” who partake in “high-jumping dancing” (FG7). This diaspora imagining of Africa/Nigeria and their communities, mark it as being distinctly different, as socially and culturally backwards in their minds. This difference is accentuated in instances where diaspora, as shown in their comments, juxtapose their perceptions of Africa with a seemingly up-to-date and progressive Britain.
Such ideas provide a symbolic or imaginary capital for diaspora to confine and define Africa by a bygone era, a distinct historical past that fixes it. This imposed time warp denies their place of origin a historical and cultural pedigree (Dogra, 2012). It also, by implication, assumes it is unreceptive or unwilling to change or adopt new ideas and if so, not at a pace that is as fast, or as energetic as an ever-evolving West (Dogra, 2012). This sentiment is shared in the following comments:
“As I said before I look at these images and what comes to mind is the thought that Africa is about simple quiet living, it has people who are you know? Simple in what they do, how they work and live, people who don’t much care about all the bells and whistles of what it means to be modern and forward thinking, you know? Just thinking ahead for the future like the UK. But even if they wanted to be all modern and developed they’ve got a long long long way to go because they are from Africa.” (Male 24, FG6)
“It’s like the libra scales I find it hard to imagine Africa can balance out with England because it’s far behind in the race, it’s still stuck in way back when, this is what I see when I think of 105
Africa and when I see these images…it’s [Africa] still concerned with a more tribe-ish type of life.”
(Female 29, FG4)
“I think that Africa is still at a stage other places have long moved past. In my mind’s eye Africa is still very much Tarzan and Jane, it’s still holding on to the Flintstones period [laughter] I know it sounds funny but I’m being honest that’s what I see in my head, that’s what automatically pops up.”
(Female 58, FG3)
We see in these examples, Africa in diaspora imagination, exists in a conceptual world where it is solidly anchored in an always-already state that is perceived as a prolongation of the past. Similarly, it is Africa’s assumed disinclination or lack of ‘know how’ for change and progression that appears to confirm its primitivism. Such perceptions magnify perceived cultural separatism between African and non-African, Western places by conjuring colonial discourses of Africa as failing, unlike Britain, to climb the necessary cultural evolutionary steps towards enlightenment (Ziai, 2011). As such, diaspora perceptions reproduce categories of distinction between a seemingly backward, and culturally- stagnant Africa and an enlightened and culturally dynamic Britain – the West.
5.4 Homogenous and Undifferentiated The previous section showed that some diaspora simultaneously view and understand Nigeria and communities therein as primitive while also critiquing representations for showing it as such. This section shows that, when viewing the representations other interviewees imagined their place of origin in overgeneralised and simplistic ways. This is realised in two main ways. Some diaspora think about Nigeria as being overwhelming rural, while others have perceptions which conflate Nigeria with and, see it as, indistinguishable from continental Africa.
5.4.1 Territorialised Rurality Diaspora interviewees reported that when they viewed representations of Africa they imagined Nigeria as place, environment and communities therein, as largely rural. These perceptions assume and reflect a ‘territorialised rurality’ in Nigeria. That is, an overgeneralised imagining of their place of origin as a distinct locale, a place or even a constellation of places that is overwhelming rural. These were often expressed as vague articulations of somewhat folkloristic and idealised interpretations of rural settings. These primarily took form as vast, open natural landscapes and other assumed paraphernalia of the African terrain such as, forestry, trees, bush, costal swamps, desserts and wildlife.
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This is reflected in the following commentaries: “When I think about Nigeria what comes to mind from these types of pictures are empty green and beige spaces…you know? Intimidating jungles with huge trees but also dusty and sandy dessert land, with shrubs…and clear beautiful skies…Just a lot of natural, unspoiled earth, you know? Just the typical African countryside, a lot of greenery, like what you see in those WaterAid adverts, there’s always a backdrop of land, trees and deserted areas, it’s just open, rural land really. Very different to over here [in Britain] we’re more metropolitan” (Female 36, FG3)
Similarly, “I’d say these pictures here are illustrations of what I see in my own mind, they are a dot-to- dot spitting image of what I imagine Nigeria to be like. Like for me, okay …I get this feeling, this idea that Nigeria has a rustic, what’s the word? Um, rural feel to it, you know? I think of tall grass, thick bushes, and that kind of muddy, clay-ish ground that’s orangey in colour. I think of trees of course, and streams of water.” (Female 31, FG6)
While another participant, in his statement-cum-question, commented: “When you look at images of Africa, whether they are actually these ones here, or the ones in the charity adverts on telly, they all make me think ... I instantly think of …um, well definitely trees, a lot of trees and wooded places. I think of…I get the impression that Nigeria might be all about grass and barren land? With mountainous hill tops? Yeah, that’s what I see.”
(Male 29, FG5)
Diaspora perceptions assume an inherent rurality in Nigeria. A rurality, that is almost always defined by interpretations of nature or, an abundantly nature-filled environment. Some participants mentioned how their ‘rural as nature’ perceptions reflect images of Africa that they have seen in the media. This observation was substantiated by comments received in response to the image (5.4) below, which was used as part of Oxfam’s (2012) ‘Food for All’ campaign.
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Image 5.4: Oxfam (2012) ‘Food For all’ Campaign.
The campaign, Oxfam’s apparent response to curtail Africa’s negative association with poverty, is comprised of three representations, of which the above is one, depicting African landscapes. Images of these landscapes sit behind captions which, in this case, implore audiences to acknowledge Africa’s “Epic Landscapes” rather than its hunger. While it would appear a well-intended effort by Oxfam to offer a counternarrative to popular and largely negative African representation, this only bolstered diaspora perceptions of rurality in Nigeria. As is evident in the following statements:
“…You see it’s images like these of Africa, like I was talking about before …telling us and making us think that, well …, maybe Nigeria is also like this? Just all forestry, sky and hill, you know? Just this rural enclave, a big old space of all-natural things. This Oxfam image is nothing new or ground breaking to me to be honest…okay, well, there’s no starving child that’s new I’ll give them that, but we already knew Africa is all like this, this is the same backdrop in our minds. What I see in this image is what’s already planted in my brain.” (Male 23, FG1)
Sharing similar thoughts, 29-year-old Karen mentioned: “That’s how I kinda envisioned Nigeria anyway, full of nature and open land, this vast countryside. The only difference is that it’s [the image] a bird’s-eye view of rural Africa and crying kids are noticeably absent in the shot, apart from that I’d say it pretty much sums up what I imagine Nigeria as. They [the images] make you think this way.” (Female FG4)
While another participant, applying her perceptions of Africa as rural to Nigeria, said:
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“This is the Africa I know, the one I see in films and adverts, just green sweeps of land and rural scenery so ...whether this is naïve on my part or not, in my mind I just copy and paste it on my view of what Nigeria might be …what I’ve always thought Nigeria was for the longest” (Female 31, FG7)
It is this ‘copying-and-pasting’ as described by the last participant, the imaginative superimposition by diaspora of already-existing representations of Africa on to their own imaginings of Nigeria, that makes rurality therein appear salient and memorable in their mind. Diaspora imaginings of nature and ‘naturalness’ existed alongside perceptions of a rural social life, a life, as one put it, “who live with and off these things” (FG2). As such, this territorialised rurality was extended to communities living within the ‘rural’.
“The people over there live among all this nature, they live in this huge countryside of Nigeria, they’re use to all this land and open sky.” (Female 23, FG2)
“I imagine the Nigerians work, eat and play surrounded by nothing but green space, vegetation and soil just a natural delight. I think they just breathe all that air in, I don’t blame them if I lived in a rural place like Nigeria I’d soak it in too, I’d make the most of my time there.” (Male 19, FG6)
This was further extended to perceptions of a primarily agrarian environment with “hut-filled villagers” (FG6), as well as depictions of livestock and rural development activities. 20-year-old, Olaleyi for example, described how images of Africa often made him think about rurality in Nigeria as:
“…barren land that is dry and cracked, chickens gone wild, running in panic [laughter] goats, […] and villagers with farming tools ploughing their land and harvesting crop, um…women breeding cattle for their meat and milk, or pounding maize or some type of grainy food with those huge stick things, I don’t know what they’re called …they’ve got babies…the women wrapped them behind on their backs while they pound away to kingdom come [laughter]. Um…and…yeah…children fetching water like in those adverts with buckets on their heads…or like collecting cocoa pods for chocolate back here [Britain], mangos or whatever fruit from the trees to try and make-ends-meet.” (Male, FG7)
Olaleyi explained in detail that he had attended a Roman Catholic secondary school, of which the faith-based development agency CAFOD – The Catholic Agency for Overseas Development, was affiliated. He described how this influenced his early perceptions of Nigeria as being rural. Moreover, how being exposed to other charity images in the media had strengthened these perceptions.
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He would go on to explain:
“…They [CAFOD] would stick huge posters around the school, in my form room...of these men and women farming for their food, making a living …people in fields, in villages …they [CAFOD] sometimes showed us videos of village people working on land in rural places, funny thing is we never actually new where in Africa these people were from…we were just encouraged to do bake sales [laughter]. All I knew was that this was how Africa was, how it was presented to us you know? And then you have others charity adverts ...like Save the Children…and whoever, can’t keep count... on telly, telling you the same thing ...helping some village child in rural Africa”.
(Male, FG7)
Olaleyi’s interpretation of rurality in Nigeria is similar to the perceptions of other participants. One commenter for example, said:
“Well when they’re not dying, or looking half dead…I think of Nigeria as rural with people who have …like what do you call them? Cutlasses, or some sort of hand-made digging stick for the land, just people in like villages in the outskirts of somewhere rural who make and grow things with their hands”.
(Female 26, FG2)
Similarly,
“I see village-y type of communities over there [Nigeria] in a countryside type of setting, they are growing crops and sitting on cows while they work the land.”
(Male 19, FG6)
While another participant described:
“A place where villagers are herding cows and goats…and it’s dusty over there, they’re using animals to make a living, using their milk or as meat because that’s how they might make money in a rural place like Nigeria”.
(Female 23, FG1)
As with their interpretations of helplessness and primitivism, diaspora perceptions of Nigeria as predominantly rural reflect historical discourses of difference that are rooted in colonialism. Their descriptions and recount of the many ‘things’ that make Nigeria seemingly rural in their imaginations, reveal a particular thinking or meaning-making by diaspora that sets up a contrast between the rural Africa and the non-rural/urban Britain – the West. Perceptions of livestock and rural development activities (chickens, farming, ploughing etc.) in Nigeria for example, projects understandings of it as a simple, preindustrialised environment inhabited by rural communities who, despite being hardworking labourers of the soil, are perceived as low-skilled (Dogra, 2012). This is significant as it sets up implicit binaries with the non-rural and seemingly ‘modern’ West akin to the binaries of Orientalism (Johansen, 2008).
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Similarly, the homogenisation of Nigeria as nature-filled and diaspora interpretations of ‘natural-ness’ such as, unspoiled, deserted land or greenery, projects it as Other, as fundamentally different. Whereby Nigeria is imagined as some inherently rural, ‘other-worldly’ place without any urban or modern features. This consigns Nigeria to perceptions of timelessness and ahistoricity as in Orientalism (Johansen, 2008).
5.4.2 Spacio-culturally Monolithic: ‘Nigeria as Africa’
In addition to diaspora perceptions of a largely rural Nigeria, some other participants conflated Nigeria with the whole of Africa. That is, these interviewees saw their place of origin and the continent to which it belongs, as ‘one and the same’ thing and, or extrapolated their imaginings of Africa to Nigeria. This is illustrated in diaspora comments, as shown below:
“When I think of Nigeria I think of Africa as whole, you can’t think of one without also thinking about the other. Nigeria in my opinion is Africa, and Africa is Nigeria, it’s hard to separate […] think about it, what’s so different about Africa and Nigeria? They are in the same part of the world, with the same billions of brown people living there with the same poverty.”
(Female 29, FG4)
“You see all these pictures of Africa and just think because Nigeria is in Africa any thoughts about Africa you link to Nigeria. It’s like Nigeria is little Africa and Africa is bigger Nigeria you catch my drift? What’s going on there [Africa] is going on everywhere for the most part.”
(Female 23, FG2)
“…I think the same thing about Nigeria because that’s where it is, it’s in Africa, I think of it [Nigeria] in an equally similar way …I mean you don’t really know where most of these charity adverts are based so you just assume ‘oh okay so that’s how all Africa is’”.
(Male 43, FG5)
Diaspora argue that their conflation of Nigeria and Africa is largely influenced by African representation by development agencies who as one put it, apply a “one fits all Africa” (FG1) visual approach in their campaigns. This sentiment was echoed by other diaspora who said:
“Most of the time you’ll have no clue what, where and who in Africa they’re [charities] are talking about, they just put of this image of an African looking setting and say ‘help Africa, dig deep’, so how am I really supposed to know?” (Male, 19, FG6) 111
Similarly,
“For me, they [charities] are not that clear…in their adverts Nigeria is Africa, Zimbabwe is Africa, Kenya is Africa, there’s for the most part no distinction, so from that I just think Nigeria is the same in one way or another with the rest of them all.”
(Female 22, FG1)
While another participant described how:
“As far as I’m concerned Oxfam and the rest show Africa as this one big country and that’s kinda rubbed off on how I see where I’m from”
(Female 36, FG3)
There is no wonder then, as these participants argue, that they view Nigeria(ns) and its everyday realities and internal circumstances as a microcosm of continental Africa. This extrapolation in perceptions of Africa to Nigeria, allows diaspora to view Africa as a template or lens through which to narrate a full and seemingly unambiguous ‘cultural biography’ of Nigeria. This amorphous understanding of Nigeria and communities therein, as Africa, reinforces colonial productions of difference. This difference is reflected in diaspora perceptions of their place of origin as some sort of spatially homogenous sphere. A bound-ary-less environment inhabited by a horde of undifferentiated masses in predicament who are struggling with the indistinguishable effects of largely identical problems (Dogra, 2012). This pathologises any diaspora perceptions of helplessness, primitivism and rurality as already discussed in earlier sections, as self-inflicted, and caused by internal rationales.
By implication, Nigeria is assumed fundamentally different, as Other, and therefore inferior against a seemingly present and concretely discernible West (Campbell, 2017). Similarly, with ideas of Nigeria as Africa having the “same billions of brown people living there” as the first commenter imagined, denies the region of national, social and ethno-cultural differentiation. This essentially strips communities therein of their specificity, diversity and individual articulation of unique intent.
5.5 Dual and Multiple Perceptions and Understandings The last section showed that when viewing the representations some diaspora imagined their place of origin in overgeneralised and simplistic ways. This was realised in two main ways. Some diaspora imagined Nigeria as homogenously rural, while others had perceptions which conflate Nigeria with and, see it as indistinguishable from Africa.
This section will show that some diaspora, those with personal-life experiences with and exposure to their place of origin have alternative perceptions and understandings of Nigeria.
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“Africa is a contradiction, schizophrenic even, in terms of its multiple features, it is at once deservingly poor and indulgently rich and Nigeria is simply a microcosm of this reality” (Male 25, FG2)
While many participants perceive Nigeria in largely negative and stereotypical ways, which appear to reflect more popular perceptions of privation in Africa by general British audiences, this was not the case for all diaspora. As the above comment demonstrates, there were some participants within and across all focus groups who had dual and multiple interpretations of Nigeria. That is, these diaspora individuals articulated imaginings that simultaneously reinforced and contradicted dominant and popular ideas of helplessness, primitivism and homogeneity in Nigeria, as shared by the majority. In discussion with 25-year-old Edwin for example, he provided a description of Nigeria that was simultaneously progressive and reactionary:
“[Nigeria] …is a place of extremes, so the thoughts and images that come to mind are rather mixed. I see your traditional image of a poverty, the weak, vulnerable, unkempt child and …villagers in desperate need of help. However, I also see Nigeria as a bourgeoning economic force with international business districts, casinos and gentrified urban spaces sprouting from one area to the next, um …I see wildlife conservations, forestry and other protected areas open to tourists. I see chubby kids with mobile phones instead of skinny ones, drinking Pepsi and eating Western junk food – hamburgers, chicken, pizza…you know? Things like that, just the ordinary things of life” (Male, FG1)
As shown, Edwin’s imagining of Nigeria is unique in its inclusion of the industrial, technological and urban aspects of the region alongside depictions of helplessness and poverty, which is noticeably absent in previous diaspora perceptions. He simultaneously incorporates a foregrounding of privation in Nigeria whilst acknowledging the progression, indulgence and convenience therein. Edwin’s mixed perception opens an alternative and hitherto uncomprehended interpretation of Nigeria. That is, a contemporary Nigeria in the ‘here and now’, a place which is both cosmopolitan and seemingly engaged in the participation required for social progression. His comments re-imagine the ‘everyday ordinariness’ of Nigeria life, an observation also shared by the following participant:
“Yes, there’s struggle, there’s poverty in Nigeria those things exist everywhere not just in Africa, yes Nigeria has poor communities but it also has really rich and an emerging middle class you know? People in Nigeria they’re just living their lives you know? Going to work…cinema just your usual things, it has the same everyday pleasures and displeasures as anywhere else.” (Female, 31 FG6)
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Just like Edwin, this participant’s interpretation of Nigeria reads more like an autobiographical recount of Nigeria unlike the perceptions of other diaspora in this research. This is because those individuals with dual and multiple interpretations had personal-life experiences with and, alternative references for their place of origin other than knowledge derived from development representations. Whether in the form of visits to Nigeria, watching African-orientated programming or receiving informal education within the immediate or extended family. All these influences afforded these diaspora with a repertoire of knowledge from which to negotiate alternative, multiple and nuanced understandings of Nigeria. Drawing from these personal catalogues of knowledge and experience allow diaspora to mitigate against if not contradict more popular, dominant perceptions held by the overwhelming majority. In describing how his upbringing shaped his interpretations of Nigeria, Edwin who is of Igbo ethnicity, reported:
“Being the cultured and creative types that they are, both my parents made a conscious decision to over-indulge me with everything Nigerian, Igbo-specific or African related. During my childhood, I remember frequenting African art exhibitions, museums, festivals, plays you name it…reading African and Nigerian-specific literature from the likes of Chinua Achebe ‘things fall apart’, and Wole Soyinka. My parents also encouraged me to watch ‘Nollywood Movies’ which are basically Nigerian dramas on subscription television” (Male, FG1)
While another participant, in her recount of one of her first of many trips to Nigeria, stated: “…While I was there [Nigeria] I was able to speak, and spend time with my grandparents and other family members like my aunts, uncles and cousins who told me stories about growing up in Nigeria and [they] took me on tours around Nigeria and places that we don’t get to see on British television. I mean I had no idea that Nigeria has American-like shopping malls, amusement parks and even their very own China town. I realised that not everyone was living below the poverty line but there are some who are filthy rich and a very present middle class”
(Female, 24 FG1)
Similarly, “From around four I think my parents started to teach me my native language and took me abroad to Nigeria for the first time so, I see Nigeria in a more mixed way, for what it really is, the good, bad and ugly.” (Male 25, FG2)
As is demonstrated in the above commentaries, these participants describe upbringings and lifestyles that have seemingly afforded them plentiful opportunities and unrestricted access to alternative, often parental knowledge, about Nigeria. However, this was exceptional, a privilege of an elite minority, of often, seemingly middleclass diaspora who have benefited from a cultural nepotism. Whereby these diaspora have had the advantage of learning about Nigeria through the process of an
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intergenerational knowledge transfer from parent/older relative to child. As such, not all participants had grand/parents who had knowledge of, interest in or, strong ties to Nigeria, or who could equally invest in or, pass down certain cultural resources. This is observed by one diaspora who said:
“My mum doesn’t know an awful lot about where we’re from to be honest, she came here when she was really young and her own parents, my grandparents didn’t tell her much about Nigeria, she’s just a Londoner I guess…all I know is my ethnicity…I’m Yoruba but nothing else really. I was interested to know more when I was younger, but she didn’t know much and it was like she wasn’t that interested…so I just kind of left it.” (Male, 27 FG7)
While another participant explained:
“I mean I could’ve learned about it [Nigeria] for myself but growing up other things just seemed more interesting like playing footie with my mates, my parents were useless [laughter] I probably knew more than them [laughter] and that’s saying something …we couldn’t just hop on a plane to Nigeria, besides my mum and dad don’t even have strong links with anyone there, so where am I gonna go to? You kinda take what you can get from the media, you know? [laughter]” (Male, 19, FG6)
However, despite having diaspora with mixed views of Nigeria, these same individuals reported that their perceptions are still influenced by development representations. Irrespective of their alternative stock of knowledge through personal experiences and exposure, some stated that this unavoidably competes with African representation in the media and their hyper-visibility and persuasion.
“We are constantly bombarded with negative and documentary-styled images that seem to have all the answers and truth of what Africa and African life is really like, it’s not something that I can compete with. Yes, I have some knowledge of how Nigeria is that I’m grateful for but that’s not enough against these images because they constantly remind you of their presence on a daily basis, so much so you start to even doubt or question the things that you’ve been taught.” (Female 42, FG3)
“All these images out there are sneaky buggers I tell you, they have one up on us, they kinda like suck you in to believe what they tell you.” (Female, 31 FG6)
“It’s all in vein because as soon as we receive one good message from dad and mum we get 10 negatives ones from Save the Children or whatever. The imbalance in ratio is what is making us more prone to believe that perhaps this Africa our parents speak of, lament over is 115
just a romantic Africa, moreishly rich in sweet sentiment, if you catch my drift? We all know that Nigeria is not the biblical land of milk and honey that our parents seem to thrive on, that’s not what the media tells us anyway.” (Male 25, FG2)
As insinuated in the comments above, these participants collude with the media and its African representation, whereby they readily or ambivalently yield to and accept the media as one of their go- to sources of knowledge about Nigeria. Even if, this is at the expense of what they already know. Representations for them then, are far greater, speak louder and have an enduring influence.
As such, participants do not underestimate, if anything they stress the power of representations in imparting and influencing how they think about Nigeria, to such an extent that they, and certainly the last commenter, feel they are losing a ‘David and Goliath’ scale battle with the media.
5.6 Indignation of, and Ethno-Racial Identification with, Representations
The last section showed that for some diaspora, their histories and personal-life experiences with Nigeria has afforded them alternative and mixed perceptions that both challenge and reinforce dominant and popular imaginings of their place of origin. However, despite this, these individuals are still swayed by African representation in the media. This section shows that for several, indeed the majority of diaspora, their skin colour and ethno-racial/cultural identities as ‘black’, ‘African’, ‘Nigerian’ or all three, significantly affect how they interpret African representation. This is realised in two interrelated ways. First, in diaspora frustration with, and indignation of, development representations of Africa(ns) which they consider racist, stereotypical and oversimplified. Second, how this shapes their relationships and identification with Nigeria.
When critiquing the representations, issues of race and racial identity were common features in diaspora discussions within and across all focus groups. When these two issues were approached, not only were they discussed at length but also, this is when participants were their most vocal, impassioned and openly critical of African representation. Beyond superficial readings of these representations, the point at which race and identity intersected with diaspora analyses, is where the images seemingly affected participants on a personal level. An observation that was hitherto non- emergent in diaspora interpretations of Nigeria, a place viewed largely through the prism of diaspora presupposition, far removed from their immediate environment. Instead, issues of race and identity necessarily spoke about diaspora self-hood, a recognisable ‘Self’ intimately-tied to these representations.
It was commonly heard by diaspora for example, that they found it difficult or frustrating to view African representation of ‘people like me’ living in impoverished conditions and which, depict black African identities as sub-human and in lowly positions, worth and capability. This is illustrated in the following comments: 116
“These pictures are distorting mirrors, you know those funny, curvy mirrors at the funfair? This is what these pictures are, we [diaspora] brown skinned folk identify ourselves, albeit a grossly misshaped version of who we think ourselves to be. We know what they [images] are saying about blacks, about Africans, that we are nothing more but beggars, that we are the lowest of all the low and that’s racist, without a doubt it is. It’s hard to digest all these charity pictures because how do you reconcile with them when we are the very people they are racially caricaturing?” (Male 25, FG2)
Similarly, 25-year-old Judith said: “The elephant in the room for many of these images is the central role that blackness plays in the representations of Africa and African communities. From my point of view, I’m of the position that images for and as part of fundraising campaigns are figurative statements about blackness, they are political statements with negative connotations that are attached to them about being Black, knowing blackness, conceptualising the idea of blackness as a hue of moral and cultural difference, a hue that denotes abnormality. And when this understanding of blackness mixes with ideas of Africa and being African it chucks more fuel on the flame …we are seen as ‘not up there yet’ and this angers me because as a black person, an African, I’m involuntarily committed to the bottom of the totem pole even if it’s just in my mind.” (Female 25, FG2)
Given comments like these, diaspora have what might be described as specific ‘ethnic meaning- making’, whereby they apply referential interpretation positions in their construal of development representations. Within this framing, diaspora identities are foregrounded and salient in their process of negotiating understandings of Nigeria through images, especially when they show a recognisable ‘Self’ depicted in problematic ways. As such, development representations not only affect how ‘We’ imagine them, but also how ‘They’ - diaspora, imagine themselves. These comments reflect this, they touch on important several issues, not least that, there is a certain kind of racializing within images of black African identities that is felt and functions as its most burdensome and problematic at the psycho-social level. Judith’s statement, in particular, also shows that representations, beyond their prima facie showing, are much more than plain likeness they are deeply imbued with a constellation of meaning, of symbolism that allude to diaspora identities as different, as Other. Even if, as Judith says, “it just in my mind”.
This is realised in comments by another participant who, referencing image (5.5) below, explained:
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Image 5.5: Comic Relief (2016)
“Having a black African identity in many ways has prevented me from wanting to actively engage with images of this nature, like this one here for instance [image 5.5] because I’d be forced to see myself in these people and their situations. I didn’t want and still don’t want to see myself as them, as coming from a place that has historically birthed poverty, birthed desperation, it’s like suffering has fertilised African soil and because I’m from this soil, of its people, it makes it difficult being a black African person in the UK seeing these types of images, because many non-blacks, ignorant white people especially, might think of you in these ways.” (Male 42, FG3)
As with Judith, this participant’s comments are revelatory as they show the problematic relationship that diaspora have with development representations of places that they identify with by virtue of their ethnoracial identities. These representations are having real and precarious effects on diaspora subjectivities which are felt at the level of the personal, the referential level of the black African identifier but also, the psychosocial level. The impact of which, this thesis will now discuss.
In participant discussions on race and identity, it became apparent that simultaneously identifying with and expressing indignation of representations, expressed itself in specific diaspora behaviours. Behaviours that are understood and realised as types of diaspora ‘dis-association’ from their place of origin, as well as, the adoption of alternative identities or personae. As one diaspora eloquently put it:
“We deal with a psychological separation, an ingrained psychological idea of difference and this works as a self-fulfilling prophecy for some of us because we begin to resent, loath and even detach ourselves from everything and anything African. Why do you think some Africans prefer to say they are from the Caribbean? It’s a form of self-hate they don’t want to be
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associated with images, ideas and perceptions of something so…how do I say…benighted, if that’s the right word? Yes, benighted because who wants that?” (Female 26, FG2) As advised by this participant, the adoption of newly-found Caribbean identities was surprisingly an old, yet common and even, encouraged practice among British African diaspora communities. Several had made mention of friends, relatives and they themselves, who had assumed these alternative articulations of ‘Self’. One such participant being 32-year-old, English teacher Lola, who admitted that African representation in the media has had a profoundly negative impact on her self-esteem and confidence with identifying with her Nigerian heritage. So much so, that she currently identifies as Caribbean in the workplace, a reinvention of her ‘Diaspora Self’ that has its beginnings in her youth, re-negotiating the often-tricky terrain of adolescence:
“…I mean it wasn’t cool to be African at school, oh no no, it was even better to be gay at times [laughter] but not African God forbid you be African. Being African meant you were dumb, lived in Jungles with animals, grunted like apes when talking and didn’t care for hygiene, and what young girl wanted to be the smelly African? Not me... [she wags her finger and shakes her head] …I got into the habit of saying I was from the Caribbean – St. Lucia or Jamaica. As far as my colleagues know that’s where I originate from, it just helps to silence any potentially hurtful comments or assumptions, you know?” (Female 32, FG3)
While another 19-year-old participant declared: “…I down play my African side. I don’t willingly say where I’m, but if people ask I just pick any Caribbean place on the top of my head at the time, Jamaica is a go-to, I’m always switching between one island or the next [laughter]…[because] the Caribbean is shown as a golden paradise, with steel band carnivals and cocktails not like Africa.” (Male, FG6) Similarly,
“There’s an element of cool and flare attached to the Caribbean that Africa doesn’t have…. with its reggae and white sand. I think that’s what attracted me to wanting to be from there, who wouldn’t want cool attached to them?” (Male, 27 FG7)
Diaspora recourse to and, preference for Caribbean identities, rests in its alternative visual treatment in Western-European imagination. A place, that is often assumed as and, represented for its ebullient, celebratory culture of musicality, it’s soulful underbelly; a natural hedonism for tourists with a laissez- faire, ‘live-let-live’ sentiment (Smith et al., 2008). More importantly though, it is one of only few places of majority black populations, where black identities are not subsumed in imaginings that are largely preoccupied with poverty and helplessness, as Africa is (Smith et al., 2008; Sheller, 2003). As one participant sarcastically said in her rhetorical statement:
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“I mean have you ever seen a trip to Nigeria being offered as a prize on any game show? Maybe for an April fools special [laughter]” (Female 22, FG1)
As such, the adoptions of these alternative, preferential identities are a means through which diaspora individuals become their own ‘walking and talking’ PR machine, to exercise autonomy and self- determination in how they are seen and re-presented to others with meticulous and determined precision. This re-configuration of ‘the Self’ if you will, that is, their attempts of metamorphism, is to remould and challenge popular public imaginings of people ‘who look like me’. For diaspora, this acts as a social and psychological buffer against what they feel to be the brunt of disparaging portrayals of their place of origin. In this sense, diaspora have complete authorship, manoeuvre and flexibility over their self-representation, a privilege not afforded to them by negative charity representations.
This is further substantiated by 54-year-old Immanuel who reported:
“…They haven’t just been images but [they] have told a story about my identity and my place of birth on my behalf, without permission, a story that many white people, non-blacks have interpreted as gospel, these images have influenced with some great force how I decide to show myself to other people.” (Male FG3)
Equally, “Being anything but Africa means I determine the terms of who I am and how others might see me. I can make sure I’m seen more favourably.”
(Female 32 FG3)
I observe that, these identities are not always conscious and distinct. They are often implicated in the social consciousness of diaspora in their confrontation with the innumerable challenges that beleaguer their social and cultural progression. This can be understood in the everyday racism and racial microaggressions. That is, the verbal, behavioural and, or environmental degradations that diaspora experience at school, workplace and other public settings (Shizha and Abdi, 2014). Some participants, for instance, spoke about ‘down playing’ their African-ness, or ‘taking up’ Caribbean identities in response to wider, negative media discourses about African and Nigerian communities as illegal migrants and their supposed fraudulent behaviours:
“They [media] think Africans are all scroungers, migrants living off benefits…having countless children to exploit the NHS, that’s what we get told we are, I’m not those things, none of them, I work for all that I have. I would rather be who I am, authentically, but it’s easier not to” (Female, 26, FG2)
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“My white workmates used to joke that I was a Nigerian ‘419’ scammer …or from some sort of rough council estate, ...it was far from funny …can you see why I don’t really admit I’m from there [Nigeria]? Yes, it’s embarrassing that I deny it and my parents will not be happy but there’s no choice really, well there’s a choice but …yeah I don’t know.” (Male, 19, FG7)
These comments demonstrate how development representations form part of a much larger system and circulation of images ‘out there’ that feed into the everyday lived-realities of diaspora audiences. They are implicated in diaspora identity formations, their comportment and level of conviviality with and feelings of acceptance from their immediate and wider, mostly white communities. These feelings of wanting to feel equal with, and accepted by their non-African, largely white peers, is a preoccupation shared by participants as they move through this world assuming ‘down-played’ and, or preferential identities. Listening to these discussions, and taking the above excerpts as examples, there is a real sense of internal, psychological conflict, a diaspora identity crisis, whereby some may be experiencing a ‘Colonial Mentality’. That is, an internalised ethno-racial inferiority complex informed by diaspora histories of colonial oppressions which have afforded primacy to and, foisted ideas and ideals of white-European superiority (Okpewho et al., 2001).
This has caused an anxiety-ridden diaspora tussling with their sense of double-consciousness i.e., their crisis of identity, autonomy and dignity (self-esteem, self-respect, self-confidence) (Mahmod, 2016). Such diaspora are wedged between their pursuit for white validation and their attempt at overcoming the internalised association of black/African-ness, with inferiority (Okpewho and Nzegwu, 2009). These complex anxieties, reinforced by media and development representations, partly motivate this forgery of new, preferential and ambivalent identities among diaspora. Identities which appear on the surface as an escapism but nonetheless, are a constraint for diaspora participants. This fraught mentality is evident in the following diaspora discourses:
“It’s a shame as old as I am at the age of 54 you’d thought I would have reconciled with who I am and where I’m from, but It’s tough…I mean you don’t want white people to see you like that [pointing at images], you’ve just got to fit in somehow, someway, whether that’s lying about where you’re from or who you are or …I don’t know…stressing the English part of you more.” (Male, FG3)
“As bad as it sounds it’s quite freeing acting less African but it’s also psychologically draining, switching from one mask or hat to the other. On one hand, you want to show your honest self and be who you are but on the other, it’s not that straightforward because of people’s perceptions of us. You kinda have to straddle a fine line of how you want to show yourself to white people. I’m an imposter really [laughter].” (Female 22, FG1)
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Other diaspora managed their paradoxical relationship(s) with development representations, by constructing ‘inflated self-identifications’, that’s to say, theatrical perhaps, contrived, but nonetheless purposeful articulations of ‘the Self’ informed by a ‘sentimental Afro-racial chauvinism’. By this I mean, they channelled their identification with and disdain for representations, by adopting ‘Afrocentric’, ‘unapologetically black’ or ‘fiercely Nigerian’ identities. These ethno-symbolic interpretations of ‘diaspora Self’, allowed participants to be consciously protective of, show solidarity with and yet, somehow exhibit a falsely nostalgic fidelity to, love for and pride in Africa(ns). Unlike the ‘Caribbean adopting’ diaspora, who are running away from Nigeria because of its media representation, the identities of these individuals were self-affirming and self-celebratory. They were a means to intimately re-align themselves with their place of origin, even if only imagined, symbolic or forged by some sort of false idealisation of ‘the homeland’ or a ‘collective struggle’.
As is evident in the following comments: “I’m Nigerian and fiercely so, nothing can dim my light, not these images, charities or whatever. Gone are the days when Africans rejoiced in who they were and not let things like pictures derail their pride, like during the Pan-African movements in Nigeria and Ghana. I think knowing who I am and what I stand for as an African is greater than any damage these pictures can do to us” (Male 29, FG6)
“These is something about being black that makes you want to never fail to protect our image, our existence with militancy, especially in charity images […] I’m immensely proud of my colour and being African and I won’t allow images like this to compromise this pride, compromise my African or Nigerian-ness […] if all Africans here [in the UK] are more pro- African or have greater self-esteem in who they are and where they come from, then negative images about us become less important, less impactful.” (Male 25, FG1)
“Why should anyone shy away from being Nigerian? I’m am immensely proud of my heritage and I’ll be foolish to hide it away and apologise for that. I’m unapologetically black, unashamedly African and that’s that. If anything, all these pictures do is make my feelings stronger, make my pride firmer”
(Male 25, FG2)
While another fervently proclaimed: “I won’t stand for this portrayal of Africa or black people, I’m like Teflon [laughter] a tough resistant Nigerian, a proud Yoruba, that can and will withstand such representations of my home, the birthplace of many of our parents if not, grandparents and those before them […] if we, black Africans are not for our own cultural homes then who is? It can only be us right? It’s in our veins, our ancestral DNA and therefore, I firmly believe it’s our individual and collective responsibility to wear a shield of African pride, of self-love and to be loud and confident in doing so”
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What made these participants different from the former (‘Caribbean-adopting’), was not just their choice of self-identification nor their evangelical desires for the collectivising of all diaspora. Rather, they were comprised of highly educated, middle-class, twenty-something-year-old, male millennials. An ‘African diaspora intelligentsia’ with both a retrospective outlook on, and a prophetic vision for Africa. Despite having never visited Nigeria, their ethnosymbolic identity interpretations were understood as their own weaponry, a symbolic violence against, resistance to and, liberation from Africa’s negative representation.
Irrespective of whether participants assume identities or subject positions that attach or detach themselves from Nigeria, being black, Nigerian, African or all three, is significant in their construal of development representations. This is especially evident in how they forge levels of identification with similarly-looking, recognisable ‘Others’ and how this is practiced and materialised in their everyday lived-realities and concept of self.
“I see these black-skinned faces and bodies and I unavoidably see myself. I see no difference but circumstance. I step into their shoes in a way that perhaps the white British public doesn’t, and I feel the same weight of judgement, scrutiny and perceptions placed on them on my own shoulders” (Female, 24, FG1)
“I see myself in the context of these images, they are talking about me, us, aren’t they? My existence, my presentation, the histories of black Africans, you can’t de-link that or yourself from these types of charity images, can you?” (Female, 48, FG4)
5.7 White British Audiences
As reinforced in the above statements, diaspora identities are implicated in and through development representations and this subsequently shapes the way they view and present themselves to the world. To further explore whether this is a unique feature or experiences of diaspora audiences of development representations, two comparison focus groups compromised of white British participants were conducted.
As with diaspora participants, white participants viewed Africa as helpless, poor and even alluded to ideas of primitivism and rurality. However, this is where the intersecting points of similarity ended. When asked whether their racial identities influenced how they read images this was met with bemusement, perplexed and, seemingly introspective gazes, and at times, uncomfortable silences. Some of them even got angry at the question. In a few instances, I was asked to repeat the question as if to suggest that some were trying to comprehend how or, the best way to answer. For some at least, this portion of their discussion was an entirely rhetorical exercise. If not, then one that did not easily solicit or yield straightforward responses. This is reflected in the following participant comments: 123
27-year-old Welsh student Timothy for example, remarked: “I don’t understand, …you mean me being white? ...Perhaps, I’m missing the point, maybe I am? Hopefully I’m not coming across as being snarky or sarcastic because that’s not my intention at all, …the message is quite simple, Africans are sadly dying point blank and Africans need our full support and aid. That message is loud and clear …doesn’t matter about the skin colour” (Male, FG8) While the excerpt of a conversation below between two fellow group members, showed similar signs of puzzlement:
Female, 34, FG9 – “…you just simply feel and connect with Africans on a human level, nothing more or less, your identity …culture, race or whatever it may be, is in my view irrelevant, you know?” Female, 28, FG9 – “…Yeah, I don’t see the link between the two. In a funny way, it’s like asking ‘what’s it like being white?’ [laughter] I mean, how do you answer that, we [white people] just live our lives, … I’m just Sharon you know? Not ‘white’ Sharon [makes air quotation with fingers]. I’m slightly struggling to get to grips with that particular question”
As such, it quickly became apparent from these group discussions that for the vast majority of white British participants their ‘race’, racial identity, - or lack thereof, was somehow unmarked, neutralised or a subordinate and/or frivolous unit of interrogation. So too, that simply having ‘white skin’ was not implicated in or through how they saw themselves, presented to the world and, engaged with their immediate and wider communities (Bonnett, 2000). For these participants, they never had cause to assert themselves racially, to indulge introspectively and explore their identities as it intersected with ‘colour’, culture and history. Needless to say, they simply exist, as they do, as the race-less epicentre of a seemingly racialised world (Young, 1999; Bonnett, 2000)
However, one participant of Polish-Jewish heritage was the exception to the rule. While, 31-year-old Katrina, did not identify with images by virtue of her race, ethnicity or culture, she did however explain how haunting images of holocaust victims/survivors - in films and documentaries - of which her grandparents were subjected to, - had a profound impact on how she read and related to these images.
“I have a slightly different perspective …yes, I’m obviously white in skin colour but I’m also Jewish and that in and of itself carries a whole lot of cultural and historical baggage ...that’s different to your ‘average’ white British [makes air quotation with fingers] …my heritage influences the way that I might see the world or how others might look at me …it runs deep believe me….we were seen as nothing more than animals, not humans but rodents” (Female, FG2)
Katrina’s comment makes and substantiates the case that some level of ethno-cultural/racial familiarity with, identification to a ‘recognisable ‘Other’ arguably informs how one reads and relates to images. Nevertheless, for all but one participant, identity was seemingly invisible and redundant. 124
Racial identity aside, white British participants did however demonstrate other referential interpretation positions in their construal of development representations. Positions of identification, that mainly fell into the realm of supposedly universal embodied notions of care and relational thinking that are often solicited by charity images.
For 42-year-old Meghan for instance, this was ‘gender’:
“For me, my identity as female and a soon-to-be-mother definitely influences …without a doubt how I read the content of these images …my level of sympathy, pity and emotional connection is heightened knowing that women, mothers and their children are often disproportionately affected by what’s going on in Africa …I just think ‘oh those poor mums and their kids’” (Female, FG1)
While for others, this was understood as an identification based on sympathy for the distant suffering of others. While these findings make no claim of empirical breadth or representativeness, it would seem however, that for white British audiences their experiences of being consumers of development representations of Africa are very much different from African diaspora audiences. In the sense that, racial identity is often problematised and foregrounded in diaspora construal of images.
5.8 Conclusion
This chapter addressed the question of whether and if so, how development representations by NGOs influence diaspora perceptions and knowledge about their place of origin. Overall, the chapter found that development representations by NGOs play an influential part in shaping and framing how some Nigerian diaspora view and ‘know about’ Nigeria/ns and Africa more generally. It revealed an interconnectedness, a significant degree of reciprocity between how some diaspora participants view and comprehend their country of origin and its mediated representation by NGOs. Central to this complex diaspora-representation relationship is diaspora personal biographies and racial and ethno- cultural identities and how these intersect, mediate and negotiate particular constructions of their place of origin and levels of connection with this place.
In critiquing NGO African representation, diaspora view and understand the African continent, including Nigeria and communities therein, as generally helpless, primitive and rural. These largely negative, stereotypical and outdated ‘ways of seeing’ Africa, draw on similar observations made by Van der Gaag and Nash (1987); DFID (2000); Voluntary Service Organisation’s (VSO) report (2001) and Darnton and Kirk (2011) in chapter two, who all found that the predominant imaginings and visualisations that British audiences have of Africa is that of ‘Africa starving’, helplessness and primitivism. As Darnton and Kirk’s (2011: p. 5) advised, since the Ethiopian famine and Live Aid, British audiences understand and relate to Africa no differently now than they did in the 1980’s. As
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such, this study finds that diaspora views reflect popular perceptions of Africa by general British audiences.
Interestingly, this chapter also showed that in their construal of development representations, some diaspora conflate their place of origin with the whole of Africa, rendering the region as undifferentiated and as a spatially and culturally homogenous sphere. We understand from this chapter that diaspora owe much of their perceptions of Africa/Nigeria to the apparent ‘truth claim’ of photographic productions that is, of NGO images, because of their arresting and almost documentary-like depiction of Africa. As such, we are reminded of earlier theoretical discussions on Foucault (1997) about how power (through discourse) and representations are intimately-tied. Representations are always situated in the production of knowledge and this makes them very powerful in shaping and organising what can (and cannot) be known about something. Within this framing, development representations thus construct and articulate the parameters of reality and what is truth for public consciousness through their ontological presumptions about the world.
Similarly, Ifeoma’s statement of an “unadulterated suffering” in Nigeria that is “plain and simple” (as cited above) in her construal of sample representations, is also understood within the context of issues raised by Chouliariki (2006). That is, with development representations popularly assumed and treated as eyewitness photography, they therefore seemingly attest to the apparent truth and plain realities of the subjects of which they capture. So too, the locus of influence that inhere in the content and context of representations has, as learned from Hall (1986), some part to play in the perspicuity of its readers.
Despite this, the chapter showed that not all diaspora participants view and understand their place of origin in the same way. Those with personal histories and life experiences with Nigeria, other than knowledge derived from development representations, have mixed and nuanced perceptions. These perceptions both challenge and reinforce dominant and popular ideas of helplessness, primitivism and homogeneity in Nigeria, as shared by most participants. However, despite this, they are still swayed by African representation in the media and by NGOs.
While the chapter demonstrates that development representations have powerful and influential effects on how diaspora view and understand their place of origin, equally important, is the role that diaspora identities play. Diaspora ethno-racial/cultural identities significantly affect how they interpret development representations of Africa, as well as, determine the extent to which they relate and identify with Nigeria in their everyday lives.
These main empirical findings relate back to the key concepts from the postcolonial theoretical approach identified in chapter two which guide this study, in interesting and revelatory ways. When contextualised in line with Stuart Hall’s ([1973]1980) ‘Encoding/Decoding’ model of mediated communication and audiences, we understand that the critical, paradoxical and differentiated perceptions and understandings of Nigeria and Africa in general, by Nigeria Diaspora in their readings 126
of NGO representations, suggest and undergird the theory’s postulation that not only are audiences as multiple and diverse as the individuals and communities that compose them, but also, they like diaspora participants in this research, bring a multiplicity of interpretations in processes of media consumption. This is revealed and substantiated by participants’ diversity of opinions, which are all critical and constructive and which necessarily challenge, reproduce as well as, complicate both negative and stereotypical normative assumptions and imaginings of Africa and communities therein.
When relating these findings back to the Encoding/Decoding model, we also understand that Nigerian diaspora audiences, like other audiences, are not some vast horde of undifferentiated masses devoid of individual articulation of unique intent and who, uncritically subscribe to law-like regularities in how they engage with, consume and construal media representations. Rather they are complex interpretative communities with individual differences and who are imbued with a variety of resources that unavoidably complicate their reciprocal relationship(s) with media text. This latter point is better understood and realised in the findings discussed in section 5.5. This section highlights how some diaspora participants who had already visited Nigeria, had personal connections and relationships with their country and communities of origin, and who had certain Afro/African-orientated upbringings, beyond development (and mainstream media) representations, could draw from alternative, stocks or repositories of knowledge. As aforementioned, such knowledge types afforded these diaspora the space to apply different reference sources in their critique and construal of African images. We learn then, as espoused by Hall’s model that, recognising the diversity among diaspora audiences’ familial and cultural background, histories and lived experiences, is critical in examining how they understand Africa and Nigeria specifically, in the relation to development imageries.
Similarly, these empirical insights about how alternative stocks of knowledge by diaspora participants are called upon, and are necessarily implicated in and complicate how they read NGO representations, undergird this thesis’, - and by virtue of its theoretical framing - postcolonialism’s, central aim to reveal oppositional, alternative criticism that foregrounds and thereby attempts to revive a multiplicity of illegitimate, disqualified or “subjugated knowledges” (Foucault 1980, p. 82) of decolonised communities. As such, we understand in the context of postcolonial theory in general, that while development representations function as types of apparatuses of colonial discourse in the present, in the different ways in which they reify and reproduce certain visual descriptions and historical narratives about Africa(ns) that are rooted in material and immaterial effects of colonialism. These representations also provide the space within which diaspora individuals, in their readings, can summon and rely upon, alternative oppositional discourses and knowledges of their own sourced from personal, lived experience. Not only do these new knowledges and alternative narratives about Africa, Nigeria and communities therein, resist, challenge and complicate predominant messages and meanings about these places, that inhere in development representations. They are also, afforded time and space to be realised and articulated by diaspora audiences in ways that they are not in contemporary development representations by Northern/Western-situated NGOs, where they are instead, seemingly hidden, muted and subjugated.
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Interestingly, when relating this chapter’s findings that Nigerian diaspora appropriate alternative, preferential identities, that down-play their association with Africa and their varied assumptions of what it means to be African or be implicated in “African-ness” back to Bhabah’s (1994) hybridity concept. We see how reciprocity between the two is realised in new and interesting ways. Bhabah’s postulation that diaspora identities are “socially and historically constituted, reconstituted, and reproduced within and as result of colonialism” and its contemporary materialisms for instance, (Patterson and Kelley, 2000: p. 19). Moreover, that hybridity by (and in) diaspora also increasingly allows the periphery to “talk back”, is clearly realised and understood in Nigerian diaspora negotiation and redefining of multiple identities in their attempt to make ‘meaning’ legible in the semiosis of African representation by NGOs. Not only do these different identities demonstrate that they are relational and constitutive of representation but also, that Nigerian diaspora appropriate these newly formed, and habitual self-articulations as they afford them complete authorship, control, manoeuvre and flexibility over how they are ‘seen’ and received by the world. A privilege not afforded to them by the often tricky, impenetrable terrain of development representations that are largely negative, stereotypical and disparaging about Africa and other global Southern regions. As such, these Nigerian diaspora identities are essentially performances of a ‘postcolonial Selfhood’ – figurative forms of diaspora agency, where they can reclaim new forms and axis of visibility and voice to “talk back” to the central-ised power of present-day colonial discourses where they are routinely marginalised and silenced in the visual rhetoric of NGO images.
Moreover, these findings also lend themselves to understanding how they are intimately-tied to another of this thesis’ key postcolonial theoretical references namely Said (1995) and his postulation of “the Other” and “Otherness” realised in/through binaries of difference in visual and textual representational forms. We understand for instance, that the un/conscious, redefining and appropriation of different identities by Nigerian diaspora is inherently and strategically anti-essentialist. That is, these new, distinct and hybrid forms of identification challenge, and are antidotes to the oppositional binaries of essentialist subjectivities which inhere in and are articulated through development representations. Whether it is assuming Caribbean identities which ‘down play’ Nigerian diaspora’s African-ness, or the ‘up-take’ of Afro-centric and Pan-African self-definitions for example, these identities are the attendant ‘meaning makings’ of their acute awareness, sensitivity, and frustration with discourses of difference in NGO images which camp and contrast Africa and Black/African identities into ‘binary oppositions and hierarchical relations of: ‘rich/poor’, ‘developed/un(der)development’, ‘progressive/primitive’, ‘helpless/resourceful’ for example. As we are reminded by postcolonial theorist, Ashcroft (2005: p. 183):
“[diaspora] hybridity and the power it releases may well be seen as the characteristic feature and contribution of the postcolonial, allowing a means of evading the replication of the binary categories of the past and developing new anti-monolithic models of cultural exchange, self- representation and growth”.
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As such, within this frame of Said’s ‘Othering’ concept, this chapter’s findings show that these diaspora identities provide them with new autobiographical narratives which resist and avoid their ineluctable fixing, permanence and ‘Othering’ within the essentialist categories of African representation by NGOs.
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CHAPTER 6: Development representations and diaspora engagement with development in their place of origin
“The issue of development related media images is a very complex one. Even worse is the effect [that they have] on people of African origin in the West. Africans often feel negative towards Africa and seek to dissociate themselves from their place of heritage. This consequently hinders their participation or engagement in Africa’s development.” (Opuku-Owusu, 2003: pp. 2-3)
6.1 Introduction The previous chapter addressed how development representations play a significant part in shaping diaspora perceptions and understandings of their place of origin. It also revealed how diaspora racial and ethnocultural identities are necessarily implicated in how they read and negotiate understandings of Nigeria. In addition, these identities determine the extent to which diaspora relate to Nigeria. Moving from diaspora perception and knowledge to engagement, this present chapter discusses the impact that development representations have on diaspora engagement with international development. Following this introduction, this chapter is divided into four main sections. The first, discusses how diaspora distrust international development organisations because of how they represent Africa in their campaigning. This is explored in the context of NGO images that are oversimplified, have negative messaging and those that are perceived as racist towards black African communities. The chapter shows how these factors negatively influence diaspora engagement with development via NGOs. The second, addresses how diaspora remittance-giving to their immediate and extended families in Nigeria, are a means through which they actively engage with development in their everyday lives. These diaspora practices of sending money abroad as a form of development invites critical questions regarding the interconnectedness of remittances and international development, and how both are conceived. The third part, discusses how diaspora audiences also engage with development in Nigeria and Africa generally, through their places of worship. It shows how for some participants development via the church and mosque is influenced by their religious identities and broader moral scripts that frame their values and behaviours towards others. The chapter concludes in the fourth section. It highlights how representations do shape diaspora engagement with development but only in the sense that they are discouraged to do so via NGOs. Their ethnocultural and faith identities are fundamental for understanding how diaspora engage with and understand development in their place of origin via alternative pathways.
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6.2 Diaspora mistrust of international development organisations A recurring theme among diaspora is that many were disinterested or unwilling to engage with international development organisations like Save the Children and Oxfam for example, working in their place of origin. Their non-engagement centres around the fact that they do not trust NGOs. There appears to be three key reasons for this distrust: First, some felt that African representation in NGO fundraising advertisements are oversimplified. Second, others had apathetic attitudes toward NGOs because of their negative and ‘unpromising’ messaging for Africa in their campaigns. Last, participant mistrust of NGOs was based on perceptions that development representations in Africa campaigning was racist towards the identities of black African communities.
6.2.1 Oversimplified Africa When shown the selection of images of Africa from NGO charity advertisements and asked to reflect on these and similar images they had come across, diaspora reactions were overwhelmingly negative. Some expressed feelings of exasperation with Africa’s representation by NGOs which they considered oversimplified in their depiction of the region and the complexities surrounding its privation. As is shown in the following comments, they suggested that it would be unjustified for them to endorse or donate to organisations that used these kinds of images.
One participant said for instance, “You know what really grinds my gears? Oxfam, WaterAid and so forth, that parade some stoic African lady, her eyes affixed to the landfill that surrounds her but she is not presented in a knowable place or circumstance. Why is she there? Why is she poor? What’s caused her current situation? Honestly, I find myself fumbling over these questions whenever I see images like these but of course they [NGOs] have no answers. All they want us to know is that Africa is on bended knee, ravenously hungry and so give unreservedly for their cause. Well that’s not happening, there’s no pledge of support from me. It’s such a stupidly naïve way to present Africa and what’s going on there as if everything can miraculously change by pledging two or three pound a month, it’s not that simple, many things have caused Africa to be this way.”
(Male 25, FG1)
With similar sentiment, another participant opined:
“Poverty didn’t just drop from the heavens in Africa’s lap…Africa didn’t just consume poverty, there is reason and stories behind everything, for why things are the way they are, you know? There’s no recognition of this [in images] no history, instead they [NGOs] like to show Africa as this overnight disaster zone and as waiting for cash from here [Britain]. Why would African’s trust any charity that does this? Do you think I’d hop and skip to their tune? I’d be stupid to. They [NGOs] just want to sell ‘simple’ for a quick buck.”
(Male 43, FG5)
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While 31-year-old Eunice, explained:
“This is a superficial Africa, an Africa with all the skeleton but no flesh …it’s just too simplistic to show a black child or village family pasted in front of a famine background somewhere in Africa and then ask for my coins. So, I’m left grappling over what the hell is going on in Africa, whose responsible for Kwame’s missed meals? Give me something to work with other than ‘this is Africa, it is starving and will continue to starve without your wallets’. It’s more than money it’s a political issue, it’s decades of history that’s cased Kwame to miss meals. It’s things like this that piss Africans off, that make them less inclined to support charities because no one is telling us what has caused Africa’s problems they just throw it up in the air or assume it’s all Africa’s fault”.
(Female, FG6)
Equally frustrated, this diaspora commented:
“They [images] have all the bells and whistles, they’ve got all the theatrics but no real reason for what’s going on in Africa…It didn’t just wake up and find itself poor. I can’t rack my brain around why anyone of African descent will happily donate to Save the Children or whatever, when all they do is show us a poor people, mud huts and skinny children that means nothing to anyone when you think about it. For me, that’s the end story but what about the chapters before?”
(Female 24, FG1)
Diaspora raise interesting points in their commentaries, not least that, the oversimplification of Africa’s representation in NGO fundraising campaigns, affords them little room for meaning-making. So too, how development discourse shapes and sets the parameters for how we ought to define and know about Africa for the Western-situated viewer. We understand from diaspora that underlying their critique of images as overly simplistic, are legitimate criticisms of and, the importance for, context and accountability or lack thereof, in NGO images. By this I mean, for participants, African representation present and transmute multidimensional social problems as depoliticised and ahistorical through measures (e.g. donating), that look for simple solutions for seemingly straightforward problems. As such, it is this dumbing down or simplifying of Africa to often decontextualised depictions of misfortune, lack, deprivation and suffering that, for diaspora, limit critical engagement with images. This is done at the expense of understanding and engaging with wider, global causal complexities of African privation. We see for example in diaspora comments, that much of their mistrust is levelled against NGO representations for seemingly locating the context and conditions of poverty issues in Africa, outside historical and social-structural processes and their remit of accountability. For diaspora then, oversimplified representations of Africa tell a story about African life, albeit a two-dimensional one, that lacks the breadth and depth of coverage to move beyond the limits of narrow criticism. Rather, to their frustration, this oversimplified rendering of Africa is used by NGOs to elicit donations.
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The Head of Policy and Campaigns at one of Britain’s leading emergency-focused NGOs, acknowledged and understood the reservations that diaspora audiences have about public campaigns. In an interview, she said:
“I have clear views on this, …I too don’t hear many black African or even Caribbean people that support international development charities like our own, I do sense from these conversations that they don’t want to support because they are not happy with some of these pictures. A lot of these pictures don’t chime with their own personal experiences, …I imagine that they find it hard to reconcile with many of these pictures and so they don’t support us, we’re iffy to them I suppose.”
In these comments, she understands the frustrations with NGO images and equally acknowledges the seemingly irreconcilable differences between diaspora personal understandings of Africa and its oversimplified representation. This, she suggests, is potentially fuelling diaspora mistrust of and non- engagement with NGOs. However, this representative would go on to explain that international charities including her own, should not be held accountable for simply fulfilling what she described as “our organisational duties”.
“We are conscious about the debates around representations but, my opinion is that international charities are always going to fail the depictions of African countries because our business is to produce content on the poorest and most vulnerable. We are not in the business of telling full stories, we know what motivates fundraisers and donors, …we need immediate response, so we give fair representation of urgency and need.”
As with profit-driven organisations in the private sector, for her, the responsibilities of international development charities as money-making businesses in their own right, are not levelled at issues of representation, rather at imbuing audiences with charitable agency. As such, organisational priorities are guided, to a large extent, by a need to generate quick, recurrent and large funds often achieved through these particular kinds of representation. We understand then, that oversimplified images of Africa are, for her, considered fair in that they signify the instantiation of suffering within Africa. Even if, as she alludes, this is at the expense of contextualised, meaningful stories. Given this, we are reminded that NGOs as apparatuses of development discourse, determine the space and create the frame within which Africa is defined and knowable (Franks, 2014). However, it is also within this space that the conditions and causal complexities of African privation is lost in the simplification and concealment that this creates.
The Director of Fundraising in the same organisation, emphasised the apparent ‘unreasonableness’ of holding development charities accountable for oversimplified imagery, while paradoxically, defending the necessity for such simplification. He said:
“The reality [is that] our messaging is quite simplistic, it’s simple, because it has to be, …it doesn’t attempt to give a complex picture, or nuanced approach because we can’t do that, however it is absurd and utterly unreasonable to charge NGOs with a debate on issues of representation. From a fundraiser point of view what drives us is that we want people to put their hands in their pockets by communicating need.”
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Similarly, his statement reinforces a perception of misdirected accountability of NGOs for debates on representation. What is interesting though, is that these representatives are in an industry, the ‘development business’, of image production and consumption. Much of their work and respective roles concern visual representation and its communication of international development issues to audiences. Yet, negotiating perceived tensions around oversimplified representations and, construing the implications of this for diaspora audiences in their campaigning, is seemingly, of little or no concern. What remains then, from this interview, is the paradox of images – the more simplistic they are, the greater the financial reward for NGOs. Oversimplification then, as an income generating strategy is, for these interviewees, exploited like any other commodity in a global image-based economy (Franks, 2014).
As such, using oversimplified images in campaigns while deflecting responsibility, precludes any critical engagement on their part with the interconnectedness of representation with its reception by diaspora audiences who identify with the beneficiaries of NGO work. An observation which is substantiated by the same Director of Fundraising:
“To be honest with you, we don’t particularly think about diaspora communities and what the impact is going to be on that community. I think it will be quite difficult to do that, how would we even begin to do that? It just wouldn’t happen, …whose responsibility is it anyway? Surely not ours. We do all that we need to do, …all that is expected of us in our roles, to galvanise as much as we can for the countless who need it, …and if that means using the kind of pictures that we do, that are not too big on detail but effectively communicate need for the countless who are living in life threatening situations, then so be it. We needn’t pass the buck to NGOs because of all the good work that we do.”
For this representative, any justification for using oversimplified images in NGO campaigning is reasonable given that, for the most part, their organisational mandate and priorities are guided by poverty reduction. His rationalisation for this, appears to be framed by a utilitarian moralism. By this I mean, he reconciles any perceived limitation of these particular kinds of representation, with its potential to bring about the greatest good for the greatest number. Oversimplification then, for him, is the best course of action even if this necessitates that contextual meaning is sacrificed in representations, given that the ends seemingly justify the means.
6.2.2 Discouraging Messages Other participants do not trust NGOs as they feel that the messaging behind their African representation is negative and demoralising, giving them little confidence in the effectiveness of donating. Accordingly, diaspora participants said that this dissuades them from supporting NGOs and their Africa campaigning. This is illustrated in the following quotations:
One participant said: “Whenever you see these pictures on Save the Children commercials, there is never an uplifting, positive message that Africa despite its shortcomings will one day find strength and rise from the ashes, that it will someday or somehow recuperate from the pits of suffering 134
from its hell, you know? It just leaves me feeling what’s the f-king point in parting with my cash…, sending two or three pounds to these organisations when the story is always going to be the same, that dying Africa is and forevermore doomed? Why send money for more pics of starving villagers and hungry kids? It’s illogical, I can’t be bothered.” (Female 48, FG4) Sharing similar sentiments, another participant pointed out: “What’s the incentive for Africans in supporting or backing charities? There isn’t any. It’s a waste of my hard-earned cash and time to support all these big charities, when all they use are images of dying babies and crumbling infrastructure. These images are defeatist they don’t inspire a smidge of hope for African recovery. Quite frankly, I’m tired with their message that Africa is far from improvement and that we should still dig deep and give generously but what’s the point if, according to their images, there is no bright future in sight for Africa?” (Female 32, FG3)
While 25-year-old Edwin, commented: “So, you tell me what improvements have been made so far? These are the type of questions that my family and I ask whenever we see their images across over screens. What irks me is that …whether Save the Children, Oxfam and the rest of them, the message is the same…, that Africa is today what it was yesterday and will be tomorrow and that is infectiously poor. It’s a redundant message that these images spew. I look at their images on TV its death death, death, death, and more death and it’s a broken record it’s the same tune day-in day- out, it’s mind numbing. I’m just done with these charities.” (Male, FG2)
Equally, one diaspora shared the following: “Charities have been using depressing images to ask for money for Africa for God knows how long now and they’re still asking for money what does that tell you? There’s probably never going to be much change in my lifetime. It’s off-putting when all you get is another broken pump, good luck trying to get support from Africans [laughter]” (Male 20, FG1)
Diaspora commentaries provide some important discussions about the representational communication and preferences of NGOs in Africa campaigning. Particularly, how representations convey specific and largely negative messages about African privation which allude to progress or lack thereof, within the region. So too, diaspora reveal how their perceptions of this, influences and is implicated in their distrust and disillusion with NGOs. We understand for example that, for some participants, representations of poverty and human suffering that abound NGO campaigns, communicate messages which suggest that Africa is somehow beyond the scope of charitable donations and or, NGO intervention. Within this frame, the development issues, problems and conditions of poverty that affect Africa are assumed insurmountable, unrecoverable and this offers little, or no reassurance for diaspora that their support and engagement with NGOs is or will be meaningful and effective. These representational messages are, according to diaspora, grounded in pessimism, low-expectations and an overall sense of defeatism regarding Africa’s ability to transcend
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the limitations of poverty that confine and popularly define it. Such perceptions are incorporated in discourses of difference that undergird postcolonial criticism whereby Africa is assumed resistant to change, or is consigned to a now-and-forevermore state that is perceived as a delay to progression (McEwan, 2009). This has hampered diaspora trust and confidence in NGOs, given that their continuing use of negative messaging about Africa, signify to participants, that NGOs are ineffectual and unreliable interlocutors for Africa and so, little is expected of them.
What diaspora want and expect from NGOs are instrumentally-driven representations of beneficiaries. That is, alternative and uplifting representations that shift the tone and narrative of current, largely bleak messages about Africa, by demonstrating visibly, the transformative potential of NGO work in the here and now. So too, representations which show that donating is instrumental in addressing and circumventing issues within the places that they seek to help. However, this is seemingly missing in NGO African representation which largely fail to expand its frontiers beyond “dying babies and crumbling infrastructure” as one interviewee (cited earlier) opined. This acknowledgment by diaspora, that NGOs seldom push their representational messaging of Africa beyond this dim outlook, revisits earlier discussions (section 6.2.1) about how NGOs as interpolators of development discourse, determine the space in which different and distant places are defined and made knowable for the Western-situated viewer.
As such, NGO professionals often quoted data from in-house market research and development literature, which frequently confirmed that “sorrowful messages not upbeat and spirited” as one communications manager put it, are more likely than not to translate into increased donations. Some practitioners, questioned the profitability and reasonableness of employing ‘positive imagery’ and uplifting messaging in NGO representational practices without obfuscating the intention and logic of communication whose aim is fundraising. They argue that a representational shift towards positive messaging is ‘theoretical’ and unpragmatic. A fundraising director for instance, who was critical of his communications colleagues’ suggestion that incorporating images in their campaigning which demonstrate how communities are benefiting from fundraising, insisted that this visual orientation is:
“Stubbornly quixotic [pause, sigh] …, a pointless vanity project of a relatively few intelligent people who throw around theoretical waffle that has no grounding in the real world but [who] nonetheless jot them down on interactive white boards hoping to find their ‘Eureka moment’ [laughs]...it’s a bootless errand really, but hey.”
But one that he would not gamble on if he were to maximise his organisations’ financial ambitions. This sentiment was shared by another interviewee, an assistant brand marketing manager in a competing and, one of Britain’s largest development NGOs, who stated:
“We want people to put their hands in their pockets…, our goal is to secure resources and our approach in communication, the kind of messages that we use is driven by our ability to achieve this…, if we flipped the script and suddenly take a less [pause] … glum approach for want of a better word, that will drastically lower our income and we need to maintain a high income. We are being told time and time again from all these surveys and reports done by our own research staff and charity commissions and think-tanks, that positive doesn’t work, it
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doesn’t command the high levels of income that we as charities need. The facts and figures are unassailable, and we can’t just overlook them, we have to be pragmatic about things instead of getting too carried away or bogged down with lofty ideals that sound nice in theory but ultimately don’t deliver the goods.”
Similarly, a junior digital marketing professional in an aid and humanitarian organisation opined:
“Our messaging is part of our strategic direction […] yes, we have some contentious images …, the flies-on-the-face stuff and whatnot, on our Flickr9 and Instagram10 accounts, which I have personally overseen but the thing is they all communicate the gravity of need, they send out a message of emergency to the British public…, at the end of the day they are cash cows for charities and we milk it for all we can..., for that reason ‘happy happy joy joy' messages don’t make it off the cutting room floor.” These commentaries demonstrate that the representational choices and preferences in NGO communication production, are intransigently framed within a transactional-based approach. Within this framing, negative messaging is strategically geared towards translating the magnitude of poverty issues into successful fundraising. This is achieved in a way that alternative positive, or “happy happy joy joy messages” as the above interviewee puts it, cannot. While, this transfiguration of ‘sorrow into cash’, is a tried and trusted messaging formula for NGO professionals, it nonetheless highlights a seemingly unbridgeable gulf between diaspora audiences and NGOs. By this I mean, there are stark differences between what diaspora participants in this research want, think and feel about NGOs and their representational messages and the intentions and aspirations that development organisations have for their communications. This observation, provides further critical understanding of the intricacies of diaspora distrust and engagement or lack thereof, with NGOs.
One development practitioner however, agonised over NGOs representations of “beneficiaries” as she put it, in their campaigning and what messages they communicate to British audiences. She implied that representations which are intended to forge and augment relationships between NGOs and audiences, are instead having a paradoxical effect by impeding civic trust and engagement. Referencing Africa and diaspora audiences as a case in point, she expressed:
“…Well, African communities might think nothing has improved [in their place of origin] because we guys over here are indeed showing them that nothing has…, it’s a message of an impenetrable hopelessness that we’re telling in our pictures, a hopelessness lodged deep down in Africa’s rib, this is a wrong message to send out.” She continues: “ ..and [pause, sigh] …, we can’t wash our hands of this issue and say ‘well that’s not our fault’ because it is. Since as long as I can remember, certainly from working in the industry for a several years now […] we’re still pushing the same depressing stories about Africa to put weight behind how severely in need it is. We do it so that [the] British public can dig, dig, dig and dig further into their purses. Our type of messaging focuses on what is still wrong with Africa instead of communicating how monetary support engenders change and successful progress. If I have one concern privately, it is that we’re blindly driving away certain, valuable segments of donor communities like diaspora communities, who might be giving charities like ours the side-eye, ...or keeping us at arm’s length. Which is a sad reality. Of course, positive
9 Flickr is an image and video-hosting website and webservices suite. 10 Instagram is a mobile, desktop and internet-based photo-sharing application and service 137
messages are better, they show development work in action but our hands are tied unfortunately. Our work is to drive forward and align ourselves with the mission of charities’ and that’s bringing in donations, meeting financial forecasts and departmental directives”
Some interesting and important discussions emerge in this account. While all development practitioners acknowledge the roles that NGOs assume in communication productions, this interviewee moves from a superficial acknowledgment, to an admission of NGO accountability, that is critical engaged and reflexive. Her comments express a sense of culpability of NGOs and of her own representational practices, in communicating to audiences in ways that may be implicated in the distrust and fraught engagement that diaspora communities have with development NGOs. She is conscious and cognisant of the debates surrounding representations and particularly, of how demonstrating the transformative potential and positive aspects of donating in Africa, can be advantageous for diaspora audiences in terms of how they perceive and connect with NGOs. As such, she is equally aware that negative, hapless messages that frame Africa in NGO work are redundant in attempts to extend their reach to audiences beyond the ‘general’ British public.
However, while she recognises the inadequacies of her charity’s representational practices and of the NGO field more generally, she is complicit although, seemingly reluctant. This is because she and other development professionals, have limited opportunities to address these inadequacies under the intra-organisational pressures and conditions within which NGOs operate. We are left then, with an understanding that for some development practitioners working within NGOs, they are caught between a rock and hard place. That is, they have difficulties in negotiating with, or reconciling their acknowledgment of these issues and how they want or ought to represent Africa, and their ability to effectively implement this.
6.2.3 Racist Imagery Other participant distrust of NGOs was based on perceptions that development representations in Africa campaigning are racist towards the identities of black African communities. This is exemplified in the following quotes taken from diaspora interviews:
One participant for example, explained that: “…., I’ve boycotted several companies and brands recently because of tax avoidance or unethical animal testing […] as they are untrustworthy. Charities are the same unfortunately, their images are racist in African eyes, well…, I can’t speak for all Africans but that’s what I think, they portray all black Africans as just…, living crappy, penniless lives to be frank, and just always pleading for help, it’s a warped representation. And to think these charities have the audacity to still ask the public to help them make money off racist pictures [laughter] the cheek of it. Who would want to invest any time or trust in charities that do that? I can’t”. (Female 24, FG1)
Similarly, 20-year-old Olaleyi contributed:
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“So…, I’m just going to call a spade a spade, […] I think many of these charities out there are racist, yeah, I get that they want to help sort out poverty within Africa but…, their pictures are fucking racist, not like minstrel show level racist but they give a good go don’t they [laughter]. What I’m trying to get at is …, like take Comic Relief or Save the Children for example, you can’t tell me their pictures, their ads aren’t racist towards black people? They always show Africans, like black kids and mothers begging for scraps, wandering the streets …, living under a bridge or something. It’s like they [NGOs] are saying all black Africans are like this, all poor and begging …., that’s some racist shit if you ask me. As a black guy from Africa, I wouldn’t feel comfortable saying ‘yeah, I’d support them [NGOs]’ because, who would? Supporting these charities means me approving that racist shit you know? It’s me giving them a high five and saying well-done keep it up.” (Male FG7)
While another participant, 27-yeard-old Edwin, shared the following comments: “…. This is just anecdotal but I think that a lot of Africans aren’t that warm towards charities because well, I’m sure there’s more than one reason but I know that […] the people I know, think that [NGOs] ads are pretty much racist to the bone and I feel the same way. I guess it’s the whole ‘woe is me’ image about black people…, that they [NGOs] are profiting off …, It’s like black means poor and poor means black and they [NGOs] are packaging this image up about us with a bow on top to sell around the world. I can’t support that …, I can’t give my coins to help them profit on racism.” (Male FG1)
Diaspora commentaries reveal important discussion points. We understand that for some participants, African representation by NGOs produce and contribute to certain negative, racist stereotypes and generalisations about African diaspora communities and that, this is implicated in diaspora disillusion and non-engagement with NGOs. Specifically, though, participant criticism is levelled at NGOs for portraying Africans, their subjects of representation, as living impoverished lives and as seemingly dependent on the work of charities. While interesting, participant discussions on NGO representation and racism are unsurprising in a context where race and racism, are critical to NGO histories, discourse and production of images (White, 2002; Goudge, 2003; Kothari, 2006). What is revelatory, however, is understanding how development representations, which participants consider racist, are engendering fraught and distrusting diaspora-NGO relationships. We also understand from diaspora comments such as, “…It’s like black means poor and poor means black” and “…It’s like they [NGOs] are saying all black Africans are like this, all poor and begging” (cited above) for example, that there is a certain kind of ‘ethnicisation’ of NGO representations that diaspora allude to. Whereby privation is somehow correlated with and racialised as black, African or both. This is problematic as African diaspora communities may be defined and confined by a stigmatising label within representations that pathologies poverty as essential to or naturally occurring among Africans.
Important still, is diaspora perception that NGOs are profiting from the marketing and sale of racist African representation and that by supporting development NGOs will inevitably mean them colluding in the transaction and profitability of some sort of commodified racism. It is unsurprising then, that comments such “Supporting these charities means me approving that racist shit you know?” (cited above) emerged in diaspora discussions. Not only do comments like this give more weight for 139
understanding participants’ perceptions and relationship with NGOs but also that their non- engagement are no more acts of distrust as they are resistance. That is, their engagement or lack thereof, with NGOs is dually informed by their distrust and challenge of NGO representational practices. What is also interesting is that while the NGO professionals interviewed in this research were largely oblivious of diaspora in their communications, participants on the other hand, are very conscious and sensitive. That is, not only are diaspora aware of the financial imperatives of NGO representations but also how these imperatives are implicated within and intersect with matters of African identity and race as the commodities or ‘selling points’ for NGOs. This reconstitutes diaspora distrust of NGOs into a new realm of understanding where their distrust is not just based on perceptions of racism in images but also how NGOs seemingly exploit ‘racialised poverty’ into profit.
This observation is substantiated in comments given by a representative of an African diaspora organisation that focuses on continental African and diaspora networking, who reported:
“We shouldn’t underestimate how astute diaspora communities are, many are all too aware that charity images speak to them on many levels especially the level of race […] they are aware that some images that they see on the television are entering into racist spaces, an anti-black racist space. They [diaspora] feel that they [charity images] are racist renderings of themselves and of the communities they belong. I know this from simple conversations with family and friends right up to colleagues and other professionals in the charity industry, they all make similar assertions, similar observations. Its things like this…having racist pictures that…, well among other things…, that make diaspora communities slightly hesitant, slightly wary of charities”. Not only do these comments revisit earlier discussions about the significance of race in development discourse but they also reinforce observations in the previous chapter (Chapter 5) about how diaspora racial identities are implicated in their interpretations and critical engagement with development representations.
Interestingly, diaspora perceptions of racism in NGO African representation were further compounded by the assumption that white NGO professionals were responsible for such racist imagery. These interviewees, assumed that the lack of racial diversity within NGOs and the hypervisibility of white development practitioners contribute to African representation that is racist in content. This was expressed in the following quotations:
One interviewee, made the speculative statement that: “I bet [that] there’s mainly ‘Oyinbo’11 people working in these top charities, calling the shots and making the final decisions about how black people should be seen in their campaigns…, that’s why their pictures are always racist against us because they don’t look beyond themselves, their own interests but rely on what they think black Africans are you know? They don’t think about the impact on us.” (Male 20, FG7) While another diaspora, alleged: “NGOs are just a sea of white heads running the show […] when you don’t have any black people, people of colour in there …, you know? Africans, then what do you expect? You’re
11 Nigerian Pidgin, Yoruba and Igbo word for Caucasians 140
gonna produce racist images. If you had more black people to even it out then they’d be more aware and sensitive in how they choose to show us because they are black themselves, so they know what it means to be unfairly represented in the world, by the media, they wouldn’t have to resort to racist stereotyping.” (Female 58, FG3) Similarly, this 19-year-old participant suggested that: “…. because you don’t see black people on the television, on the news when famine or disaster breaks out in Somalia or somewhere you just think charities like Save the Children are all white and that white people are the ones that are involved in every stage and level from brainstorming image ideas to actually putting them on the telly for us to see in a three- min ad. You don’t see black charity people talking for these charities on telly or those …, what they called? Aid workers? Helping poor people out in the field, they are all white. If Africans were in NGOs they would shows us differently in their ads ..., less racist” (Male FG6)
These assertions raise some critical discussion points for understanding the multilayers and complexities that inform diaspora distrust and disillusion with development NGOs. While diaspora perceptions of NGOs as white are not grounded in research, they are merely speculative. There is something to say about these perceptions being informed in one way or another by the growing mainstreaming of NGOs and their international visibility in the media landscape. Often, awareness of and access to NGOs by ordinary members of the public is through the media, and in more cases than not, the public faces of these organisations and NGO ‘work in action’ are White representatives. From aid workers in the field, to departmental managers and directors, and even celebrities in ambassadorial roles for humanitarian causes, they all tend to be “white in media” (Loftsdottir, 2009). In contrast, the beneficiaries of NGO work that is, those at the receiving end of development aid and practice, as well as, the subjects of NGO representation are often non-White (White, 2002; Loftsdottir, 2009; Heron, 2007). Unsurprisingly then, diaspora conception of NGOs as White is situated within a context of a racialised visibility/invisibility.
Similarly, with NGOs straddling the growing intersecting lines of the charity sector and the media, by communicating development issues and fundraising through mainstream media, NGOs are now extensions of the British media, which in turn, is largely owned, run and produced by White people (Heron, 2007). Within this framing, we understand from diaspora commentaries that NGO professionals who are white, have ‘white skin’ and or, “perform whiteness”12 in spaces where black African identities are assumed non-existent or few and far between, produce seemingly racist African representation. As such, diaspora allude to the idea that being white precludes any critical engagement, on the part of NGO professionals for understanding, identifying and empathising with black African identities. So too, how they relate or not, to diaspora experiences of being subject to racist/racialised representations. While this may be the case, this assumption is nonetheless
12 While Whiteness as a concept is elusive and often contradictory. According to Cooks and Simpson (2008: p. 89) “Whiteness is the omnipresent, invisible and unmarked standard with which “others” are judged and declared to deviate …, it is a relational category that is “parasitic on ‘blackness’” 141
problematic, as the inference is that diaspora practitioners within NGOs can and do. Not only does this implicate all black African’s into a collective sense of ‘We’ or ‘Us’, it also consigns their individual identities, positionalities and worldviews into perceptions of a diaspora sameness.
Equally, if we are to revisit the interviews from NGO professionals, it is arguable that all practitioners irrespective of skin colour and ethno-racial identification, are subject to the same intra-organisational politics, limitations and economic determinants of their operations. As such, institutional forces and pressures, not diaspora identities, shape and inform the availability and possibility of visual representations, and how people and places are communicated in the public space. In this sense, diaspora findings say more about their assumptions of white NGO professionals as racist as it does their criticism of racist African representation.
So far, this chapter has argued that NGO representational practices have adverse implications on diaspora engagement or lack thereof, with development organisations. However, while diaspora may have fraught and distrusting relationships with NGOs, by no means is this an indication of their level of interest and involvement in development-related issues and concerns in their place of origin. This is explored in the section that follows.
6.3 Remittances ‘as’ Development? African Diaspora and ‘Homeland’ Remitting African diaspora communities in the UK have strong and continuing ‘traditions of giving’ (Pharoah et al., 2013). Discussions with participants reveal that altruism is an integral part of their ethnocultural identities and family community life, and is shaped by complex individual, social and cultural dynamics. That is, diaspora participants have strong intergenerational relationships and are connected through personal histories, shared cultural values and acknowledged practices of family obligation and reciprocity. Many expressed that they support their families financially due to familial obligations: they give to demonstrate reverence, respect and gratitude to parents and grandparents; protect the honour of their families’ reputation and, or assure their economic wellbeing. For participants, regardless of their generation, this sense of familial duty was deeply held.
This is evident in the following diaspora comments:
In his group discussion, 48-year-old Ayomide for instance, emphasised the cultural significance of financially supporting his relatives in Ikoyi13 Nigeria, while living in the UK.
“Being Yoruba, in our communities we’re circumscribed by our traditions, they’re not part of a bygone age or irrelevant just because I’m not there [Nigeria], it’s very much alive, a lived reality of the here and now for us Africans living abroad. I mean I can’t image foregoing my duty to support my family back home, just as they did for me. It’s about being a dutiful child to my parents, …, no matter how old I am, I will forevermore be their child, their junior, and so, I have to help them out when and where possible …, it’s a two-way street”
13 Ikoyi is a neighbourhood in Lagos, Nigeria. 142
(Female, FG4)
Similar sentiments were shared by 29-year-old Promise, who further expounded on how diaspora expectations of roles, obligations and support within their families and communities are framed by cultural orientations and reciprocity. He explained:
“…It’s kinda like you’ve scratched my back so I’ll scratch yours, you know? It’s give and take. Our parents, grandparents and great aunts …, whoever, have sacrificed a lot of their lives, shed blood, sweat and tears which they ploughed into nourishing their children’s futures. Me helping them out is a return on their investment, their parenting is rewarded by the receipt of my financial support among other things. That’s just out culture, it’s all about being a respectful Nigerian, being an upstanding African …, it’s what we do”. While another interviewee advised on the potential repercussions of not fulfilling remitter-remittee cultural obligations.
“Ignoring it is unheard of and unacceptable […] people will talk badly [in Nigeria] or gossip about me and the family if you’re seen as not generous, they’ll think that I’d abandoned my family, or that I am stuck up, selfish or even worse …, that my parents didn’t raise me well. You need to keep your family name blemish-free. It’s a huge cultural taboo to just live selfishly in your own independent world, worrying about your own issues…, that’s a big no-no!”
These findings demonstrate the various cultural and familial arrangements which inform and structure the lived-realities of diaspora remitting practices in their place of origin. However, what is particularly revelatory about diaspora commentaries, is the comparability that participants draw between sending money to their families and communities in Nigeria, and development. Some diaspora said that they view their remittances are a form of development. While others, alluded to this idea by highlighting perceived similarities between their remittance-sending and the work of development NGOs.
This is substantiated in the excerpts of diaspora interviews: In a discussion about paying for his grandparents’ healthcare, 32-year-old Akin said, for example: “While Nigeria is rich compared to other African countries it is still Third World, there are plenty of poor people like my family […] There’s nothing like a NHS in Nigeria, there’s no equivalent everything’s privatised and extortionate and if you’re not wealthy or have decent medical insurance you’re fucking screwed. Unfortunately, my grandad has sickle-cell14 and my grandma has cataracts and is losing her sight…, they’re poor and live in a village on the outskirts of Abuja so they have difficulties accessing a hospital and even if they do manage they can’t pay close to even half of their medical bills. So, I take care of all of that …, just a quick transfer using Western Union15, and it goes straight into their bank. I dread to think about what would happen to them if I don’t step in, they would just suffer, it’s my responsibility to alleviate these problems.”
14 Sickle-cell anemia is an inherited red blood cell disorder mostly founded among African and African-Caribbean communities 15 Western Union is an American financial services and communications company used for international money and remittance transactions 143
Comparing his remittances to the work of UK-based international charity Sightsavers16, he further proclaimed:
“…When you think about it I’m doing the exact same work that these charities are fundraising for…, there’s no difference between me helping my grandma with her sight issues and say …, what they called now? World Vision, no, Sightsavers, I think they’re called …, I’m doing the same work as them. Okay, the only difference is that I’m in control of where and how I spend my money unlike if I give to these big charities.” (Male, FG7)
Similarly, one interviewee explained how instrumental her financial contributions have been in “keeping her cousins’ education in float” and described this as her “doing development”
“Schooling in Nigeria is a luxury for only a few instead of a human right for all…, I do my bit, a thousand pounds goes a long way in some circumstances, I buy school books, uniform and paid some of the tuition fees for my younger cousins. Everything is an expense in Nigeria, from your school books to your exam papers. Can you imagine that? Sometimes I use DHL17 to send them books as parcel deliveries. I’ve even donated books for this school’s library, I guess this for me is what I’d call development, this is my way of doing development if that makes sense? Without my support, who knows …, my cousins might take to desperate measures, some of the older girls in the community have sold themselves to put food on the table.”
(Female 27, FG2) Using similar terminology, 36-year-old Lola, an English teacher, described her remittances as “targeted development” as it allowed her to micromanage and specify the proposed use of funds in a way that she could not through NGOs. She explained this in relation to her sister’s entrepreneurial project:
“…She has a small boutique in central Lagos. I’ve donated and shipped a lot of clothes from the UK for her to sell. She updates me regularly with phone calls, emails and pictures on how things are going. You really don’t get that luxury of an instant update if you give money to one of these big charities. My cash goes where I want it to go without it being filtered though some organisation, I’m in control.” (Female, FG3)
While another participant, 43-year-old Oliver, explained how Nigeria’s current economic climate and scarcity of jobs has seen him “do the things that charities do for Africans”
“The economy in Nigeria is at its worse…, a downward spiral and jobs are scarce, it’s really, really bad and my family are at the receiving end of this, I recently helped out my aunt and her eight children …, [pause, sigh] ‘eight’ children being the operative word. Her sewing machine malfunctioned and this is what she used to bring money into the family …, she’s a talented seamstress. So, I personally bought her a new one about a month ago to start making clothes again …, It’s foot-operated because electricity in the village is unreliable she’s not used to
16 Sightsavers is an NGO that works to treat and prevent avoidable blindness and visual impairments 17 DHL (Dalsey, Hillblom and Lynn) is an international shipping and courier delivery service 144
manual operation but I’ve paid for sewing courses in the neighbouring township to help her learn” He continues: “…it’s no different from Oxfam showing farmers how to use better tractors or showing mothers how to bead [jewellery] for business, at the end of the day we’re helping them live better lives” (Male, FG5) Diaspora commentaries are revelatory in that they raise important discussion points in terms of how international development is generally understood within broader, theoretical discourses. These findings implore a rethinking about the interconnectedness of development and remittances, beyond what remitting ‘does’ for, or ‘in-kind’ to, development, to how it ‘is’ development. As such, we learn from diaspora commentaries that cultural obligations are not the only or primary motivations for remittance-giving, but also financial exigency informed by development-related issues and concerns in diaspora place of origin. That is, ‘private’ money sent by diaspora, is a combination of obligation to families and a response to very ‘public’ and ‘macro’, social, economic and political conditions of Nigeria. We see for example, that diaspora leverage remittances to pay for and address, urgent and daily subsistence needs; healthcare, education and crises that threaten their families’ survival and livelihoods in Nigeria. As such, diaspora findings demonstrate that remittances and development have allied features that make them ideal for minimising privation, increasing household investments in health and education. It also highlights remittances’ dual functioning in augmenting the income of benefiting families and communities, while alleviating poverty through such indirect and induced multiplier effects.
Within this framing, there is a certain depth within remitting that subsumes as well as, transcends material progress, allowing diaspora opportunities to improve quality of life. This is essentially what development is and calls for.
Similarly, the anecdote by the participant who bought his aunt a sewing machine (cited above), captures the spirit behind some principles and rhetoric of international development. Such as, empowering others by promoting individual/personal responsibility, independence and agency, which are incorporated in the ideas of neoliberalism which frame development discourse (Seu and Orgad, 2017). Equally, Lola’s investment in her aunt’s clothing businesses reinforce principles of entrepreneurship and human capacity building (Seu and Orgad, 2017). As such, these findings provide critical insight into understanding diaspora conceptualisations of development as well as, how it is practiced or engaged with by these communities. Furthermore, they call for a reconceptualisation of remittances as a practice which is influenced by the development context and conditions within diaspora place of origin. It also problematises previous assumptions regarding development pathways.
We also understand from diaspora commentaries, that some participants prefer to engage with development via remittances as opposed to NGOs, as this affords them a level of control, management and oversight of their contributions without NGOs as intermediaries. These finding 145
indicate that diaspora distrust and criticism of NGOs and their African representation, is not the only reason for their non-engagement with these organisations. Another reason is that they simply prefer the relative flexibility and autonomy that remittances gives them in specifying the proposed use of their contributions.
6.4 ‘Faith-full’ Support: The Role of Religion in Diaspora Engagement Participant discussions about remittances indicate the importance of diaspora identities for understanding why, how and to what extent, these communities engage with development. While, ethnocultural identities influence ‘diaspora-homeland’ contributions, interviewees also revealed faith as significant. Some participants, including remitting diaspora, said that religion plays a meaningful and instructive role in their everyday lives, and shapes their level of interest and engagement with development. They often referred, or alluded to, a link between their theological values and their development practices. This is realised in the following comments:
58-year-old Meredith for example, who describes herself as a “practicing, devout Muslim” stated:
“…We have Qur’anic responsibilities …, social, civic responsibilities, a duty to not only show, but also be, a form of charity to others, especially the underprivileged, you have to show them compassion and consideration, you know? There a several Qur’anic scriptures […] and in the teachings of Prophet Muhammed that calls attention to social and economic justice and the sharing of wealth for the welfare of the poor and oppressed. This is extended to your nearest and dearest too, so as instructed …, when and where I can I give money to family over there [Nigeria] who are struggling. My sister and I banded together to buy our great aunt a small fishing pond in Jigawa18 so she could start selling them to the locals and make a decent income” (Female, FG3)
Sharing a similar sentiment, 25-year-old Christopher an Evangelical Christian, who attends an African-majority church, explained:
“I’m a walking talking Oxfam [laughter] …, my faith teaches us that looking out for the less fortunate like many of our families back home in Africa is an honourable act, its almsgiving. Sometimes you forget that just because you’re living a fairly decent life here [in Britain] doesn’t mean it’s all honkey-dory for family back home [Nigeria]…, a lot of my cousins don’t even go to school, they can’t afford it, I help out the best I can.” (Male, FG2) While, Roman Catholic Nathan, said: “Helping those in Nigeria is a form of evangelism19, it’s helping through faith…, it’s an outward sign of an inward grace. So, if that means sending my old university textbooks to my uncles or paying for my grandads’ monthly check-ups, so be it, it just takes pressure off them.” (Male, FG5)
18 Jigawa is a Nigerian state in the central northern region 19 Evangelism is the sharing of the Christian gospel 146
Diaspora interviewees also mentioned how development-related activities are a part of their ministerial, congregational tasks and responsibilities. Some said that they pledge one-off donations or more regular and substantial financial contributions via the tithe20 or zakat21, in their church and mosque, respectively.
54-year-old Immanuel for instance, divulged that he is part of a tithing scheme within his church to address poverty issues and inequality in both Africa and his local community.
“In Seventh-day Adventism22 putting faith into action is encouraged […] I’m on what you call an Annual Stewardship Programme and basically, I pledge a tenth of my annual salary in support of my church’s missionary aspirations for things like poverty reduction in Africa…, but also for donations to the community foodbank […]. We have a dedicated team of aid workers, social workers and charity officers in the church, they are called ‘Mercy Sisters’ […] they are normal church goers like myself but they are responsible for putting the tithe to good use …, like school uniform, stationary and books for children who don’t have in Africa ..., our goal is to get more girls into schools.” (Male FG3)
Similarly, another participant a Sunni Muslim23, explained how she donates a portion of her income through Zakat to help “the crisis of hungry Muslims” as she put it, in Northern Nigeria.
“I give Zakat it’s an Islamic obligation for the poor and needy […] our mosque works closely with the Peckham Muslim Centre and they help allocate the Zakat to different types of causes, recently they’ve been helping our Hausa brothers and sisters in the northern states of Nigeria …, they’re really poor in that part of Nigeria. I heard Yemi Osinbanjo24 say recently on AIT25 tv that they [Hausa-Nigerian Muslims in Northern Nigeria] have I think …, highest infant and mortality rates in Nigeria and the lowest rate of child enrolment in schools …, hopefully we can do our little bit…, Inshallah26.” (Female 31, FG6)
A few Christian and Muslim participants reported that during religious observances like Lent27 and Ramadan28, they organise fund and awareness-raising events such as, sponsored runs and marathons. One church-goer said for example;
“During Lent and Christian Aid Week29, I organised a door-to-door fundraising drive and a 5K sponsored run with our church’s youth pastor to get the locals and congregation to donate for
20 Tithe is a one-tenth part of annual earnings, paid as a contribution to the Church and clergy. 21 Zakat is annual payments under Islamic law for charitable and religious purposes. 22 Seventh-day Adventism is a Protestant Christian denomination. 23 Sunni Muslims are members of the largest Islamic denomination 24 Yemi Osinbanjo is a Nigerian lawyer and politician who is the current vice president of Nigeria 25 AIT (African Independent Television) is a transnational Nigerian TV station 26 Inshallah is Arabic for “God Willing” or “if God wills” 27 Lent is a 40-day religious observance in the Christian liturgical calendar that begins on Ash Wednesday and ends before Easter Sunder. 28 Ramadan is a month-long Islamic observance 29 Christian Aid Week is a door-to-door fundraising campaign by the British charity, Christian Aid. 147
the Ebola crisis in West Africa, and to support a few badly-hit sister churches in Nigeria and Serra Leone.” (Male 29, FG6) While Meredith (cited above) mentioned that: “During the holy month of Ramadan especially, I and the other sisters speak from the minbar30 reminding the congregation about our care packages. We make care packages for our brothers and sisters in poorer countries…, we just fill shoe boxes with all sorts of things like school books, canned food and clothes” (Female, FG3)
Diaspora commentaries raise some interesting and critical issues, not least that, their religion and faith sensibilities are instrumental for understanding their interest, engagement and relationship with development in their places of origin. Diaspora religion and faith-based teaching articulate a theological basis for international development centred around humanitarianism, reconciliation, stewardship, compassion and justice. We understand that these provide the moral space and framing within which diaspora motivations for, and involvement in development, are implicated. They also inform diaspora priorities and strategies of help and ‘giving’ in Africa. It is unsurprising then, that participants often provide moral, scriptural justifications for their development activities. As such, one cannot underestimate the role that faith identities and religion play in shaping the broader moral narratives and obligations that inform diaspora values and behaviours, and their vocabularies of justification for engaging in development.
Similarly, diaspora conceptualisations of development as “putting faith into action” as one interviewee put it, or “an outward sign of an inward grace” as another described (cited above), are critical to rethinking international development in terms of performativity. That is, development as a performance of faith. Within this framing, diaspora faith identities are not only implicated in but are performed ‘through’ and ‘as’ development itself. This suggests a certain dynamism, performative element and multidimensionality of international development that allows for the intersection with diaspora faith and religion. As such, development is and cannot be faith neutral in the context of diaspora-development engagement and practices. Faith is fundamental for recognising how diaspora understand the opportunities and challenges of life in Nigeria, and how they respond to this.
6.5 Conclusion This present chapter addressed the second research question, of whether and if so, how development representations by NGOs impact diaspora engagement with their place of origin. Its findings revealed the often complex and fraught relationship between diaspora audiences and NGO fundraising communications. The chapter showed that diaspora generally distrust and are unwilling to engage with international development organisations like Oxfam and Save the Children for example, because of how they represent Africa in their fundraising campaigns and advertisements. This distrust
30 A minbar is a pulpit in the mosque where the Imam (prayer leader) stands to deliver sermons and lectures to the congregation. 148
was explored in three ways, with the first revealing that some participants dislike NGO African representation as they oversimplify the region to elicit public donations. For diaspora, this oversimplification in representations, limit opportunities to understand and critically engage with the historical conditions and social-political complexities of African privation. As such, much distrust was levelled against NGOs and their representational practices for erasing the complexity and historicity of development problems in Africa for monetary gain. This in effect, problematically assumes and gives out a message that donating is a simple solution for seemingly straightforward problems in diaspora place of origin. For diaspora, this deliberate avoidance by NGOs of political issues to fundraise, preclude any critical engagement, on their part and that of donating audiences, with the issues that cause poverty.
Secondly, the chapter showed that some diaspora distrust NGOs as they feel that their images convey largely negative messages about Africa’s progress. Whereby the possibilities for improving African privation are seemingly beyond the reach and influence of public fundraising and overall NGO intervention. Within this frame, African poverty is seemingly insurmountable and ‘untreatable’ and this affords little, or no hope for diaspora that supporting NGOs is or will be meaningful and effective in the place of origin. Thirdly, findings revealed that diaspora do not trust NGOs because they view their images as racist towards black African communities. We understand from diaspora commentaries that there is a feeling of resentment and indignation towards NGO African representation, for depicting their identities and places of origin as largely poor and dependent on charity.
Moreover, there is a certain kind of ‘ethnicisation’ of NGO representations that diaspora allude to. Whereby poverty is metaphoric for and, racialised as black, African or both. Diaspora are both sensitive and conscious of this, and feel that these kinds of ‘racist’ images stigmatise their communities as inherently poor. This is compounded by diaspora assumptions that white NGO professionals are responsible for these racist representations. This is understood within the context of a racialised hyper-visibility/invisibility, whereby the public faces, or representatives of NGO work in mainstream media are largely white, and the beneficiaries, in contrast, are black and brown.
NGO professionals interviewed in this research are largely oblivious to diaspora audiences in their representational practices, rather their communications are informed by the intra-organisational politics, limitations and economic determinants of their operations, which prioritise fundraising. These internal considerations, not diaspora audiences, determine what images are available and possible, and the ways in which they communicate diaspora and their place of origin, in the public sphere.
The final sections showed that, while development representations negatively impact diaspora engagement or lack thereof, with international development, diaspora are nonetheless still interested and actively engaged with development-related issues and concerns in their everyday lives. This was understood in the context of remittance-giving to families in Nigeria and their involvement in charitable work via their church and mosque. The respective literature on development and diaspora remittances, and the discomfort in recognising the complexities of consolidating the two, has created an epistemological divide (Ratha, 2007). That is, there is a fundamental schism between the language 149
of remittances and the dominant neo-liberal materialism of development (Ratha and Williams, 2007). Within this frame, remittances and international development are understood as essentially different, as one is given out of familial and cultural obligation, while the other, in response to need. However, while limited, there is some literature (Chami et al., 2003; Osili, 2004; Ratha, 2007; Ratha and Williams, 2007; Adams et al., 2013) which argue for fundamental shift in traditional views of remittances as a ‘private’ substitute for development, to acknowledging it as a “compartmentalised feature” of international development (Ratha, 2007: p. 6) that is dually informed by obligation and need.
We learn from this chapter that diaspora see these forms and channels of ‘giving’ that is, remittances, as development, as they are responding to the development context and conditions within their place of origin. Appropriately, this chapter highlighted the importance of acknowledging diaspora remittances and religion as fundamental to their engagement with development. So too, called for the reconceptualisation of international development to include diaspora remittances and faith identities and practices as ‘performances’ of development.
From the analysis, it is therefore surmised that development representations do impact, negatively on diaspora engagement with international development via NGOs, however diaspora have other, alternative and preferred means and channels through which to participate. Remittances and diaspora religion are fundamental for understanding why this is, and for the way that they and we conceive development.
Much in the spirit of the previous empirical chapter, we understand how the main findings of this chapter, are also necessarily implicated and contextualised within the key theories of postcolonialism which guide this thesis. This is demonstrated when the data is related back to Stuart Hall ([1973]1980) and his (re)theorisation of mediated communication and the multiple interpretative processes of ‘meaning making’ by audiences. We see from diaspora commentaries, intertextual interpretations and criticism of development representations, the different, complicated and nuanced ways that participants talk about how such images impact and are implicated in their various levels of engagement (or lack thereof) with development and disillusionment with NGOs as trusted Africa(n) interlocutors. From criticism about oversimplification and unpromising messaging in African representation to conspiratorial accusations of intentional racism, the diversity of and within the empirical material challenges uncritical assumptions and theoretical obfuscations of homogeneity in audiences. So too, it eschews seemingly mechanistic and reductionist assumptions of linearity in processes of mediated communication, where audiences are invariantly confided and defined by a ‘Sender-Message-Receiver’ unidirectional activity. Additionally, Halls’ Encoding/Decoding thesis is realised in the empirical findings by Nigerian diaspora providing a glimpse of the receiving context of messaging within representations by NGOs, which is neither uniform nor static but no less challenging. As such, this latter point is evident in the different intertextual ways that diaspora participants understand and receive representations and the degree to which this impinges on and is constituted differently in their levels of engagement in development and disillusionment with NGOs.
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While Stuart Hall’s theorisation has revealed the interesting and different ways in which this chapter’s data is situated in its central thesis, perhaps the empirical material is more acute or pronounced in the ‘Othering’ concept of Edward Said’s Orientalism. We understand from diaspora commentaries that much of their mistrust and criticism levelled against NGOs which has framed and informed their unwillingness to participate in development via the formal sector, is due to an indignation and critique of the essentialisms and oversimplification of Africa in development representations. That is, diaspora non-engagement and disillusionment are forms of postcolonial criticisms of – or diaspora symbolisms of oppositional resistance to, – the discursive positioning of Africa and Non-Africa/the West as ontologically and culturally antithetical or incommensurable through a/illusions of difference in representational binaries and distinctive framings of poverty and development. Littered in the empirical material we find diaspora commentaries highlighting how their ‘inaction’, ambivalent philanthropic propensity and alternative, informal donating preferences (away from mainstream sector) are due, in part, to them being highly conscious of and sensitive to allusions and visual reifications of ‘Othering’ in African representation. As such, it is through illustrations and themes of oppositional differences in NGO imageries which largely fail to expand their frontiers beyond “historical erasure …, dying babies and crumbling infrastructure” (cited earlier), and which suggest Africa(ns) inability to transcend the limitations of poverty that confine and popularly define it, that diaspora ‘binary-resistant’ behaviours are formed and implicated. It’s also through diaspora construal of these colonial-informed representational ‘Othering’, that NGOs are regarded as ineffectual and unreliable interlocutors for Africa and so, little is expected of them and by extension, diaspora engagement in their activities.
Similarly, in a related point, there is an implicit conspiratorial tone – an accusational pattern – within this chapter’s empirical findings that is shared with the central mission of the postcolonial approach which overall, guides this research, which suggests that the “sins of the development are deliberate i.e. of commission, not omission” (Dogra, 2012: p. 17) and which necessitate interrogation and exposure. In the context of diaspora commentaries, these so-called “sins” are appropriated, legitimatised, promoted and extended in the form of racist and racialised NGO representations, authored by Western-situated, White-skinned/non-African NGO professionals. As such, as aforementioned in this chapter, we also understand from diaspora comments such as, “…It’s like black means poor and poor means black” and “…It’s like they [NGOs] are saying all black Africans are like this, all poor and begging” (cited above) for example, that there is a certain kind of racialising of NGO representations that participants allude to. Whereby privation is somehow correlated, pathologised and racialised as black, African or both, which by implication transposes and fixes Black African identities (and places) into ineluctable dichotomies of difference that are rooted in colonialism.
These findings are interesting and revelatory in a postcolonialism framing, as they demonstrate diaspora’s shared interest to illuminate, critique and problematise institutional forms of normative assumptions and knowledges of decolonised places and communities therein – Africa in this case. However, they also reveal the reality that for these audiences, development images are historicised by and within hierarchically-racist structural configurations – propelled by present-day White 151
development professionals - which, to some extent, shape diaspora levels and forms of dis/connections with development. As well as, engender fraught and distrusting diaspora-NGO relationships.
These diaspora findings are interesting when related to postcolonialism as they reveal a context where race and racism are critical to NGO histories, discourse and representational communication in the construction of identities and attendant social relations. As such, we are reminded that NGOs as apparatuses of development discourse, determine the space and create the visual frame within which ‘Other’ people and places are defined and knowable.
Lastly, when contextualised in Bhabha’s (1994) ‘Hybridity’ theorisation of diaspora identities as multiple, contradictory and iterative forms of self-identifications that are constantly being defined and redefied through processes of transformation and difference. We see in the empirical findings how Nigeria diaspora appropriate, summon or ‘latch on to’ different axes of self-definition other than their racial, ethno-cultural identities as say ‘African’ for example, to reveal different ways in which religion and/or faith are implicated in their diaspora-development engagement via representations. The chapter showed how diaspora faith identities, sensibilities and self-ascriptions as ‘Christian’, ‘Muslim’ or ‘Religious’ complicate their interpretations of NGO practices and development itself in their readings of African representation, in ways that are different, nuanced and contradictory to their ethnocultural identities. As such, for diaspora audiences their faith identities are illuminated in and performed through, and even against development in their readings of NGO representations providing the moral and scriptural justifications for their philanthropic engagements – or lack thereof – in development, in ways that are not elicited and salient in simply identifying as ‘African’. Within Bhabha’s hybridity framing, this suggests a certain dynamism, performative element and multidimensionality of diaspora identities that allows for a rethinking about how this features in their propensity to engage in development, as well as, the types and forms of development they participate in.
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CHAPTER 7:
Diaspora audiences producing, shaping and/or challenging development representations
“What can the African diaspora do to challenge distorted media perceptions about Africa? It is surprising that the African diaspora is invisible in stories and images associated with Africa’s development, and in the many narratives attempting to provide understanding of Africa. Why have these Africans in the diaspora not played an active and important role in the creation of images of Africa? What is the starting point, and what actions can be taken? Unravelling the puzzle means that any implications for action are clearer and more tangible.”
(Wambu, 2006: p. 21)
7.1 Introduction
This chapter addresses the third research question – “How are diaspora audiences producing, shaping and/or challenging development representations?” Following this introduction, this chapter is divided into three sections. The first shows how diaspora communities are using microblogging and image-sharing via the social media site Twitter to challenge development representations of Africa. They are doing this by uploading and sharing different images that showcase the continent in ways that are often unseen in the media. The second, highlights how for some diaspora using Twitter allowed for solidarity among African communities in their fight against popular, largely negative representations of Africa in media and by charities. The third, explores and examines how YouTube has allowed one diaspora in particular to produce original content aimed at challenging as well as offering alternative representations of Africa.
While the previous analytical chapters focused primarily on the empirical realities of Nigeria diaspora, this present chapter necessarily moves away from these specific communities to include broader African diaspora. This move was informed by practical and theoretical considerations as will be discussed in the following paragraphs of this section, providing a background context. As aforementioned in the Methodology chapter (see. Section 4.7), at the preliminary planning stage of this study, I had intended to visit African diaspora community programmes, associations and workshops, in addition to, observing (and potentially participating in) organisational/departmental meetings with diaspora development practitioners whose work concern representations. That is, I was interested in those African diaspora professionals practicing in the field of representations i.e. fund- and-awareness-raising communication productions and, those who actively and or, intellectually
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engaged in challenging, reworking and informing development representations. The idea behind this thinking was that by observing the work of these organisations and practitioners therein, I would gain a dual understanding of how development representations are constituted and realised in their everyday practices and, also the multiple and differentiated ways in which they challenge, address and respond to them. However, this proved far more complicated than I had initially estimated.
As detailed in Section 4.6., identifying African diaspora-led development organisations that used visual representations akin to those employed by the more popular, mainstream NGOs like Oxfam and Save the Children for example, in their marketing, branding and/or fundraising campaigns was difficult. Additionally, while extensive internet research was conducted, I could not identify any African diaspora organisations, associations or, UK-based local/independent community-level projects, who were actively engaged in and, or challenging development representations or other kinds of African representation in the media.
However, despite this, I came across the diaspora-driven social media initiative #TheAfricaTheMediaNeverShowsYou – which this chapter concerns – that provides an online platform for Twitter-using African diaspora to upload and share African representation of their choosing. as a means to inform, challenge and reconceptualise popular, largely negative imageries of Africa(ns) by NGOs and in mainstream media. Appropriately, my interest re-directed towards examining how online (as opposed to ‘off-line’) diaspora communities are leveraging internet-based communication technologies such as social networking platforms to challenge, shape and/or inform development representations, in keeping with this thesis’ third research question.
While it was a relatively quick and straightforward process to access diaspora user-generated, social media data. Identifying Nigerians specifically to interview among the thousands of online African diaspora communities was a virtually impossible, herculean task. Given the challenges of digging, sifting and sorting through innumerable Twitter-users and with no software technology/in-built mechanism to assist this, I randomly selected all types of African diaspora users. Although, where possible, if a Twitter-user identified themselves as Nigerian and/or had a Nigerian sur/username in the bio description of their twitter account, they were automatically selected for interviewing. Although the latter was treated with caution given that names themselves are not always reliable indicators of one’s ethno-cultural heritage. Moreover, most Twitter-users are known to use pseudonyms for public profiles. As such, due to the impracticalities of narrowing down (or specifying) online diaspora communities, I had to move away from the Nigeria diaspora to broader African diaspora communities of which, (as this chapter’s empirical material demonstrates), Nigerians are also included.
Although this thesis – it’s title and empirical focus – is necessarily concerned with Nigeria diaspora communities and their relationships with development representations, moving away from this specific grouping and opening-up to the empirical realities of other African diaspora constituents, has its theoretical (and methodological) advantages. Having unrestricted access to thousands of African diaspora who are as multiple, differentiated, complex and diverse as the individuals and online 154
communities that compose them, affords this research with a heightened and enriched degree of breadth and depth that would not have otherwise been provided had I just focused on Nigerians. As such, examining this rich, expansive population provides a seemingly bound-ary-less space and scope to gain a more critical understanding of how and to what extent that African diaspora audiences produce, shape and, or challenge development representations and their content in line with the thesis’ third research question which this chapter concerns. Additionally, moving away from the empirical limitations of Nigerian diaspora to the empirical possibilities of a vast number of different others offered opportunities to form a more sophisticated comprehension and analysis of the overall research objective to understand and examine what impact that popular and public representations of development have on diaspora audiences.
Within this frame, we see how a move towards broader African diaspora communities advantageously links to the transferability of the research findings. This is understood in the rich diversity in/of the research population in their racial/ethno-cultural identities, subjectivities, positionalities, intergenerational histories, connections with Africa and specific countries of origin, and other idiosyncrasies that amplify and complicate the social and cultural context of these communities. This increases their representativeness and application of their empirical realities to broader African diaspora populations in terms of not only understanding how African diaspora address and challenge development representations in multiple ways, but also how their perceptions and understandings of Africa and their interpretations of NGO (and media) images of Africa are more pronounced and implicated in this.
In a related point, theoretically, this move is also justifiable as it broadens and complicates the more conceptual issues that emerge in relating the empirical findings of this chapter back to this thesis’ postcolonial framing. We see how including the empirical realities and contributions of Angolan, Congolese, Zimbabwean and Nigerian diaspora for example, (as examined in this chapter), provides a more sophisticated and nuanced application of Stuart Hall’s ([1973]1980) ‘Encoding/Decoding’ model, in understanding how these online diaspora audiences are not just heterogenous in composition, but also in ‘thought’ and in their ‘meaning making’ practices of media text.
Similarly, applying Bhabha’s (1994) ‘Hybridity’ theorisation to these diverse communities, provides a more critical insight into the many different(iated), complicated and even, similar ways that diaspora identities are framed, constituted, performed in, through and even against development representations. Again, when relating the empirical findings of the broader African diaspora back to Edward Said’s ‘Othering’ concept, greater scope and diversity is given to how we understand the many ways in which alternative representations produced by diverse African groups are as a result of, and implicated in, colonial-informed hierarchical discourses of ‘difference’ that are reproduced by NGO and popular media representations of Africa.
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7.2 #Twitter = Digital Re-presentation? Diaspora Microblogging and Image-Sharing.
Within the last ten years, there has been an unprecedented proliferation of new internet-based communication technologies and social media platforms (Sloan and Quan-Haase, 2017). The popularity of online social networking and video-sharing applications such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube for instance, is unparalleled both in growth of take-up and the production of user-generated content (Sloan and Quan-Haase, 2017). Not only have British diaspora and continental Africans populated these social networked communications online, they are also using these platforms as, and for, development punditry. That is, whether used for simple pontification, social commentary or information-sharing, this research has found that some diaspora are using social media to engage with, critique and problematise development representations. Similarly, these platforms are being used to inform and customise their own self-curated ‘online exhibitions’. That is, diaspora Africans are appropriating these new media technologies to self-publish re-imaginings of Africa(ns) and of their specific countries of origin, from their own perspectives. These online practices, have afforded several diaspora novel opportunities to bring and bridge new, and varied perspectives to the forefront of international development discourse.
One such form of social media which has had a noticeable diaspora-driven impact on development discourse is the microblogging-based, instant-messaging site Twitter Inc. Controversial development initiatives such as the viral ‘Kony 2012’ film by US-based charity Invisible Children and, the clothing- themed ‘One Million Shirts’ campaign, received much diaspora criticism online. The scathing African diaspora backlash against the One Million Shirts campaign – an initiative to donate one million t-shirts to Africa – was so harsh that founder Jason Sadler discontinued the project (Sadler, 2010). Similarly, Invisible Children’s film campaign about the plight of Ugandan child soldiers at the hands of warlord Joseph Kony, was largely discredited as “over-simplified” and “insensitive” by thousands of Ugandan and other African diaspora communities online and via Twitter (Ruge, 2013).
In the context of development representations, this research has found similar instances of African diaspora communities leveraging Twitter to incite and engage in development-related discussion and debate. Evidence of this is in the 2015 diaspora-driven Twitter initiative called: ‘The Africa The Media Never Shows You’. A social media campaign aimed at fighting against media stereotypes and, demystifying largely negative perceptions of Africa(ns).
On June 26, 2015, Rachel a 18-year-old, Ghanaian-American student, identified as @WestAfricanne, launched the following hashtag: ‘#TheAfricaTheMediaNeverShowsYou’ on her (now disabled) Twitter account. She accompanied this hashtag with the following message:
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Image 7.1: #TheAfricaTheMediaNeverShowsYou Tweet
Attached to an image of a palatial property in Ghana, West Africa, Rachel’s message implored her followers to support and join her campaign by using the hashtag and posting/sharing images of Africa which, as Rachel put it, ‘show the world what the media won’t’. In a brief Skype interview with Rachel, she detailed her motivations behind the campaign and what she had hoped to get out of it. As a Ghanaian-raised member of the diaspora in predominantly white, New Hampshire, USA, Rachel reflected on how this, as well as, the television media she consumed about Africa(ns) played an important role behind the launch her Twitter initiative:
“When people find out that I’m African, they often have many questions. They want to know why I don’t talk with “an African accent” whatever that is, and whether I lived in a hut and what it was like raising a lion as a pet. Frustrating as those kinds of naiveties are, they undoubtedly reflect much deeper issues: because of the way Africa is often shown in mainstream Western media. What people are really asking is why I ...for some reason, don’t seem to fit into their stereotypical expectations about what Africa is – where does poverty, disease and wild animals fit into the story of my life? But this is not the Africa I know”
Rachel further explained that her hashtag was meant to address what she described as “irreverent inanities” by “non-African people and the media at large”:
“I started #TheAfricaTheMediaNeverShowsYou campaign last summer in 2015 and I think the name – the title of the campaign speaks for itself…I felt that it’s time the world saw a different side to Africa, to see the Africa we know rather than what some or most of these Western 157
charities and news programmes show. Being Ghanaian and African especially, you know there is so much more than the poverty, disease and ethnic wars. The world deserves to know that there is something more behind where our communities come from you know?. That was my intention, the purpose…I’m happy I did this as it’s still going strong now in 2016” (Rachel - @WestAfricanne, May 2016)
As Rachel describes, her frustration with the ignorance surrounding her African heritage and upbringing were the main drivers behind her campaign. While Rachel mentioned that she was “dipping into uncharted waters” with ‘#TheAfricaTheMediaNeverShowsYou being her first foray into online petitioning, she nonetheless felt that by showcasing “different types of representations” of Africa which seldom appear in Western, mainstream media, this would help – “in some small way” – to demystify negative perceptions of Africa. When asked to expand on what she meant by “different types” of representation, Rachel reported images which showcased Africa as “not all poor, starving and with disease like in charity ads”.
From speaking with Rachel, it became apparent that her mission was not only to respond to the largely negative media representations of Africa by charities and other institutions but also, by implication, somewhat alter the mindset of non-Africans. An over-ambitious mission, to say the least, but one which Rachel adamantly felt was important given that, as she remarked “they hold the most stereotypical views of Africa”. Rachel’s position on non-African perceptions of Africa is mere anecdotal, largely shaped by her personal histories and relationships with her non-African, mostly white peers as an African minority herself. Interesting still, is that Rachel’s proclamation is not something that this research has found, rather that African diaspora perceptions of Africa are just as stereotypical or negative as the non-African, white participants who have taken part in this research. This is especially true, as shown in chapter four, for those with no or limited contact with their country of origin.
While Rachel’s intention behind #TheAfricaTheMediaNeverShowsYou was to offer a counterbalance to popular media misrepresentations, within the discussion however, there was also the impression that she wanted some kind collective activism as part of her cause. Perhaps overambitious is my interpretation, however taking into consideration the following comments as evidence, it is seemingly supported by Rachel:
“I wanted all my extended brothers and sisters of African heritage to take charge and rebel against the troubling image of Africa and show different types of representations … it’s about time that they [the media] hear the stories of our own communities without being constantly shut out …left out. I thought if enough of us came together as a unit we could change the whole CNN, Unicef and Save the Children Africa image”
Rachel envisioned, what was understood as, some form of ‘virtual collectivising’ or unification of African diaspora online, all of whom are assumed to be similarly frustrated with mis-representations of Africa and as such, tasked with the job to combat them. Much like those diaspora participants who exhibited ‘Afro-centric’ and ‘unapologetically black’ identities in chapter five, Rachel’s statement 158
necessarily speaks to the idea of diaspora assuming personal and collective responsibility over Africa’s representations. This grand vision for solidarity in tackling representations might appear grand but it was nonetheless shared by some diaspora who joined her campaign. As shown later in this chapter.
Moreover, Rachel’s comments do not underestimate the resource of African diaspora as social media users in adjusting the boundaries of development discourse, by redefining (even if, momentarily) the criteria for determining ‘who speaks for whom’. In this sense, for Rachel the who that is posting images as part of #TheAfricaTheMediaNeverShowsYou campaign is just as important as what is posted. Only then, as she alludes to, can representations of Africa by development charities like Unicef and Save the Children be subjected to change by diaspora whose contributions are often noticeably absent.
With the hashtag attracting over 42,000 tweets31 and retweets32 in its first week of inauguration and reaching a reported peak of 2,400,000 million Twitter users by the end of July 2015 (The Guardian, 2015), the #TheAfricaTheMediaNeverShowsYou campaign gained momentum rapidly. Chronicling everything from food to architecture, social initiatives to contemporary African fashion – several continental and African diaspora placed their weight behind the hashtag movement. This research overserved a multitude of images and messages that consciously showed Africa and communities therein, as diverse, ‘developed’ – and unapologetically so, and as a hotbed of ingenuity, resourcefulness and beauty.
The following section will present different discourses taking place as part of the Twitter campaign. That is, the different types of representations of Africa and commentary by diaspora. Given the enormity of gathering and summarising all images and discussions taken place since the launch of #TheAfricaTheMediaNeverShowsYou and the challenge of space limitations, for this section I have chosen to represent only a few selected examples.
Diaspora support for the campaign is vast, varied and in constant motion, this diversity and dynamism make it difficult to generalise what they posted via Twitter. However, the following observations are emblematic, they provide an overview of common (though not universal) types of images shared virally by diaspora online and what they said.
My analysis of diaspora tweets indicated five popular themes raised in diaspora representations of Africa related to children/childhood, food/cuisine, property, industrialised cities and tourist/leisure attractions.
31 ‘Tweets’ or ‘tweeting’ is the sending of messages of up to 140 characters long to a user’s followers. These messages can be accompanied by other multimedia (i.e. images and video). 32 ‘Retweets’ or ‘Retweeting’ is much like forwarding an e-mail; it gives Twitter users the ability to broadcast and disseminate information originally posted by a person to others in their own network of followers. This interconnectedness allows for messages to spread virally through linked networks of users within seconds of the original tweet. 159
7.2.1 Children and Childhood The research observed that uploading and sharing representations accompanied by captions, or stand-alone messages of and about African children and their childhood(s), was very popular among diaspora twitter users in their support of the hashtag campaign. As shown below, these representations show black children of African heritage as seemingly healthy, alert and happy – with smiles on their faces and engaged in play. What is noticeably absent in these representations are the sensationalised extremities of human-child suffering. There is no depiction or the moral discomfort of ‘subject-in-death’ – of malnutrition, morbidity and dehydration beyond which young African survival is unimaginable. Instead, as the caption on image 6.2 below reads: “our littles ones are happy and not always bony starved kids with flies on their faces”.
Image 7.2: ‘Our little ones are happy’
Image 7.3: “Africa isn’t about starving and malnourished children”
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Image 7.4: “The Joy of African Children”
In fact, several captioned-images regarding children emphasised this very argument. That not all children in their countries and communities of origin are ‘walking corpses’ and that starvation, malnourishment and death is and should not be understood as unequivocal and invariant in Africa. As iconographies of development campaigning in Africa, children and their afflictions feature heavily in media representations of Africa. See in terms of popularity, it is known that children – in various states of despair - are truly the ‘development candy’ of charitable organisations’ communication material (Dogra 2012). It was unsurprising then, to see diaspora-uploaded images and messages like those included in this section, which simultaneously include children while at the same time challenging well-known representations of Africa that rely on imageries of suffering children.
Praising the diversity of representations under #TheAfricaTheMediaNeverShowsYou campaign, one diaspora supporter stated, for example:
Evident in his tweet, there is the dual acknowledgement of the popular, fly-infested and kwashiorkor- ridden black child that is almost always used for representations of Africa. Moreover, how ‘good’ it is – meaningful perhaps, to have alternative visual narratives given their potential to subvert disparaging assumptions about Africa that have largely become salient and memorable in public consciousness. In a Skype interview with Max, a 24-year-old British-Zimbabwean, in which we discussed, among many other things, his motivation behind his tweet he mentioned how:
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“…I sent out that tweet because of what the media put out through these big charities, you know their ads and stuff and like the BBC news who spew out images to people who aren’t African or who are actually African but haven’t even stepped foot in Africa that all our kids are barely hanging on to their lives …it ain’t true. This whole ‘fly-around-mouth’ thing and swollen bellies is not all our kids. That’s why I said what I said. I think the movement is good because by showing children who don’t fit that stereotype, children who are just happy and enjoying life, then we can flip the script on how Africa is always seen in people’s minds.” (Male, May 2016)
There are a few interesting observations to draw from Max’s interview comment. One being his attribution of responsibility and blame at least partially, to development organisations for spreading and popularising certain negative perceptions about Africa. Similarly, while he does not single out any specific organisation, his statement does however acknowledge a perception of influence that “big charities” have in the media. Moreover, how charity-media representations are, in his view, affecting how African and non-African communities alike see Africa through disparaging depictions of children. Equally, Max’s suggestion that by showcasing images of African children who are “happy and enjoying life” could help reimagine how Africa is seen, not only speaks about representations through African selves, but also of African childhoods.
As such, diaspora users are not just challenging how African children are popularly ‘seen’ in development representations they are also shaping and informing understandings of what we think we ‘know’ about African childhood(s). By uploading and sharing images of happy, healthy and playful children, diaspora communities online are rejecting assumptions that African children are somehow distinctively different from children anywhere else. Rather, relative to their own circumstances and lives, many African children experience and enjoy childhood that is just as fun, carefree and fulfilling as it is for other children across the world. This is perfectly reflected in the image (and its message) below, shared by 27-year-old Agustina who is of Senegalese origin. In the image itself, we see children at the beach, some of whom are dressed in their school uniform but all who are smiling and dancing on top of wooden deck. In the caption, Agustina makes direct reference to the development agencies’ ‘Save the Children’ and ‘Oxfam’ in which she alludes to the role that is played in Africa’s negative representation by these specific organisations.
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Image 7.5: “African Kids do have childhoods”
In an interview, she explained: “I knew exactly what I was doing here with this image and who I was talking to. I wanted to show that Africans and African kids specifically do have childhoods and they’re not as bleak and sad as Save the Children and Oxfam and all these other aid charities will have you thinking. I’m personally naming and shaming them for the way they love to show Africa in the media as dire and offering nothing for its people, no future, no love, no light…especially the kids. Our kids are happy, healthy, full of life and go to school just like the billions of kids around the world, these charities just give out this altered view, a bias view of what they think Africa is and looks like.”
7.2.2 Food and Cuisine
Along with images of children, visual representations exhibiting food and African cuisine were plenty. As shown below, diaspora Twitter-users shared images showing everything from traditional farmers’ markets and local eateries to contemporary high-end African cuisine. When observing these representations, their accompanying captions and other user-generated commentary, it appeared that these diaspora postings were ‘visual rebuttals’ to perceptions of Africa as food-deprived. In fact, online comments and interviews with diaspora supporters reveal that these perceptions are thought to be perpetuated by Africa’s largely negative representation in western media and charity advertising.
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Image 7.6: “Street food in Zanzibar”
Image 7.7: “Kenyan Cuisine”
Consider for example the following comment in support of the hashtag campaign:
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In an interview with this commenter, she expressed her frustration with television representations of Africa in which she argues have sensationalised and readily accepted that starvation is an everyday and absolute phenomenon in Africa. An assumption that she ardently criticised:
“My tweet is me pointing my finger at the ridiculousness of how Africa is portrayed on our TV screens, it’s frustrating beyond belief the way the news and NGOs give the impression that all of Africa is starving, without any food to eat and that this is completely normal in western societies’ eyes…it’s such an exaggeration, old media myths. I’m not okay with this. My tweet is to let those who aren’t in the know realise the truth by someone who is in the know.”
(Female, April 2016)
In this interview, we see that the commenter feels that visual representations have normalised certain perceptions of starvation in Africa, even rendering them ‘old myths’ – historical falsehoods, that are merely figments of media imagination. Equally, by asserting that her online statement allows people “who aren’t in the know to realise the truth by someone in the know”, she alludes to the importance of the campaign in offering alternative knowledge. That is, alternative knowledge about Africa, by Africans themselves, for those people who otherwise accept the so-called ‘myths’ exported by popular media representations.
She further expanded on how she thought charity images of famine and drought in Africa were responsible for framing perceptions of starvation in Africa and how the campaign was addressing this:
“You know what it is? I’ll tell you…these stupid ad campaigns by Save the Children or what’s it called, WaterAid or something or another, you know these crisis appeals that show famine and drought sweeping across Africa. It’s images like them that make people think that that’s all Africa has about it, nothing else…just having no food and hungry people. They never show what we do have…you know everyday people who are fed, not hungry and worrying about food…that’s why this twitter movement is needed, to show what’s unseen.” (Female, April 2016)
From this interview extract we understand that the commenter directly apportions blame to popular development organisations Save the Children and WaterAid for perceptions of starvation in Africa. It is there visual representations of famine and drought, which has, according to her, led to these views. While similar assertions have been made by other diaspora involved in this research, what is particularly interesting however, is her acknowledgement that what is absent or ‘unseen’ in representations of Africa is just as important and problematic as what is typically shown. As such, it is this want for visibility in representation, for the inclusion of ‘everyday’ Africans who are neither hungry or worried about food, that she argues, the campaign is affording.
In one way or another, this sentiment was also shared by other online diaspora whose images and messages showcase what they believe is hidden in Africa’s representation. 165
Image 7.8: “It’s a fruitful country! Uganda”
The 30-year-old British-Ugandan who uploaded the above image for instance, said in an interview:
“…My caption is a play on words, I’m telling the world that Uganda where I’m from is a fruitful country, Kampala our capital is known for its roadside fruit vendors, they are a common sight. We have huge volumes of tropical fruit varieties from mangoes and passionfruit to watermelon. But I also wanted to show how Africa as whole is fruitful in that it is a bounty of food; every country has its food it’s known for. We are not lacking as the media purports, they always show Africans as dying and needing food donation, it’s overstated. (Male, 30, April 2016)
As such, this interview quotation challenges Africa’s representation by indirectly asking – ‘scarcity amidst abundance?’ That is, the participant juxtaposes his understanding of access to abundant and variety of food in Africa, with its media representation as starved. As shown in the text, this polarised construct is far removed from his personal understanding of African realities so much so that the portrayal of Africa as food-deprived appears foreign and exaggerated.
Similarly, Samuel of Ivorian origin, argued:
“Where are the people who are eating so much that they are getting fat? The media either shows us as chronically hungry or drinking from dirty streams. People who don’t know better probably think we eat the flies that are crawling on our faces. That’s why I posted that picture [image 6.9] to show the truth of things” (Male, 20, May 2016)
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Image 7.9: ‘Who says famine is everywhere in Africa’
The image, above, that Samuel is referring to is comprised of four pictures three of which show fruit and veg stalls in Ivory Coast and the other, two fishmongers, one of who is posing with a rather large fish. The image is captioned ‘Who says famine is everywhere in Africa. We got food [in] Ivory Coast’. To which Samuel explained:
“The title is deliberately ironic, I’m shaming the media and ignorant people by pointing out the contradictions between what the media shows and how Africa really is, there’s no drinking from dirty streams, eating bugs or hungry looking people, just food like every other place has got.” (Male, 20, May 2016)
Both Samuel and the previous interviewee exemplify how some diaspora online are using images of food to not only challenge representations of Africa but also unwelcomed assumptions about starvation. However, Samuels interview comments and ironically titled image adds a new dimension. He inserts the idea that while food is not often associated with Africa in media representations, when it is, it is not in a way that is experienced by African’s themselves. As such, it is this ‘dichotomy of two evils’ – that is, Africa having no food or consuming the ‘inedible’, that Samuel is also trying to challenge in his representation.
7.2.3 Property
Visual representations and written commentaries pertaining to African homes and property also populated under the #TheAfricaTheMediaNeverShowsYou twitter campaign. Online diaspora communities uploaded and shared a variety of polished, almost brochure-esque photographs of 167
residential neighbourhoods in towns and suburban areas. As well as, inner-city apartments and their furnishing. Several of these representations where captioned with sarcastic titles or commentary, written by diaspora individuals themselves, which seemingly pointed out at the stark differences between Africa’s representations and its reality. One individual for example, 34-year-old Nigerian, Gbemileke, explained that for him, the use of sarcasm is “our response to the trite inanities that Africans have received and heard about where they’re from”.
Image 7.10: ‘Africans live in mud houses’
Gbemileke, who tweeted the picture above, elaborated on what he meant by ‘trite inanities’:
“Just you know…the silly commonly asked questions and statements about Africans living in mud huts, jungle or the bushes. That’s why I phrased the image in that way, I’m repeating these silly remarks to expose their absurdity. I’m showing how silly they sound given the jaw- dropping houses we have in Africa. What you see in the media about Africa is not what you get, there’s plenty more to it. I want people who don’t know better to look at this picture, scroll through others and absorb it all so to educate themselves. That’s why the movement is here for Africans to show different images, different sides of Africa and to toss aside the pictures you get from the adverts and news coverage. I really think that people can learn a lot from this [campaign] whether you’re African or not, it’s helpful to open their minds.”
(Male, April 2016)
It appears that for Gbemileke, there is a side – many different sides of Africa, that deserve plurality in representation, not just for Africans themselves but also for the edification of people otherwise unfamiliar with the continent. As such, while Gbemileke posted his image to demystify assumptions about African’s residing in huts, jungles and bushes, his comments also show that he views the hashtag campaign as a type of teaching and learning resource. Some sort of visual knowledge 168
repository, if you will, for African and non-African audiences alike, for whom it is intended and useful. This idea of #TheAfricaTheMediaNeverShowsYou as having an educational function besides simply offering alternative representations, was also shared by several other diaspora supporters. Like Gbemileke, these communities equally criticised disparaging perceptions of housing in Africa – or lack thereof, frequently pointing fingers at the media and its representations for perpetuating these views.
Image 7.11: ‘Yeah we live in “HUTS”’
The uploader of the image above for example, by an 18-year-old of Kenyan heritage, argued that for her, Africans posting representations of property in their countries of origin was important, as they are:
“re-wiring and disrupting how many people have long thought about Africa as having people who don’t have anywhere to sleep, or if they do they’re sleeping under a bridge or in a hut or something. That’s basically what we see on TV …the camera always pans to people living by landfill or a child under a bridge or on the roadside. Showing things like this in the media has caused a lot of people to think ‘wow this is how Africa really is’ and that’s wrong because it’s just one little side of Africa, but we have many many more sides which you don’t get to see. This campaign can change all that” (Female, April 2016)
The assumed potential for #TheAfricaTheMediaNeverShowsYou to act as an informative – if not, a transformative tool, is noticeable in her interview. For this supporter, by simply posting images showcasing alternative, often hidden sides of Africa this would somehow redress its media representation. So too, re-wire disparaging perceptions that have become sedimented in public consciousness. This certainty of change whether permanent or otherwise, is seemingly informed by her reassured outlook. However, this is by no means an easy feat, one that is perhaps naive and idealist at best. This is especially true when confronting an almost insurmountable battle of public perceptions of Africa which are largely shaped in one way or another by popular representations in the media.
While not as preoccupied with the transformative potential of #TheAfricaTheMediaNeverShowsYou,
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26-year-old Kofi, did however support its overall mission to offer a broader spectrum from which to draw different understandings of the region. In reference to the image below (7.12), which shows a side-by-side comparison of a traditional thatched hut and the more contemporary brick house, he said:
Image 7.12: ‘Not everyone lives in mud houses in Africa’
“This image is me basically rolling my eyes at what the media has people thinking about Africans living in huts, and saying ‘ta-da’ look what I have here …yes really, your eyes don’t deceive you it’s a house [laughter]. A house that even people in Africa can live in. All jokes aside, the real issue here is that you wouldn’t know about this because the media wouldn’t show it, it doesn’t fit with how they usually show Africa and what people think about Africa. So, if they won’t do it we will on Twitter. The hut and house just show how worlds apart the media’s image of Africa is compared to real life. People need to know that houses like this exist, they are common in Africa, this is how ordinary, normal people live.”
(Male, April 2016)
As demonstrated in Kofi’s comments, he shares an understanding as with other supporters that unearthing perceived disparities between Africa’s media representation and its reality is vital for broadening public perceptions. However, beyond this reiteration, his assertion that ‘ordinary’ and ‘normal’ African folk reside in properties like the one shown in his image – and similar images shared by fellow diaspora, is rather problematic. Nearly all representations of African property reviewed in this research showed large palatial homes situated in gated communities or set aback on acres of land. These proprieties are endowed with pristine, manicured lawns and luxury vehicles parked on their driveways. If not this, then high-rise city apartments.
The point is, these representations are identical in appearance, almost carbon-like copies with similar themes and evocations of wealth and exclusivity. This somewhat sanitised version of Africa
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complicates diaspora intentions to afford greater plurality in its representation. In fact, these carefully selected images are skewed, one-sided and unrepresentative which are similar offences diaspora have levelled against the media. As such, there is a level of irony which is unavoidable in these representations.
Contrary to Kofi’s claim, and others:
Image 7.13: “What hut What shanty house?”
these images do not reflect the ‘ordinariness’ and familiarity of everyday African life rather, the preserve of a small privileged minority. It seems that diaspora are overcompensating for Africa’s disparaging representation and assumptions regarding ‘standard of living’, by showing it as on par with or not so dissimilar from Western places. In doing so, however, images of this kind potentially invite other unsolicited views about African corruption, mismanagement of government funding and gross inequalities in Africa. This is equally problematic, as it goes against the cause diaspora is supporting by making visible the daily contrast between African privation and insolent opulence. As such, while of course, properties of this type exist in Africa and are owned and lived by Africans, these images by no means reflect the continent in its entirety.
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7.2.4 Industrialised Cities Also, popular among online diaspora were representations of and, shared commentaries about industrialised cities and contemporary city-life within Africa. Common within their postings were hyper- visual photographs of African mega cities and commercial urban centres with multinational companies, and information technology industries. Several other images and ‘diaspora talk’ addressed Africa’s financial districts, established or burgeoning urban populations as well as, references to city infrastructure. Suffice to say, these online communities presented and positioned a counter-trend image of Africa as a hotbed of economic development and activity, resource and as being ‘modern’ and self-sufficient.
Image 7.14: “Nairobi, the City under the Sun”
Image 7.15: ‘That’s our “Jungle”. Angola-Luanda’
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This is demonstrated in an interview with 35-year-old, Linda for example, who shared the picture above which shows Luanda, the capital and largest city of Angola, Southern Africa. She stated:
“I’m originally from the Angolan city Luanda, if only you could see it, it’s beautiful. Only thing is the media here in the UK wouldn’t show an African city like Luanda. They want to show Africans living in ‘our jungles’ or some village somewhere off the planet. Little do a lot of Brits know Africa is advanced and has been for a really long time, we have amazing cities beyond their wildest imagination, beyond what’s on the TV. We have skyscrapers touching the sky, hotels, public services and road and railway networks everything that central London has and other western countries. Africa isn’t in some hole you know? We’re on the mainstage with the rest of them. We’re alive and buzzing there so much happening right now in our cities. It’s a shame really…I want pictures like mine to contest this stereotype that Africa has been wrongly tainted with” (Female, May 2016)
In Linda’s interview extract, strong emphasis is placed on the fact that African cities do exist, and are ‘developed’ and resourceful even if, this reality appears almost inconceivable for the many unaware. With her detailing the different infrastructures available in African cities and the assertion that Africa is neither hole-bound or on the periphery of the global stage. She alludes to the idea that for her Africa is on par with or not too dissimilar from other places and is globally connected. It is this alternative view of Africa as urbanised with thriving cities that Linda is trying to impress in the Twitter-sphere. She does in the hope of shaking-off popular assumptions and stereotypes of ‘Africa as jungle or village’ that have, in one way or another burdened or negatively defined the continent.
Similar sentiments were shared by others online, including 26-year-old Nigerian Nneka, who posted the image below:
Image 7.15: “Not all of Africa is bleak”
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For Nneka, getting across the idea that Africa is largely city-based with an urban core rather than rural was important for potentially “opening people’s minds to that truth”. She elaborates:
“Africa’s not in the dark ages for God’s sake, heaven forbid the media show African progression, cities have been established in Africa for donkey years and new ones, mega ones are springing up from every nook and cranny. But as per usual, these charity ads don’t show that …hmm I wonder why that’s the case? It’s not an Africa that’s worth saving, how can they save a booming Africa? That’s why you don’t see it, they won’t show it. I’m originally from Lagos and Lagosians’ are not living on farms, Africa is not some huge poorly serviced village like on telly, there’s more to Africa than that, we work and leisure in cities. Showing images of cities in Africa tells people that we’re just the same as any other continent or country.”
(Male, April 2016)
There are a few interesting observations in Nneka’s interview. For him, uploading images of African cities somewhat frames Africa as ‘advanced’ or having taken steps towards ‘progression’ as other world regions have. Representations of cities then, are seemingly imbued with a symbolic value for Nneka, a kind of tradable currency that positions Africa as more similar than otherwise known to be. However, it appears that this type of African representation is, as Nneka alludes to, worthless given that it does not subscribe to or legitimatise NGO ‘heroism’ for Africa. These comments echo earlier discussions about visibility – or lack thereof, in Africa’s diverse representation but also inserts the idea of ‘selectivity’ by charities in decisions made in representing a more ‘marketable’ Africa. It also seems that Nneka wants to unravel imaginings of a rural-based Africa by arguing that the presence of cities and city-life is not a new phenomenon but a pattern that is discernible in many of its parts.
Equally, Annett a 56-year-old, South African remarked:
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Image 7.16: “Lots of people in the world think Africa is the commercial seen on TV”
“Africa is truly beautiful, we have cities that have their own unique and breath-taking features. These commercials by Save the Children, they’re truly the devil. Gosh they’re bad, they’re feeding the world with a distorted, crippling image of where we’re from. It’s insulting. I was showing some of these images to my neighbour the other day who’s isn’t African and her jaw dropped, she couldn’t believe what she was seeing, she thought that they were cities in Dubai or New York. That’s what these commercials do they fix peoples mind, they hypnotise people like her in to thinking one way, their own way about Africa. In her defence though, if that’s where she’s getting her information from then I can’t really blame her but then again there’s always google” (Female, April 2016)
7.2.5 Tourist/leisure attractions
Visual representations of tourist/leisure attractions in Africa were also shared by diaspora online. These postcard-like images showcased everything from cultural heritage sites, national parks and botanical gardens. As well as, history museums and art galleries, luxury resort hotels and outdoor recreational activities. In reviewing these representations and their attendant commentaries, it appeared that diaspora communities framed Africa as a place with much to offer to locals and tourists. This was understood in terms of its own histories and cultures as well as, modern leisure and entertainment in Africa, which as this section will show, some argued, rivalled non-African places.
Image 7.17: “Chapunga sculpture park Harare, Zimbabwe”
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Image 7.18: “The Canopy Walkway in Ghana”
In an interview with 36-year-old Rwandan Kunle for example, who uploaded the image below of a luxury hotel overlooking the Rwandan capital Kigali, he remarked:
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Image 7.19: “This Kigali view in Rwanda”
"Somehow the British media always manage to ruffle the feathers of many Africans here [in Britain], the ads and news here don’t give Africa any credit at all, Rwanda is more than genocide and civil war as they’ll have you believe. They make out like there’s nothing interesting or going on in Africa other than what they tell viewers. We have a lot of things, beautiful things. There’s so much to explore and soak in Africa. What don’t we have? We’ve got mega shopping malls with designer fashion houses, 5 star hotels with spars and breath- taking views, even the casinos and opera houses. In Kigali and even Lagos in Nigeria for example, they are known for their buzzing nightlife they have some of the best nightclubs and swanky bars for the young people. Whatever you want, whatever you desire we have it in Africa. I can tell you now, it’s not just Europe or America we have our own wonders and delights.” (Male, May 2016)
In Kunle’s interview demystifying common misconceptions and stereotypes about Africa is important to him and he shows this by unveiling a radically different version of Africa that is not limited to media portrayals of conflict and catastrophe. Instead, the Africa that Kunle knows and shares is one that is endowed with a well-established hospitality and tourist-friendly infrastructure, enjoyed by both locals and visitors. It appears that his resistance to Africa’s negative media representation is more than just simply showcasing its many different attractions and leisure opportunities. It is also somewhat of a promotional push by Kunle, where Africa is transposed from its largely negative framing to his own positive reconfiguration of a commercial-ised and equally desirable place, that rivals if not exceeds, its Western counterparts. As such, Kunle’s choice of representation – a luxury resort hotel - and interview comments, is his attempt at dismantling perceived differences between the haves (the West, Britain) and the have-nots (Africa). He does this by ushering in an alternative imagining of an Africa that is more similar than different.
Similarly, Beni a 21-year-old Nigerian, who uploaded the image below of Lagosians’33 enjoying an amusement park ride, stated:
33 Lagosian(s) are natives or residents of Lagos in Nigeria. 177
Image 7.20: “Well, would you look at that”
“For some reason the media show Africa as not a fun place, it’s like Africans don’t even know what fun is or have any fun at all. If you watch the TV it always shows us as down-and-out, always miserable and downcast and they give this idea that Africa is like boring or pointless to live in. It’s like they think we don’t have much else to think other than being poor yet alone make room for fun. It’s stupid. I had to share this picture, because we do have fun, we know what it is. In Nigeria we have amusement parks, touring festivals, you can do rock climbing and canoeing all sorts of things that the UK and the rest of the world does. We must show images like this to let people know that we have these things too, fun isn’t a British thing. If the TV here [Britain] would show these things, then British people might want to come and visit Africa and check out what it has in store for them.” (Male, May 2016)
Beni’s image and comments are interesting in that he is challenging what he perceives to be a representational dissonance between Africa’s poor media portrayal and its reality. As with Kunle, Beni submits a reworked representation of Africa and Nigeria specifically, as a fun-filled place with all the recreational amenities and attractions to satisfy communities therein and potential visitors. For him, this version of Africa is familiar, has anecdotal resonance and is a suitable alternative to its current representation. By showing Africa as having fun and appealing things, Beni inserts the idea that a thriving, vibrant and hospitable Africa exists independent of, if not together with, its many misconceptions.
Furthermore, Beni challenges assumptions that Africa is so burdened or inconvenienced by its own immediate problems (of which privation looms especially large) that wider preoccupations such as recreation and leisure appear almost irrelevant. With Africa’s media representation typically constrained by such immediate matters: poverty, starvation, epidemics etc., its daily struggles according to Beni, are assumed to not only occupy African energies but are also an affront to any opportunity for fun.
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However, his comments and image contest this. They highlight that ordinary African folk do indeed have discretionary time for leisurely pursuits and that not all socioeconomically ‘poor’ Africans are vacuumed in and by misery.
It appears that this sentiment was also shared by another diaspora individual who tweeted:
While 26-year-old Aubrey, shared the image below of a Sudanese Museum. In an interview with her she shared the following comments:
Image 7.21: “Africa is full of unexplored history!”
“I posted a collection of images of the National Museum of Sudan in Khartoum. It’s rather impressive, we Sudanese are proud to boast of our Nubian history and want to share this with the world. We have the biggest and most impressive Nubian archaeological collection in the world. Did you know that? It’s more impressive than the British Museum. We have our own historical museums and houses they are breathtakingly beautiful. Why wouldn’t anyone want to discover this and stroll through our collections and see our ancient ornaments? There’s so much history to be found in Africa, we do have a life other than stories of poverty and sick children, we existed long before Oxfam were telling us about how sick our children are and how dirty our water is, that’s not our history. I think that Africa is a tourist dream in my opinion.” (Female, Sudanese, April 2016)
While Aubrey’s image was meant to exemplify one of Africa’s many visit-worthy attractions which are often, in her view, excluded in media representations in favour of visual narratives of African privation.
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Her image caption ‘Africa is full of unexplored history’ and interview comments also highlight that she is resisting perceived misconceptions that Africa is without a historical pedigree or its people have no (or interesting) historical part of the world. Her museum image is deliberate, in that it showcases vestiges of an African past, it exhibits a place with its own unique historical and cultural richness independent of, and alongside the histories of the rest of the world. As such, Aubrey’s African representation not only gives a glimpse into the overlooked marvels and wonders of the continent but also stands in firm opposition to assumptions that Africa is only realised or exists on the threshold of British history and its representation.
7.3 #United Diaspora Apart from sharing representations in support of #TheAfricaTheMediaNeverShowsYou, the research also observed how some individuals interpreted the campaign as a type of ‘diaspora collectivism’. That is, they viewed and leveraged the campaign as a means for local/transnational solidarity among African diaspora online. These interpretations were understood to be driven by what some maintained, as a shared sense of co-responsibility in tackling Africa’s bias and largely negative representation in the media. This is demonstrated in the following set of discourses:
Image 7.22: “British Africans let’s band together”
The message above for example, which was uploaded by 21-year-old Tobias a student of Angolan heritage, implores the gathering of British diaspora in challenging Africa’s representation by charities. Accompanied by an illustration showing a crowd of black individuals with determined expressions, seemingly in mid protest, Tobias explained:
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“What really grinds my gears is that Africa hasn’t got anyone speaking for it on its behalf, no one to help it tell its own stories on a worldwide stage from African perspectives, from people who know about what it means to be African and be from and live in Africa. Where are our stories? Our own African voices? They’re nowhere to be found. That’s why I joined [the campaign] and shouted for other Africans to rally together to change things. Because we’re African, we have African culture we’re responsible for showing Africa the way we know it to be, it’s a duty really …instead of how charities mould it. I hate their images, they’re embarrassing, it’s like they own our image, our stories and that’s messed up. Africans are the only people who can show Africa authentically in a way that people don’t know because of who we are, because of our culture, our experiences of Africa. I want all Africans on Twitter to join the campaign and resist what the world’s been told about where we’re from, you know? (Male, April 2016)
The idea that continental and diaspora Africans should have and assert ‘ownership’ and ‘authorship’ over Africa’s representation is evident in this interview. For Tobias, Africa is without a microphone, an influential mouthpiece of an international level with which to self-represent the way it intends. Rather, its stories are ventriloquised through charity representations without recourse to Africans themselves. He alludes to a ‘cultural authenticity’ which affords Africans the right, through the alembic of identity and experience, to offer a version of Africa which would otherwise be beyond our imagination. Moreover, that diaspora communities are somehow implicated within an assumed ‘shared responsibility’ which makes them duty-bound in tackling and reimagining Africa’s representation as a ‘cultural unit’. Tobias’s interpretation of the campaign, particularly his desire for a unified diaspora who are claiming ‘ownership over narrative’ is much in the spirit of participants in chapter five who self- described as ‘Afro-centric’ and ‘unapologetically black’. Similarities can be drawn in their assumptions of commonalities and mutual solidarity among all African diaspora and the potential for an effective ‘shared struggle’ over representation.
Similar interpretations of diaspora united by a sense of shared responsibility in telling their own accounts of Africa, were littered in other online commentaries, as shown below.
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Image 7.23: “Why we letting Oxfam tell our narratives”
In an interview with 30-year-old Dennis who posted the message below:
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Image 7.24: “Calling all Diaspora”
He explained how diaspora alliance was important for what he saw as “rebranding Africa’s woe-is-me image” in the media and how #TheAfricaTheMediaNeverShowsYou was facilitating this:
“We want the average Joe, the general public, to know about an Africa that we know not them [the media]. We want to show the images that we identity with, images that reflect our culture and what we’ve seen with our own eyes. For too long poverty charities, the media and whatnot, have controlled our image and we are forcing our way to be heard and to give our own input on our own terms so that people can see a different type of Africa. That’s what I like about it [the campaign] it’s a type of retaliation with images, we’re calling on each other to help a good cause, we’re coming together to make African voices, matter I guess we feel we have a duty to help each other because we share cultures, so we help each other”
(Male, April 2016)
Again, Dennis’s comments reinforce this presumption of a culturally-informed coalition among diaspora communities who are united under a common good, a common purpose. Just like Tobias, Dennis positions Africans as instrumental in driving the effort forward to show Africa in a different light by contributing their own understandings and perspectives in picture form. Similarly, he alludes to the idea that the media – including representations by charities, have monopolised the ideas and opinions about what we ‘know’ about Africa and this has silenced the diaspora voices. As such, Dennis’s message is about taking ownership of narratives surrounding Africa and claiming a space for ‘African selves’ in the mainstream consciousness. By so doing, Africans can self-construct recognisable cultural representations of a place that they locate their origins.
7.3.1: #United Diaspora Against ‘White Media’
There were also some racialised components within diaspora discourses. Some individuals for example, interpreted their solidarity as resisting Africa’s representation in, what they understood as, mainstream ‘white media’. For them, this included BBC reportage and NGO (e.g. Save the Children and Oxfam) visual representations of Africa. This subsect of online diaspora viewed British and Western media as informed and shaped by predominantly white communities who are themselves, responsible for contorting Africa’s image in the public sphere. This is shown in the following commentaries and their accompanied images:
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Image 7.25: “White Media and its accomplices”
In an interview with Hadid, a 28-year-old Somalian for example, who posted the comment below, he stated:
Image 7.26: “It’s mainstream media aka “White Media””
“We have to fight mainstream white media, their TV programmes, news, adverts, all these white people over there in the BBC and Save the Children and so on, behind the scenes running the show and calling the shots, they are the ones that are making decisions about how to show Africa as this awfully poor place. They set the tone, they are the ones that trick people into thinking about Africa in one way or another. They’ve got so much power and influence. I’m hardly surprised, look how they also show black people as gangsters, drug dealers or council estate hooligans. Showing Africa badly is just another of their lazy, 184
exhausting stereotypes. That’s what they think of us you know? I’m not here for it, it’s gone on for far too long. This is our cyber warfare against them.”
(Male, May 2016)
As demonstrated in his interview, Hadid is resisting African representation in mainstream media production output which he has imagined and racialised as white – and predominantly so. Interestingly for him, the BBC, Oxfam and Save the Children are subsumed into and reflect this conceptualisation where they are deemed responsible for setting the agenda and gate keeping largely negative narratives about Africa. Hadid’s resistance or “cyber warfare” is not just against white- informed African representation, but also, a perceived sovereignty and influence that he believes they have in their visual reportage of black diaspora identities. Once again, these comments speak about the idea of ownership over African narrative or lack thereof. Only that in this instance, there is a desire to reclaim responsibility from white media content producers to drive forward stories that are more nuanced, and which reflect and constitute diaspora identities and experiences.
Similar sentiments were shared by 29-year-old Antonia, who uploaded the tweet and its accompanied image (7.27) below. For Antonia, stereotypical images of African poverty and helplessness as absolute, are the by-products and makings of an anthropomorphised “white-Man” media. That is, she imagined British media as a racialised rhetorical figure who she challenges in the hashtag campaign.
Image 7.27: “Let’s show a different Africa ‘cus white-man media wont”
“It’s the white man’s media that turns the tap off and on about what people know and see about Africa, they are pulling the strings you know? They’re the ones that spread these lies and myths about Africa being poor and some dumping ground from their view point. One day we’re poor the next corrupt, then starving. That’s why we are here to spread the truth, to say look there are alternative views you know? I mean, who else knows better than we do? Not Oxfam or BBC news that’s for sure, we are the truth tellers. 185
It’s important that Africans shake the table, it’s about time that we shake things up in a big way so that we have different ideas and different views of the Africa we know about” (Female, May 2016)
In Antonia’s interview, she is preoccupied with if not, territorial over Africa’s representation and who is qualified to produce it. This is reinforced by her wanting to undermine the media’s command and discretionary power in shaping African representation by its largely white constituents. In doing so, there is the hope to overhaul the opinions, interests and priorities of a ‘white man’ media which has thus far shaped the context and content of popular, largely negative African representation.
Equally, 19-year-old Nigerian Tina who tweeted the following message, argues that ‘Save the Children’ and their African representation embody and are constitutive of ‘white media’. She identifies them and similar development charities as foci for online diaspora resistance.
Image 7.28: “One image at a time let’s challenge Africa’s image under white media’s thumb”
In her interview for example, she said:
“As I said in my tweet, Africa’s image is under the white media’s thumb and the reason why I attached the Save the Children logo is because they are in my opinion one of the main and most recognisable faces of the white media when it to comes African images here in the UK. I just imagine all these white bigwig executives and media professionals coming together trying to come up with yet another way to patronise where I’m from. I just don’t trust these charities and their ways especially when it comes to black people. These people and their narrow views of Africa dominate the media and in turn what we end up seeing on our TV screen. I can’t imagine that there’s any room for black African opinions, I mean I don’t think people of African descent will ever want to show Africa in the way that we know it to be.”
(Female, June 2016)
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7.4 Video Sharing on YouTube
Just as Twitter has afforded African Diaspora communities space to share alternative, re-worked representations of Africa. Another platform, though to a much lesser extent, that some diaspora have also utilised is the video-sharing/hosting website, YouTube. A few individuals have used YouTube to independently upload and share photo montage video clips showcasing different representations of Africa that are often unseen in popular mainstream media or by charity advertisements. As such, these videos were made with the same intentions as the #TheAfricaTheMediaNeverShowsYou campaign. While interesting, these videos are however few and far between and short-lived ‘one-offs’. Moreover, they are all very much similar in content and simply replicate the types of representations that have been shared by diaspora on twitter.
However, this research observed one notable individual Ikenna Azuike who, instead of simply uploading different images of Africa, has found a popular niche in sharing original content that is professionally produced. The British Nigerian, is the host and founder of the weekly-uploaded YouTube show called ‘What’s Up Africa’. With 5,264,117 cumulative views on his official YouTube account and a 24,229-subscription count34, Ikenna’s shows command a large, and disproportionately African following. This has bolstered both his YouTube and overall social media presence and influence. The popularity of the show is such that the BBC included ‘What’s Up Africa’ in their ‘Focus on Africa’ world news programme. Suffice to say, Ikenna’s participation in the research was essential in addressing the third research question.
Image 7.29 ‘What’s Up Africa’ home page
34 As of May 2017 187
What’s Up Africa is a light-hearted satirical news show about everyday African life and of African communities. With topics ranging from African current affairs to popular culture, Ikenna’s YouTube show aims to both inform and challenge popular representations and misconceptions about Africa in western media. As with several African diaspora participants in this research, Ikenna was deeply frustrated with the proliferation of largely negative representations of Africa in the media, so much so, that this was his driving force behind creating his show.
In an interview with Ikenna, he addresses this:
“What’s Up Africa, my baby, my labour of love [laughter] was born out of sheer frustration bottled up tightly within me about how Africa and Africans are unfairly mistreated in mainstream media coverage in terms of seeing us as always poor, corrupt or needy which is ridiculous. I wanted to show through What’s Up Africa that this is not a full, complete or even justified understanding of the continent or it’s people…I show that through comedy, through being funny for a living on YouTube, to show we are much richer and more complex than what Africa is made out to be on the TV, I’m poking fun about the ridiculousness of how Africa is viewed but I also expose the ridiculousness within Africa itself like it’s abhorrent laws, social practices, some of its own issues. I show the good, bad and the ridiculous and the everyday ordinary sides of Africa the way it should be.” (April, 2016)
As shown in Ikenna’s comments, his intention for What’s Up Africa is to afford plurality in Africa’s representation in the media by highlighting its complexities, struggles and ‘everyday ordinariness’. Something that he feels has been missing in Africa’s mainstream coverage. Rather than paint Africa as some sort of romanticised utopia that is free from and unaffected by development issues like poverty. He is using the show as a platform to represent the continent and communities therein as they really are, flaws and all and with nuance. As such, it is this ‘fairness’ in Africa’s representation that Ikenna is advocating through his show.
There are a variety of examples that show Ikenna questioning and critiquing popular narratives, comments and representations of and about Africa in his videos. One video in particular that was discussed in his interview, is conveniently titled ‘BBC’s Africa Coverage Sucks’.
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Image 7.30 ‘BBC’s Africa Coverage Sucks’35.
In this episode, Ikenna critiques what he describes as “BBC’s Institutional and old fashioned coverage of Africa” with radio journalist John Humphries, and his discussion about Liberia on BBC Radio 4’s “the Today programme” being focus of attention. Ikenna was particularly critical of John’s opening line in which he said, “Like many African countries, Liberia exudes potential but has little to show for it”. For Ikenna, John’s statement epitomised negative representations and assumptions about Africa as being inferior, stagnant and somehow unprogressive. This is shown in his response when asked to share why he thought it was necessary to make a video about this:
“Oh gosh, yes I remember that video well. I was just dumfounded by his comment to be frank with you, we’ve spoken about it since then … but my immediate thought at the time upon hearing it was that he was just spewing old-fashioned, colonial ideas about Africa you know? As being forevermore childish, ready for Western tutelage and instruction yet having nothing to contribute or show of its own …I mean these views unfortunately still exist today look at the news, look at these charities which shall remain nameless [laughter] look how they represent Africa as backward, poor and dependent on western help because they’re ‘just not quite there yet’...that’s what he was insinuating.” This sentiment is very much in keeping with the views and frustrations that diaspora participants have towards NGO’s and the media in general, as it relates to the reproduction of African ‘Otherness’. In fact, in another of his videos titled ‘The Worst African Charity Appeal’ which sees Ikenna play the fictional roles of corrupt South Sudanese president ‘Skagame’ and that of a director who is directing president Skagame in a South Sudanese NGO fundraising appeal. At one point in the video, the
35 Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ffIihjrlc4 [Accessed on: 02/04/16] 189
director becomes increasingly frustrated with president Skagame’s lack-lustre performance and proceeded to remind him that:
“For western media, the South Sudanese are not dying fast enough and celebrities aren’t gonna pay attention unless we’ve got ourselves a real famine”
Image 7.31 ‘The Worst African Charity Appeal’36.
The intended message behind the skit was to highlight the corruption of, and the lengths to which some African leaders go in their attempts to receive aid from western donors. However, in reviewing this video there is a much deeper message about the legitimacy of Africa’s existence in popular public consciousness. That is, Africa is often imagined and viewed through representational tropes of crises, suffering and hunger. When these thoughts were shared with Ikenna he mentioned how this was something that he also wanted to communicate in his video:
“Oh of course, most definitely without a doubt that’s the message. Why do you think the director said the Sudanese are not dying fast enough, you know? It’s because that’s how we’ve come to know Africa, an Africa that is always dying and it’s only through death and African pain that we think we know what Africa is about. While it may not have been obvious in the video I was also talking about how, for some reason, Africa singularly occupies British and Western minds where it is only poverty and suffering that foregrounds or authenticates it
36 Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvIwEcYSUCk [Accessed on: 02/04/16] 190
very existence, the reason why we actually know about Africa…without those things Western media don’t pay any dust to Africa, sadly.” (April, 2016)
Similarly, in a video titled ‘Epic Fail from Oxfam (Again)’ Ikenna criticises African representation in Oxfam’s (2012) ‘Food For All’ campaign, a hunger-reduction initiative which showed backdrops of natural African landscapes as opposed to the inexhaustible begging-bowl rhetoric in many popular charity advertisements. While Ikenna understood Oxfam’s attempt to shift public attention away from themes of helplessness to alternative, seemingly positive, representations of Africa that are seldom shown in NGO fundraising campaigns. He was still, nonetheless perplexed by Oxfam’s representational choices and motivations. In the video, he states:
“So, the big spending Oxfam campaign is a doozy I know what you’re thinking ... finally someone gets us, thank you Oxfam. We were just a continent full of hungry-ass chicken loving African folk, but now we can enter the global digital age in our rightful role as the world’s ...um...well… nothing I guess? Because if Africa is just one big pretty postcard according to Oxfam then its people are pretty irrelevant.”
Image 7.32 ‘Epic Fail from Oxfam (Again)’.37
37 Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgqhFp3dWto [Accessed on: 02/04/16] 191
Addressing this video and Oxfam’s campaign he shared the following when interviewed:
“How could I not make a video on this? Why not expose Oxfam’s absurdity? They just don’t seem to be getting it right, do they? I get that this is their desperate move to change people’s thoughts about starved Africa, but they’ve simply replaced it with starved-Africa-backdropped- by-beautiful-hilltops. I’m slightly baffled. A w-t-f level bafflement. As in, is Oxfam serious? These images just say Africa is one big fat nothing, just some vast wild Eden…some botanical dream or nightmare [laughter] and that’s just as damaging and negative than toothpick children begging for food. Where’s our modern civilization? Where are the countless non-bloated, English-speaking, pocket-money-receiving Nigerians who travel in their droves to Britain yearly, to study? Now that would be a sight for TV.” (April, 2016)
As demonstrated in the interview, Ikenna is arguing that even in seemingly well-intentioned ‘positive’ representations, Africa is still nonetheless denied its nuance and complexities. For him, Oxfam’s imagining of Africa as some sort of uninhabited Third World utopia is problematic as it is as myopic and two-dimensional as the images that capture it. Much like John Humphries “exudes potential but has little to show for it” comment, Ikenna once again challenges the media’s uncritical eye for and, proclivity to showcase Africa as substantially different from other places. Africa in Oxfam’s representation simply exists as it does as mere land, a kind of mythic wilderness ‘out there’ in the world, without sign of social life or development. Evidently for Ikenna, this representation with its colonial undertones is distorting, as it affords no space or context for the particularities of contemporary African life such as those communities for which privation is not an issue.
He then when on to mention:
“We shouldn’t forget, even for a millisecond, that they [Oxfam] are behind a lot of the pity- evoking images that they are trying to replace, they’re responsible [for these images] more than any other charity to be fair. Oxfam want to, as they say: ‘make Africa famous for its epic landscapes and not hunger’ and yet they pretty much have had a big hand in how we see Africa today. What’s even more mind boggling is that they seem to be putting all the blame on images but not the very people i.e. themselves hanging on so stubbornly to those images in the first place despite alternative evidence of Africa by Africans like you and I.” (April, 2016)
These comments revisit earlier discussions about media agenda-setting and gatekeeping. Ikenna, highlights the responsibilities and influence that Oxfam and similar others have in setting and repositioning the barometer of public consciousness regarding Africa. They are the image and theme- makers, so much so, that representations by themselves are simply by-products of their discourse, and cannot be easily apprehended independently of it. As such, Ikenna directs full responsibility towards development organisations for Africa’s negative representation. Given that, as he argues, their power of discretion has largely favoured their own representational interests and priorities for Africa, despite evidence of counternarratives.
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In addition to his usual light-hearted satirical videos, Ikenna has a travel vlog38 titled: ‘Back to Ikenna’s Roots’. As the title suggests, and taking on a more serious approach, Ikenna revisits his childhood home and neighbourhood in Lagos, Nigeria having not been back there in over 26 years. In the video Ikenna takes his viewers on a journey through the city of Lagos, pointing out it’s tourist attractions, architectural developments, food-hawking street traders, as well as, his frustration with Lagosian traffic congestion and pot-filled roads.
Image 7.33 ‘Back to Ikenna’s Roots’.39
38 A vlog, (an abbreviation of video-blog) is a type of blog (an abbreviation of weblog) which uses video postings as the primary content, and is a form of web-television. Often equated to online diaries or virtual journals, vloggers use vlogs to document anything and everything in their lives instead of writing about it. 39 Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOzLsKWizFE [Accessed: 02/04/16] 193
Showing Lagos, Nigeria as it is, in all its variety – as much of it that could be shown in a six-minute video, – was something that Ikenna thought was important for his largely African diaspora subscribers. In a discussion with him he elaborates on this:
“The video takes a different tone from what my viewers are usually used to, this time I’m stepping away from the green screen, 4-by-4 boxed room and silly costumes …I was trying to find an old apartment that I used to live in with my parents over 26 years ago and it was an insane experience and actually pretty emotional. I made this video, not just to revisit where I grew up but to show a side or slice of Africa from a first-hand perspective and not one that has been chopped, screwed, coloured and filtered by the media. I’m taking my fans on a virtual voyage with me so that they too can witness the real representation of Africa as it stands.”
(April, 2016)
As such, for Ikenna his vlog-cum-African representation had dual purpose of education and resistance. That is, it exists both as an informative resource or tool for his diaspora audiences to access alternative knowledge about Africa. As well as, serving as unadulterated first-hand evidence used to challenge seemingly skewed representations.
As Ikenna notes:
“I think anecdotal evidence is perhaps the best antidote for these crap images.”
7.5 Conclusion
This chapter addressed the question of whether and if so, how diaspora audiences are producing, shaping and, or challenging development representations. It showed how both continental and African diaspora communities online, are leveraging social media platforms to engage with, critique and problematise African representation by NGOs and the media. Using microblogging, image-sharing and video-hosting social media sites, Twitter and YouTube, diaspora communities are challenging popular, largely negative and stereotypical representations of Africa and communities therein. They are doing this by uploading and sharing different and alternative representations of Africa that are often overlooked or hidden in the media. The study found that the diaspora-initiated Twitter hashtag campaign, #TheAfricaTheMediaNeverShowYou, allowed African diaspora communities to showcase different representations of Africa from food to architecture and industrial cities and tourist attractions. For several interviewees, not only is this campaign a visual knowledge repository for African and non- African audiences alike, for whom it is intended and useful, from which to draw different and nuanced understandings of Africa. It is also a transformative tool, to help re-wire negative perceptions of Africa
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and diaspora communities as poor, helpless and ‘undeveloped’, which have become fixed in public consciousness.
Despite the positive elements of the campaign, the chapter highlighted how diaspora choices and preferences for images that seemingly reflect the ‘ordinariness’ of African life or which show Africa in a favourable light, present a skewed, one-sided and unrepresentative depiction of Africa. Ironically, these are similar criticisms that diaspora have levelled at the media. These observations reveal that not only are there too few frames to depict Africa but also, that any frame within which Africa is represented in by either the media, development organisations or diaspora themselves, is particularly problematic. This is because these framings inevitably exclude and simplify Africa as a place and communities therein.
The chapter also showed how #TheAfricaTheMediaNeverShowYou afford online diaspora opportunities to foster a sense of common identity, by forging pan-African/diaspora coalitions to address and challenge negative images of Africa in the media. Some diaspora racialise this online solidarity as a form or act of resistance to Africa’s representation in mainstream ‘white media’. In both cases however, diaspora conceive the Twitter campaign as a collective deployment of a strategy that privileges the possibility of critique (of media representations) and the potential for transformation in the way Africa is seen and understood on the global image stage. In addition to Twitter, using YouTube has allowed Ikenna Azuike to upload and share original content for African diaspora audiences, which inform, challenge and criticise popular representations and misconceptions about Africa in western media.
As discussed in the previous empirical chapters, we understand from the main findings of this particular chapter how they are interconnected with the postcolonial theoretical approaches that guide this thesis. When framed within Said’s Orientalist ‘Othering’ conceptualisation, for instance, we see how the empirical material derived from the visual and textual discourses of online-diaspora social commentary and representations, are necessarily implicated in, problematise and challenge hierarchical, dichotomous relations that inhere within NGO (and mainstream media) African representation. The production, uploading and dissemination of different, alternative African representation via the African diaspora-initiated social media campaign #TheAfricaTheMediaNeverShowYou, by multiple internet-based African diaspora individuals and communities, is not a neutral unintentional activity, but one imbued with a set of deliberate political statements – symbolic strategies of rebuttal – against essentialised polarities of ‘Self/Other’, ‘African/Non-African’, ‘West/Non-West’ in NGO images. That is, the sharing of images showcasing the multiplicity, complexities and overlooked particularities in and of Africa, were leveraged by diaspora to challenge popular, largely negative and stereotypical essentialisms and normative assumptions about Africa(ns) as lacking, deficient or maladaptive in these areas in relation to Western-situated places and communities therein. As such, African diaspora are highly conscious of, sensitive to and
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frustrated with these ostensible differences within mainstream media and development imageries and use their online platform to not only blur these discursive demarcations, but also use images as powerful retheorisations and transformational tools to re-align Africa’s public image with their own intimate, and personal lived realities of this place.
Within this framing, we see how the empirical findings not only link back to Said’s ‘Othering’ but also how they collude with the wider theoretical ambition of postcolonialism itself that is, to investigate cultural and institutional forms of knowledge production and afford space(s) and primacy for largely unarticulated, delegitimised knowledges. In one way or another, this sentiment is implicit within this chapter’s data, in and through the different kinds of representation that diaspora use in their online initiative. We understand for example, that diaspora representations are leveraged by them as informational/educational resources for challenging historically-informed, contemporary dichotomies, as they provide the potential to not only construct alternative, more inclusive categories but to also, illustrate that these categories already exist and are latent within the existing semiotic system.
As such, these representations by diaspora are not just ‘plain things’ whose meaning does not permeate above its denotative showing, rather they are cultural forms and expressions through which they question who/what is afforded visibility, ‘voice’ and representation for Africa(ns), and by whom, for whom and with what intention? These are the very same questions that sustain and undergird theories of postcolonialism and which also inform this thesis. From this level we understand that diaspora representations of say contemporary hospitality industries or industrialised cities for example, in Africa and specific countries of origin, are not just used to summon and circulate their “delegitimised knowledges” of a place and people they know. Rather, they are also re-evaluations of intransigent categories of thought – or authoritative truth claims, - to disrupt and problematise their ideological function(ing) and to undermine their presupposed essential nature and cultural permanence.
In this sense, when this chapter’s empirical material is related back to Said’s ‘Othering’ and the overall mission of postcolonialism that guides this thesis, we see how diaspora contribution to the #TheAfricaTheMediaNeverShowYou, is a way for them to assert the idea that their alternative representation provides the potential to both illuminate and reverse polarities (even if momentarily) and accord precedence: normative assumptions and popular visual scripts about Africa(ns) are challenged and ‘turned on their head’.
Aside from Said, we also observe how findings are reverberated in Bhabha’s (1994) postcolonial scholarship regarding the hybridity of diaspora identities, and how this is realised in interesting and revelatory ways. While hybridity is a useful concept because it starts from the presumption that identity boundaries are blurred, that is they are contextual, dynamic, positional and constructive vis-à- vis representations. This chapter’s findings show that diaspora tend to strategically mobilise their ‘hybrid’ identities into essentialised, transnational ‘Pan-African’ identifications, in response to development representations. This is driven by a sense of co-responsibility, ‘common African identity’ seemingly shared among global African diaspora in challenging and redefining Africa’s representation 196
by NGOs and mainstream Western media. It is this ‘opting in’ and out, the strategic boundaries of inclusion and exclusion in different multiple axes of African diaspora identity in response to development representations, that Bhabha’s ‘Hybridity’ presence is pronounced in the empirical findings.
Lastly, as they relate to Hall’s ([1973]1980) ‘Encoding/Decoding' model, we see how his argument of audiences as multiple interpretive communities who bring their own different subjectivities, positionalities and cultural backgrounds to the readings of consumed media text, is realised in the different types and preferences of alternative representations that diaspora utilised in the campaign. Whichever visual image online diaspora chose to showcase, each reflected the author’s/uploader’s individual interpretative context, ‘meaning making’ and decoding of the variety of ways in which they understood the media and NGOs to problematically frame Africa(ns) visually. That is, whether representations were about challenging negative discourses about African children and childhoods. Or relational ideas of a rich, resourceful Britain/West/Non-Africa(n), against a seemingly impoverished, insufficient Africa(n)/non-West. The content and context of their representational choices and preferences, necessarily reflect their individual, divergent and negotiated readings of the issues, or discourses they see wrong or want to address in popular African representation.
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CHAPTER 8: Development Representations and African Diaspora: Summary, Contributions and Ways forward
“Representations …, contribute in the creation of symbolic communicative spaces, that either include or exclude, thereby affecting audiences’ lives and discourses about their identities”. (Madianou, 2012: p. 74)
8.1 Introduction
This thesis has explored the relationship between development representations and diaspora audiences. The research began with the observation that everyday life is, to a significant degree, infiltrated by visual representations that are imbued with discourses about the global, development and ‘the distant’, as NGO fundraising communications expand their frontier of visibility beyond the boundaries of the local and the immediate. Situating audiences within this context of a mediated global civic space, NGO development representations function as a discursive resource of knowledge about the apparent conditions and realities of distant places and communities therein. Within this framing, this thesis set out to examine the influence that these kinds of representations are having on diaspora audiences who locate their origins in and with the distant places and people that they depict.
Through bridging together literature on representations, with concepts of audience, diaspora and identity in an in-depth exploratory study of Nigerian diaspora communities, this research has examined how and with what effects, visual representations of development that depict Africa and communities therein, in NGO fundraising campaigning, impact African diaspora audiences. It has been motivated by and in turn responds to, gaps within development literature identified as arising from the tendency to conceive British audiences of NGO communication productions, including development representations as largely undifferentiated. Audiences simply exist as some form of monocultural Western-situated community, coextensive with the ‘general’ British public. Moreover, that audiences read, interpret and are impacted by NGO representations in very similar ways, herein suggesting that audiences seemingly lack critical analysis of these representations and the perspicuity of their impact.
Understandably, this assumption precludes any critical engagement within current debates and discussions for understanding the complexities and particularities of audiences. So too, how these understandings of audiences inform and reflect the multiple and differentiated ways in which they think, feel and behave in response to development representations. In addition, this thesis sought to address limitations in development scholarship in understanding how diverse audience identities, and
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specifically, the racial and ethnocultural identities of diaspora audiences, inform and shape the multiple and contradictory ways that individuals and groups may experience, think about and engage with development representations.
Using focus group discussions, individual interviews and internet-based ethnography methods, and postcolonial theory as the conceptual frame, this thesis aimed to address these identified gaps in literature by foregrounding and problematising the diversity of audiences and their identities to understand how, to what extent and, with what effects, development representations impact diaspora audiences. As such, this thesis moved beyond established uncritical conceptualisations of audiences as seemingly homogenous and as similarly-affected by NGO communication productions. It did this by revealing the complex and contested ways that individual diaspora subjectivities, positionalities and life experiences, in the context of ethnoracial identities, are all implicated in their construal of development representations and the perspicuity of their impact.
The empirical chapters have illustrated that development representations impact African diaspora audiences in diverse and complicated ways, that both reproduce and contradict negative, stereotypical and outdated ‘ways of seeing’ and knowing Africa. Equally important, is the influence that diaspora identities have in all this. Diaspora ethno-racial/cultural identities significantly affect, and are implicated in, how these types of audiences read and interpret development representations of Africa. They are also important for understanding that diaspora audiences affirm and challenge their connections or, lack thereof, with their country of origin, and communities therein vis-à-vis development representations. Additionally, they demonstrate how NGO development representations as part of mainstream media provide the symbolic spaces from which diaspora audiences articulate their identities and afford intense interconnectivity, conviviality as well as, disconnection among these diaspora subjects and with others in their immediate and extended environments.
In attempting to fulfil research aim, this study has been guided by the following overall research question, which has been discussed with regards to British Nigerian Diaspora communities:
What impact do popular and public representations of development have on diaspora audiences?
The overall research question was addressed by asking the following three interrelated sub-questions in relation to the case of UK Nigerian audiences. These questions were discussed respectively across three empirical chapters:
1. How are development representations shaping diaspora knowledge and perceptions of their country of origin?
2. How are development representations shaping how and why diaspora engage with development? 199
3. How are diaspora audiences producing, shaping and, or challenging development representations and their content?
By analysing this overlooked relationship between NGO development representations and UK Nigerian diaspora audiences, this thesis has generated empirical insights that come together to answer the overall research question.
This concluding chapter brings together some of the themes and key findings of this thesis to demonstrate its academic contribution to the empirical and theoretical/conceptual debates raised in the literature review chapter, in addition to, highlighting areas that require further investigation. This chapter begins by summarising the key empirical findings of the study, using evidence from each empirical chapter which all correspond to the three interrelated sub-questions, as aforementioned. Following this, it then discusses how this study has contributed to Development Studies as well as, the more specific literature on audiences of/and development representations, diaspora identities and postcolonialism. This discussion will demonstrate the implications of the research findings for theoretical developments in terms of how they can be applied in furthering current debates in theorisations about audiences of development representations and of International Development itself. Lastly, this chapter will reflect on the strengths and limitations of the thesis, followed by a consideration of research gaps and suggested avenues for future scholarship.
8.2 Summary of the Empirical Findings
The key empirical findings of this study are founded upon two important and interrelated arguments. First, using Gillespie’s (2005) postmodern theorisation of audiences, audiences should not be conceived as homogenous, uniformed and as, pre-discursive formations that are seemingly self- evident. Instead, they are multiple, differentiated interpretative communities, occupied by individuals who are themselves, varied and multiple in their identity constructions and positionalities. Second, in applying Stuart Halls’ (1980) Cultural Theory understanding of audiences, there are no law-like regularities for how audiences consume media text and messages, rather they bring a multiplicity of interpretations to the reading of media content shaped and informed by their own social and cultural identities. In chapter five, I explored the impact that representations used by international development organisations in their fund/awareness-raising campaigns for Africa, have on how Nigerian Diaspora audiences view and understand their country of origin. (Research Question 1).
Overall, the chapter found that development representations by NGOs play an influential part in shaping and framing how some Nigerian diaspora view and ‘know about’ Nigeria/ns and Africa more generally. In critiquing NGO African representation, diaspora audiences view and understand the African continent, including Nigeria and communities therein, in largely negative, stereotypical and outdated ways. This is very much in keeping with how diaspora’ country and communities of origin,
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are popularly represented by NGOs themselves in their Africa campaigning. As such, the chapter revealed an interconnection, a significant degree of reciprocity between how some Nigerian audiences view and comprehend Nigeria and its representation in NGO campaigns.
However, the chapter also showed that not all Nigerian audiences view and understand their country of origin in similar ways. Findings demonstrate that those diaspora with personal histories, connections and life experiences with Nigeria and/or Africa, other than knowledge sourced from development representations, have multiple, alternative interpretations. This is evident in their negotiated, critical and constructive readings of development representations, which both challenge and affirm the more negative and stereotypical understandings of Nigeria as shared by most participants. Despite this, and to add further complexity, the chapter nonetheless found that Nigerian diaspora collude with the media, including NGO fundraising advertisements, whereby they readily or ambivalently yield to and accept the media and its African representation, as a go-to source of knowledge about Nigeria. Even if, this is at the expense of the varied, alternative stocks of knowledge that some diaspora have been equipped with. As such, findings reveal that diaspora audiences do not underestimate, if anything, they are highly conscious of the powerful role of representations in determining how they think about Nigeria.
In chapter six, I explored whether and if so, how development representations used by NGOs impact diaspora engagement with their place of origin (Research Question 2). Overall, its findings revealed the complicated and strained relationship between Nigerian audiences and NGO fundraising images. The chapter showed that Nigerians generally distrust and are unwilling to support development agencies like Oxfam and Save the Children for example, because of how they and other similar, popular organisations, portray Africa/ns in their fundraising advertisements and campaigns. This distrust was examined in three ways, with the first, revealing that some diaspora dislike NGO development representations as they oversimplify Africa to maximise public donations. For diaspora, this oversimplification in representations, limit opportunities for them to understand and meaningfully engage with the structural and social-political complexities of poverty in Africa. As such, much distrust was directed towards NGOs and their representations for seemingly ignoring the various factors and conditions that have ultimately shaped and informed current development issues and concerns in Africa, for monetary gain. For diaspora, this deliberate avoidance by NGOs of political issues to fundraise, preclude any critical engagement, on their part and that of donating audiences, with the causalities of poverty.
Second, the study’s findings showed that some Nigerians distrust NGOs as they feel that their representations spread negative messages about progress in Africa. Whereby opportunities to address African privation are seemingly beyond the scope and capabilities of public fundraising and overall NGO support. Within this context, African poverty appears impossible to resolve and ultimately dampens any confidence among diaspora that supporting NGOs is or will be meaningful and effective in helping Nigeria. Thirdly, the chapter revealed that diaspora do not trust NGOs because they view
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development representations as racist towards black African identities. We understand from diaspora commentaries that they resent and have anger towards charity images, for depicting their identities and places of origin as largely poor and reliant on NGO intervention.
In chapter seven, I examined how diaspora audiences are producing, shaping and, or challenging development representations. It demonstrated how both continental and diaspora Africans online, appropriate social media to engage with, critique and problematise African representation by NGOs and the media. By using social media sites Twitter and YouTube, diaspora audiences are challenging popular, largely negative and stereotypical images of Africa. They are doing this by uploading and sharing different and alternative representations of their countries and communities of origin that are often overlooked or hidden in the media. The study found that the diaspora-initiated Twitter hashtag campaign, #TheAfricaTheMediaNeverShowYou, allowed African diaspora audiences to showcase different representations of Africa from food to architecture and industrial cities and tourist attractions. For many diaspora, not only is this campaign a visual knowledge repository for African and non- African audiences alike, for whom it is intended and useful and from which to draw different and nuanced understandings of Africa. It is also a transformative tool to help re-wire negative perceptions of Africa and diaspora communities as poor, helpless and ‘undeveloped’, which have become fixed in public consciousness. In addition to Twitter, using YouTube has allowed diaspora to upload and share original content for African diaspora audiences, which inform, challenge and criticise popular representations and misconceptions about Africa in western media.
8.3 Empirical Contributions
The thesis began with the question of how development representations are shaping diaspora audience knowledge and perceptions of their country origin. In answering this question, the thesis showed that Nigerian diaspora view and understand the African continent, including Nigeria and communities therein, as generally helpless, primitive and rural. These largely negative, stereotypical and outdated ‘ways of seeing’ Africa, draw on similar observations made by Van der Gaag and Nash (1987); DFID (2000); Voluntary Service Organisation’s (VSO) report (2001) and Darnton and Kirk (2011) in chapter two, who all found that the predominant imaginings and visualisations that British audiences have of Africa is that of ‘Africa starving’, helplessness and primitivism. As Darnton and Kirk’s (2011: p. 5) advised, since the Ethiopian famine and Live Aid, British audiences understand and relate to Africa no differently now than they did in the 1980’s. Within this frame, this thesis finds that British Nigerian-diaspora audiences of development representations, express views that reflect and affirm popular perceptions of Africa by general British audiences. Furthermore, the findings reinstate those generated by these studies in demonstrating the enduring impact that these types of representations, have on public consciousness and perceptions of Africa and communities therein.
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However, while there are similarities, this study’s findings are situated within the unique context of Nigerian diaspora audiences, who themselves have their ethnocultural origins in Africa, the same region, that these studies are concerned with. As such, it submits British audiences of African descent as a new analytical focus that is hitherto unexplored in the literature on development representations. This thesis therefore adds specificity and nuance to the scholarship on audiences of development representations by placing sole emphasis, unlike others, on the subjectivities and perspicuity of diaspora audiences in their construal of Africa. Similarly, by examining British Nigeria diaspora, as a specific or different type of audience, this research questions how we think about the nature and composition of British audiences of development representations as being seemingly self-evident. It does this specifically by disrupting ideas within existing literature about UK audiences, who are “assumed to be characterised by a homogenous and monocultural Britishness” (Dogra, 2012 p. 125).
Equally important, is how this study demonstrated that diaspora perceptions of Africa are contextual and situationally-driven, that is, they are informed and shaped by their personal histories, biographical references for Nigeria, lived-experiences and familial upbringing. Whether in the form of anecdotal discussions of visiting Nigeria or Africa, watching African-orientated television such as Nollywood films, and BEN TV entertainment programmes, or receiving informal education within the family home. These individual diaspora experiences have equipped these audiences with a unique set or repertoire of knowledge, from which their understandings of Nigeria are negotiated, critical and multiple, vis-à- vis representations. Drawing from these personal catalogues of knowledge allow Nigerian diaspora audiences to frame their country of origin using a lens that is otherwise unfamiliar or inaccessible to those who do not share similar backgrounds and experiences. This empirical insight is significant as it is something that has been left unexamined by current debates and discussions on audiences of development representations. These findings extend existing literature by highlighting that individual differences and diversity among an audiences’ background and personal experiences necessarily complicate and are implicated in, how they may read development representations of Africa. These findings reinforce this study’s call for an attitudinal and epistemological-shift from the uncritical understanding of audiences as seemingly straight-forward and uncomplicated, towards recognising instead, their particularities and complexities, especially of the individuals who compose them.
The studies’ acknowledgment of these differences in how Nigerian audiences discursively construct their perceptions and knowledge in relation to development representations, affirms Halls’ ([1973]1980) Encoding/Decoding theorisation on audiences. This is demonstrated in our shared understanding that audiences are sophisticated, varied and paradoxical in how they interpret and decipher media representations. So too, that these interpretive strategies are informed by and situated within the audience member’s own socio-cultural positioning and lived-experiences (Hall, 1997). As such, the study’s findings complement Hall’s Encoding/Decoding proposition but also adds to it in its application to Nigerian Diaspora audiences and their construal of development representations. However, given that Hall has already theorised audiences as diverse and complex 45 years ago, it is surprising there still is not a vast body of work to make these claims. 203
The literature review highlighted the growing recognition within Development studies of the various ways that development and humanitarian representations impact and determine audience’s subjectivities and dispositions in relation to Africa and other ‘distant places’. This has been examined in terms of audiences’ charitable giving (Dogra, 2006; Kennedy, 2009); the forging and/or consolidation of immediate-distant relationships (Boltanski, 1999; Chouliaraki 2006; Silverstone, 2007) or how audiences view and comprehend the global South (Thompson, 1995; VSO, 2001; Dogra, 2012). There is one important area of inquiry that this study is in inscribed, and which necessarily set its findings and their contributions apart from the other empirical work in this field. This critical area, is the discovery that the ethno-racial/cultural identities of British Nigerian audiences, are fundamental in understanding the complex relationship between audiences and development representations. The study found that diaspora identities as ‘black’, ‘African’, ‘Nigerian’ or all three, significantly affect, and are interwoven with how, audiences interpret, critique and are influenced by development representations. As discussed in Chapter five, this is realised in a paradoxical diaspora indignation of, and ethnoracial identification with, African representations. Whereby, Nigerian audiences simultaneously hate and yet relate to NGO images of Africa as expressed through newly adopted and preferential identity re/configurations, that determine the extent to which they dis/associate with Nigeria. These empirical findings add a new filter or dimension for the breadth and depth of understanding audience-representation relationships, especially how diaspora audience identities are constituted in and performed through, development representations. As well as, their identities being a lens through which to understand the perspicuity of diaspora readings of representations that depict places and people of/with which they are ethnically and racially tied.
Furthermore, empirical contributions are found in how this study specifies the distinct ways that development representations impact diaspora engagement with, and participation in development. While mainstream and critical development literature have increasingly recognised, incorporated and analysed diaspora with global Southern origins as ‘development actors’ in the multiple and differentiated ways that they support and participate in international and local forms of development. Equally, how diaspora engagement with mainstream NGOs and development corporations have implications for not only their countries of origin but the overall trajectory of global development (Agarwal & Horowitz, 2002; Gaynor et al., 2007; Abdile, 2011). This scholarship nonetheless lacks any empirical insight into how development representations – the visual image productions – of NGOs, affect the relationships or lack thereof, that diaspora audiences may have with development in their countries of origin. This area, while neglected in the literature, is investigated thoroughly in this thesis. Its key findings are important for current debates in highlighting that the visual representational practices of development organisations, are implicated in and determine the extent to which diaspora trust and are willing to support NGOs. Diaspora audiences are highly conscious of, critical and sensitive about how Africa and their identities as black Africans or Nigerians are communicated to the public sphere through NGO representations. This is realised in the indignation that they have for African representation used by NGOs with many believing that such images perpetuate negative, 204
largely racist, stereotypes about their communities. As well as, oversimplify important and complex issues that affect their country of origin and the lives of their families therein. These findings are important as they show that development representations lead to mistrust, frustration and a sense of disconnection with NGOs among diaspora audiences. Within this framing, we understand that the content and context of development representations matter, they are not standalone, neutral ‘things’ that simply exist independent of ‘our knowing’ but have real and precarious effects on both diaspora consciousness and behaviours which is materialised and felt at both the individual and community level. As such, development representations are relational, in that they are implicated in how diaspora audiences position themselves in relation to NGOs and this is evident in their engagement or lack thereof, with development. The study’s findings are therefore unique in that they move beyond current empirical understandings of what diaspora communities ‘do’ for international development, towards what development (through its representations) are doing ‘to’ diaspora and how this becomes meaningful and constituted in their everyday lives.
As well as development literature, these findings have important implications for the representational/communication practices of UK-based NGOs. This study found that development practitioners working within a sample of NGOs are largely unaware of diaspora audiences in their representational practices. Rather their communications are informed by the intra-organisational pressures, politics and economic determinants of their operations, which ultimately prioritise fundraising. These internal considerations, not the potential implications of their communication productions for diaspora communities, determine how Africa and African diaspora identities are represented to audiences. This precludes any critical engagement on the part of NGOs with the interconnectedness of their representations with how they are received by and impact diaspora audiences, who identify with the people and places in their images. This study’s recognition that representations negatively affect diaspora-development engagement, necessitates an overall need for an attitudinal-shift among NGO professionals, from viewing diaspora communities as somehow undifferentiated from mainstream British audiences. Towards, a critical acknowledgement of the ethnocultural identities and perspectives of this audience type as consumers of development representations in their own right. This study advises that this is a prerequisite for NGOs construing the importance of diaspora audiences in their representational practices and negotiating perceived tensions around their images. So too, understanding how their images impact diaspora audiences in unique and complicated ways especially in terms of their trust in NGOs and willingness to engage with them.
Lastly, in addition to these aforementioned empirical contributions, a further contribution is made to development literature on the interconnectedness of representations and audiences. This is demonstrated through understanding how new online communication technologies are being appropriated by British diaspora and continental Africans to challenge, problematise and inform development representations. The study’s findings suggest that we need to understand how 205
microblogging, image-sharing and video-hosting social media sites like Twitter and YouTube, are leveraged as virtual transnational spaces for diaspora communities to exercise agency in managing the production and dissemination of African representation. While challenging the misconceptions and stereotypes that have defined and confined popular understandings of Africa and communities therein. These new online territories for development punditry and self-representation, problematises the conventional politics of development representation in terms of how NGOs and development practitioners publicly portray diaspora identities and countries of origin. As such, not only does social media allow diaspora to respond to, re-negotiate and actively construct development representations, but also a multiplicity of diaspora identities and narratives are made legible and visible in spaces that are otherwise inaccessible in representations. In this sense, challenging representations in the virtual sphere, afford diaspora unrestricted opportunities to celebrate their identities and cultural particularities of “African-ness” beyond the too-often ascribed portrayals of poverty and helplessness.
These findings are significant as they highlight how NGOs as apparatuses of development discourse, determine the space and create the visual frame within which Africa is defined and knowable for audiences. However, it also within this negative space that diaspora are given/create their own opportunities to construct alternative, ‘positive’ self-representations of Africa online, that reflect their personal histories, interpretations and experiences. These findings invert unidirectional representation-audience/giver-receiver understandings of audience receptivity, of what representations do ‘to’ audience. By highlighting how online diaspora audiences, as multiple interpretive communities, actively ‘respond to’, and reappropriate development representations in creative and idiosyncratic ways.
8.4 Theoretical Contributions
This study makes important theoretical contributions to critical postcolonial theorisations of diaspora identities by situating existing literature within the unique context of the identities of Nigerian diaspora audiences, vis-à-vis development representations. The negotiation and redefining of multiple identities were copiously documented in this thesis, demonstrating the situationally-driven and constructive nature of Nigerian subjectivities. Additionally, it observed the strategic performativity of these identities in relation to development representations. Some of these empirical insights are consistent with Homi Bhabha (1994) and Halls (1990) theorisation of diaspora identities as hybrid forms of self- identifications that are constantly being produced and reproduced through processes of transformation and difference. As discussed in Chapter five for instance, this study observed that for diaspora audiences, their skin colour and identities as ‘black’, ‘African’, ‘Nigerian’ or all three, significantly affect, and are implicated in how, they interpret, critique and are influenced by development representations. This was contextualised as a paradoxical diaspora indignation of, and ethnoracial identification with, NGO African representation. Whereby, Nigerian diaspora simultaneously reject and connect with negative and stereotypical representations in response to the difference through similarity that they create. This conflicting relationship with representations was 206
managed by diaspora adopting new and preferential identity re/configurations, such as, the ‘taking up’ of Afro-Caribbean identities, that ‘down-played’ and concealed African heritage. While others, asserted unapologetic ‘Nigerian-ness’ through self-affirming, Afro-centric identities. Both identities nonetheless, determined the extent to which diaspora dis/associate with Nigeria and Africa generally.
These ethno-symbolic articulations of the ‘Diaspora Self’ were performances, used to filter through, contest and guard against development representations and the harmful public perceptions and stereotypes that they shape for Africans. These findings affirm Halls (1997) postulation that identities do not inhere in individuals, they are constituted in and through representations and the various ways that we imagine ourselves to be perceived by others. As such, diaspora identities/self-representations were not permanent, natural or singular, rather a contingency used to make ‘meaning’ legible in the semiosis of African representation. This extends, and is in line with, Bhabha’s hybridity conception, in understanding the instability of diaspora identities that are in states of flux and change, as well as, how identities develop relationally in the context of our environments. Moreover, this study reveals the promise that hybridity can “reveal, or even provide, a politics of liberation for subaltern constituencies” (Nadarajah and Rampton 2015: p. 8), and thus be ‘emancipatory’ (Bhabha, 1994). This is evident in the freedom and possibilities within Nigerian diaspora identities. More than just a dis-association from Africa, these ethnosymbolic identity configurations for instance, involve acts of creativity and imagination that yield a sense of diaspora that is self-consciously expressed/constructed through their own individual subjectivities.
We see this in Nigerian audiences appropriating alternative, preferential identities which afford them complete authorship, manoeuvre and flexibility over how they are ‘seen’ and received by their immediate and extended environments, a privilege not afforded to them by negative charity representations. Within this framing, this study also advances postcolonial understandings of diaspora identities in the context of development representations by suggesting that the identities that Nigerian audiences adopt are practices, or performances of a ‘postcolonial selfhood’, a diaspora agency. By this I mean, diaspora audiences as decedents of formally colonised places and people, can exercise self-determination in their preferred identities reclaiming visibility and voice where they are hidden and muted in development representations by Northern/Western-situated NGOs.
This study also contributes to the postcolonial scholarship on the hybridity of diaspora identities, by suggesting that whilst it is confirmed the contingent nature of diaspora identities and argued that Nigerian identities are situational and constructive vis-à-vis representations. It also established that diaspora have a tendency to strategically mobilise their ‘hybrid’ identities into essentialised identifications in response to development representations, in terms of nationhood. This is particularly evident among those participants who channelled their conflicting relationships with development representations by adopting self-ascribed ‘Afro-centric’ and ‘unapologetically black’ or ‘fiercely Nigerian identities’. Not only were these purposeful articulations of ‘the Self’ co-opted as adaptive strategies in response to negative development representations of Africa, but also a way to connect with their place of origin, even if only imagined, symbolic or falsified by romanticisms of ‘the 207
homeland’ or a ‘collective struggle’. In doing so, the influence of Nigeria, as diaspora country of origin or homeland re-emerged as a frame, or point of reference for these distinctive diaspora identities.
Similar observations are made with some online diaspora audiences as discussed in Chapter seven, who in their support of #TheAfricaTheMediaNeverShowsYou, leveraged the campaign as a means for a transnational pan-African alliance. This was driven by a sense of co-responsibility seemingly shared among global African diaspora in challenging and redefining Africa’s representation by NGOs and mainstream Western media. Moreover, as referenced in Chapter five, some diaspora participants have conflicting allegiances with Nigeria, Africa and Britain that is negotiable. This is not only in response to negative representations of Africa by NGOs and mainstream media, but also their allied preoccupations with feeling accepted by their non-African, mostly white, peers.
As such, while this study’s findings agree with postcolonial hybridity theorisations on diaspora identities as fluid, open to negotiation and creativity, where new opportunities of identification emerge (Hall, 1990; Bhabha, 1994; Karim, 2003). The aforementioned evidence, complicate the current debates by demonstrating that seemingly hybrid identities of Nigerian diaspora audiences, are just as open to temporary fixing in national, ethnocultural and ethnosymbolic orientations or categorisations.
Additionally, this study contributes to theoretical discussions within Development Studies about audiences of development representations, specifically how NGO images consolidate emotional, moral relationships, and responsibilities among audiences (Boltanki, 1999; Thompson, 1995; Chouliaraki, 2006; Silverstone, 2007). Its findings contribute to this literature, by affirming proclamations that development representations, particularly those depicting distant suffering and atrocities evoke ‘empathetic experiences’ and expand the moral horizons of audiences. It does this by demonstrating in Chapter five that even with their sense of confliction with development representations, many Nigerian’s in their construal of images, empathised with the similarly-looking, ‘recognisable Others’. That is, audiences saw themselves in development representations depicting “black skinned faces and bodies” as one put it, forging viewer experiences that were ethno-racially empathetic. Although this did not necessarily translate and materialise in a diaspora engagement with NGOs or fundraising as discussed in Chapter six.
This study further contributes theoretically, to its postcolonial framing. Drawing from postcolonial analyses of development and development representations, and specifically, Said’s (1995) Othering concept, this study examined the empirical realities of diaspora audiences. It found that in diaspora critique of representations, their knowledge and perceptions of Africa and Nigeria, were implicated within colonial discourses of ‘difference’. That is, diaspora were critically aware that images by NGOs project and perpetuate an Othering discourse of difference, between ‘Britain/the Western-Self’ and ‘Africa/the non-Western Other’, in their portrayal of Africa. Whilst, reproducing these differences themselves in own their perceptions and imaginings of their country of origin. However, a particularly insightful finding is how diaspora reproduced these discourses of difference or
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Othering within and among themselves as communities, this ‘intra and inter-Diaspora Othering’ is revelatory in the scholarship on audiences of development representations.
This study found that, some diaspora reproduced ethno-racial and cultural differences and inequalities, much like development representations, as they contested and resisted against the legitimacy of their devalued identities imposed by Western NGOs. They did this in the recognition that there are negative implications in identifying with Africa/ns both ‘here’ and over ‘there’, in terms of how they are perceived and treated by their non-African, white counterparts. This is realised in the distancing strategies of those diaspora who adopt Caribbean identities or ‘down play’ their African/Nigerian-ess, in their attempt to cope with or avoid stigmatising and essentialising labels of poverty and helplessness. While diaspora participants were not conscious of, or reference this internal othering, their identity constructions and indignation of African representation, nonetheless produce hierarchical fragmentations and new forms of marginalisation among themselves.
It also makes some important contributions to Development Studies in how we conceptualise what International Development is within broader, theoretical discourses. In chapter six, the study observed that some diaspora understand, while others allude to the idea, that remittance-giving to their country of origin is a form of development. As discussed in this empirical chapter, while there is an epistemological divide in literature in terms of how both development and diaspora remittances are interpreted, with the former understood to be given in response to need while the latter, familial and cultural obligation (Chami et al., 2003; Osili, 2004; Ratha, 2007). We learn from diaspora that cultural obligations are not the only or primary motivations for remittance- giving, but also financial exigency informed by development-related issues and concerns in Nigeria. These findings suggest a rethinking about the interconnectedness of development and remittances, beyond what remitting ‘does’ for or ‘in-kind’ to international development, to how it ‘is’ a legitimate form of development in and of itself.
While these theoretical contributions to postcolonialism are largely substantiated from evidence gathered from the empirical realities of British Nigeria Diaspora communities, who are themselves interesting, multiple and differentiated in unique and complicated ways. This thesis however, argues that they are nonetheless an exemplary and useful case study given that they necessarily reflect and form part of the phenomenological, social realities of African diaspora in Britain. Within this frame, it is possible to utilise empirical material and theoretical contributions derived from these Nigerian communities when thinking about their implications and usefulness for more general dynamics as it relates to other, broader African diaspora. So too, how this might be understood using a postcolonial theoretical framing. The argument supporting the usefulness of Nigerian diaspora and their wider relevance for critically understanding the impact that development representations have on African diaspora, is grounded in this study’s empirical material which demonstrates that there are particular core elements of Nigerian diaspora self-identities that help us understand how they extend their theoretical terrain to broader African diaspora. 209
In their own proclaimed self-identifications – their representations of the ‘Self’ – several Nigerian diaspora participants, in one description or another, defined and referred to themselves as ‘African’ or by the degree to which African representation by NGOs (and mainstream media) made them introspectively understand themselves as (and to be) African, or how they aligned their self-identities with Africa and communities therein. This is evidenced and pronounced in how Nigeria diaspora re- constitute and reference their multiplicitous identities from different axis points vis-a-vis development representations each grounded on the extent to which they felt or classed themselves as African. Whether this was understood in self-definitions based on essentialising notions of unequivocally territorialised identities, for example through identifications with Africa as their romanticised continental homeland; or with amorphous, all-encompassing, African nationalist identities as “Pan- African” or “Afro-centric”. These racial/ethnosymbolic definitions of the diaspora ‘Self’ were in and of themselves identity discourses that reflected how ‘African’ Nigerian diaspora felt in their construal and critique of popular, largely problematic development representations of Africa(ns). Even those who assumed new Caribbean identities, these were understood as subject positionings employed by diaspora in their attempt to re-negotiate the often-tricky terrain of identifying as African via development representations, through the difference through similarity that they produce.
As such, the different axis points of ‘African identification’ among Nigeria diaspora – their self- identities as African, necessarily transcend the limitations of their individual, specific ethno-cultural and ethno-regionalised Nigerian identities (as say, ‘Nigerian’, ‘Yoruba’, ‘Igbo’ or ‘Hausa’ etc). This makes Nigerians and their attendant empirical and theoretical material, exemplary and useful when thinking about wider relevance for broader African diaspora.
Within this frame of argument, evidence from Nigerian diaspora thus raise interesting and important issues when thinking about theoretical contributions that this thesis makes to broader debates in key concepts in postcolonial theory (as aforementioned), within which it is framed. Very little reiteration is necessary except to re-emphasise that this thesis makes important theoretical contributions to postcolonialism in how we critically understand that the consumption and interpretation of development representations by African diaspora provides a complex site from which different, multiplicitous and contradictory identities are negotiated and reconstituted. Not only are these identities strategic, essentialised and in many cases unconscious but they are also necessarily implicated in, inform and a consequence of diaspora perceptions and knowledge of Africa and their connections – or lack thereof, with this place and communities therein, vis-à-vis representations. African diaspora articulate intricate and layered self-understandings of what it means to be African and be implicated in “African-ness” within problematic, largely negative historical and socio-cultural discourses that are rooted in colonialism and which inhere in, and are reproduced by contemporary representations. The new and reconstituted identities are diaspora attempts at making ‘meaning’ legible in the semiosis of African representation and offers a corrective to popular, largely stereotyped and racialised portrayals that have too readily pathologised the places and people within which and with whom they have their racial, ethno-cultural origins.
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Specifically, in the context of Said’s (1995) ‘Othering’ theorisation, this study contributes to broader discussions by demonstrating that the un/conscious, redefining and appropriation of different identities by African diaspora is inherently and strategically anti-essentialist. That is, these new, distinct and hybrid forms of identification challenge, and are antidotes to oppositional binaries which inhere in and are articulated through development representations. As such, diaspora identities are the result of (and an effort to reconcile) their consciousness of, sensitivity to, and indignation with discourses of difference in NGO images which camp and contrast Africa and Black/African identities into ‘binary oppositions and hierarchical relations of: ‘rich/poor’, ‘developed/un(der)development’, ‘progressive/primitive’, ‘helpless/resourceful’ for example.
Similarly, contributions are made to Bhabha’s (1994) hybridity concept by showing that diaspora identities are relational and constitutive of representation but also, that African diaspora appropriate newly formed, and habitual self-articulations as they afford them complete ownership and flexibility over how they are viewed and received by the world. A privilege not afforded to them by the often tricky, impenetrable terrain of NGO African representation that are largely negative, stereotypical and disparaging about Africa. As such, African diaspora identities are essentially performances of a ‘postcolonial Selfhood’ – that is, they are ethnosymbolisms of diaspora agency, where they can reclaim new forms and axis of visibility and voice to “talk back” to the centralised power of contemporary colonial discourses that assumed it inconsequential, and which are largely marginalised and muted in the representational frames of NGO images.
Again, this thesis theoretical contributes to Hall’s ([1973]1980) by demonstrating that Diaspora audiences, are not some vast horde of undifferentiated, docile masses devoid of individual articulation of unique intent and who, uncritically subscribe to law-like regularities in how they engage with, consume and construal media representations. Rather they are multiple and complex interpretative communities with individual differences and who are imbued with a variety of resources that unavoidably complicate their reciprocal relationship(s) with media representations. Moreover, contributes by demonstrating that African diaspora audiences bring and draw upon their own ‘repositories of knowledge, posistionalities, cultural backgrounds and lived realities in their interpretations of development representations and in their perceptions of Africa.
8.5 Limitations
My choice for Nigerian diaspora participants and Peckham as a research site, was informed by personal interests and practical considerations, including the fact that I am Nigerian myself and had an extended Nigerian social network. Moreover, that there are more Yoruba Nigerians in Britain compared to other Nigerian ethnic communities, having had the earliest and largest immigration numbers to the country and high concentration in Peckham. Despite this, I am however conscious of the cultural relativity of my research and what this means for the broader application of some of its
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findings. Having said that, despite its qualitative epistemology, this study is not entirely unrepresentative and irrelevant with respect to other communities. Its findings and broader theoretical contributions extend beyond Nigerian audiences, to understand and reflect the empirical realities of other African diaspora groups from different parts of the UK. As such, the study’s findings on the complex and different ways in which Nigerians view and construct understandings of their place of origin, and how their identities are implicated in, performed through and against African representation by NGOs, is and should not be limited to just these Peckham-based audiences. They are also transferable and pertain to Nigerians in Brixton or Ghanaians in Hackney for example.
8.6 Suggestions for further research
An area that requires further investigation is examining the impact that development representations have on different types of African diaspora communities in the UK. This will allow more breadth and depth in understanding the multiple and complex ways in which development representations affect different African audiences, and how their individual identities, positionalities and perspectives are implicated in this. It will be interesting to explore the various connections, disconnections and potential identity reconfigurations among these communities in relation to representations of their countries of origin. Additionally, given that the study only focused on diaspora who were British born and raised, a gap exists to investigate recently migrated Africans including asylum seekers and refugees. Nothing is yet known about whether and if so, how development representations of Africa affect migrant perceptions of the places they have left.
Similarly, while the research was concerned with the subjectivities of UK-based diaspora regarding their country of origin and communities therein, it will be interesting to find out whether and if so, how continental Africans – the supposed subjects of development representations – are influenced, shaped or negatively affected by these NGO images. Are they even aware, or care? If so, does this impact their self-perceptions, or of Western development organisations? As such, this research gap implores many interesting and critical questions about the empirical realities of continental Africans that are yet to be answered.
Equally, diaspora who participated in the research were all adults (18 years and above), as such, it did not examine the subjectivities of non-adult diaspora populations regarding development representations. An empirical study of children and young people, primary and secondary school age, could be very enlightening especially given that Comic Relief’s Red Nose Day event for instance, is a popular fixture in school and this is a time during which many young people are introduced and engage with development representations and other visual discourses of African places, people as well as, ideas and issues of poverty, inequality and fundraising (Borowski, 2011).
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The research findings highlighted that some diaspora adopted alternative, preferential identities in response to the negative implications of African representation by NGOs and mainstream media. With others mentioning that these identities afford them a greater degree of actual and/or perceived acceptance by their non-African, largely white, peers. This insight opens another priority area for further investigation namely, how development representations affect and are implicated in perceptions of conviviality, or how they forge relationships between diaspora and non-diaspora communities in the UK. This will be particularly interesting to investigate in relation to migrant diaspora populations and diaspora of primary and secondary school age, where issues of exclusion, acceptance, marginalisation and assimilation are seemingly pertinent to and abound these groups (Brah, 1996; Borowski, 2011; Sarwal, 2017).
The study also focused exclusively on African representation by popular, mainstream NGOs and development charities, as such, it did not include niche development NGOs such as religious and faith-based organisations rooted in diaspora communities. Given that this study observed strong connections between diaspora, faith organisations and development, it would be fascinating to see whether and to what extent representations used by these organisations affect diaspora perceptions, and understandings of, and connections with, their country of origin.
There are also priority areas for further investigation in terms of data collection methods. While the study utilised a combination of focus group discussions, individual interviews and online ethnography, other qualitative methodologies such as, ‘draw-and-talk’ activities and mapping exercises, especially with child and adolescent diaspora, could be a creative and particularly insightful method to explore and analyse individual and group interpretations of representations and understandings of Africa, especially those that have become salient and memorable in their minds. Not only could these drawing methods be participatory and collaborative for participants as they symbolically articulate their subjectivities via pen and paper, but also the drawings, as empirical material, may reveal certain discourses and realities that interviewing, or discussions alone may not (Backett-Milburn, 1999; Campbell, et al., 2010; Block, 2012). Similarly, while online ethnography was useful in exploring diaspora-driven initiatives for challenging, critiquing and informing development and mainstream media representations of Africa, it would be interesting to investigate other creative ways that these communities are engaging in representations e.g. photography, film/documentary-making, art and personalised blogs.
Lastly, applying postcolonialism as the study’s theoretical framing was useful in contextualising diaspora interpretations of development representations, perceptions of their country of origin, as well as, their identity constructions, in historical discourses of difference and ‘Othering’. However, employing Critical Race Theory (CRT) as an alternative conceptual framework, could help extend this present study by providing new, different and deeper understandings of the complex relationship between diaspora communities and development representations. CRT is particularly useful in a study like this as it looks at the intersectionality of race, representation and power from sociological 213
perspectives which, in combination, holds the potential to expand each perspective in unique ways when applied to diaspora ethnoracial identities, development representations and the power imbued within NGOs as apparatuses of development discourse. Moreover, CRT problematises racialisation in cultural representations and legitimises counter-storytelling by marginalised and/or oppressed minority groups like diaspora, as an important methodology for examining their empirical realities (Pyke, 2010; Delgado and Stefancic, 2012). These features of CRT will be effective in further investigating this study’s findings that diaspora perceive NGO fundraising images (as types of cultural representation) as racialising their identities in negative and stereotypical ways. Equally, the counter- storytelling component can build on the different methods, beyond social media, that diaspora audiences utilise to create alternative narratives of Africa.
8.7 Conclusion
In this concluding chapter, I have presented my answers to the research questions and considered how these findings contribute to wider empirical and theoretical debates. I have argued that development representations affect Nigerian diaspora audiences in different and complex ways, that both reproduce and challenge negative, stereotypical and historical ‘ways of seeing’ and comprehending Africa. Equally important, is the role that diaspora identities have in all this. Diaspora ethno-racial and cultural identities significantly affect, and are implicated in, how they critique and interpret NGO African representation. Their identities are also important for understanding how these audiences establish and challenge their connections or, lack thereof, with their country of origin, and communities therein, vis-à-vis development representations. I have also argued that NGO development representations, as part of mainstream media, provide the symbolic spaces from which diaspora audiences articulate their identities and afford intense interconnectivity, conviviality as well as, disconnection among themselves and with others in their immediate and extended environments. These findings contribute to current theorisations and debates with Development Studies on audiences of development representations by demonstrating that diverse audience identities, and specifically, the racial and ethnocultural identities of diaspora audiences, influence and frame the multiple and contradictory ways that individuals and groups experience, comprehend and engage with development representations. Moreover, how the identities of diaspora audiences are being constituted through and against these visual images.
Given that development representations continue to proliferate in our society and are integral to NGO advertising and communication productions, in their attempt to mediate issues and problems concerning poverty and global inequality to audiences. It is important that these phenomena, that is, development representations, diaspora audiences and their interconnection, are not analysed in isolation from one another. This thesis contributes to understanding how these two phenomena meet and contend in their own spaces of interaction.
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Appendices
Appendix 1: Tables showing diaspora focus group participants
Group Participant M/F Ethnicity/ Age Occupation / Location Date of Nationality Profession of discussion discussion
1 Abigail F Nigerian 24 Microbiologist London Nov 2015
Edwin M Nigerian 27 Junior Doctor
Michael M Nigerian 23 PhD Student
Phillip M Nigerian 25 Masters Student Sarah F Nigerian 23 Maths Teacher Veronica F Nigerian 22 Graduate scheme No. of 6 participants
Group Participant M/F Ethnicity/ Age Occupation Location Date of Nationality / of discussion Profession discussion 2 Christopher M Nigerian 25 PhD London Nov 2015 Student Judith F Nigerian 25 DPhil Student Francesca F Nigerian 26 Masters Student Daphne F Nigerian 27 Research analyst Gareth M Nigerian 24 Graduate
Harriet F Nigerian 23 Graduate
No. of 6 participants
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Group Participant M/F Ethnicity/ Age Occupation Location Date of Nationality / of discussion Profession discussion 3 Immanuel M Nigerian 54 Speciality London Dec 2015 Registrar – Obs/Gynae Meredith F Nigerian 58 Speciality Registrar – Obs/Gynae Lola F Nigerian 36 English Teacher Stephanie F Nigerian 42 Health Promotion Coordinator
No. of participants 4
Group Participant M/F Ethnicity/ Age Occupation Location Date of Nationality / of discussion Profession discussion 4 Bethany F Nigerian 48 Project London Dec 2015 Manager Ingrid F Nigerian 42 HR Manager Karen F Nigerian 29 Social Worker
No. of participants 3
Group Participant M/F Ethnicity/ Age Occupation/ Location Date of Nationality Profession of discussion discussion 5 Nathan M Nigerian 31 Game London Dec 2015 designer Oliver M Nigerian 43 Accountant
Quentin M Nigerian 29 Data handler
No. of participants 3
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Group Participant M/F Ethnicity/ Age Occupation Location Date of Nationality / of discussion Profession discussion 6 Ifeoma F Nigerian 26 Accountant London March 2016 Ezikiel M Nigerian 19 Student
Nigel M Nigeria 29 Project manager Eunice F Nigerian 31 Speech and language therapist Jeffery M Nigerian 24 IT consultant
No. of 5 participants
Group Participant M/F Ethnicity/ Age Occupation Location Date of Nationality / of discussion Profession discussion 7 Temitayo F Nigerian 31 Stylist London April 2016 Akin M Nigerian 32 Bank manager Olaleyi M Nigerian 20 Student
Simon M Nigerian 27 Construction
No. of participants 4
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Appendix 2: Tables showing white focus group participants
Group Participant M/F Ethnicity/ Age Occupation / Location Date of Nationality Profession of discussion discussion 8 Richard M English/Italian 38 Associate London Jan 2016 Lecturer Timothy M Welsh 27 PhD Student
Zoe F English 26 Social Worker
Yasmine F English 26 Postdoctoral researcher Xander M Russian/British 55 Accountant
William M English 58 Physiotherapist
No. of 6 participants
Group Participant M/F Ethnicity/ Age Occupation / Location Date of Nationality Profession of discussion discussion 9 Meghan F English 42 Retail Manager London Jan 2016 Lucy F English 34 Bereavement Counsellor Sharon F English 28 Hairdresser
Katrina F Polish Jew 31 Housing Officer
No. of participants 4
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Appendix 3
Focus Group Discussion Prompt Sheet
i. About you: (Background/Informational Context)
Tell us a little bit about yourself (e.g. what’s your name, age, occupation, ethnic/cultural background?)
ii. Knowledge and perceptions of Africa/ Country of Origin
What the first thing that comes to mind when you think about Africa generally – and/or your country of origin specifically? (e.g. mental images, thoughts, beliefs)
Where would you say that these sources of information/images of Africa and country of origin come from?
[Selection of charity images are presented to focus group discussants]
When you look at these images what are your first impressions? Are they typical of what you see in the media today?
What organisations do you think might use or have these types of images? (e.g. names of charities)
What are your thoughts about the kind of messages that they convey about Africa(ns)? Do they influence how you view and understand your country of origin? If so, how/why?
Would you say that these views and ideas are influenced by your African-Nigerian heritage? If so, how/why? How does this make you feel?
iii. Representations and engagement with development
Would you say that charity representations of Africa(ns) influence whether you support and/or engage in social issues in your country of origin? If So, how? (e.g. charitable donating, organising charity events, outreach work).
What types of representations of Africa would you like to see? (e.g. what do you think is included/excluded in current images?) Would this influence whether or how you engage in your country of origin? If so, how/why
Endings
Is there anything else you would like to say about charities and their representations of Africa?
Any questions about the research?
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Appendix 4
Table showing online diaspora interview participants
Number Participant M/F Ethnicity/ Age Occupation / Date of Nationality Profession Interview 1 Rachel F Ghanaian 17 Student May 2016 2 Max M Zimbabwean 24 Nurse May 2016 3 Agustina F Senegalese 27 Teacher April 2016 4 Bela F Kenyan 22 Student April 2016 5 Raphael M Ugandan 30 Shop owner May 2016 6 Samuel M Ivorian 23 Student May 2016 7 Gbemileke M Nigerian 34 Accountant April 2016 8 Mya F Kenyan 18 Student April 2016 9 Kofi M Ghanaian 26 Banker April 2016 10 Linda F Angola 35 Council Worker May 2016 11 Nneka F Nigerian 20 Restaurant staff April 2016 12 Annett F South African 56 Midwife April 2016 13 Kunle M Rwandan 36 Consultant May 2016 14 Beni M Nigerian-Yoruba 21 Student May 2016 15 Aubrey F Sudanese 26 Sales assistant April 2016 16 Tobias M Angolan 21 Student April 2016 17 Dennis M Nigerian 30 Academic April 2016 18 Hadid M Somalian 28 Management May 2016 19 Antonia F Nigerian 29 Hairdresser May 2016 20 Tisha F Zimbabwean 24 Tailor June 2016 21 Abdul M Ugandan 35 Social Worker June 2016 22 Amir M Ugandan 41 Project Manager April 2016 23 Dawud M Egyptian 28 Account/Finance April 2016 24 Doubiba F Algerian 30 Social Support May 2016 25 Waleed M Angolan 19 Student June 2016 26 Cassandra F Eritrean 27 Student June 2016 27 Penelope F Cameroonian 40 Academic June 2016 28 Gifty F Chadian 37 Housing Officer May 2016 29 Ikenna M Nigerian 38 YouTuber April 2016
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Appendix 5
Table showing interviews with NGOs and development organisations
Number Participant M/F Name of Type of Occupation/ Date of Organisation Organisation Profession Interview 1 Andy M Concern Humanitarian Director of January Worldwide, INGO Fundraising 2016 UK 2 Antifa F Concern Humanitarian Head of Policy and January Worldwide, INGO Campaigns 2016 UK 3 Dominic M ActionAid, UK Child Rights Director of March INGO Fundraising 2016 4 Ethan M WaterAid, UK Aid and Assistant Brand March Development Marketing Manager 2016 INGO 5 Stanley M Oxfam, GB Development Communications April NGO Manager 2016 6 Ian M Care Aid and Junior Digital May International, Development Marketer 2016 UK INGO 7 Temi F Save the Poverty Charity Researcher May Children, UK 2016 8 Natalie F Diaspora for African Diaspora Capacity May African Diaspora NGO Building 2016 Development (DfAD) 9 Yama F AFFORD, UK African Diaspora June Diaspora NGO Community 2016 Engagement
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Appendix 6
Interview Prompt Sheet for NGO professionals / Key Informants
i. About you: (Background/Informational Content)
Tell me a little bit about yourself (e.g. what’s your name, age, occupation, ethnic/cultural background?)
ii. Views on representations of Africa and Impact on British African communities
What are your thoughts on how Africa and Africans are being represented in the media particularly in fundraising charity campaigns? Why do these types of images exist?
What impact would you say that representations of Africa are having on British African communities? Any impact on yourself?
Would you say these western media/charity representations of Africa play a role in influencing how British African communities view and understand Africa and/or their countries of origin? If so, why/how?
Would you say that representations of Africa by fundraising charities can influence whether/how British African communities invest and engage in issues and problems affecting Africa/their countries of origin? If so, why/how?
iii. How British African communities are informing, shaping and challenging representations
Tell me about [insert name of business/organisation/practice etc].
In what ways is [name of business/organisation/practice] shaping, challenging and/or changing representations of Africa and their content? Is it having a desired impact?
How would you say that British African communities specifically are benefiting/would benefit from this? (E.g. benefits on their identities, self-esteem, and perceptions/knowledge of Africa etc.)
Do you construe the importance of diaspora audiences in your practice and if so, how?
Have you considered the potential and or, actual impact that your visual campaigning have on identifying groups among African diaspora communities? If so, in what ways?
Has your own cultural/ethnic background influenced/impacted your work or career path? If so, how?
Endings
What representations of Africa would you prefer to see? (E.g. any changes/inclusions/exclusions?)
Final thoughts?
Is there anything else you would like to say about charities and their representations of Africa?
Any questions about the research?
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Appendix 7
Interview Prompt Sheet for online diaspora
i. About you: (Background/Informational Content)
Tell me a little bit about yourself (e.g. what’s your name, occupation, ethnic/cultural background?)
ii. How British African communities are informing, shaping and challenging representations
How did you find out about #TheAfricaTheMediaNeverShowsYou and what made you join?
Tell me about your message/image, why did you post it?
What, if anything, did/do you want to get across from this posting?
What are you challenging in your posting? Why is this important?
………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Tell me about ‘What’s Up Africa’ – what were your motivations behind the show?
In what ways would you say that you are challenging mainstream understandings and perceptions of Africa through What’s Up Africa? Why is that important?
Is it having a desired effect?
Has your own cultural/ethnic background influenced how you negotiate the content of your videos? If so how/why?
How would you say that your British African audiences are benefiting or would benefit from what you do with What’s up Africa? (e.g. identities, self-esteem, perceptions).
What role if at all do you think fellow African diasporas have in challenging representations of Africa and producing alternatives? How do they do that?
iii. Views on representations of Africa and Impact on British African communities
What are your thoughts on how Africa and Africans are being represented in the media particularly in fundraising charity campaigns? Why do these types of images exist?
What impact would you say that representations of Africa are having on British African communities? Any impact on yourself?
Would you say these western media/charity representations of Africa play a role in influencing how you view and understand Africa and/or your country of origin? If so, why/how?
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Appendix 8
Focus Group NGO Representations
WaterAid ‘Malawian Crisis’ (2016). Available at: https://www.wateraid.org/uk/. (Accessed on: 5/12/2014).
Concern Worldwide, UK (2015) ‘Free Children from hunger’ Appeal Available at: https://www.concern.net/donate/appeals/starving-children-east-africa. (Accessed on: 5/12/2014).
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Oxfam, UK (2012) ‘Combating drought in the Horn of Africa’. Available at: https://www.oxfam.org.uk/what-we-do/emergency-response/east-africa-food-crisis. (Accessed on: 5/12/2014).
Oxfam UK (2012) ‘Food For all’ Campaign. Available at: https://www.oxfam.org.uk/media-centre/press-releases/2012/12/show-africas-potential- not-just-its-problems-says-oxfam. (Accessed on: 5/12/2014).
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Comic Relief (2016)
Available at: https://www.comicrelief and blogs.oxfam.org/en/blog/11-08-04-48-hours-blogging-east- africa . (Accessed on: 5/12/2014).
Teofilo, G (2011) ‘Children collecting water in Kenya, East Africa’ – taken for Oxfam UK [Online image] Available at: http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.oxfam.org.uk/~/media/Images/OGB/What%2520w e%2520do/Emergency%2520appeals/East%2520Africa%2520Food%2520Crisis/eafrica_1year_pump .ashx&imgrefurl=http://www.oxfam.org.uk/what-we-do/emergency-response/east-africa-food-
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crisis&usg=__o_WiTkbNxIP7IjcGQB7h72w4B1k=&h=220&w=315&sz=20&hl=en&start=14&zoom=1&t bnid=Y7xWcbk44zluzM:&tbnh=82&tbnw=117&ei=hlvAUfWwDYbR0QW4toDQBQ&prev=/search%3Fq %3Doxfam%2Bafrican%2Bcrisis%26safe%3Doff%26sa%3DX%26hl%3Den- GB%26gbv%3D2%26tbm%3Disch&itbs=1&sa=X&ved=0CEYQrQMwDQ. (Accessed on: 5/12/2014)
ActionAid UK (2016) East Africa Crisis Appeal Available at: https://www.instagram.com/p/BRlZaS6Adun/?taken-by=actionaiduk. (Accessed on: 5/12/2014).
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Oxfam UK (2016) ‘Even it Up’ Campaign
Available at: https://www.instagram.com/p/yH3g6Zj05d/?taken-by=oxfamgb. (Accessed on: 5/12/2014)
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