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- Convenors:
-
Akbar Keshodkar
(Moravian University)
Mailys Chauvin (LAM-CNRS, Sciences Po Bordeaux, France)
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- Format:
- Panels
- Location:
- KH103
- Start time:
- 1 July, 2017 at
Time zone: Europe/Zurich
- Session slots:
- 1
Short Abstract:
With Africa increasingly integrated into the global economy and more "foreigners" moving across Africa, the panel invites papers to explore how questions of race and ethnicity are negotiated between local inhabitants and foreigners across shifting urban and rural African spaces and places.
Long Abstract:
The movement of "foreigners", ranging from immigrants, refugees, and migrant workers, to entrepreneurs and expatriates continues to remain an integral aspect of orientating urban and rural African spaces, places and communities in an increasingly interdependent global economy. Often regarded by locals as what Simmel identified as "Strangers," questions of racial/ethnic origins of the foreigners, intermingling or creolization continues to mark their nearness and strangeness within different African communities, reshapes urban spaces and identities and leaves these foreigners more susceptible to violence resulting from local struggles for resources and power. This panel invites papers to explore how movements of foreigners, as individuals and as members of different communities, are negotiated under the prism of race and ethnicity within the socio-spatial continuum that constitute these shifting urban and rural communities, along networks emanating from the local, regional and global scales across Africa. Papers should focus on investigating how socio-economic, political, media and/or religious factors contribute in (re)shaping ideas of belonging and displacement for these foreigners and how orientation and politics of social spaces in urban versus rural places affect social interaction of these foreigners with native members of various communities. Papers should further examine how notions of race/ethnicity are negotiated and shift within different contexts and promote degrees of social cohesion in the making and reshaping of urban and rural space and places, in turn reducing levels of strangeness of the foreigners and promoting a sense of pluralism within these societies.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Claudia Pandolfo (Milano-Bicocca University)
Paper short abstract:
The Mauritians descend from migrants settled on the island from different countries, in different periods and ways. As labour migrants are a crucial element of the Mauritian ethnicized economy, the new migrant workers challenge the balance between migration, labor market and ethnicity.
Paper long abstract:
Mauritius has always been an island of migration all along its history. Its population is made up by descendants of migrant people from different countries, following different patterns of settlement which resulted in a system where migration, labor market and ethnicity were strongly and deeply intertwined.
After Independence, the economic miracle of 1980s increased the opportunities for social mobility, but did not suppressed the ethnicized social division of labor which has long prevailed since the colonial period. New waves of migrant workers were brought approximately from the same regions as in the past (China, India, Bangladesh and Madagascar), as labour migrants remain a crucial element of the current Mauritian economy.
Today Mauritius is considered a successful example of development and multiculturalism. Mauritian identity construction processes depend on complex interactions between global, regional, local contexts to which the increasing flows of migration in contemporary globalized economy may represent a challenge.
What is the relationship of Mauritius with current immigration? Does Mauritian multiculturalism facilitate immigrant integration? Does immigration reshape Mauritian ethnic landscape? How and to what extent do migrant workers identity and culture interplay with Mauritian identity and history? Do the drivers of the colonial system are still present in one form or another?
These are some of the questions I try to address using data collected during my fieldwork in Mauritius.
Gordon Omenya (Kenyatta University)
Paper short abstract:
This paper explores how migrant Asians negotiated for space within the rural and urban spaces of Ndere and Kisumu town despite the hostility they initially received from the host community. Moreso, it examines issues of Asian integration and contestations over urban spaces in Kisumu and Ndere
Paper long abstract:
Asians have been in contact with East African coast for at least 2000 years as merchants or traders. Moreover, Asians have played important roles in the social, political and economic history of East African from the late pre-colonial period up to the present (Mickleburg, 2004), a socio-economic engagement which cannot be ignored. However, these engagements have been fraught with resistance, violence, cooperation and hostility within the urban spaces which has raised the problem of the Asian question in Kenya. It is this problematique of the Asian immigrants that the paper intends to examine in light of the changing dynamics of the urban space and identity(ies) in both Ndere village and Kisumu town. The fundamental question which this paper raises is: How did the strangers (Indians) staying deep in the rural village of Ndere shape the growth of Kisumu (more than a hundred kilometres from Ndere) into an urban centre. Secondly, how did the Indians/foreigners' economic activity (re)shape their social and political relations with the Africans staying in these two areas of Kenya's Nyanza province. The paper thus explores how the migrant Indians have been able to negotiate for space and 'maintain' links with Africans within the rural and urban spaces of Ndere and Kisumu town respectively. It explores further the extent of integration of the foreigners into the wider African community with the view of trying to assess the existence of binaries such as foreigners vs locals especially among strangers who managed to acquire citizenship of their host nations.
Akbar Keshodkar (Moravian University)
Paper short abstract:
The paper examines how prominence of Heshima (respect) negotiates power relations and strangeness between Indian Zanzibaris and other locals by offering modes of resistance to challenges the hegemony of the other while simultaneously mediating tension for maintaining social harmony in the society.
Paper long abstract:
Over the past century, Indians have become an integral part of societies across East Africa. Yet, they continue to be often regarded by indigenous Africans as, what Simmel identified as "Strangers". Questions of their racial/ethnic origins, religious segregation, endogamous practices, and intermingling remain at the forefront in marking their nearness and strangeness within these societies, and often leavs them susceptible to different forms of marginalization and potential violence resulting from local struggles for resources and power. This paper, based on over 15 years of ethnographic research in Zanzibar, analyzes how both, Indians of Zanzibari origin and indigenous Zanzibaris negotiate their interaction with each other through the local social ideal of Heshima (honor/respect) to mediate their strangeness across different social spaces in their effort to create modes of resistance against the socio-economic, political hegemony of the other. The paper explores how the local norm of maintaining heshima is employed differently as a mode of resistance in urban and rural contexts by individuals, on the basis of their social status, for asserting their power to negotiate various tensions shaping the social discourse between these different individuals and groups. The paper further highlights how maintenance of heshima, as a form of power exercised through action, simultaneously offers Zanzibaris a mechanism for negotiating their racial/ethnic differences and promoting degrees of social cohesion in the making and reshaping of local urban and rural spaces and places of belonging, in turn reducing levels of strangeness between them and promoting a sense of pluralism within the society.
Erik Gobbers (Vrije Universiteit Brussel)
Paper short abstract:
This paper argues that the Congolese territorial 'découpage' triggered the employment of autochthony discourses by Katangan urban ethnic associations which defend the interests of the communities they represent, claiming that 'autochthons' have the right to benefit from the riches of their own soil.
Paper long abstract:
Since the 1950s autochthony claims have been a part of political strategies in Katanga, former province of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The booming mining industry caused massive labour migration from other provinces toward Katangan cities where ethnic mutual aid associations were founded. In recent decades democratization and globalization processes in Africa have contributed to a feeling of uncertainty to which autochthonous discourses respond by promising security for those 'born from the soil'. Xenofobic discourses against non-Katangans, defending the interests of 'authentic' Katangans, led to expulsion of migrants originating from Kasaï province in the 1990s. In accordance with the Congolese Constitution, Katanga was split in 2015 into the 'rich' southern provinces of Haut-Katanga and Lualaba, and the 'poor' northern provinces of Haut-Lomami and Tanganyika. The paper focuses on the stance urban ethnic associations take towards this territorial 'découpage'. They try to influence the distribution of resources, favouring communities they represent, and adapt to changing political or socio-economic conditions by inventing new 'autochthon/allochthon dichotomies'. The association of Sanga opposed the merger of Lualaba and Kolwezi districts to form Lualaba province: Sanga consider themselves autochthons of mineral-rich Kolwezi and feel economically and politically discriminated by 'foreigners' originating from Lualaba district. The association of Bemba from Haut-Katanga, welcomed the creation of Haut-Katanga province as an opportunity for the 'new autochthons' regarding employment and development. I demonstrate that ethnic associations in Katanga constitute a multi-tier system, reflecting ethnic, provincial and national identities, which provides forums for inter-group negotiation and can enhance conviviality between communities.