African Journals Online
The African Anthropologist

JOURNAL OF THE PAN AFRICAN ANTHROPOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION

Number 2 Volume VIII October 2001
Abstracts

DOING FIELDWORK AT HOME: SOME PERSONAL EXPERIENCES AMONG THE TUMBUKA OF NORTHERN MALAWI

Alister Munthali

Abstract

The bulk of anthropological theory grew out of western anthropologists studying “exotic” cultures. The end of colonialism, the reduction of funding for academic institutions, the increase in student enrolment and difficulties in accessing the field are some of the factors that contributed to the practice of anthropology at home in the west by western anthropologists. However, most anthropologists from Third World countries have in most cases conducted fieldwork in their own countries and among their own people during training and professional work. In this paper I examine the problems of working at home, where being a native, studying fellow natives, I was branded as a foolish person asking silly questions because I was expected to know the answers. My extended stay at home was interpreted differently by my own people and different identities were given to me: a member of the CID, a physician, a person who had been sacked from his place of work (and who hence had nowhere to go apart from home) and someone who was after “their” women. Since my home village is only 15 km away from the research site, my relatives did not understand why I had to stay in my research site, claiming that it must be that I did not like my own village. Before I began fieldwork, the idea that while I would be trying to study the behaviour of my fellows, they would at the same time be trying to understand me never occurred to me. The major conclusion in this paper is that though I was at home doing research, I was in essence not really at home because my long absence from home and the choice of my research topic had somehow de-familiarised me from what was supposed to be familiar.

MAIZE AND THE MALNUTRITION CONUNDRUM IN SOUTH AFRICA

Johan Booyens

Summary

In this paper, the author gives an overview of the factors leading to maize becoming a staple food among black people in South Africa. The purported relationship between maize consumption and malnutrition, proposals as well as experimental and practical efforts to correct the dietary deficiencies of maize are briefly sketched. With reference to the historical context in which maize became a staple food in South Africa, it is concluded that the consumption of maize is not to be blamed for malnutrition in South Africa.

Rappaport’s theoretical principle of ecological logic and its relationship to culture contingency is used to indicate that the causal factors of malnutrition are to be found in the colonial political-economy of South Africa and in the monetary logic embedded in a racially skewed free market system of production. Currently, the South African Government is addressing the problem of malnutrition in a more integrated manner than in the past. However, the question remains whether a globally victorious and untransformed free market system of production affords an environment in which local efforts to solve the problems of malnutrition and poverty can be successfully executed.

LA PRESERVATION DE LA BIODIVERSITE: LES REPONSES DE LA TRADITION RELIGIEUSE AFRICAINE

Gadou Dakouri M.

Résumé

Devant ce que l'on appelle aujourd'hui la crise écologique, toutes les entreprises en Afrique n'ont pu jusqu’à présent répondre, sinon très imparfaitement, aux exigences de protection et de gestion de la biodiversité. C'est pourquoi ce travail se donne pour but d'interroger la tradition religieuse africaine pour dégager et comprendre sa vision de la biodiversité, le traitement que cette vision a induit dans les sociétés africaines ainsi que les conséquences qui en ont résulté sur le plan écologique.

INFERTILITY: CULTURAL DIMENSIONS AND IMPACT ON WOMEN IN SELECTED COMMUNITIES IN KENYA

Violet Kimani & Joyce Olenja

Abstract

Infertility is a growing problem in Africa and affects the lives of many couples. As a health problem, it is largely culturally and socially constructed in such a way that even though it affects a couple it is the woman who bears the burden. This perspective has major implications for women whose status hinges on fertility performance. This paper presents the cultural construction of infertility and how it impacts on the lives of infertile women in Kenya. The presentation is based on material collected through qualitative methodologies among infertile and fertile women as well as through key informant interviews. Overall, infertility not only erodes the status of infertile women but also threatens their source of livelihood as some of their verbatim comments vividly point out. The burden of infertility is compounded by the fact that at the national programme level it is underplayed as a problem, the main focus being on fertility control. This is a situation that needs to be redressed so that those who are infertile, regardless of their numbers, receive the attention they require to experience quality life.