An Introduc+on to Imperialism & Rural Africa Experiences
Introduc)on • Gertjan van Stam,
[email protected] • www.vanstam.net • Lives in Harare, Zimbabwe, with Janneke van Dijk, Merel van Stam, Beauty Mulobela, Elmo van Stam • 2000-‐2003, rural Zimbabwe, 2003-‐2012, rural Zambia • Affiliated with
– Scien)fic and Industrial Research and Development Centre (SIRDC), sirdc.ac.zw – Macha Works, machaworks.org – Tilburg University, )lburguniversity.edu – IEEE, ieee.org
IEEE TV, Tryengineering “Careers with Impact”: van Stam. USA: IEEE TV, 2010.
Program • • • •
Sensi)za)on (Experience) Theory (Framing) Observa)ons (Phenomenes) Contribu)ons (‘African’ Iden)ty)
Style: Turbo-‐language Target: “Be renewed in thinking, and Go”
BBC Clicks
BBC Clicks, “BBC Clicks -‐ Macha Works,” 2011. [Online]. Available: hdp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ei4Inh3W03M
On What you Saw • We see differently • We value differently • We judge differently
What is Real? • Mul)ple reali)es • Mul)ple memories • Mul)ple perspec)ves • Social Construc)vism • humans generate knowledge and meaning from an interac8on between their experiences and their ideas
• Hermeneu)cs • How meaning appears through the lenses of a certain discipline or from different contexts per )me and place
Confronta)on You're a racist, you know," he [Elward Ellis, an African-‐ American friend] once said at our kitchen table. "Oh, you don't mean to be, and you don't want to be, but you are. You can't really help it." He said, for example, "When black people do things in a certain way, you say, 'Well, that's your culture.' But when white people do things in a certain way, you say, 'That's just the right way to do things'. You don't realize you really have culture. You are blind to how many of your beliefs and prac)ces are cultural. Quote from "Generous Jus)ce", Timothy Keller, Hodder & Stoughton, UK, 2010
Framing
Endogenous or Exogenous Perspec)ve?
Local or Foreign Orienta)on?
Condi)oned or Open Mind?
Local or Foreign Conversa)on?
Orientalism • A view on dealing with the other • Commodifying ‘the other’, open by an adempt to ‘know others’ through academic inquiry confounded by essen)alism (u)litarianism) • Western style for domina)ng, restructuring, and having authority over a marginalised, powerless ‘Orient’ • 1st, 2nd and 3rd world: Africa being ‘the other of the other’ W. E. Said, Orientalism. New York, USA: Pantheon Books, 1978.
Imperialism (Galtungstyle) Imperialism: ‘a dominance rela+on between collec+ves, par+cularly between na+ons’ • • • • • •
Economic Imperialism Poli)cal Imperialism Military Imperialism Communica)on Imperialism Cultural Imperialism Linguis)c Imperialism
J. Galtung, “A Structural Theory of Imperialism,” J. Peace Res., vol. 8, no. 2, pp. 81–117, 1971.
Colonialism Colonialism: ‘a prac+ce of domina+on, which involves the subjuga+on of one people to another.’ (Kohn, 2012) • Does Orientalism fuels Imperialism and legi)mates Colonialism? • Effects of colonialism are profound and affect all areas of life, both of the colonized and the colonisers
Myth
“The elimina)on of colonial administra)ons amounted to the decoloniza)on of the world” R. Grosfoguel, “Decolonizing Post-‐Colonial Studies and Paradigms of Poli)cal Economy: Transmodernity, Decolonial Thinking, and Global Coloniality,” Journal of Peripheral Cultural Produc)on of the Luso-‐Hispanic World, vol. 1, no. 1, 2011.
Coloniality Coloniality addresses colonial situa)ons in the present period. Colonial situa)ons are ‘the cultural, poli)cal, sexual and economic oppression/exploita)on of subordinate racialized/ethnic groups by dominant racial/ ethnic groups with or without the existence of colonial administra)ons’ (Quijano, 2000)
Take Home Messages • Mul)ple reali)es and histories do exist • Encounters inform on diversity • Knowledge fixa)on and judgment blocks sustainable progress • Dialogue supports living, changing and growing
