Race, Power and Polemic: Whiteness in the Anthropology of Africa
Race, Power, and Polemic: Regardless of her respectful demeanor, Whiteness in the Anthropology of Cheney professes that her presence Africa “disrupted the regular flow of daily household life,” altering “the social dynamics” of houses and schools she visited Graham R Fox (Cheney 2007:33). Cheney’s experiences in Uganda are likely relatable for many white Introduction anthropologists in Africa and elsewhere. In In her 2007 ethnography Pillars of innumerable communities throughout the the Nation, American anthropologist Kristen Sub-Saharan Africa, the presence of a white Cheney recounts the first-hand experience of Westerner can conjure both positive and living and working in an urban housing negative sentiments. In some regions, the development in Kampala, Uganda. Con- interaction between Africans and non- spicuous amongst her black neighbors, she Africans is complicated by over a hundred describes the attention she received, years of tumultuous history. In Southern, especially in the early days of her research. Eastern and other pockets of Africa, white- skinned Europeans have not only dominated My presence in the barracks always and uprooted Africans, but exploited, elicited excited cries of “Mzungu” marginalized and in some cases, killed. (white person) from the children, most Different historical waves have sought to of whom were not yet old enough for reposition non-white Africans in positions of school. They rarely left the barracks self-determination, begin-ning in the 1960s and so rarely saw white people. Their through to the end of apartheid in South mothers would often point me out to Africa in the early 1990s. Despite these them when they saw me coming, so reconfigurations, Sub-Saharan Africa that by the time I reached them, the remains home to many whites, many of children were lined up along the rutted whom struggle to belong in places where dirt road as if for a parade (2007:26).
[Show full text]