tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11797772675059796692024-02-07T04:30:47.932+02:00Poverty and Development Research CenterDepartment of History and Ethnology <br> University of Jyväskylä, FinlandJukka Jouhkihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01624480759328080927noreply@blogger.comBlogger23125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1179777267505979669.post-52782694214126254962018-04-10T12:06:00.001+03:002018-04-10T12:06:20.317+03:00AFRICA’S HIGH POPULATION GROWTH: ASKING TANZANIAN WOMEN WHY<div>
<i>Laura Stark</i></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
In 2017, an UN report showed that while global population growth is slowing, Africa’s population growth remains high and the continent’s population will increase by 1.3 billion by 2050. Tanzania is one of six countries whose population is expected to increase to five times its current level between the years 2017 and 2100.<br /><br />With this report in mind, I asked residents of a low-income community in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (pop. 4.36 million in 2013) last year why they thought many women in Tanzania are not opting to have fewer children. I had conducted fieldwork in the same low-income neighborhood during 8 visits between 2010 and 2017, and was well-known to many of the neighborhood's residents, especially its female residents who tend to be home during the day when I have carried out interviews. <br /><br />One important factor in this neighborhood is high unemployment. Education, which could motivate parents to have fewer children in whom they invest more resources, is increasingly seen as not very useful for young people to find jobs, simply because the competition is so fierce. Although the women I interviewed still value education for their children, there is a growing feeling that opportunities for income are a matter of luck rather than education or skill. This motivates women and couples to have more children in order to increase the odds of having a successful child or being cared for in their old age. As one 46-year-old mother put it, <br /><br /><i>It is like prestige for a woman to have children to show that she is functioning, perfect and with no problems. And we believe that if you have 2 or 3 children at least one of them will have a job or business in the future, they can help you financially and others, even if they can’t help you financially, they can take care of you when you are old. </i><br /><br />I also asked about contraception. Numerous studies on condom use in East Africa have shown that men generally do not want to use condoms in sexual relations, and women do not have very much decision-making power in this matter. There is also evidence that the lack of condom use is not merely the result of male pressure, but can be the result of couples’ feelings that condom use implies that partners do not trust each other enough to plan for a future together. Both young men and young women assume that their partner might have multiple sexual partners. Therefore, where trust is already a difficult achievement, the non-use of condoms becomes a positive strategy for relationship building – which can be seen as more important than birth control or reducing the risk of HIV. <div>
<br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ07vasRKLLV2-I60xIQ8fAJ1C3gTfqHQKTPBAm6UZoEMKJW0-plpy0OoON45ZkJKVX4QlRKg_4HrLy1xutTQGdVgShSFt3SjQahn5inQS2eriuFm1UG8Fch6b8lozc-gajvUODQ3yfd0/s1600/Clipboard01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="266" data-original-width="355" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ07vasRKLLV2-I60xIQ8fAJ1C3gTfqHQKTPBAm6UZoEMKJW0-plpy0OoON45ZkJKVX4QlRKg_4HrLy1xutTQGdVgShSFt3SjQahn5inQS2eriuFm1UG8Fch6b8lozc-gajvUODQ3yfd0/s400/Clipboard01.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">A low-income neighborhood in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; text-align: start;">©</span> Laura Stark.</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
<br />I also asked about oral contraceptives and birth control implants, the two most widely available options for low-income women: are they available to women living in low income areas of the city, and do women use them? The responses raised more questions than they answered. I was told that in general, they are available at a relatively low cost to the poor. However, young women who have never before had children are usually afraid to use contraceptives because they fear that afterward, it could be difficult to become pregnant for the first time. Most young women aspire to get married and be provided for by a man, and they are usually expected by their husband and in-laws to give birth to a child as soon as possible. If a new wife does not get pregnant right away, her husband or his family may start looking for a second wife for him, as a 45-year-old mother of 4 children explained: <br /><br /><i>The men think that if you don’t get pregnant quickly, in less than one year, then you can’t have children, Then if you are married, it depends, the man might chase you away or the sister-in-law and mother-in-law might pressure him to chase you away. </i><br /><br />In a different interview, a 46-year-old mother of 5 children elaborated: <br /><br /><i>Sometimes the mother-in-law or sister-in-law may force the husband to marry another woman or they may use harsh words to you and say, ”you get married and just come here to eat food and use the toilet, you don’t bring any benefit to us, you should do your duty and have children”. </i><br /><br />But some women who have already given birth to children were hesitant to use oral contraceptives and implants because these forms of birth control were experienced as either unreliable or were widely rumored to lead to health problems. One 19-year-old woman commented on her use of birth control by saying: <br /><br /><i>For me, I think I’m not going to use it, because your internal organs, like stomach or appendix or something, may be affected. It may also cause someone not to get a child. </i><br /><br />Another 24-year-old woman who was using birth control implants with no ill effects had nonetheless heard of possible problems: <br /><br /><i>I heard my aunt complaining, she used pills and she got a growth inside, she had to have a surgery to remove it. </i></div>
<div>
<br />In fact, I was told several stories in which women had gone to the doctor with mysterious symptoms – especially bleeding and blood clots – only to be told that their problem was caused by the use of contraceptives. Such stories are impossible to corroborate, but their prevalence raises questions such as: are the oral contraceptives given to low-income Tanzanian women in health clinics as safe and effective as those used by women in Europe or United States? Some Tanzanians I have talked to over the years have complained about the low quality or ineffectiveness of medicines in general obtained from clinics in Tanzania. <br /><br />Another possibility, based on stories I heard, is that the communication between low-income women and the medical staff at local clinics may be a source of the problem. More than 75% all of the women I have interviewed in the past 7 years have only a primary school education or less, and sometimes no schooling at all. Thus women at clinics may not fully be grasping what the medical staff are telling them and come to their own conclusions. Another possibility is that when poor women come to a clinic with a health problem that would be difficult to diagnose or expensive to cure, overworked doctors and nurses simply tell them that their contraception is to blame. <div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Population growth is a major cause of poverty and individual reproductive choices are the crucial means by which it can be reduced. My preliminary talks with poor women in Dar es Salaam indicate that more in-depth, interview-based research is needed regarding low-income women's own perceptions of health, fertility, and contraception in order to create more effective policies and implementation. <br /></div>
</div>
</div>
Jukka Jouhkihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01624480759328080927noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1179777267505979669.post-25108130300524311982017-04-30T12:52:00.002+03:002017-04-30T12:52:31.548+03:00“WE DON’T HAVE A PLAN” - RECONSTRUCTION AND POLITICS IN NEPAL<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<i>A guest article by<br />Suvi Sillanpää</i><br />
<br />
<br />
An earthquake struck <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nepal" target="_blank">Nepal</a> in April and May of 2015, resulting in the deaths of more than 9,000 people and leaving over 750,000 houses destroyed or damaged (according to <a href="http://reliefweb.int/report/nepal/nepal-flash-appeal-revision-nepal-earthquake-april-september-2015">UN figures</a>). The destruction is estimated to amount to seven billion US dollars. Two years after the earthquake, the reconstruction is yet to start full scale. <br />
<br />
In this blog, I look at how the political processes in Nepal shape the reconstruction process in rural villages and how uncertainty in politics trickles down to the foundational structures of the society: the homes. <br />
<br />
Last year, one year after the earthquake, I visited several villages and spoke with representatives of numerous NGOs working there in order to map out the progress of the reconstruction. In February of this year, I visited a settlement of <a href="http://www.dwo.org.np/dalit.php" target="_blank">Dalits</a> (previously referred to as Untouchables) in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuwakot_District" target="_blank">Nuwakot district</a> with the Nepali NGO <a href="http://www.saded.in/" target="_blank">South Asian Dialogues on Ecological Democracy</a> (SADED) to get a better understanding of the current situation. <br />
<br />
The Nepal Government has been criticized heavily for the lagging reconstruction process. Soon after the earthquake, a conference was held at which donors agreed to give aid worth 4.1 billion US dollars (3.75 billion euros). However, the proclamation of a new constitution in Nepal sparked months of protests and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Nepal_blockade" target="_blank">a border blockade</a> preventing the import of fuel and gas from India. As a result, the process of reconstruction slowed down in the winter of 2015–2016 as transportation came to a halt. <br />
<a href="http://nra.gov.np/" target="_blank"><br /></a><a href="http://nra.gov.np/" target="_blank">The National Reconstruction Authority</a> (NRA) was established in December 2015 after delays caused by the inability of politicians to agree over its leadership. The NRA took over the responsibility of assessing the damages caused by the earthquake to private houses and distributing grants to the eligible households. The political debate surrounding the NRA has continued between and among the governments that have changed twice since the earthquake. According to the NRA, currently 98 percent of the beneficiaries in the 14 most-affected districts have received the first instalment of the grant, 50,000 rupees (440 euros). <br />
<br />
The Dalit basti (basti means settlement) is comprised of forty households located on a hillside in a village inhabited by several castes. The journey up the hill from the main street plain market area of the village on the plain is made longer by the muddy road which, with its huge potholes, resembles a riverbed.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQuOFoqyeCqH2eMt0aalK6kCjV-vX3m1KXGapQhHVnTl_xrQj0PIY3CvsV1NKyeZeBUMqLarlDk6zbkwskUxKA_n0qcvT527psRl39LCIW4hFntiornY1z79tU-T7xjthGmuU0SnMhaEE/s1600/kuva4_view.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQuOFoqyeCqH2eMt0aalK6kCjV-vX3m1KXGapQhHVnTl_xrQj0PIY3CvsV1NKyeZeBUMqLarlDk6zbkwskUxKA_n0qcvT527psRl39LCIW4hFntiornY1z79tU-T7xjthGmuU0SnMhaEE/s400/kuva4_view.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A view from Dalit basti.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
All the houses in the settlement, built of stone and mud, are uninhabitable and people are living in cattle sheds or temporary shelters made of wood and sheets of metal. Some houses were reduced to rubble in the earthquake and many of them are severely cracked but still standing. Twenty three out of the forty households in the Dalit basti have received the first instalment of 50,000 rupees, and nine households whose documents lack the necessary information are still waiting for a decision. <br />
<br />
Eight households in the Dalit basti were not included on the list of households eligible for the grant although their houses were damaged like other houses in the village. The government officials have not provided an explanation for why these households were excluded. The house owners have been told that the engineers have filled and submitted their documents, but their processing after that is unclear. They are planning to file a complaint. <br />
<br />
The majority of men from the Dalit basti have migrated to Kathmandu or abroad for work, so women are responsible of taking care of the temporary shelters that have become their homes. <i>“During the day it’s alright, but when it starts getting dark I am worried that someone may try to harm us or thieves may come”</i>, says a woman called Bishnumaya whose two adult sons live in Kathmandu. Some robberies have occurred in the market area of the village after the earthquake. In the summer time, snakes come inside the shelters, causing concern, since one young boy from the community has already died of snake bite.<br />
<br />
Despite the difficulties of living in the temporary shelters and although more than half of the households in the Dalit basti have received the first instalments of the grant, the reconstruction has not yet started because several aspects of the use of the grant remain unclear to the recipients. The government has published a list of 17 earthquake-resistant model houses and guidelines for building, which people should follow in order to receive the entire grant of 300,000 rupees (2,700 Euros). The second instalment is paid after the first phase of the construction has been completed as per the regulations. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWbLLv5JgGe4pAA1VHLxkXepDatbCTktnGMCQJbWUhekvzPiHMolXNuZK1vwTNj85_IjDbHKzfDJJGITOD0VVK_Hz_bSkSr2xs-vNCUGIBtG6Q7y10ewShCg3tA_3LMP991HDy9vYTGzg/s1600/kuva2_dalitbasti.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWbLLv5JgGe4pAA1VHLxkXepDatbCTktnGMCQJbWUhekvzPiHMolXNuZK1vwTNj85_IjDbHKzfDJJGITOD0VVK_Hz_bSkSr2xs-vNCUGIBtG6Q7y10ewShCg3tA_3LMP991HDy9vYTGzg/s400/kuva2_dalitbasti.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Damaged houses and temporary shelters in Dalit basti.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div>
The residents of the Dalit basti have heard about the models from the government engineers who conducted the survey of the damages and from the engineers of an NGO, but the designs that have been distributed the VDCs (village development committees) in poster form were not found in the VDC office when the Dalits visited it. Three people in the village out of 2,000 households have been given training related to the government models, but so far the Dalits have not heard from them. They are worried that if they fail to build according to the models, they may not be eligible for the second instalment of the grant. The political uncertainty and the swift changes of government also make them wonder if they can rely on receiving the full grant as promised. <br />
<br />
<i> “We don’t have a plan”</i>, says a young man named Bharat when asked about the options the community has for rebuilding. The lack of up-to date official information has left space for misinformation and circulating rumours. There is a strong impression among the residents of the Dalit basti that the use of modern materials is required by the government. The general preference is also for modern pillar houses made of cement as they are considered strong unlike traditional houses, but problem is that people cannot afford the expensive materials and the associated transportation costs. <i>“The grant is not sufficient </i>[for building a house]<i>”</i>, Bharat explains. “<i>And we</i> [Dalits]<i> don’t have any savings that we can use in addition.”</i> The residents of the basti earn meagre wages by working on a day-to-day basis as agricultural workers and construction workers.<br />
<br />
According to SADED’s engineer Ram Sharan Sapkota it is possible to construct a house according to the regulations by reusing the old material and adopting local materials. This way the expenses remain within the limits of the grant and people can use the local skills. Compressed bricks of soil and small amount of water and cement that the community itself can manufacture are an affordable option. The spatial plans of the designs provided by the Government can also be modified according to the needs of the people.<br /><br />Migration from the Dalit basti has not increased after the earthquake, but it has remained an important source of livelihood. According to Uddhab Pyakurel, a researcher and a member of SADED, migration to Arab countries, Malaysia and other foreign countries may increase if affordable and safe options for reconstruction are not provided. As he has pointed out to me, reconstruction is closely connected to what kind of society the Nepalis want to build.</div>
<div>
<br />The lack of information is not the only problem faced by Dalits. The deplorable condition of the road to the basti makes it difficult to transport materials. Money has been allotted to its improvement, but no one knows when the work will begin. <i>“Otherwise we could start building, because we can reuse the material from our old house,”</i> Bishnumaya says. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg85aO67WLh_ubzvsgZwk489kyhS2ultfGrnsEim-NKTQivjWlxYFYq4njMrteeRWio5R_WLIarHAkeJGrFsmsHkeAVrLuYlh5nOoBudlqYGT3gSPt2xUgHUnDIZbrURFs9N6cMWij4LgA/s1600/kuva1_cracks.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg85aO67WLh_ubzvsgZwk489kyhS2ultfGrnsEim-NKTQivjWlxYFYq4njMrteeRWio5R_WLIarHAkeJGrFsmsHkeAVrLuYlh5nOoBudlqYGT3gSPt2xUgHUnDIZbrURFs9N6cMWij4LgA/s400/kuva1_cracks.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cracks in the wall.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Traditionally, the community has built houses through the exchange of labour between families. Only men can take part in building each other’s houses, so for Bishnumaya whose sons live in Kathmandu, this reciprocal help is not an option and her family has to find paid labour for the construction. Migration has disrupted old support networks. Before, one needed social relationships to build homes, now one needs money. An elderly man, Gopal, is a mason by profession and he and his brothers have agreed to help each other to build houses. As a mason and having brothers, he is in a good position to start the work, but the uncertainty over the government grant has discouraged him. <br />
<br />
Migration from the Dalit basti has not increased after the earthquake, but it has remained an important source of livelihood. According to a researcher and a member of SADED migration may increase if affordable and safe options for reconstruction are not provided. As he pointed out to me, reconstruction is closely connected to what kind of society the Nepalis want to build. <br />
<br />
Since the earthquake, people in Nepal have been constantly waiting for something: official decisions, the survey, the instalments, the information. The reconstruction of the Nepali homes is entangled in the workings of the Nepali politics and its volatile processes as the adoption of the new constitution has not helped unify the political parties. Marginalized groups such as Dalits suffer the most from poor governance and administration as they have to pull together their limited resources and to wait the longest to receive correct information. <br />
<br />
The first instalments of the grants have been distributed, but uncertainty continues. The best time for building will be soon over as the monsoon rains arrive. It remains to be seen if people will have to face yet another monsoon and winter in temporary shelters. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<i><b>Suvi Sillanpää </b>holds a Master’s degree in Social Sciences from the University of Helsinki. She is associated with several Finnish international development organisations. After the April 2015 earthquake, she lived in Nepal for a year and followed the reconstruction process in liaison with local NGOs.</i><br /><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: x-small;">Photos © Suvi Sillanpää.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<style>
<!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-520092929 1073786111 9 0 415 0;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin-top:0cm;
margin-right:0cm;
margin-bottom:10.0pt;
margin-left:0cm;
line-height:115%;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;
mso-ansi-language:FI;}
a:link, span.MsoHyperlink
{mso-style-priority:99;
color:blue;
mso-themecolor:hyperlink;
text-decoration:underline;
text-underline:single;}
a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed
{mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
color:purple;
mso-themecolor:followedhyperlink;
text-decoration:underline;
text-underline:single;}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-size:11.0pt;
mso-ansi-font-size:11.0pt;
mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;
mso-ansi-language:FI;}
.MsoPapDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
margin-bottom:10.0pt;
line-height:115%;}
@page WordSection1
{size:595.3pt 841.9pt;
margin:70.85pt 2.0cm 70.85pt 2.0cm;
mso-header-margin:35.4pt;
mso-footer-margin:35.4pt;
mso-paper-source:0;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
-->
</style></div>
Jukka Jouhkihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01624480759328080927noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1179777267505979669.post-67010294789419101242017-03-31T08:32:00.002+03:002017-03-31T08:41:02.759+03:00REFLECTIONS FROM A DAY OF ACTION-RESEARCH WITH LOCAL COMMUNITIES IN MADAGASCAR<br />
<i>A guest article by</i><br />
<i>Aili Pyhälä</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i><br /></i>
It is the 18th day of our expedition*, and the time has come for us to go and stay with one of the local communities surrounding the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranomafana_National_Park" target="_blank">Ranomafana National Park</a> in Southeastern <a href="https://www.google.fi/maps/place/Madagascar/@-18.7254775,42.3381069,6z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x21d1a4e3ea238545:0x5244e3c1977b1388!8m2!3d-18.766947!4d46.869107" target="_blank">Madagascar</a>. We have already scoped out a possible community that is suitably located: just outside the border of the park, far enough from the road so as to be fairly "isolated", but close enough for us to access in a few hours. A few days earlier, I have already paid a visit to the village and spoken to the chief and representative elders in order to obtain their <i>"free, prior and informed consent"</i>; in other words, to introduce myself and my team, to tell them of our study course, and to ask if it is alright with them that we visit their community for some days. After all, we are quite a herd: about 30 people altogether, students, teachers and assistants included. They have given us their sincere welcome. <br />
<br />
<div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLWKWbQji0a0HXKbKBp5tLXLQDgYe_z3N5UPAvHsaeZZimiYQk3XqIcBZO09GhICHPAKFyGZvHEyz5aEmvP-NGDclleG9PyXB2XaeElZ81XA_XG83d_o79MBOhxcj4E9xCQaanu_FD9-8/s1600/National+Park+placard.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="215" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLWKWbQji0a0HXKbKBp5tLXLQDgYe_z3N5UPAvHsaeZZimiYQk3XqIcBZO09GhICHPAKFyGZvHEyz5aEmvP-NGDclleG9PyXB2XaeElZ81XA_XG83d_o79MBOhxcj4E9xCQaanu_FD9-8/s400/National+Park+placard.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Madagascar National Park placard.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The community is called <i>Amboasary</i>, located at about a two hours’ hike from the roadside, and on either side of a stream that runs through irrigated rice fields. Rice is the main staple crop of these villagers. In fact, so much so that sometimes rice is all they have to eat, and sometimes not even that. Hence, understandably, most of their time and energy goes to tending to their rice fields. They do cultivate a handful of other crops, such as beans and cassava, some of which they occasionally sell at the nearest market in <i>Ranomafana </i>in order to get just enough cash to pay for their basic necessities (i.e. salt, cooking oil, medicines, etc).<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Our first day goes to setting up our
campsite on a flat patch of land that we've spotted just outside the village.
For the next five nights, we will all be sleeping in tents, eating mostly rice
and beans cooked over an open fire, using our self-dug outdoor long-drop, and
basically blending in with the elements of nature. Our "shower" is a
pristine, precious waterfall and clear-water pool about 1 km walk from our
campsite. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS7tdl95n-cJDwIdywBEzof-I07vg0uxP3WVrBYiN1hy548AhnfKHaEHscha0iOBwGW4zUUJhIHvDP5n2e_5Hcg-9ipIGtk3q8lkd-8rIY24Mpl2YpTxtIH1X47PQIIUuyPmnUvY3HLq4/s1600/Woman+fetching+water.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS7tdl95n-cJDwIdywBEzof-I07vg0uxP3WVrBYiN1hy548AhnfKHaEHscha0iOBwGW4zUUJhIHvDP5n2e_5Hcg-9ipIGtk3q8lkd-8rIY24Mpl2YpTxtIH1X47PQIIUuyPmnUvY3HLq4/s400/Woman+fetching+water.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A woman fetching water.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The main reason we have come here is to better understand how local people live, so that our natural science students can get a deeper and more experiential understanding of the local realities behind biodiversity conservation (and threats), and introduce them to fundamentals (approaches and methods) in social science. By getting to know the local villagers, their livelihoods, and their relations to their environment (including the national park), our students are also given new perspectives on what conservation planning needs to take into account. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
We are curious to know what drives local peoples’ everyday choices and behavior. <i>What knowledge do they hold with regards to their ecology and ecosystem? What are their needs and preferences? What kinds of values and belief systems do they hold? And how do all these factors affect their surrounding environment, and hence, ultimately, their own future, health, and wellbeing? </i></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZx3zfc6ECGdx5zPv36oSmszBQ2Wf4eG0_YWqXmVamVfPASTA85PAgbYW-FY1hyphenhyphenqTLg5VE9TlKZENY0UBkA7cYFI0GzalLva7-GIlldqxXNY6LO6Wvb7aouQ7AR8HM4IdUBppicnbTcVs/s1600/Indry.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZx3zfc6ECGdx5zPv36oSmszBQ2Wf4eG0_YWqXmVamVfPASTA85PAgbYW-FY1hyphenhyphenqTLg5VE9TlKZENY0UBkA7cYFI0GzalLva7-GIlldqxXNY6LO6Wvb7aouQ7AR8HM4IdUBppicnbTcVs/s1600/Indry.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Indry.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
On the second day, we are invited by the village to attend a traditional rum ceremony, an official meeting commonly held in Malagasy rural villages when outsiders come to visit. The ritual involves asking for protection from the ancestors. In honour of these ancestors – and of each other – a very strong local brew of rum is shared. Speeches in the local ethnic language are first given by the village elders, and thanks and respects are paid to the ancestors. The glass of rum is passed around, and with this gesture (i.e. all of us drinking from the same glass) we show that we are all equal and open to sharing. This opens the door to trust, a fundamental point of departure for ethical social research, and gives us the official welcome to work in the village over the coming days. With this trust, and blessed and protected by the spirits, we can start our work. <br />
<br />
Our days consist of waking up at the crack of dawn, and spending long days (and sometimes even part of the night) doing biodiversity inventories of the local fauna and flora, but most importantly, getting a glimpse into local realities. The next few days we split up in groups, and while some are out in the forests measuring trees or in the rivers counting frog species, others are meeting in small focus groups with local villagers. We gather with women and men, elders and youth, and sit with them for several hours, hearing about their lives. Fortunately we have our Malagasy students to help translate for us! We are particularly interested in knowing about how aware they are, and how they feel about – and relate to – deforestation and biodiversity loss.<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
That said, what is most mind-opening and rewarding for us is just allowing them to share whatever they want to share, and in each meeting we learn something new. It is deeply humbling to listen to these local villagers open up about both their challenges and their future aspirations, from a people that have been ranked amongst the “poorest” in the world. Madagascar has consistently over the past few years ranked amongst the top 10 poorest countries in the world, and this community is undoubtedly one of the “poorest” in Madagascar, if measured in monetary or income terms, but also in terms of food security and nutrition.</div>
<div>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq2c7B-GnY3aH19MQ6V-GS4IJFRfL7dVP54O4kLb88MgMGU-wwJaYXJL_n0q06EQRLSXhdkVukB7_utrZgcZhsSjD2WMVlYh0I0VxyyVndDFSS3ojGkeBtuT2DjBWy5t1UjpeT_t9B79E/s1600/Our+campsite.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq2c7B-GnY3aH19MQ6V-GS4IJFRfL7dVP54O4kLb88MgMGU-wwJaYXJL_n0q06EQRLSXhdkVukB7_utrZgcZhsSjD2WMVlYh0I0VxyyVndDFSS3ojGkeBtuT2DjBWy5t1UjpeT_t9B79E/s400/Our+campsite.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Our campsite.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
We are all deeply touched by the way the local villagers have received and welcomed us into their community and into their lives, and shared with us so much of their knowledge and insights. Even over the course of only five days, we feel we have made new friends. Despite enormous differences in lifestyle, culture, and language, we feel that something connects us. We now understand that little bit more genuinely what drives local people to do what they do, even when it comes to slashing-and-burning their last remnants of surrounding forest that outsider conservationists are so desperately fighting to protect. Yes, because only some 5% of original forest cover still stands in Madagascar, and that forest is home to some of the world’s most threatened species endemic only to this nation island. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Meanwhile, the local mothers and fathers we speak to are struggling to feed their families. With such limited resources and in tremendously challenging conditions (ever more so with climate change), they are often able to think only one day at a time, concerned only with how to get enough food on their plates that day to keep themselves and their children alive. </div>
<div>
<br />
The day before our departure, we are asked whether we will come back next year. The villagers would like us to set up a research station in their village, and have more students and researchers like us visit them and stay with them, so that they can learn more from us, and us more from them. They also tell us that they would very much like to have a proper school, where their children can learn more about things most relevant and useful for them - including environmental awareness, but also English language.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7JzdYCkjetD_bdnSZehBJiOw_Iby-7mwmXmg5t9_Yo8lnBf2udJs5eMx_dxWUG9NnIPK7ju0XQgfKsvIBKcYr2CE37Oz-05TrIlO7HCdMruA4oM5OpDL0Oslz6Lw0WT48cqpbN299WZA/s1600/Students+at+work.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7JzdYCkjetD_bdnSZehBJiOw_Iby-7mwmXmg5t9_Yo8lnBf2udJs5eMx_dxWUG9NnIPK7ju0XQgfKsvIBKcYr2CE37Oz-05TrIlO7HCdMruA4oM5OpDL0Oslz6Lw0WT48cqpbN299WZA/s320/Students+at+work.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Students at work.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
We leave with opened hearts and minds, eager to share what we have learned with the local organisations and project teams who are better placed (than us, anyway) to work more closely and continuously with Amboasary and other local villages. Two days later, we extend our learnings and reflections to the local development and conservation organisations, and hope that we are taken seriously.<br />
<br />
We hope that we have played some instigative role to help Amboasary become one of many villages with thriving environmental education and local initiative not only to combatting poverty, but beyond: to locally and sustainably managing natural resources and thereby also becoming more self-sufficient in terms of health and wellbeing.</div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
* These were my notes from one of many expeditions carried out for the annual RESPECT course. For close to 10 years now, <a href="https://www.helsinki.fi/en">University of Helsinki</a> has been running the course in Madagascar, bringing together an inter-cultural exchange amongst students from the University of Helsinki, and two Malagasy universities: <a href="http://www.univ-antananarivo.mg/">University of Antananarivo</a> and <a href="http://www.4icu.org/reviews/universities-english/3207.html">University of Fianarantsoa</a>. The aim of the course is to train students in conservation science, but also in related socio-economic aspects such as the interaction between conservation priorities and the needs of peoples living in and around protected areas. The highlight of the course comprises 5 weeks of fieldwork in Madagascar to bring to light the on-the-ground reality to the theory learned. During these 5 weeks, one important component is the visit to a local community to understand the social drivers of forest loss, local use of resources and the interaction that local villagers have with their natural environment and conservation strategies.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div>
<i><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/aili-pyh%25C3%25A4l%25C3%25A4-61500a17/" target="_blank">Aili Pyhälä</a> is a Senior Lecturer in <a href="https://www.jyu.fi/en/studywithus_old/programmes/devi" target="_blank">Development and International Cooperation</a> at Department of Social Sciences and Philosophy, University of Jyväskylä.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: x-small;">Photos © Aili Pyhälä.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
Jukka Jouhkihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01624480759328080927noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1179777267505979669.post-75969552566256607282017-01-31T07:45:00.000+02:002017-01-31T07:45:24.298+02:00CLOSE BUT FAR: SOCIOECONOMIC MOBILITY IN A BRAZILIAN SHANTY-TOWN <br /><br /><i>A guest article by </i><div>
<i>Stephan Treuke</i><br /><br /><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador,_Bahia" target="_blank">Salvador da Bahia</a>, Brazil’s first capital until 1763, is a good example of socio-spatial segregation mirroring the expressive disparities within the population’s income and housing conditions. There is the common center-periphery dichotomy, where the middle and upper class have mostly settled in the central areas while the least fortunate tend to live in the outskirts of the city. Then there are the borders between socio-economically distant classes that have emerged both in central and peripheral regions, fostering the city’s socio-spatial fragmentation in a smaller scale. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
These spatial constellations have aroused increasing attention of Brazilian sociologists, inquiring whether the geographic closeness promote interaction between classes and help to attenuate social distances, or whether residential segregation generates a more conflictuous relationship and nurture territorial stigmatization.<br /><br />Drawing on empirical data collected in <i>Nordeste de Amaralina</i>, a centrally-located shanty-town located in an area of affluent condominiums (<i>Orla Atlântica Norte</i>), I wanted to find out whether the opportunities of interaction between classes, particularly in the realm of employment relationships, could be verified. I asked twenty randomly selected interviewees to provide information about their social networks in various spheres of sociability: family, neighborhood, friendship/acquaintanceship, work, studies, associative life, religious associative life and leisure, in situations of job seeking and the provision of financial, social and emotional support. The main objective of my research was to analyse the so-called <i>“inhabitants portfolios of risk management”</i> or the ethnographic data on family livelihood strategies, and networks between classes and communities. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKGfWrW0IVs_hPC8BZvqaDEX2bP_y9utbFcyo06TvQBEs0EZh6Ms_LC60vUII5_z-8BBH0IUgTfRJEA3V4wXU4RkBaTkU7cHXPGFAEVJuoc7ZQW2wTkvf-wbC0z8iRNb3Di7dSqaFi-Ps/s1600/4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKGfWrW0IVs_hPC8BZvqaDEX2bP_y9utbFcyo06TvQBEs0EZh6Ms_LC60vUII5_z-8BBH0IUgTfRJEA3V4wXU4RkBaTkU7cHXPGFAEVJuoc7ZQW2wTkvf-wbC0z8iRNb3Di7dSqaFi-Ps/s400/4.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div>
<br />Since the 1960s the neighborhood’s strategic proximity to the nearby affluent summer houses and condominiums of Rio Vermelho, Horto Florestal, Amaralina has attracted immigrants coming from Bahia’s poor rural <i>hinterland </i>regions. Gradually, this led to the region’s demographic densification and illegal land occupation, mostly by informal settlements. <br /><br />The mostly precarious housing situation together with above-average unemployment rates is made worse by endemic violence and insecurity which are due to local drug conflicts and repressive police incursions. The harsh reality reflects on my interviewees’ social networks and economic integration, which underline the strong relevance of what I call the<i> “primary units of socialization”</i>, like family, neighborhood and friendship/acquaintanceship. <br /><br />Primary social ties, based on frequent contacts between rather close relatives, neighbors and co-residents, are important in short-term socioeconomic activities and are mobilized in situations of emergency and daily adversities, including drug dependence and unemployment. Moreover, these bonding ties serve as main communication channels transmitting valuable information about employment opportunities, mostly located in the low-skill informal service sector, to in-group members. <br /><br />According to the in-depth interviews, the geographical proximity to the middle- and upper-class condominiums is seen as positive as far as economic integration is concerned, and the short distances to work are regarded as an advantage compared to the more peripheral neighborhoods. Like <i>Jose</i>, a 34-year-old condominium guard affirms, the economic opportunities mostly belonging to the domestic sector offer good salaries and stable work conditions. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div>
Among twenty interviewees, four have jobs in the nearby affluent condominiums. In this sense, the two key-persons employed as security guards in the upper-class condominiums have an important bridging function. They have valuable job information and access to privileged contacts. Hence, they intermediate different low-skill informal employment opportunities like car washing and technical maintenance jobs that come up occasionally according to the demand of the wealthy condominium dwellers.<i> <b>“Almost everyone in the condominiums needs some small daily services, since the </b></i><b>patrão <i>(boss) comes home late from work and might be grateful for cheap car-washing or maintenance services”</i></b>, Luiza, a 45-year-old maid contests.<br /><br />Nevertheless, apart from these amplified employment opportunities the social distance between classes prevail in all the other spheres of sociability. <b><i>“Our high class condominium neighbors don’t rely on people coming from our </i>favela<i>, given the bad housing conditions and a deteriorated public image. They mostly stick on their own and conversation remains restricted to work issues.”</i></b> (José Antônio, 50 years old gardener) </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
A wide range of social and cultural associations spread throughout the neighborhood, like community centers, <i>capoeira </i>and dance groups, football clubs and philanthropic third sector organisations, among others assume a crucial paper in the childrens’ and adolescentes’ socialization processes and strengthen the communitary identity. Nevertheless, these institutional-based networks mostly promote intra-groupal cohesion and solidarity without linking their group members to extra-local networks which possibly could give access to important job referrals.<br /><br />The social networks built in the sphere of sociability religious associative life connect members of the same church congregation, strengthening the intra-groupal solidarity and providing a wide set of material and immaterial resources. These resources are mainly distributed in the context of social and philanthrophic communitary activities realized in the neighborhood, offering free lawyer counseling, health services and food baskets. For the majority of the interviewees, being part of a congregation turns out to be crucial for coping with economic deprivation. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv6rYbdlc83NF342Ryp2cLUYSeemb75rMwCvOsTJDW0Lo6tXt68xjeQ30hRDc014oIMRnKLBcM8jnVjV8VzLQweUBtVJukbbgRpNoLarzo5QPSWvwsRMhddfiKaZ4Ni4BJt5ejn7CRiXI/s1600/2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv6rYbdlc83NF342Ryp2cLUYSeemb75rMwCvOsTJDW0Lo6tXt68xjeQ30hRDc014oIMRnKLBcM8jnVjV8VzLQweUBtVJukbbgRpNoLarzo5QPSWvwsRMhddfiKaZ4Ni4BJt5ejn7CRiXI/s400/2.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div>
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div>
Apart from being a social safety net, in three cases, being a member of a church has increased their economic integration, though on the rather unstable informal labour market. Acquiring informal jobs often depends on having key contact persons within one’s institutionally-based networks. The key contacts often relay privileged information and contacts about local job opportunities.<i> <b>“In my local congregation, almost everyone relies on contacts drawn within the </b></i><b>Assembleia de Deus<i> church, as most of our members are hard-working, trustful people. Whether you find a job is just a matter of frequenting the daily congregations.”</i></b> (Marta, 57 years old grocery owner)<br /><br />In a way, the social segmentation and the class-hierarchized access to urban infrastructure and services (transport, hospitals, schools, leisure activities) limit inhabitants’ social interactions on the local level. This restriction within neighborhood boundaries leads to localism and make social ties more confined: <i><b>“This neighborhood is quite self-sustaining and everything we need is located within our boundaries. My closest friend all come from the same street corner and I usually don’t trust people not coming from here, you have to know who to trust!”</b></i> (Anna, 37 years old, informal street vendor)<br /><br />Like in many lower-class neighborhoods of Salvador, public schools suffer from the State’s long-term disinvestment. Drawing from the adolescent interviewees’ self-report, public schools within neighborhood boudaries were unanimously depicted as potentially dangerous places, due to the presence of rival gang members and adolescent drug traffickers. Among three interviewed adolescents, only one confirmed that school served as his prime socialization unit in the process of social network building: <i><b>“You have to be careful who you’re hanging with, since most of our classmates pursue gang activities. Poor school quality and failing job perspectives make it much easier to engage in drug business, bringing social status and fast money.”</b></i> (Antônio, 15 years old student).<br /><br />Moreover, the class-stratified access to public recreational spaces that could promote cross-class interactions (shopping malls, plazas and public parks etc.) in many cases practically exclude the Nordeste de Amaralina dwellers close by because they don’t have enough money to participate in those spaces, and thus fear stigmatization. <i><b>“The last time I entered their fancy shopping mall, I permanently had to deal with security controls and scared faces, even though I dressed up quite conveniently!”</b></i> (Andreia, 19 years old student) </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Thus, leisure activities are restricted mainly to local opportunities. The concentration of high-quality urban equipment (hospitals, private universities, sophisticated supermarkets etc.) along the main causeway Avenida Juracy Magalhães – the major dividing line between the favela Nordeste de Amaralina and high-class condominios of Horto Florestal – do not offer any locational advantages for the poor populations, except for the privileged access to public transport. The major field of leisure activities is the Praia de Amaralina, a close-by beach avoided by the middle and upper class due to the high frequency of assaults and robberies <i><b>“Well, they have their condominiums with swimming pools, gyms and stuff, they don’t belong to our beaches. I think it is also because some adolescents assaulting in public streets have mostly scared the few that still visited our closeby beach”</b></i> (Jacira, 61 years old unemployed).<br /><br />Despite reduced sample size, my research offers an important insight into the rather ambigious relationship of cross-class interactions, oscillating between economic integration within the low-paid domestic work on the one side, and social avoidance due to residential segregation and social segmentation, on the other side. The idea that there would be an opportunity-enriching “symbiotic” environment, where socioeconomically distant populations live close to each other and cross-class interactions are encouraged within <i>“vertically integrated institutional spheres”</i>, doesn’t comply with the way Salvador is organized in a hierarchical way in terms of space and social sphere. Shiftings of residential segregation patterns have occurred in scale but not in function, and social distance is upheld spatially by the means of security devices.<br /><br />While the local context remains important for social interaction and the mobilization of social capital, it is particularly the local school context that has a negative influence in the process of childrens’ and adolescents’ socialization and contributes to the internalization and reproduction of class division. <br /><br />The affiliation to institutional networks impacts positively on the individual’s social and economic mobility. My study has confirmed the importance of the so-called brokerage positions in social relationships. They promote crucial information about job opportunities, whereas the <i>“primary units of socialization”</i> play an important role for the integration into the informal labour market.<br /><br />At the same time, it seems that the social networks of family, neighborhood and friendship, with strong elements of localism and homophily, may reproduce and even reinforce poverty as they encourage segregation. This is particularly evident if there is less interaction between different social groups, and if there is low solidarity and trust within a neighborhood.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7EJhid6yjyFCVAlmoxO4pvo5n4yHGlq7V-t94wZ24R3D72CA27Ob9c6rjqxzqNj3kTs4L2taIgpDrENvkRR44Sb2aMlBNwz00LOnA-J4_NgDdPet2UnK4NXYvZyquKtaAoo7AcLa4R_s/s1600/3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7EJhid6yjyFCVAlmoxO4pvo5n4yHGlq7V-t94wZ24R3D72CA27Ob9c6rjqxzqNj3kTs4L2taIgpDrENvkRR44Sb2aMlBNwz00LOnA-J4_NgDdPet2UnK4NXYvZyquKtaAoo7AcLa4R_s/s400/3.JPG" width="300" /></a></div>
<div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
The Nordeste de Amaralina case demonstrates that high rates of crime and violence undermine the collective norms which support the neighborhood-level cohesion and weaken the community’s capacity to engage in informal social control, particularly when it comes to the supervision of deviant adolescents. </div>
<div>
<br />Poverty mitigation might be more effective if instead of individuals and households it targeted neighborhoods as a whole. It has become increasingly evident that area-based neighborhood revitalization programs that <i>“bring the resources to the people”</i> generate more positive spill-over effects than traditional individual and household-allocated welfare policies. Many policy initiatives grounded on social capital theory and their application to poverty reduction initiatives in Latin American cities have focussed on slum upgrading programs usually involving the mobilization of community support, the expansion of local economic opportunities and investments in (social) infrastructure while improving the interaction between citizens and the state. <br /><br />However, macro-economic strategies remain crucial in order to overcome the favela inhabitants’ social vulnerability in a long term. Going beyond neighborhood-scale improvements, a more holistic approach to urban poverty should be given priority within public policies. These would entail a stronger regulatory state intervention into the labour and housing market systems in order to face the challenges arising from the transformations within the socio-productive paradigm of post-fordism. By the same token, the implementation of socially integrative programs widening the access to education and social services remain crucial at local level. <div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<span lang="PT-BR" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: PT-BR; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: DE;"><i><b>Stephan Treuke </b>is with
the Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ciências Sociais (PhD-Program - Social
Sciences) at the <a href="https://www.ufba.br/" target="_blank">Federal University of Bahia</a>, Estrada de São Lázaro, 197
Federação, CEP: 40.210-730, Salvador da Bahia - Bahia, Brazil.
StephanTreuke@hotmail.de</i></span></div>
</div>
<div>
<span lang="PT-BR" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: PT-BR; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: DE;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div>
<span lang="PT-BR" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: PT-BR; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: DE;"><em style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: small;">Photos © Stephan Treuke.</em></span></div>
<div>
<span lang="PT-BR" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: PT-BR; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: DE;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
Jukka Jouhkihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01624480759328080927noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1179777267505979669.post-38871406798638926092016-12-15T13:01:00.000+02:002016-12-15T13:11:25.659+02:00THE GREAT SACRIFICE: DEALING WITH DEMONETIZATION IN INDIA<br />
<i>By Jelena Salmi</i><br />
<i><br />
"I've heard that the new 2,000-rupee note has Modi's face on it,"</i> claims a middle-aged Muslim man outside a small informal shop on the outskirts of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmedabad" target="_blank">Ahmedabad</a>, <i>"but I haven't seen the note yet."</i> A young woman standing next to him echoes his view: <i>"Yeah, yeah, that's true"</i>, she says, nodding. A shopkeeper, who sells inexpensive biscuits, sweets and tobacco products, stretches out from behind his blue counter to contradict his customers:<i> "No way, listen, only dead people's faces get printed on bank notes! I bet it's the Father of the Nation whose face is on that note. It's Gandhi's face, for sure. And that's the way it should be!" </i><br />
<br />
It's November 21st and I am in <a href="https://www.google.fi/maps/place/Vatva,+Ahmedabad,+Gujarat,+India/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x395e889e9f447065:0x75a855584b5baf08?sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwik-_WmhPbQAhUBCiwKHdUmBYcQ8gEIFzAA" target="_blank">Vatva</a>, the largest concentration of slum resettlement sites in Ahmedabad. It has been thirteen days since the Indian Prime Minister <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narendra_Modi">Narendra Modi</a> announced the nullification of all Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes in a move to deal with the corruption, black money and counterfeit currency that according to Modi, is being used to finance terrorist activities in India. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slIVJit2TCw&feature=youtu.be&t=47m8s">In his speech</a> on Tuesday evening, November 8th, he assured that <i>"the rights and the interests of honest, hardworking people will be fully protected"</i> as all the smaller notes would remain legal tender and people could deposit their old notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 in banks or post offices during a period of 50 days ending on December 30th. <br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_Kcg8X2dse9UTPL84r7hF8jsu3-v-WOImbp7PQZLWnKrxrBx9wZehLBv9n-tN7Kfs-eXJg0LevNk2pE2eYBwxxzO-Dkrgbngsi8lj4N-T30jJ9jFj9sglhDPoDgmid4sb0GjVL6fGvHI/s1600/1_Sign+in+front+of+the+Raipur+gate+in+Ahmedabad+announcing+the+fight+against+corruption%252C+black+money+and+counterfeit+currency.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_Kcg8X2dse9UTPL84r7hF8jsu3-v-WOImbp7PQZLWnKrxrBx9wZehLBv9n-tN7Kfs-eXJg0LevNk2pE2eYBwxxzO-Dkrgbngsi8lj4N-T30jJ9jFj9sglhDPoDgmid4sb0GjVL6fGvHI/s400/1_Sign+in+front+of+the+Raipur+gate+in+Ahmedabad+announcing+the+fight+against+corruption%252C+black+money+and+counterfeit+currency.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sign in front of the Raipur gate in Ahmedabad announcing the fight against <br />
corruption, black money and counterfeit currency.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Modi also announced that banks and ATMs would remain closed for the next two days, after which there would be daily and weekly cash withdrawal limits to ensure the dispersal of new Rs 500 and Rs 2000 notes to all. Towards the end of his speech, he reached out to the common people, asking them to bear with him through difficult times: <br />
<div>
<br />
<i>"Brothers and sisters, in spite of all these efforts, there may be temporary hardships to be faced by honest citizens. Experience tells us that ordinary citizens are always ready to make sacrifices and face difficulties for the benefit of the nation. </i>[...]<i> Ordinary citizens have the determination to do anything if it will lead to the country's progress. So, in this fight against corruption, black money, fake currency, fake notes and terrorism, in this movement for glorifying our country, will our people not put up with difficulties for some days? I have full confidence that every citizen will stand up and participate in this mahāyajña </i>[great sacrifice]<i>."</i><br />
<br />
In this blog I examine the elusive, mythical <i>mahāyajña </i>and ask: What kinds of sacrifices have been required from urban and rural poor in the face of demonetization? What are the effects of demonetization on the lives of the poor? While on a monitoring visit related to a development cooperation project by the Finnish NGO <a href="http://paaskyt.fi/">The Swallows of Finland</a>, I had the chance to discuss the consequences of <i>notebandhi </i>("closed notes") on everyday life with villagers from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungarpur_district">Dungarpur</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chhota_Udaipur_district">Chhota Udepur</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anand_district">Anand</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kheda_district">Kheda</a> Districts, as well as with resettled slum-dwellers in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmedabad">Ahmedabad</a>. I also had several discussions with representatives of an Ahmedabad-based non-governmental organization (hereby referred to as "NGO"), which works to enhance the rights and livelihoods of low-income female workers in India.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvSaxazDRCCTgFIQBpopQcwAV6PoIEMXeXlrjksNGiQLfaSCvvW2C-e36hEtDCfRSCvFOlasUHbn4iT170j9W-Rhpj612NlG2SBrWMxsc3UFJN7gOw7G5DwI8IgN_eLyjQZl83d5yZ9xw/s1600/2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvSaxazDRCCTgFIQBpopQcwAV6PoIEMXeXlrjksNGiQLfaSCvvW2C-e36hEtDCfRSCvFOlasUHbn4iT170j9W-Rhpj612NlG2SBrWMxsc3UFJN7gOw7G5DwI8IgN_eLyjQZl83d5yZ9xw/s400/2.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">At the State Bank of India.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
In Ahmedabad, the overnight nullification of 86 % of the country's currency was most concretely embodied in serpentine queues outside ATMs and banks. Throughout my sixteen-day stay, many ATM booths remained closed or had a "No cash" sign attached to the window. Everybody in the city seemed to be short of cash, both the rich and the poor. The rich, however, had a significant advantage: payment cards. I myself mostly dined in places that accepted cards, and due to their convenient payment system, I preferred to use Uber taxis instead of rickshaws. And, apparently so did many others who were fortunate enough to have plastic money. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
At one of Vatva's slum resettlement sites, where many men work as rickshaw drivers, I was told that business had been very bad since November 9th. And not just for rickshaw drivers: also marginal traders, daily-wage laborers and everyone operating on cash had been hit hard. <i>"There's been no work available since notebandhi"</i>, an elderly man named Dilpesh told me. <i>"We cannot even afford to pay this month's rent." </i>Dilpesh did have a bank card for an account opened under Modi's <a href="http://www.pmjdy.gov.in/about">Jan Dhan Yojna</a>, but he didn't know how to pay with it. Besides, he bought his daily groceries from traders that only accepted cash. Luckily, he was able to buy food on credit, as traders in the neighborhood were his friends and acquaintances. For Dilpesh, demonetization meant increasing indebtedness. <br />
<br />
Migrant laborers, however, rarely develop long-term relationships of trust with traders, therefore they cannot buy food on credit like Dilpesh can. In a meeting with the NGO's Urban Union I learned that two of Ahmedabad's numerous construction sites have been temporarily closed because all the migrant construction workers have either gone back to their villages or—less obviously—are queuing for money. They are not, however, standing in line to withdraw money from their own bank accounts—many of them do not even have one. Instead, queuing has become a profitable business for them: one is able to earn Rs 400 to Rs 500 a day by holding another person's place in a line outside a bank. This is more than workers can earn at construction sites. But not everyone can make a living from queuing. Some migrant workers have been forced to return to their villages empty-handed. <br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfqHpL2QSwb4BlXKIfHYRz7kHVFq9R972p_AjEUr9x-UWTZlEr_f8LnMfW1iK3CHLcK7AZFnN3wuVXGOyO59y6LyzsVvez7qddx4LmSAiBmQnxxAw1WJenbUWB_vKrNFN1h4tu8omIOGw/s1600/3_Queue+outside+the+State+Bank+of+India+Head+Office+in+Ahmedabad.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="245" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfqHpL2QSwb4BlXKIfHYRz7kHVFq9R972p_AjEUr9x-UWTZlEr_f8LnMfW1iK3CHLcK7AZFnN3wuVXGOyO59y6LyzsVvez7qddx4LmSAiBmQnxxAw1WJenbUWB_vKrNFN1h4tu8omIOGw/s400/3_Queue+outside+the+State+Bank+of+India+Head+Office+in+Ahmedabad.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Queue outside the State Bank of India Head Office in Ahmedabad.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Unfortunately, the situation that awaits migrant workers in their villages is far worse. In the Chhota Udepur District, our team met a farmer named Anitaben. She told us about a woman who had sold her patch of land just a day before the demonetization. During the weekend, the woman learned that her money had turned into a worthless pile of paper, and she was so desperate that she took her own life. Banks were closed for two days and information about the possibility to exchange old notes into new ones had not yet reached her village. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Anitaben herself lost the profits from approximately 720 kg of tomatoes, because the vegetable bazaar was closed for ten days after Modi's announcement. She lost more than 7000 rupees (approx. 100 euros). A representative of the NGO told me that as bazaars have now been opened again, there's the problem of big traders exploiting small farmers by paying low prices for agricultural products, and by paying with cheques instead of the urgently-needed cash. To tackle the drastic situation, NGO employees have been writing letters to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_collector">District Collectors</a>, asking them to intervene. Following these efforts, traders in some districts have now started paying in cash. The prices, however, are still lower than usual. <br />
<br />
At the same time that Anitaben's tomatoes went to waste, women in the village of Khajuria in Dungarpur, Rajasthan, did not have money to buy vegetables. Many men from Khajuria work as migrant laborers at construction sites in Ahmedabad and Mumbai. With demonetization, the men had not been able to send money to their wives and children. Normally, cash had been sent home every fifteen days via a bus driver who takes Rs 100 for himself as a commission for transporting Rs 2000 from Ahmedabad to Khajuria. Without this money, the women were desperate. In the hope of filling their stomachs, they picked gram leaves from the field, spiced them up and ate them. To quote a representative of the NGO: <i>"The situation is very dire in villages. People are literally starving."</i><br />
<br />
Sudden demonetization also gave rise to various rumours. In Dungarpur, information was passed from person to person that not only big notes, but also ten-rupee coins had been nullified, and for this reason, no one wanted to accept them as payment. At the same time in rural Anand, a rumor came through the grapevine that the price of salt will go up significantly, and as a result, some people began to stock up on salt. Moreover, people started exchanging food crops: wheat for vegetables, vegetables for wheat.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDrwmqnW820hirt2b3xHCJpaOQbvSPg5vZyE4swZSV_MD_dbR8LPKUoYTa0RDCfiWjf7oa8L_xAHDyf8jWQawK6CtnFIamnWqvjyPeYDdiM6prMtdCsBCOKcb8n-0dGQVg9ICM834Lx-U/s1600/4_Anitaben%2527s+fields.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDrwmqnW820hirt2b3xHCJpaOQbvSPg5vZyE4swZSV_MD_dbR8LPKUoYTa0RDCfiWjf7oa8L_xAHDyf8jWQawK6CtnFIamnWqvjyPeYDdiM6prMtdCsBCOKcb8n-0dGQVg9ICM834Lx-U/s400/4_Anitaben%2527s+fields.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Anitaben's fields.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
In the face of the Indian government's radical move towards a cashless society, the poor are the ones who have been forced to sacrifice the most. Some have even sacrificed their lives. In his demonetization announcement, Modi claimed that <i>"ordinary citizens are always ready to make sacrifices and face difficulties for the benefit of the nation"</i>. I, however, could not bring myself to ask the people with whom I spoke whether they considered their sacrifices <i>"for the country's progress"</i> to be fair and just.<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><em>Some names have been changed or omitted to protect the privacy of individuals. </em></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><em>Photos © Jelena Salmi.</em></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><em><br /></em></span>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><em><br /></em></span>Jukka Jouhkihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01624480759328080927noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1179777267505979669.post-832842361254981862016-11-30T12:20:00.000+02:002016-11-30T12:20:10.846+02:00THE PRIVATE TURN IN NORDIC-ASIA DEVELOPMENT COOPERATION<br />
<br />
<i>A guest article by</i><br />
<i>Bonn Juego</i><br />
<br />
In the past 15 years, “the private turn” in international development cooperation framework has become more evident. This shift in foreign policy is essentially characterized by a change in strategy from the old state-to-state relations centered on the giving and receiving of aid to the new economic diplomacy focused on the development of private sector business activities.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The implications of this emergent phenomenon for both development theory and practice are however understudied in (Nordic) development research, and no comparative studies have been undertaken. Such study is important in terms of: (i) the past, present, and future of North-South development cooperation; (ii) feasible development strategies for both developed and developing countries; and (iii) the processes of development and democratization in what used to be known as the “Third World” with durable authoritarian political regimes.<br />
<br />
Since the beginning of the 21st century, and even during the Atlantic’s Great Recession of 2008 that led to a prolonged economic crises in Europe, the Nordic region—comprising of the governments of Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Finland—have remained top donor countries, while many of their partner economies in Asia have become the world’s new growth areas. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Contemporary Nordic-Asia development relations have not yet been thoroughly studied despite the fact that strategic engagements with Asia’s fast emerging economies are central to the official discourse and actual policy framework today of Nordic governments, as well as the OECD and other multilateral institutions. At the heart of this foreign policy re-strategizing is the crucial role assigned to the private sector as the driving force of development cooperation to pursue market-based solutions such as the promotion of entrepreneurship and the expansion of business operations to address poverty and other developmental problems. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRo7KL8Sn4_SREOXyOwwaeUhWzEz7ortx8qQzbstM7HhID-LtpjAWj4uD857QuVz1u-ujVg1AeM49hKlC-pXCGAlvRCuXkcbL84-YVSyFexMhmgw2G3fSlKjwpKTK_gVElRvHWpNBTKrQ/s1600/Clipboard01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="215" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRo7KL8Sn4_SREOXyOwwaeUhWzEz7ortx8qQzbstM7HhID-LtpjAWj4uD857QuVz1u-ujVg1AeM49hKlC-pXCGAlvRCuXkcbL84-YVSyFexMhmgw2G3fSlKjwpKTK_gVElRvHWpNBTKrQ/s400/Clipboard01.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<b>Team Finland and the Nordic Development Institutions</b><br />
<br />
The government of Finland, for instance, has formed “<a href="http://team.finland.fi/en/frontpage" target="_blank">Team Finland</a>” as a crucial institution to embody and implement the country’s emergent framework of private sector-oriented development cooperation. Team Finland is the network of state-funded organizations and programmes, including embassies and other funding agencies, with the mission to promote, support, or fund the internationalization of Finnish companies, enterprises, and investments even in high risk markets in many parts of the developing world. In addition to the trade, investments, and commercial sections of the Finnish missions in the world, four main agencies and programmes compose Team Finland, namely: <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
1. <a href="http://www.finnfund.fi/en_GB/etusivu/" target="_blank">Finnfund</a> (Finnish Fund for Industrial Cooperation), a development finance company that provides money for private sector projects in developing countries;</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
2. <a href="http://www.finpro.fi/web/finpro-eng" target="_blank">Finpro</a>, a public organization helping Finnish companies, especially small-and-medium enterprises, to enter the international market, as well as to attract tourism and foreign investments to Finland, through its Growth Programs;<br />
<br />
3. <a href="https://www.finnvera.fi/eng/" target="_blank">Finnvera</a>, a specialized funding company whose specific mandate as Finland’s Export Credit Agency is to provide guarantees against political and commercial risks associated with Finnish export; and</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
4. <a href="http://www.finnpartnership.fi/www/en/index.php" target="_blank">Finnpartnership</a> (Finnish Business Partnership Programme), a government programme that provides guidance and advisory services to Finnish companies through its Business Partnership Support Facility from the planning to implementation of projects in developing countries.</blockquote>
The same private enterprise-oriented development institutions and policy instruments are in operation in the other Nordic countries. Sweden has the <a href="http://www.swedfund.se/en/" target="_blank">Swedfund</a> and <a href="http://www.swedpartnership.se/" target="_blank">Swedpartnership</a> to facilitate the programme for private sector development. Denmark has the <a href="http://um.dk/en/tradecouncil/" target="_blank">Danish Trade Council</a>, the <a href="http://www.ifu.dk/en" target="_blank">Investment Fund for Developing Countries</a>, and the <a href="http://www.ekf.dk/en/Pages/default.aspx" target="_blank">Export Credit Agency</a> in line with their new foreign policy re-focusing on economic diplomacy that targets growth areas in today’s global economy. And Norway has <a href="http://www.norfund.no/?lang=en_GB" target="_blank">Norfund</a>, the Norwegian Investment Fund for Developing Countries, as their anti-poverty development finance institution funding private sector development programmes and other commercial activities for poor countries. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFlqbZ4_qvPD8I3dLMx3bewK2O-z5JXSgJ5BhEXtjDyhnjrWwDRA3H5Ax-L9MofTkCHMHgae381TtBfif27WvahydNpK2jXLUNAg4afpNeRHEQVxXQeIwodqlZXpnIEpyyu7ydL6OCzWs/s1600/folie_2_v2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="277" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFlqbZ4_qvPD8I3dLMx3bewK2O-z5JXSgJ5BhEXtjDyhnjrWwDRA3H5Ax-L9MofTkCHMHgae381TtBfif27WvahydNpK2jXLUNAg4afpNeRHEQVxXQeIwodqlZXpnIEpyyu7ydL6OCzWs/s400/folie_2_v2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Historically, the role of the private sector in development cooperation has always been there since the United Nations’ First Development Decade of the 1960s. This began when developed countries committed to transfer one per cent (1%) of their gross domestic product (GDP) to achieve the five per cent (5%) GDP growth target for developing countries. The prescribed formula of one per cent of GDP as an indicator of a successful net positive transfer of real resources from developed to developing countries should have been 0.7% of official development assistance (ODA) from donor governments plus 0.3% flows from the private sector. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
However, during the five consecutive development decades, private flows have prevailed over donor government’s ODA whereby resource flows from rich to poor countries are subject to private incentives, rather than to development needs. Importantly, between 80 and 90 per cent of donor countries’ development finance, notably the development assistance budget of Nordic governments, are actually invested in the World Bank Group, Regional/Multilateral Development Banks, and other international development finance institutions together with other finance capital from private lenders and commercial banks that are loaned to developing countries.<br />
<br />
<b>Policy Choices and Business Strategies for Asian Regimes</b><br />
<br />
What can also be observed in Nordic foreign policy nowadays is the geographical re-focusing of development cooperation partnerships with the economic growth areas of Asia, particularly with “rising China” and the emerging economies of Southeast Asia. Take, for example, the “<a href="http://formin.finland.fi/public/default.aspx?contentid=326234&contentlan=2&culture=en-US" target="_blank">China Action Plan</a>” in 2010 of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland which identifies start-up and expansion opportunities for investors from both partner countries to do business in their respective economies. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://formin.finland.fi/public/default.aspx?contentid=324246&nodeid=17274&contentlan=2&culture=en-US" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="227" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxeYi1xbFOwcgW49uKDAE7QR2f0FRcuvmVC7FWXh4TCwyeR5dAJbel_6NNvVgNo9qgvSuPuICLdN5npOav0N1pdS-Qd_PtuiBwfX_rDj3a5YUqskPFq2gPrULBXcw-qRCy-DhZjxtGV8E/s400/FI+action+plan+SEA.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
In 2015, “<a href="http://formin.finland.fi/public/default.aspx?contentid=324246&nodeid=17274&contentlan=2&culture=en-US" target="_blank">Finland’s Action Plan for Southeast Asia</a>” was released which, notably, provides a detailed characterization of the politics and economies of the Southeast Asian countries Brunei, the Philippines, Indonesia, East Timor, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam, and their regional bloc ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations). It also maps out Finland’s partnership priorities in each of these ASEAN member countries, including East Timor. This method of doing “political economy analysis” of the <i>different types of socio-economic regimes </i>of each of their (prospective) cooperation partners is telling of the shape to come in Finnish—and Nordic—international development strategy and policy. <br />
<br />
Political economy analysis—which takes into account issues related to structural factors, institutions, stakeholder power constellation—now complements the established “technical and economic analysis of feasible solutions” in the planning, implementation, and management of development projects. While political economy analysis is still at its infancy in development policy advice, it will soon prove to be necessary and effective for the future of development studies and practice. Studies on contemporary Nordic-Asia development cooperation will have to test this new approach vis-à-vis empirical realities on the ground so as to re-articulate an analytical framework that could better guide development research and policy advice.<br />
<br />
An important phenomenon integral to the Nordic’s private turn in development cooperation is the impact of the policy choices of their governments and the business strategies of the state-supported business enterprises on one of the fundamental objectives of their international development policy ideals: the promotion of democratic values which, at a minimum, means the establishment of the rule of law, respect for human rights, and good governance. The Nordic countries’ priority partners in East and Southeast Asia—specifically, China, Myanmar, and Vietnam—are generally characterized as authoritarian, undemocratic, or non-democratic regimes.<br />
<br />
<b>An Agenda for Development Research</b><br />
<br />
In <i>empirical</i> terms, it would be both topical and significant for development research on contemporary Nordic-Asia cooperation to investigate: To what extent are Nordic governments’ policy choices and business strategies informed by a political economy analysis of each of their development partner countries in East and Southeast Asia? This also means asking in <i>theoretical</i> terms the questions: What are the implications of private sector-oriented development cooperation for the agenda of democratization? Is there any correlation between political objectives and economic agenda in contemporary development cooperation?<br />
<br />
A couple of main research objectives will have to be pursued in studying this phenomenon of the private turn in Nordic-Asia development cooperation. The first is that it will identify risks, contradictions, and complementarities in doing business in these so-called non-democratic regimes vis-à-vis the motives behind the policy choices made by Nordic governments and the strategies conceived by their supported private enterprises. And the second is to determine the extent and logic of development cooperation between Nordic <i>democratic regimes</i> and a variety of largely <i>non-democratic regimes </i>in parts of Asia, and their implications for democratization processes and the evolution of the global economy.<br />
<br />
Preliminary observation suggests that the private turn, or the private enterprise-oriented development framework, encourages the economic imperatives for entrepreneurship and investments to take precedence over the political agenda for democracy promotion. As a result, Nordic business interests can be made, or are being made, to operate even within the context of non-democratic political regimes in parts of East and Southeast Asia.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<i><a href="https://www.jyu.fi/en/studywithus_old/programmes/devi/our-staff/bonn-juego" target="_blank"><b>Bonn Juego</b></a> is Postdoctoral Researcher specializing in political economy and development studies at the University of Jyväskylä, where he is also part of the core teaching staff of the Master’s Programme in Development and International Cooperation. In the autumn of 2016, he is based in Denmark as Guest Researcher at the <a href="http://www.nias.ku.dk/" target="_blank">Nordic Institute of Asian Studies</a>, Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen working on a project for a Nordic-wide research consortium on the political economy of contemporary Nordic-Asia development relations.</i><style>
<!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:"MS 明朝";
panose-1:0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0;
mso-font-charset:128;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-format:other;
mso-font-pitch:fixed;
mso-font-signature:1 134676480 16 0 131072 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:"MS 明朝";
panose-1:0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0;
mso-font-charset:128;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-format:other;
mso-font-pitch:fixed;
mso-font-signature:1 134676480 16 0 131072 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-520092929 1073786111 9 0 415 0;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin-top:0cm;
margin-right:0cm;
margin-bottom:10.0pt;
margin-left:0cm;
line-height:115%;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;
mso-ansi-language:FI;}
p.MsoFooter, li.MsoFooter, div.MsoFooter
{mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-link:"Footer Char";
margin:0cm;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
tab-stops:center 225.65pt right 451.3pt;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;
mso-ansi-language:FI;}
p.MsoListParagraph, li.MsoListParagraph, div.MsoListParagraph
{mso-style-priority:34;
mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
margin-top:0cm;
margin-right:0cm;
margin-bottom:0cm;
margin-left:36.0pt;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-add-space:auto;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
p.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst
{mso-style-priority:34;
mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-type:export-only;
margin-top:0cm;
margin-right:0cm;
margin-bottom:0cm;
margin-left:36.0pt;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-add-space:auto;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
p.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle
{mso-style-priority:34;
mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-type:export-only;
margin-top:0cm;
margin-right:0cm;
margin-bottom:0cm;
margin-left:36.0pt;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-add-space:auto;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
p.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast
{mso-style-priority:34;
mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-type:export-only;
margin-top:0cm;
margin-right:0cm;
margin-bottom:0cm;
margin-left:36.0pt;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-add-space:auto;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
span.FooterChar
{mso-style-name:"Footer Char";
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-locked:yes;
mso-style-link:Footer;}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-size:11.0pt;
mso-ansi-font-size:11.0pt;
mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;
mso-ansi-language:FI;}
.MsoPapDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
margin-bottom:10.0pt;
line-height:115%;}
@page WordSection1
{size:595.3pt 841.9pt;
margin:72.0pt 72.0pt 72.0pt 72.0pt;
mso-header-margin:35.4pt;
mso-footer-margin:35.4pt;
mso-paper-source:0;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
/* List Definitions */
@list l0
{mso-list-id:1704479896;
mso-list-type:hybrid;
mso-list-template-ids:1191493004 67829775 67829785 67829787 67829775 67829785 67829787 67829775 67829785 67829787;}
@list l0:level1
{mso-level-tab-stop:none;
mso-level-number-position:left;
text-indent:-18.0pt;}
@list l0:level2
{mso-level-number-format:alpha-lower;
mso-level-tab-stop:none;
mso-level-number-position:left;
text-indent:-18.0pt;}
@list l0:level3
{mso-level-number-format:roman-lower;
mso-level-tab-stop:none;
mso-level-number-position:right;
text-indent:-9.0pt;}
@list l0:level4
{mso-level-tab-stop:none;
mso-level-number-position:left;
text-indent:-18.0pt;}
@list l0:level5
{mso-level-number-format:alpha-lower;
mso-level-tab-stop:none;
mso-level-number-position:left;
text-indent:-18.0pt;}
@list l0:level6
{mso-level-number-format:roman-lower;
mso-level-tab-stop:none;
mso-level-number-position:right;
text-indent:-9.0pt;}
@list l0:level7
{mso-level-tab-stop:none;
mso-level-number-position:left;
text-indent:-18.0pt;}
@list l0:level8
{mso-level-number-format:alpha-lower;
mso-level-tab-stop:none;
mso-level-number-position:left;
text-indent:-18.0pt;}
@list l0:level9
{mso-level-number-format:roman-lower;
mso-level-tab-stop:none;
mso-level-number-position:right;
text-indent:-9.0pt;}
ol
{margin-bottom:0cm;}
ul
{margin-bottom:0cm;}
-->
</style></div>
<div>
<i><br /></i></div>
<div>
<i><br /></i></div>
Jukka Jouhkihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01624480759328080927noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1179777267505979669.post-86731080060001862482016-10-31T11:45:00.002+02:002016-10-31T11:49:20.529+02:00GAMBLING AS DEVELOPMENT IN GOA AND MACAU<br />
<i>By Jukka Jouhki and Kenneth Bo Nielsen (guest author)</i><br />
<br />
The meaning of 'development'<b> </b>has been significantly transformed during the past decades of global neoliberal restructuring. As the political scientist Kanchan Chandra <a href="http://politics.as.nyu.edu/docs/IO/2587/Chandra_The_New_Indian_State.pdf">wrote recently</a> with reference to India:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Before liberalisation, the term 'development' usually meant large state-led infrastructure or public works projects. Private sector activity was not considered 'developmental.' In the postliberalisation economy, the term 'development' has become a shorthand for a package of vaguely defined terms including 'urbanisation,' 'industrialisation,' and 'infrastructure creation' in which it is assumed that the private sector will take the lead.</blockquote>
What Chandra observes in India is of course not particular to that country, and it shows very clearly how almost anything that involves economic activity spearheaded by private capital can be subsumed under the label 'development' – including, perhaps surprisingly, gambling.<br />
<br />
<b>In this article we look at how gambling is being promoted as a driver of economic development in two small former Portuguese enclaves – <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goa" target="_blank">Goa</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macau" target="_blank">Macau</a></b> – in two of the world's most important emerging economies, namely India and China. <br />
<br />
Goa and Macau<b> </b>were for centuries part of the <i>Portuguese Estado da India</i>, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_India" target="_blank">Portuguese state of India</a>. In 1961 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Portuguese_India" target="_blank">the Indian army kicked out the Portuguese</a> and Goa joined the Indian Union; sovereignty over Macau was, in contrast, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transfer_of_sovereignty_over_Macau" target="_blank">transferred to China in 1999</a> under more peaceful circumstances, leaving Macau to operate with a high degree of autonomy. <br />
<br />
As part of a (crumbling) sea-based Portuguese empire it was maritime trade – and not least a short-lived but very lucrative opium commerce – that for centuries connected these two trading stations. Apart from this shared colonial history, what unites them today is their reliance on gambling as a way of developing their respective tourism-based economies. <br />
<br />
There are several more or less well-developed arguments for why casinos are good for economic development. They create jobs; they generate tax revenues that can be used to fund, for example, public education and health; and they boost local retail sales. These arguments are often heard when casinos are justified in the small state of Goa, known as the <i>Las Vegas of India</i>.<br />
<div>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7hl3kS6UBOJlCWsKI3Bj6lUCIaz1a7p8lxUwkG0uc8rCq_XHx3GyXkWWXavPiTEv2Teao6XbGucf0R2xfOqd_FOnsKmM8izfbHI2f4lpCK31gj0Sh8un8bh-Sim5lkACRH-fs8rr_9ZM/s1600/dr2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="196" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7hl3kS6UBOJlCWsKI3Bj6lUCIaz1a7p8lxUwkG0uc8rCq_XHx3GyXkWWXavPiTEv2Teao6XbGucf0R2xfOqd_FOnsKmM8izfbHI2f4lpCK31gj0Sh8un8bh-Sim5lkACRH-fs8rr_9ZM/s320/dr2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Goa, 'Las Vegas of India'. <a href="http://0.tqn.com/d/goindia/1/L/8/9/0/-/dr2.jpg" target="_blank">Source</a>. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The first casino in Goa opened in the late 1990s and the state is one of only three places in India where legal casinos operate. The others are the remote hill state of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikkim" target="_blank">Sikkim</a> and the small Union territory of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daman_and_Diu" target="_blank">Daman & Diu</a>, the latter also a former Portuguese enclave. But, Goa is the only place where ‘live gaming’ – with a real person dealing you the cards or spinning the roulette – takes place on the handful of Goa’s floating casinos that are located offshore on the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandovi_River" target="_blank">Mandovi River</a> where it runs through the capital city of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panaji" target="_blank">Panjim</a>. In addition, Goa has several casinos located on land. <br />
<br />
Most of the customers are domestic Indian tourists, and the casinos generate significant annual revenue for the state coffers. The exact figures appear to be uncertain and estimates range from anywhere between USD 30 million to 100 million per year. Although this amounts to no more than one to five percent of the annual state budget, it is a sum that the state cannot currently do without:<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihfVjhSFBcfl6w9A8eUU1RjmKFQDbcHnl-0j9UVdb-EKfjJW3McvUpvrAGSqQnUMQmoWf_gelJnn9YZpmvRB55Qa6vFi482CwLEhXHaDuh_V4IxskXbfFrOA68ESD5ng2kzHJMRAuuMnQ/s1600/goa-chief-minister-casino-licenses.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="187" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihfVjhSFBcfl6w9A8eUU1RjmKFQDbcHnl-0j9UVdb-EKfjJW3McvUpvrAGSqQnUMQmoWf_gelJnn9YZpmvRB55Qa6vFi482CwLEhXHaDuh_V4IxskXbfFrOA68ESD5ng2kzHJMRAuuMnQ/s400/goa-chief-minister-casino-licenses.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Goa's Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar defening Goa's casinos. Source: <a href="http://calvinayre.com/2016/07/08/casino/go-chief-minister-wont-revoke-casino-licenses/" target="_blank">Calvin Ayre.com</a>.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div>
Over the past years the Goan economy has been badly hit by a total ban on mining, something which has hurt the state finances. And even though mining recently resumed, the sharp fall in the global price of iron ore means that mining no longer generates the kind of revenue that it did six or seven years ago. Not only do the casinos generate revenue and taxes, they also attract large numbers of domestic tourists who may spend lavishly also outside the casino – on food, drinks, accommodation, shopping, and more. <br />
<br />
The gaming industry is enthusiastic about the future of casino gaming in Goa. With the Indian middle class growing, and with gaming only being legal in very few places, Goa looks set to remain the no. 1 holiday destination for Indians with money to spend. Thus, <a href="http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/magazines/jaydev-mody-gambler-turned-gaming-entrepreneur-promoter-of-delta-corp-bets-on-casinos/articleshow/44870810.cms" target="_blank">Jaydev Mody, the chairman of Delta Corp</a> which operates two offshore casinos, recently said that it was possible to ‘create a destination just like Singapore or Macau’ in Goa. All one had to do was to create resorts and casinos and fill them up, <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/business-34871124" target="_blank">he told the BBC</a>.<br />
<br />
But, there is also strong local opposition to the casinos which many see as a social evil and a bad influence on Goan society. In Panjim, many taxi drivers can tell you heart breaking stories of how they have taken devastated gamers from the floating casinos to the airport after they have gambled away their entire fortune in just a few hours. Gambling addiction is reportedly on the rise, and many want the casinos to either relocate out of the Mandovi and into the deep sea, or to shut down completely. But that is unlikely to happen. The current Chief Minister of the state, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laxmikant_Parsekar" target="_blank">Laxmikant Parsekar</a>, who had for many years stated that he is against casinos in Goa, has now – just like his predecessor in office – swung around to 'acknowledge' that the state depends on the casinos for employment and revenue. </div>
<div>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZYNv47W_mlFLjBTk3zPsGDOr91V-nndMDyIZoeW-qqlTGY6SdilxSZ0c64ztTqIkd7dtDoI84CQvs5pu70QRSRxQ-6SmEqELTwAN_1ytrBoo1v8scG7Yj63F9q4haqHEaNAV40nhyDEo/s1600/floating.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZYNv47W_mlFLjBTk3zPsGDOr91V-nndMDyIZoeW-qqlTGY6SdilxSZ0c64ztTqIkd7dtDoI84CQvs5pu70QRSRxQ-6SmEqELTwAN_1ytrBoo1v8scG7Yj63F9q4haqHEaNAV40nhyDEo/s400/floating.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A floating casino in Macau. Source: Jukka Jouhki.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
For Macau, the liberalisation of the state monopoly on gambling in 2002 is perhaps the single most important event to ever have taken place, politically, culturally and economically. After 2002, international casino companies and millions of gambling tourists rushed to Macau. Now, every year more than 30 million tourists visit Macau, the size of only one third of Manhattan and with a population of just 500,000, to spend their money in casinos, and on shopping in the casino complexes. Most tourists come from mainland China where gambling – other than lottery – is forbidden by law, but where different forms of gambling have been part of everyday life for ages. It is the growth of the Chinese middle class that has enabled tourism and recreational consumption so that Macau, <a href="https://vimeo.com/80546341">as Professor Tim Simpson from the University of Macau puts it</a>, is 'a laboratory of capitalist consumption for China'.<br />
<br />
While Goa may be the Las Vegas of India, Macau is '<a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2013/08/01/macau-is-vegas-on-steroids/#3dd0ebd3e250">Vegas on Steroids</a>'. In terms of revenue Macau surpassed Las Vegas as the global Mecca of gambling already a decade ago, and today revenue stands at six times that of Las Vegas. An average tourist spends only a day or two in Macau, but easily spends a thousand euros in a casino, and another thousand euros on shopping and services. Through taxation, the government of Macau earns more than 10 billion euros annually, making <a href="http://www.tradingeconomics.com/macau/gdp-per-capita">Macau's GDP per capita</a> the second largest in the world. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
In the ten years after the gambling monopoly ended, Macau's total GDP grew fivefold; and, unlike in Goa where the number of casinos are limited in number, gambling has considerably increased the quality of life of many Macanese citizens. Employment rates are high because gambling, tourism and construction demand a large workforce, and some of the profits from the industry do trickle down to benefit people at large through better schools, better health care, heritage conservation, and so on. <br />
<br />
However, this reliance on a single industry makes Macau's economy very vulnerable to the fluctuations of global economy and especially to the slowdown of China, where the anti-corruption campaign has stopped many wealthy mainland businessmen from traveling to Macau to spend their money. Hence, for a few years now Macau’s economy <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-25/macau-economy-seen-at-risk-as-moody-s-downgrades-gambling-hub">has slumped</a>. The recent slump notwithstanding, however, the gambling boom has changed Macau culturally, socially, environmentally, and even geographically. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpjzv9YmKmd-JLCmJ-ZGQtZbD-rF29roMPA9kPMw16htlPJrMbfSK8vQdgOh1McKkPrFkCWQ1At_45gJzfgKuqtNEVGRj2Ibz5-Al0D7R5-4TLkNmL8MQ5XDSyOzcXzq11uylnAFlx-X4/s1600/Venetian.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpjzv9YmKmd-JLCmJ-ZGQtZbD-rF29roMPA9kPMw16htlPJrMbfSK8vQdgOh1McKkPrFkCWQ1At_45gJzfgKuqtNEVGRj2Ibz5-Al0D7R5-4TLkNmL8MQ5XDSyOzcXzq11uylnAFlx-X4/s400/Venetian.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A gondola inside the Venetetian Macao, the biggest casino in the world. Source: Jukka Jouhki.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The cityscape has become a 'casinoscape', and the increasing demand for gambling outlets has made Macau expand its territory into the sea. For example, a strait between two Macanese islands was filled to form the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotai_Strip">Cotai Strip</a>, a concentration of casinos; and a new airfield was constructed by filling a strip of sea east of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taipa" target="_blank">Taipa island</a>. Incidentally, Goa too is in the process of building its second international airport in an attempt to increase tourist arrivals.<br />
<br />
Even without the tourists, Macau is the <a href="https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population_density">most densely populated area</a> in the world – three times more than nearby Hong Kong. Thus, hosting an additional 30 million visitors every year is a big challenge to the local transport system, to city planning and, of course, to local politicians who have to figure out ways to redistribute the gambling revenue and restrain inflation. As <a href="https://vimeo.com/80546341" target="_blank">Professor of Political Science Bill Chou from the University of Macao observes</a>, 'right now the biggest problem of Macau is that the benefit of the economic development is highly concentrated in the hands of a very small number of business people and pro-government organizations.' </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
For that (and other) reasons, the Macanese citizens themselves are not uniformly enthusiastic about their economy being so dependent on gambling and, like in Goa, people are sceptical about the money laundering and prostitution that tend to accompany gambling on a large scale. Thus, while gambling is certainly a popular Chinese timepass that produces the kind of '<a href="http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/29667/" target="_blank">social heat</a>' that is conventionally seen as good for social relationships, the way the industry works in contemporary Macau has rendered it somewhat morally dubious.<br />
<br />
Seen from Goa, what has happened in Macau will appear as either a dream come true, or as the realisation of one's worst nightmare, depending on perspective. While there is no denying the fact that gambling increases economic activity and creates jobs, the question is whether this outweighs the perceived negative social impact of the gambling industry and, not least, the very real democratic deficit that emerges when a powerful gaming lobby acquires the clout to define state policy and economic priorities. </div>
<div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Sources and more information</b></span><br />
<ul><span style="font-size: x-small;">
<li><i>BBC News </i>6.12.2013: <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-25180893" target="_blank">Is Goa's casino industry fuelling gambling addiction?</a></li>
<li><i>BBC News </i>20.11.2015: <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/business-34871124" target="_blank">Goa's casino industry comes under pressure</a> </li>
<li>Browne, Ronan & Jukka Jouhki 2013. <a href="https://vimeo.com/80546341">Macau: A Gambling City</a>. A short film. </li>
<li>Garrett, Thomas A. 2003 <a href="https://www.stlouisfed.org/publications/bridges/winter-20022003/casinos-and-economic-development-a-look-at-the-issues" target="_blank">Casinos and Economic Development: A Look at the Issues</a>. <i>Bridges </i>(winter 2002-2003 issue).</li>
<li><i>The Indian Express </i>1.8.2016: <a href="http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/reversal-of-fortune-for-casinos-cm-parsekar-2947062/" target="_blank">Reversal of fortune for casinos, Goa govt admits stakes too high</a></li>
<li>Jouhki, Jukka (2014). <a href="http://www.pelitutkimus.fi/vuosikirja2014/ptvk2014-03.pdf" target="_blank">Pelaamisen moraali Macaossa</a> [The Moral of Gambling in Macao]. <i>Pelitutkimuksen vuosikirja</i> [<i>The Finnish Yearbook of Gaming Research</i>]. Tampere: University of Tampere, 24–40.</li>
<li>Steinmüller, Hans (2011). <a href="http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/29667/" target="_blank">The Moving Boundaries of Social Heat: Gambling in Rural China</a>. <i>Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute</i> 17 (2), 263–280.</li>
</span></ul>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">
</span>
<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
</div>
Jukka Jouhkihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01624480759328080927noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1179777267505979669.post-41669163464829380932016-09-29T16:20:00.001+03:002016-09-29T16:22:18.872+03:00CAST YOUR VOTE OR VOTE YOUR CASTE? CASTE POLITICS IN TAMIL NADU, INDIA<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<i>By Mowshimkka Renganathan</i></div>
<br />
There is a famous saying in India, “you don’t cast your vote but you vote your caste” and it holds true in all the Indian elections. Castes in India are endogamous units of people synonymous with the term “ethnic” groups in other parts of the world. The entire population in India has organized itself into various castes and arranged themselves in a social hierarchy. Over the course of the past six decades, each caste has become its own political unit with leaders, registered associations, members etc. and they function to serve the interests of their caste members and to represent the caste in all matters necessary.<br />
<div>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhXZti2SmAs4lFs6TOzNVurRuebcu8eg84DT1LvJhZA4gBZxotc1P3KlFlSc3vPQMhCI6lT2NDXjpcQ5SprOymn_jzUq1Xi3__0kcoRitMw6-d_pSUD7Z9s-86UUc7evnsGaxFi2n0SWc/s1600/ADMK+campaign_Source-The+Indian+Express.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhXZti2SmAs4lFs6TOzNVurRuebcu8eg84DT1LvJhZA4gBZxotc1P3KlFlSc3vPQMhCI6lT2NDXjpcQ5SprOymn_jzUq1Xi3__0kcoRitMw6-d_pSUD7Z9s-86UUc7evnsGaxFi2n0SWc/s400/ADMK+campaign_Source-The+Indian+Express.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">ADMK campaign. Source: The Indian Express.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<br /></div>
While they appear to function and behave as a large extended family, they are viewed as viable “vote banks” by the politicians of India. Vote bank is an Indian term for a group of people who have a common identity or goal and can be relied upon to display solidarity while choosing whom to vote for.<br />
<div>
<br />
Although not an explicit strategy, every political party strives to earn the support of the various caste groups that live in their constituencies. It is similar to Hillary Clinton appealing to the cause of the veterans or Donald Trump earning the support of the middle class voters in the US, but the difference is that when a caste allies itself with a political party, it is “understood” that almost everyone belonging to the caste would vote for the supporting party. These vote banks indirectly play a crucial rule in influencing the political discourse, policy making, candidate selection for constituencies, financial planning etc. of each state in India. <br />
<br />
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamil_Nadu" target="_blank">Tamil Nadu</a> is a south Indian state which is historically known for its strong adherence to caste system and caste-based politics. The interplay of caste and politics are highlighted when elections are around the corner. <br />
<br />
In May 2016, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamil_Nadu_Legislative_Assembly_election,_2016" target="_blank">state assembly elections were conducted</a> in Tamil Nadu and I followed the election affairs to highlight the areas in which caste influence played a vital role. The important process of any election is the grouping of allies, announcing a manifesto (a declaration of plans and policies), selecting candidates for each constituency, campaigning, poll day and results. <br />
<br />
In Tamil Nadu, the three major political parties are DMK, ADMK and DMDK and their ideology is not caste-based. However, there are many other political parties formed directly by castes such as the <i>Vanniyars</i>, <i>Dalits</i>, <i>Mutharaiyars</i>, <i>Nadars </i>etc., and there are parties that are formed around minority Muslim groups. These parties form alliances with the three major parties.<br />
<br />
The alliances formed between the above mentioned parties for the 2016 elections reflected the caste- affiliations. Each party collected their caste based vote banks based on their allies. (The complete details of alliances and names of the parties can be found <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamil_Nadu_Legislative_Assembly_election,_2016" target="_blank">here</a>). <br />
<br />
Manifestos are a good place to analyse the influence of castes in policy making; In April 2016, numerous booklets were dropped from door to door by different parties to ensure that the manifesto of each party reached every possible voter. All the major parties accused each other of “intellectual theft” regarding their policies, and it was indeed evident that it was difficult to distinguish a party from another in terms of their policies. In most manifestos, there were chapters entitled “Welfare of backward and schedules castes” and “Welfare of minorities” which addressed the caste based policies and schemes that would be implemented by each party after winning the elections. </div>
<div>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjspmn7LIgflagRpLEEuZz4_9yJ68k8d4rjwrC3dfojpftsMmojbkpkMibm-bPetKU2MhUFJ0ViyL3oS560RSHL_z406GNFO4m1yrQpf-iMYvgcoN5qlK_OyVadEQrKHb9zLDYwArveznE/s1600/DMK+Manifesto+declaration_Source-+firstpostdotcom.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjspmn7LIgflagRpLEEuZz4_9yJ68k8d4rjwrC3dfojpftsMmojbkpkMibm-bPetKU2MhUFJ0ViyL3oS560RSHL_z406GNFO4m1yrQpf-iMYvgcoN5qlK_OyVadEQrKHb9zLDYwArveznE/s400/DMK+Manifesto+declaration_Source-+firstpostdotcom.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />
Above and below: Parties exhibiting their manifestos. Sources: One India Tamil.com, Yashnews.com.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheLPGDqeH3CpW44VpLVXvoKoLv7TVyRJTPLuxK3YqwXUSNDt8VuZlHIPZcfgEQT41_CnLWGoxQ3k27ABczOTrwyPwRgAo5_ICRaWjWvJ51G6EVZQdrNfoqmeEzAR2V2dbKTESnMg-7v5Y/s400/DMDK+Manifesto_Source-+DNAINDIADOTCOM.jpg" width="400" /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
At this point it is important to note that the castes in India are organized into various categories such as “backward”, “most backward” and “scheduled” based on their historic socio-economic status. Each category of castes is given special benefits by the government so they can achieve “development”. The process is known as a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reservation_in_India" target="_blank">reservation system</a> according to which admissions in schools, government jobs, and sections of government schemes are “reserved” in various percentages for the different categories.<br />
<br />
However, the government ceases to provide the benefits for families whose annual income exceeds a mandated threshold, thereby excluding the “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creamy_layer" target="_blank">creamy layer</a>” (Rich families) of each caste from the reservation system. <br />
<br />
Collectively, all of the parties vowed to increase the “percentage” of reservations and the threshold income, in order to gain the votes of a richer section of all castes. Additionally, DMK promised to implement the caste-based reservation system in the private industry sector. It also promised to revise the “list” and “upgrade” the categories of several castes so that they could enjoy more benefits. PMK, on the other hand, promised that the welfare and rights of the religious minorities like Christians and Muslims would be specially protected, some religious convicts released on mercy, and “<a href="http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/indias-invisible-manual-scavengers/article8891365.ece" target="_blank">manual scavenging</a>” (latrine cleaning) by certain castes abolished. <br />
<br />
At this juncture, each caste would decide the party they wanted to vote for based on the policies they would benefit the most from. Each party strategically earned itself a vote-bank through such policy declarations.</div>
<div>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIteBeg2V2ImcqiD_t8v_oSEYIB53Ia-R0yE60pz8FinoeIFK06KA75C_1XEiykyH7saCXOTbaE7A56eJ71i34c7zhjXHwp4F6OLcNkPgXQWE7mzpRATWode9E24yq9GUCO6nIbupSzLQ/s1600/Kongunadu+Munnetra+Kazhagam_Kongu+Gounder+Caste+party_+candidate+campaigning+in+village_Source-The+Hindu.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="232" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIteBeg2V2ImcqiD_t8v_oSEYIB53Ia-R0yE60pz8FinoeIFK06KA75C_1XEiykyH7saCXOTbaE7A56eJ71i34c7zhjXHwp4F6OLcNkPgXQWE7mzpRATWode9E24yq9GUCO6nIbupSzLQ/s400/Kongunadu+Munnetra+Kazhagam_Kongu+Gounder+Caste+party_+candidate+campaigning+in+village_Source-The+Hindu.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Kongu Gounder </i>caste party campaigning in a village. Source: The Hindu.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<div>
<br />
Following the manifesto comes the nomination of candidates; each party selected their candidates for the various constituencies. As per government rules, there are 234 state assembly constituencies out of which 44 are reserved for candidates belonging to “scheduled castes” and 2 are reserved for candidates belonging to “scheduled tribes”. The candidates are chosen based on their caste and the maximum possible vote banks they can cull in their constituency. <br />
<br />
Finally, the parties appealed to the cultural and ethnic identity sentiments of the voters by using highly emotional political rhetoric. PMK is known for their ‘80s rhyming campaign slogan “The votes of Vanniyar caste is for no-one else”. Another caste-party claimed that they are “children of the sun” and that no one can defeat them while another party retorted by asking “Why can you not beat the summer heat but need AC, if you are the children of the sun?” </div>
<div>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlhiHxYCP7z_JL2Uv_ym2BFQibd26gDIOQFMRZKAXS3tn8dvmuyCPOMBC1DbXIKOqxiOIGvoWfKcgNhBaljyribFFe2mVe1APabL7cUg4fwEtB7DrcKtoF8fo9eD31_w0kr_y5GjHFOM0/s1600/PMK+Campaign_Source-The+indian+express.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlhiHxYCP7z_JL2Uv_ym2BFQibd26gDIOQFMRZKAXS3tn8dvmuyCPOMBC1DbXIKOqxiOIGvoWfKcgNhBaljyribFFe2mVe1APabL7cUg4fwEtB7DrcKtoF8fo9eD31_w0kr_y5GjHFOM0/s400/PMK+Campaign_Source-The+indian+express.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">PMK campaigning. Source: Indian Express.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
Such witty and emotionally charged discourse between parties appeal to the ordinary citizen who feels the need to take sides to protect his identity. However, within the last decade, there has been an increase in the number of caste associations that aim for caste solidarity, which is also the aim of political parties during their election campaigns. The politicians might break ethnic barriers by dining with various caste members, drinking tea with the people on the road, naming newborn babies. The most common strategy is delivering hair raising speeches on unity and solidarity. </div>
<div>
<br />
<a href="http://www.elections.in/tamil-nadu/#info_id3" target="_blank">The election results were announced</a> on May 19th 2016 and in a surprising turn of events, many caste-based parties actually lost the elections while there were only a few strong caste-based party leaders who were elected. Thus, there might be a change in the people’s preferences to caste-based politics in Tamil Nadu. </div>
<div>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4asASTDmZ6lw-dqtZuslUXmL3mrfc00fhpeTnvzX7GlMUEJlarTXpLGBmejTy1YPruzY8DS4bEeSySBri0smXEzmT5MDGa24WLPK-IPVNSAaVSDh46AffT67yFDaB9CfPdNMSHZnwfLc/s1600/TN+2016+Results.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4asASTDmZ6lw-dqtZuslUXmL3mrfc00fhpeTnvzX7GlMUEJlarTXpLGBmejTy1YPruzY8DS4bEeSySBri0smXEzmT5MDGa24WLPK-IPVNSAaVSDh46AffT67yFDaB9CfPdNMSHZnwfLc/s1600/TN+2016+Results.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tamil Nadu 2016 election results.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Nevertheless, politics in Tamil Nadu is still dominantly caste-driven, and castes participate in politics by forming official caste organizations, mobilizing funds, doling out free memberships to their caste members, implementing strict endogamy in marriages, asserting their dominance and identity through communal violence, and slowly rising to power as a formidable vote bank after which they can demand for favours and policies in return for their loyalty as a vote bank. <br />
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><b>Note from the Editor:</b> Mowshimkka Renganathan is a new member of Poverty and Development Research Center at the Department of History and Ethnology, University of Jyväskylä. Her ongoing PhD research focuses on the caste-based reservation system in Tamil Nadu, India.</span></i></div>
</div>
<div>
<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div>
<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></i></div>
Jukka Jouhkihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01624480759328080927noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1179777267505979669.post-91455996869324447352016-08-31T07:57:00.000+03:002017-03-24T13:23:11.662+02:00REPORT ON POVERTY'S CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES CONFERENCE, AUGUST 4-6, 2016<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVlTNrAeaTuNqudmc-5DfDtQpq7r6wIfm9jTzwoZFs_DcZJnpb_HogVtqMOxDuNedDyk2jJ_6HOCMp9m6BGQn2Mf2UBoqSSfXhtjt5JK7_qM3I2l5Z3AUh6ik9CK17k8H30uY53AOl_Fo/s1600/bookofabs.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVlTNrAeaTuNqudmc-5DfDtQpq7r6wIfm9jTzwoZFs_DcZJnpb_HogVtqMOxDuNedDyk2jJ_6HOCMp9m6BGQn2Mf2UBoqSSfXhtjt5JK7_qM3I2l5Z3AUh6ik9CK17k8H30uY53AOl_Fo/s320/bookofabs.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5cSnxN-aDjVV0FRX01qZDBBekE/view" style="text-align: start;">Click here</a><span style="text-align: start;"> to read the book of abstracts. </span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
<br />
<i>By Jukka Jouhki</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<a href="http://povdev.blog.jyu.fi/p/conference-2016.html">Our conference</a> <i>Poverty's Causes and Consequences in the Urban Developing World</i> gathered together poverty researchers from 19 countries and all major continents for three days of discussion exploring new perspectives on urban poverty. <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5cSnxN-aDjVV0FRX01qZDBBekE/view">Fifty paper presentations</a> and <a href="https://moniviestin.jyu.fi/ohjelmat/hum/hela/povertys-causes">four keynote lectures</a> offered critical perspectives and encouraged approaches on the intersection between micro and macro levels of analysis. Papers represented a wide variety of disciplines and presented local case studies from many different countries with relevance for larger issues as well as larger-scale studies with theoretical implications for micro-level research.<br />
<br />
The first day of conference started with Prof. <a href="https://www.jyu.fi/hum/laitokset/hie/en/staff/lstark">Laura Stark</a>'s welcome, followed by Prof. <a href="http://www.uwo.ca/arts/research/profiles/baruah.html">Bipasha Baruah</a>'s keynote that focused on gender equality in India, and presented an initiative called <a href="http://azadfoundation.com/women-on-wheels/"><span style="color: blue;">Women on Wheels</span></a> in New Delhi. Then Dr. <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/sociology/political-sociology/rural-politics-india-political-stratification-and-governance-west-bengal?format=HB#bookPeople"><span style="color: blue;">Dayabati Roy</span></a> gave her keynote speech about the way in which poverty vis-à-vis unemployment is created and recreated as a consequence of the complex relationship between capital, class and the state in India. The afternoon continued with panels focusing on themes such as childhood, gender, urbanization, religion, governance, and land-use as well as how to measure poverty (please see the <a href="https://www.jyu.fi/hum/laitokset/hie/en/povertyconference2016">programme</a>).<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx-cCZCxEeYmT_AX4nekjM7j8CaQ7BqPkmK-93V8CJMxV0ahC0s46B_IRNun4j1MNYTazqFe7AGUh-EPsr7zEX8RXkaJrFWe7O31zcQQOTibj78zISUN45B-1DtcAH1oEurPzjwJUUrgw/s1600/Screen+Shot+2016-08-29+at+18.50.20.png"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx-cCZCxEeYmT_AX4nekjM7j8CaQ7BqPkmK-93V8CJMxV0ahC0s46B_IRNun4j1MNYTazqFe7AGUh-EPsr7zEX8RXkaJrFWe7O31zcQQOTibj78zISUN45B-1DtcAH1oEurPzjwJUUrgw/s400/Screen+Shot+2016-08-29+at+18.50.20.png" /></a> </div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Keynotes: Baruah, Roy Ferguson and Anand. </span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">
</span><br />
The next day, panels continued with papers discussing rightful share, rights, labor, education, and sexual risks. Prof. <a href="https://web.stanford.edu/dept/anthropology/cgi-bin/web/?q=node/97">James Ferguson</a> delivered <a href="https://moniviestin.jyu.fi/ohjelmat/hum/hela/povertys-causes/james-ferguson">the third keynote</a> of the conference, in which he offered ways to rethink production and distribution which draw upon his widely popular book <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/give-a-man-a-fish">Give a Man a Fish</a> (see also the <a href="https://moniviestin.jyu.fi/ohjelmat/hum/hela/povertys-causes/questions-to-james-ferguson">Q & A session</a>). The day ended with a conference dinner at Hotel Alba.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvNAZYVNagGlwFpQi8UgWXc4S5-_Ox42dDLSBYgPXZXFaMpbaC85xZ60nvM9O_OWNwF1tovprtebM2LFbUSig8hlCElsRYlRJai5LrktYh3gY3sZ58dLQynsDeG37ThGZFFBpiZECXlqE/s1600/dinner.jpg"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvNAZYVNagGlwFpQi8UgWXc4S5-_Ox42dDLSBYgPXZXFaMpbaC85xZ60nvM9O_OWNwF1tovprtebM2LFbUSig8hlCElsRYlRJai5LrktYh3gY3sZ58dLQynsDeG37ThGZFFBpiZECXlqE/s400/dinner.jpg" /></a> </div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Prof. Laura Stark welcoming our dinner guests. </span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">
</span><br />
The last day of conference offered <a href="https://unice.academia.edu/SidylamineBagayoko"><span style="color: blue;">Sidy Lamine Bagayoko</span></a>'s ethnographic film on the challenges faced by a village school in Mali, and a panel about neoliberalism and urban politics. The last keynote of the conference was Dr. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harjit_Singh_Anand">Harjit Singh Anand</a>'s talk about poverty and dynamics of the Indian informal work sector. <br />
<br />
<br />
We wish to thank all the participants and our sponsor, the <a href="http://www.aka.fi/en">Academy of Finland.</a><br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://moniviestin.jyu.fi/ohjelmat/hum/hela/povertys-causes" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJyJLNhNwxgJGWzoyt7GMUciuzSvvuPzYt2uhAraztIbZ73JNFv1lI15XCKS29p4xrQATZuoCy3fj0a3pSKdE1pl1iTA4K92OWLaS4uGpOhOgmi-xTyRuW9GEQX2I5V37x6sBiM1Pjn8k/s200/jixo55R6T.png" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://moniviestin.jyu.fi/ohjelmat/hum/hela/povertys-causes" style="font-size: medium; text-align: start;">Watch the keynote videos</a><span style="font-size: small; text-align: start;">.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Jukka Jouhkihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01624480759328080927noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1179777267505979669.post-31641497142421725382016-05-31T10:30:00.000+03:002016-05-31T10:30:00.584+03:00WHAT IS A PLATEAU? STRUGGLES OVER LAND AND NATURE IN GOA, INDIA<br /><br /><i>A guest article by</i><div>
<i>Kenneth Bo Nielsen</i><br /><br /> <br />When people think of the Indian state of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goa" target="_blank">Goa</a> it is usually images of beautiful beaches and coconut palms gently swaying in the breeze that spring to mind. Once a compulsory stop on the original <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippie_trail" target="_blank">hippie trail</a>, Goa has now become a favoured playground for domestic Indian tourists who come to relax and have a good time in a place where <i>kuch bhi chalta hai</i> – ‘everything is ok’. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
What is less commonly known is that this small state on the Indian west coast has also been home to numerous, intense struggles over land and nature in recent decades. Mass tourism, for instance, is far from uniformly popular as it takes its toll on the environment: The hotels and resorts along the coast line lay claim to scarce space, produce unmanageable amounts of waste, and disrupt important tidal flows. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Further inland, polluting industries have been resisted on many occasions, as have the state government’s attempt at setting up so-called special economic zones, that is, exclusive industrial enclaves. And, in the parts of the state that are farthest from the coast and bordering the <a href="http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1342" target="_blank">Western Ghats</a> – a UNESCO world heritage site – rampant and often illegal open pit iron ore mining has destroyed vast tracts of land and many water bodies. While mass tourism, industrialisation, and mining provide employment to many people and a much needed source of revenue for the state, they are thus, because of their impact on land and nature, also highly controversial and contested issues. </div>
<div>
<br />Since 2015 I have been following an evolving controversy over a large tract of land in north Goa. Here, more than 2,000 acres on and around a large, lateritic plateau have been acquired by the state government to set up a new international airport. The airport project is being promoted by its supporters as a real economic book for the state as it will sustain and increase mass tourism during the years ahead, and, more generally, act as an economic catalyst for the northernmost part of Goa which is generally considered among the more ‘backward’ parts of the state. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy_p1b9aZFNRuBKkvpmtBkNUnNtUuDYxx-ITprcQxqMLgMfpNYmhWIYPypK1GcA6RJwRh5ttYEfrX9ioU238_pGih-JztiEGFTTUl-ygQgkzmT50V0aM8glDMTZl6gteoGvmiEYgfCWPo/s1600/GApic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy_p1b9aZFNRuBKkvpmtBkNUnNtUuDYxx-ITprcQxqMLgMfpNYmhWIYPypK1GcA6RJwRh5ttYEfrX9ioU238_pGih-JztiEGFTTUl-ygQgkzmT50V0aM8glDMTZl6gteoGvmiEYgfCWPo/s320/GApic.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Aerial shot of the plateau. Source: <a href="http://archive.catchnews.com/environment-news/green-clearance-to-goa-s-mopa-airport-is-a-joke-here-s-why-1457458602.html" target="_blank">Catch News</a>. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div>
In contrast, those fiercely opposed to the airport – which includes both many locals as well as the larger environmental movement in the state – see it as not only destructive of Goa’s fragile nature, but also as a scam that is intended to benefit only real estate developers, wealthy entrepreneurs, land brokers, and corrupt politicians and bureaucrats. In the struggle over the land and the airport, both sides have relied on a vast array of arguments, both economic, political, and environmental, to argue their case and sway a larger public. Yet what struck me when listening to and studying these arguments was the radically different views the two sides had on the exact nature of land that was being acquired to make way for the airport, and what the impact of the airport would be. </div>
<div>
<br />To the proponents of the airport, the plateau on which it would be located was little more than a rocky, barren patch of land without habitation, residents or permanent structures of any significance: ‘The land is largely non-cultivated due to an out cropping of lateritic soil and no residential and water bodies are found within the project location except few houses’, writes the mandatory <i>Environmental Impact Assessment </i>(EIA) report that was prepared at the behest of the Government of Goa. It added that ‘vegetation and trees are sparse’. Eighty-five per cent of the acquired land was, it said, either ‘land with scrub’ (55 %), barren rocky/stony waste (22 %) or scrub forest (8 %). </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
In its conclusion, the report found that the airport would have a ‘medium impact’ on the local biological environment; but in effect, this ‘impact’ mostly referred to a larger risk of animals being killed in the increased car traffic, or falling into open construction pits or trenches. Beyond that, and given the seemingly rocky, inhospitable and barren nature of the place, a new international airport would have very little impact on the local land, water and socio-economic environment.<br /><br />The airport project’s opponents would beg to differ. At a controversial public hearing on the EIA report which took place on top of the plateau itself on 2 February 2015, they spent considerable time deconstructing this view of the plateau as barren wasteland. To the project’s opponents, the plateau’s location close to the Western Ghats made it an intrinsically eco-sensitive zone almost on par with the Western Ghats itself, second only to the Amazons in terms of biodiversity. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxNa6_w_rU-0mxKVyZC1chfTv4l1SlUIGlaqVN9B5eNNmDi_naKpe45lQM3ljjD21CKR9KGXgZDMLv6pczRFS4IwguTYDsrsJKencBU3y2Ksq4KwIGx4C9rWiYVCEmLQPzEqQNVyaVTKs/s1600/Mopapic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxNa6_w_rU-0mxKVyZC1chfTv4l1SlUIGlaqVN9B5eNNmDi_naKpe45lQM3ljjD21CKR9KGXgZDMLv6pczRFS4IwguTYDsrsJKencBU3y2Ksq4KwIGx4C9rWiYVCEmLQPzEqQNVyaVTKs/s320/Mopapic.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Some wildlife of the plateau. Source: <a href="http://archive.catchnews.com/environment-news/green-clearance-to-goa-s-mopa-airport-is-a-joke-here-s-why-1457458602.html" target="_blank">Catch News</a>.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The plateau was claimed to be home to a plethora of wildlife – including endangered species – and flora and fauna, as well as more than 40 surrounding perennial springs; and it performed an indispensable function in terms of ground water percolation and recharge, acting as a giant sponge that stored and released water throughout the year. To prove this point, activists did their own environmental impact assessment of the plateau, concluding that whereas the official EIA report mentions only the presence of mice, cats and dogs, leopards and bison in fact roam. The plateau recharged over two billion litres of water every year, it was found, meaning that if the plateau was destroyed to make way for the airport, its crucial role in the wider regional hydrology would be disrupted, leading to repercussions far beyond the plateau itself. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
A wrecked hydrology would not only destroy cultivation on the slopes of the plateau, and on the nearby plains below, but also the fisheries in the nearby Chapora and Tiracol rivers. Moreover, in the surrounding area agriculture was practised, including extensive cashew plantations on the slopes that generated an annual turnover of as much as 500 million INR, and which enabled the production of the locally popular cashew-feni, a strong liquor produced from the cashew apple. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Sacred groves would be lost if the airport came up, including the Barazan on the very top of the plateau, a grove comprised by 12 trees at which important rituals were carried out yearly. For the same reason, one activist group consistently referred to the plateau as the ‘Barazan’, and not the more commonly used Mopa plateau, so as to underscore its importance in an ancient cultural and socio-economic order that was now fast disappearing.<br /><br />The first phase of airport construction is planned to commence from November this year. By the time we know more about which of the two sides to the controversy got their facts about the plateau ‘more right’, it may thus be too late to do anything about it.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<i><b><a href="http://www.uib.no/en/persons/Kenneth.Bo.Nielsen" target="_blank">Kenneth Bo Nielsen</a> </b>is a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Bergen Department of Sociology.</i></div>
<div>
<i><br /></i></div>
<div>
<i><br /></i></div>
Jukka Jouhkihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01624480759328080927noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1179777267505979669.post-34418687832248164802016-04-28T18:14:00.000+03:002016-04-29T08:26:59.394+03:00CUSTOMARY MARRIAGE IN KENYA: GENDER RELATIONS AND POVERTY<br />
<i>By Diana Diaz Delgado </i><i>Raitala</i><br />
<br />
<br />
<i>“I want to go home [to my birth family]”</i>, says the wife who has been mistreated by her husband, but her parents do not want her. There is so much poverty, her parents have no means to feed her, and her husband is her owner because he has paid for her with cows. Jane, a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luo_people_of_Kenya_and_Tanzania" target="_blank">Luo</a> woman, related this to me in order to explain some aspects of customary marriage on my ethnographic trip to eastern <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenya" target="_blank">Kenya</a>. <br />
<br />
Bridewealth is the payment given by the groom and his kin to the bride’s family before or at marriage. Customary marriage involving bridewealth is a very common form of marriage in Kenya regardless of the ethnic group (Goody & Tambiah 1973; Comaroff 1980; Kanogo 2005). The brideprice is set in terms of cows and/or goats. Importantly, the payment is essential to legalize the union (Fortes 1972). The topic of bridewealth became the centre theme of <a href="https://jyx.jyu.fi/dspace/handle/123456789/48236?show=full" target="_blank">my Master’s thesis</a>.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWLFiQ3A32YzLrF8i3T_3Xi8Xjliwn3cAVWGJWuZ5aVZPuDxJs9J9TneLiG_4cSQx0iLfz_9l5JkET7DHIgm1FCTrx1srUSzPaKtANOH_rAX7rWSyPRop_Eq74BJkBpRA0ZnO51M5HNJY/s1600/pic+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWLFiQ3A32YzLrF8i3T_3Xi8Xjliwn3cAVWGJWuZ5aVZPuDxJs9J9TneLiG_4cSQx0iLfz_9l5JkET7DHIgm1FCTrx1srUSzPaKtANOH_rAX7rWSyPRop_Eq74BJkBpRA0ZnO51M5HNJY/s320/pic+1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption">Lanscape of the fieldsite. © Diana Raitala.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiefTVoh_Gh-OuXjDj_qBPlBb9A_QJqiMx9H9I0oSlTSeniei2RGjJlYRds_LsmuOYr4KO77hgPOEoDJEyoVo9eXRHtB4Io-Q36nxCvDfFE_Demy_eGfILmu3oVMOeTEwqom6AxNQjNAf8/s1600/pic+2.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiefTVoh_Gh-OuXjDj_qBPlBb9A_QJqiMx9H9I0oSlTSeniei2RGjJlYRds_LsmuOYr4KO77hgPOEoDJEyoVo9eXRHtB4Io-Q36nxCvDfFE_Demy_eGfILmu3oVMOeTEwqom6AxNQjNAf8/s320/pic+2.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lanscape from Nairobi towards the fieldsite<span style="font-size: x-small;">. © Diana Raitala.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div>
Although my dialogues with Jane and the other 28 participants in my interviews often were surrounded by an atmosphere of sadness and resignation, I have to say that the happiness of the ritual of customary marriage which I had the opportunity to witness will remain in my memory for ever. The ritual took place in a hut belonging to the grandmother of the bride. The neighbours and the congregation of the <a href="https://www.adventist.org/en/world-church/east-central-africa/" target="_blank">Seventh Day Adventist Church</a>, which has many parishioners in Kenya, were all invited to the ceremony. A day before the ceremony the women (the bride, her family, the neighbours and I) started preparing the Kenyan delicacies which I show in the picture below. </div>
<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSwHya5qr8kRv2mfcQZvlaY0p2jDnVC9hSE-WaN1_J8WK5DXCt1gmwZ1lqLRZ-rXIBT8ZLrjaWtMfeCz5rHoxm6ymuKgQ_QGvXpXLtHjZtFYOt6mvfexIneCScvFeCrGbDgzJL99h9GMg/s1600/pic+3.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSwHya5qr8kRv2mfcQZvlaY0p2jDnVC9hSE-WaN1_J8WK5DXCt1gmwZ1lqLRZ-rXIBT8ZLrjaWtMfeCz5rHoxm6ymuKgQ_QGvXpXLtHjZtFYOt6mvfexIneCScvFeCrGbDgzJL99h9GMg/s320/pic+3.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption">Kenyan delicacies. © Diana Raitala.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
<br />
The white dish is <i>ugali</i>, a porridge made from maize; the red dish is a traditional sauce made from tomatoes and masala called <i>ring'o</i>; the yellow and red dish is called <i>rabolo</i>, made from beans and vegetables, and avocado and banana are served as garnish.<br />
<br />
I feel that my role in preparing food was that of a well-behaved spectator, ready to do something whenever the bride and her family asked; in fact I did physically nothing, only watched, but even to this day, some of the cooks insist that I was a great help. In the ceremony, two head of cattle (see picture below) were given as payment of bridewealth. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgikTJGjm5yR74-SpK6b5gR30vG-4GFrvEr04b7sGqHna-y2bHaC8BPfri3VI3j3oyXNs0g0C_5ZdbXuCUfqKqOXfAk5xo8XR1kxzoobO-1hKCE2WyF7t4VRSItVFDvaZdpb-cUjgvSSsw/s1600/pic+4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgikTJGjm5yR74-SpK6b5gR30vG-4GFrvEr04b7sGqHna-y2bHaC8BPfri3VI3j3oyXNs0g0C_5ZdbXuCUfqKqOXfAk5xo8XR1kxzoobO-1hKCE2WyF7t4VRSItVFDvaZdpb-cUjgvSSsw/s320/pic+4.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption">Bridewealth. © Diana Raitala.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
<br />
The happiness of all the participants in the ceremony was palpable. When I asked the bride how she felt, she answered me with a smile, <i>“Very happy!”</i> In the ceremony, one of the bride’s close relatives confided in me:<i> “She is happy although she is going to be owned by her husband.”</i><br />
<br />
This ownership is an important consequence of customary marriage. In my dialogues with participants, ownership was understood to mean two things: 1) the obligation of the husband to protect his wives and children, and 2) the rights of husbands over wives and children. Some of these rights over wives include the fact that a wife needs permission from her husband to visit her birth family; and the right of the husband to perpetrate violent acts on her. Due to this right of ‘ownership’, violence is usually accepted or tolerated (Ludsin & Vetten 2005: 24). I was told by some participants that traditional marriage bestows legal custody of the children solely on the father.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
In other words, the payment of bridewealth is essential for giving the father ‘ownership’ of his children, otherwise there is no legalized marriage and the husband does not have legal custody (Goody 1973: 12; Radcliffe-Brown 1950: 54). If the husband, for instance, promises to pay bridewealth after the marriage but does not pay it, the children will belong to the ethnic group of their mother (Ladislav 1996: 128). According to my participants, this situation is a cause for embarrassment to the father and mother and their respective ethnic groups. Robert, a Luo man, told me over supper in the house which he shared with his first wife that an honourable man always pays the bridewealth for his wives. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN-2SZvA9vqfOYYWlCb7If-4_ZenZCMjiwwGvguzMNi5cq6TYnE8r6zAhLd31h_a4lJoR1pK9SmY1-VGymUh3dtH5VAILqMleThfUtKsacRFtp1eTCGvvUaHA_xs_XEGt7N3kp9Z0RfS8/s1600/pic+5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN-2SZvA9vqfOYYWlCb7If-4_ZenZCMjiwwGvguzMNi5cq6TYnE8r6zAhLd31h_a4lJoR1pK9SmY1-VGymUh3dtH5VAILqMleThfUtKsacRFtp1eTCGvvUaHA_xs_XEGt7N3kp9Z0RfS8/s320/pic+5.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption">The house of Robert and 2nd wife (the darker house is the <br />
kitchen). © Diana Raitala.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
<br />
Payment is not always an easy task to accomplish; this is illustrated by what happened to Keanu, a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kikuyu_people" target="_blank">Kikuyu</a> man, whose wife died before he had paid the bridewealth to her family. Keanu’s interview revealed the importance of the payment for being able to bury his wife and for retaining custody of his children. Without having paid bridewealth, Keanu could not be the one to bury his own wife. Keanu had a difficult time paying the bridewealth because the father of his dead wife was missing, and although her mother was available, it is the father who should negotiate and receive the payment according to custom. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
After much effort to find his dead wife’s father with unsuccessful results, Keanu and his kin and the grandfather of the deceased (who was in these circumstances authorized by tradition) arrived at an agreement on the price, and Keanu paid it. In this way, Keanu did not lose his child to the ethic group of his deceased wife. In my conversation with him, Keanu described to me his pain at the loss of his wife, his fear of losing custody of their child, and his sadness at having to negotiate over the dead body of his wife.<br />
<br />
One of the central aspects of customary marriage mentioned in the academic literature and in my conversations with Kenyans relates to children and the importance of offspring (Radcliffe-Brown & Forde 1965; Goody 1973; Ansell 2001: 699). I was told by many people the more children the better. I observed in my ethnographic fieldwork that the responsibility for taking care of parents falls to adult children. Kenya is a country in which basic needs such as medical health, potable water, education and housing are not met by the state. Children have a moral duty to provide for their parents when they grow old (Offlong 1999: 25). As my friend and participant Paul, a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meru_people" target="_blank">Meru</a> man, told me, responsible children provides for their parents; they should pay their parents’ medical bills as much as they are financially able, as he did for his mother until she died. <br />
<br />
My ethnographic research for my <a href="https://jyx.jyu.fi/dspace/handle/123456789/48236?show=full" target="_blank">Master’s thesis</a> was carried out in 2012. I conducted interviews/dialogues with members of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luo_people_of_Kenya_and_Tanzania" target="_blank">Luo</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kikuyu_people" target="_blank">Kikuyu</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalenjin_people" target="_blank">Kalenjin</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meru_people" target="_blank">Meru</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamba_people" target="_blank">Kamba</a>, <a href="http://www.maasai-association.org/maasai.html" target="_blank">Maasai</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kisii_people" target="_blank">Kisii</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luhya_people" target="_blank">Luhya</a> ethnic groups. All the names in this article have been changed. Additionally, all the participants mentioned in this article are middle-aged, married and highly educated with the exception of Robert, who is a tailor. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>References </b></span><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Ansell, N. (2001).<a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/823409" target="_blank"> 'Because It's Our Culture!' (Re)Negotiating the Meaning of 'Lobola' in Southern African Secondary Schools</a>. <i>Journal of Southern African Studies</i>, 27 (4): 697–716.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Comaroff, J. (1980). <i>The Meaning of Marriage Payments</i>. London: Academic Press.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Fortes, M. (1972). <i>Marriage in Tribal Societies.</i> Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Goody, J. & Tambiah, S. (1973). <i>Bridewealth and Dowry.</i> London: Cambridge University Press.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Kanogo, T. (2005). <i>African Womanhood in Colonial Kenya, 1900</i>–<i>50.</i> Ohio: Ohio University Press. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Ladislav, H. (1996). <i>Anthropological Perspectives on Kinship.</i> London: Pluto Press. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Ludsin, H. & Vetten, L. (2005). <i>Spiral of Entrapment: Abused Women in Conflict with the Law</i>. Johannesburg: Jacana Media (Pty) Ltd.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Offlong, D. (1999). <a href="https://www.questia.com/read/1P3-46950113/traditional-healers-in-the-nigerian-health-care-delivery" target="_blank">Traditional Healers in the Nigerian Health Care Delivery System and the Debate over Integrating Traditional and Scientific Medicine</a>. <i>Anthropological Quarterly</i>, 72 (3). </span></li>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Radcliffe-Brown, A. & Forde, D. (1965). <i>African Systems of Kinship and Marriage.</i> New York: Oxford University Press.</span></li>
</ul>
<div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
</div>
Jukka Jouhkihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01624480759328080927noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1179777267505979669.post-83138496805477363742016-03-30T12:59:00.000+03:002016-04-28T15:19:28.881+03:00SILENCE AND OBJECTS: JYVÄSKYLÄ AND ADDIS ABABA <br />
<br />
<i>A guest article by <br />Elias Yitbarek Alemayehu</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<br />
I live in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Addis_Ababa" target="_blank">Addis Ababa</a>, the capital city of Ethiopia, with a population of about five million (official estimate 3.5 million). The neighbourhood I live in is called Piazza, is the old centre of the city and one of the busiest. My apartment overlooks a busy traffic junction. The daily scenes from my window include traffic jams, a constant flow of pedestrians, shoeshine boys, car-washing youth, car parking attendants, beggars, street hustlers, street vendors, watchmen, stray dogs and people simply hanging out. During peak hours, the streets are completely full of packs of vehicles stuck in the traffic jam and incessantly honking. It is a teeming and vibrant junction without respite – chaotic, spontaneous, and at times, surreal. <br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2gIofbwTNQpYrPUzrRdSX4pd8eqE7d9mMSZ-vYWWLyT8C_rkbhbGJlcdokTYpRM9giexyKUHVEGt4nRATjMQDIhEIh2nBQ6u0Y_R1SJ2uQcIi7z0FvmQkqgHkI0Ie9rQbUh8Vl9Xw198/s1600/elias.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2gIofbwTNQpYrPUzrRdSX4pd8eqE7d9mMSZ-vYWWLyT8C_rkbhbGJlcdokTYpRM9giexyKUHVEGt4nRATjMQDIhEIh2nBQ6u0Y_R1SJ2uQcIi7z0FvmQkqgHkI0Ie9rQbUh8Vl9Xw198/s400/elias.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.56px; line-height: 14.784px; text-align: right;">Street view in Addis Ababa. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.56px; line-height: 14.784px; text-align: right;">© E. Y. Alemayehu.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: right;">
</div>
<div>
<br />
In 2014–15 I had the opportunity to stay in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jyv%C3%A4skyl%C3%A4" target="_blank">Jyväskylä</a>, Finland, at different intervals for a total of five months. During my first visit, I stayed in an apartment overlooking a street junction close to the city centre. The scene and sounds were in sharp contrast to the traffic junction in Addis Ababa. The most common sources of sounds were lone intermittent beeps from traffic lights and the few cars that stopped and passed through accordingly. From my Jyväskylä apartment window, whenever possible, I keenly observed activities at the junction. I saw a man who came every morning with a plastic bag in his hands to a corner kiosk located at the junction. He went into the kiosk and came out after a while. He stood by the corner, took a canned beer from his pocket and drank it. He smoked a cigarette and then went back into the kiosk. He repeated this routine three or four times each morning. At times, after his third or fourth beer, he urinated by the fence and then went back to the kiosk. This activity was repeated every morning at fixed intervals. </div>
<div>
<br />
In comparison to the chaotic view and buzzing sound of the street junction in Addis, in the case of Jyväskylä not only the activities but also the street sounds were rhythmic – bordering on monotony. It alternated between silence and sound. In fact the silence intervals were longer than the intervals with sound. I observed similar patterns with the activity of the man at the kiosk. His stays outside to drink beer and smoke cigarettes happened quickly compared to the time he spent inside the kiosk. The beeping sound of the traffic light and the noise from the cars took place against a dominant silence. Except for few pedestrians crossing the junction now and then, the man at the kiosk was the only activity in the street against the backdrop of the majority of people staying indoors. This was in stark contrast to Addis Ababa, where the majority of people are active in the streets and one can hardly enjoy any silence in the relentless noise. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
In addition, during my stay in Jyväskylä, a city of 140,000 people, what grabbed my attention was the vast availability of open spaces, lakes and forests. In Jyväskylä, I was told, almost every household can reach a lake or a forest within a walking distance. From an urban planning point of view, the built structures in Jyväskylä are pockets within large forests. This is the opposite of Addis Ababa, where the forests and open spaces are small pockets within the vast built environment.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I couldn’t help but think how my observations from my windows in both cities and the relationship between the built environment and open spaces could be related to the temperament of Jyväskylä’s and Addis Ababa’s people. After all, the built environment is the physical manifestation of who we are as people: <i>“first we shape our buildings and afterwards our buildings shape us”</i> (a quote by Winston Churchill).</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
At the risk of over generalizing, the Finnish people are often characterized as silence-loving people. Coming from an African city, this I could vividly observe. In my encounters with the Finns I could also observe the absence of small talk. Silence, I was told, is considered part of a conversation in Finland. Words are used to transfer messages. There is respect for words; it is okay to be together or in the company of others and keep silent. Silence is considered not as the absence of noise but as another form of conversation. The following instances in Jyväskylä may demonstrate the aforementioned statements.<br />
<div>
<div>
<div>
<div id="ftn1">
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
During my stay in Jyväskylä, after being invited to a gathering of friends, I was heading to my host’s home. On my way, I caught up with a friend who was walking with two of her children to the same place. The usual exchange of greetings was followed by silence. In an effort to break the silence, I said, <i>“while I was checking the address of the house we are heading to, I found out that the roads of the neighbourhood are named after dancing styles: tango, waltz, humppa, and so on”.</i> She said, <i>“yes, some dancing styles”</i>. Again, our very brief chat was followed by another silence. To continue some light conversation I said, <i>“the neighbourhood’s residents must like dancing or could be dancers!”</i> She did not pick up on my joke, instead she responded by saying, <i>“no, I myself used to live in the same neighbourhood and I know that the naming is not because the residents like dancing.”</i> I had to remind myself: <i>“no small talk!”</i> After some walks in silence, we arrived at our host’s house. <br />
<br />
Another instance was when I invited a Finnish friend to my apartment for a cup of coffee. I knew that he was traveling out of town for some time. Thus, following his arrival at my place, to break the ice I asked, <i>“how was your trip?”</i> In Ethiopia this is a casual question usually posed without the expectation of a thoughtful answer. It is asked just for the sake of avoiding silence and possibly to initiate a conversation. The response I got from my Finnish friend, however, was rather a formal account of his trip. Following a thoughtful silence he started to carefully mention the places he visited, the activities he did in each visit and the type of people he met and the number of kilometers he covered. At the end of his rather rigorous account I had to remind myself I should not ask for the sake of asking – no small talk!<br />
<br />
In sharp contrast to the above, in Addis Ababa, silence breeds nervousness. In the Ethiopian culture it is not considered courteous to keep quiet, particularly in the presence of a guest. One is expected to constantly engage in small talk. Something as simple thing as a greeting could go on and on for minutes with back and forth cliché statements. The whole city, particularly the city centers, continuously buzz with different types of sounds from people, vehicles, animals, places of worship, music instruments, etc. One can hardly get a silent corner for respite.<br />
<br />
How does the above observation translate into cities? Here one could make a contrast between silence/open spaces/voids on the one hand and noise/objects/buildings on the other hand. The relationship between silence, open spaces and the voids between buildings is considered not only metaphorically but also functionally. The same is true with the relationship between objects and the noise emanating from the various street activities. The word “object” is, primarily, used here to denote buildings which do not take into account a given urban context – stand alone buildings that neither define streets or opens spaces nor respond to the climate and the way of life of residents. <br />
<br />
The silence of the Finns seems to be made manifest in their love for open spaces, lakes and forests; and their measured talk could be expressed through the small pockets of buildings constructed within the vast forests. The constant chatter and noise in Addis Ababa, by contrast, is manifested in the love of placing buildings and objects in every available open spaces. The city has few parks and public spaces, far below the required standards. There has been a constant effort to fill every inch of the city with man-made things. Open spaces have been considered wasted land. A typical well-functioning city, however, is composed of both buildings and the spaces between the buildings (voids); a good balance between them is essential. It is like the balance needed between inhaling and exhaling, repose and wakefulness, action and reflection. People require silent moments to reflect and look into one self. This realization calls for looking at cities not as a mere collection of objects and blocks of buildings but also as places that satisfy psychological needs. <br />
<br />
The city design of Addis Ababa has been focusing on the design of objects rather than the voids between them. But a mere collection of objects does not make a livable city. Following long years of deep slumber, unprecedented urban transformation is occurring in the city. The construction of roads, high rise buildings and condominium housing blocks are transforming the city for good – giving it a new skyline. Often redevelopment schemes are done without a proper urban design. It is only recently that the issue of urban design, one that could mediate the relationship between open spaces/silence and buildings/objects, has come into the picture. <br />
<br />
In 2012, a proper urban design was made by the Ethiopian Institute of Architecture, Building Construction and City planning (EiABC) for an area located in the inner city, commonly known as Basha Wolde Chilot (the author was one of the coordinators of this project). The point of departure for the project was the fact that it started by designing first the open spaces/voids, and making the building blocks a secondary design element. (See Hebel & Yitbarek 2011.) Perimeter blocks of buildings were used to define both the open spaces and the streets. Thus, networks of open spaces were created which balanced out the buildings. Contrary to this approach, as mentioned earlier, most of redevelopment projects in the city have focused on the design of buildings/objects only. The spaces between the buildings are usually left-over spaces often appropriated by adjacent owners or utilized for garbage dumping or other unintended purposes. <br />
<br />
In the case of Addis Ababa, it should be noted that, the provision of open spaces goes beyond the need for silence. Owing to the mild climate, many activities are carried out in the open; one only has to walk through the city and the informal settlements to observe this. The open spaces are used both for day-to-day household chores and larger communal activities. Owing to their varying sizes and locations, they accommodate activities ranging from the smallest outdoor chores such as manual coffee grinding and making laundry to accommodating wedding ceremonies. Thus, in Addis Ababa, contrary to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Corbusier" target="_blank">Le-Corbusie</a>’s famous dictum that <i>“the house is a machine for living”</i>, rather the open space is a machine for living. This is true particularly for the majority of low-income people of Addis Ababa, for whom common spaces are not a luxury but crucial components of survival. <br />
<br />
Thus, if Addis Ababa is to be more livable city, it needs to learn from Jyväskylä’s silence and open spaces. It is high time that it considers the provision of public spaces and parks. Unless the noise surrounding objects and buildings is balanced with the provision of silence and open spaces, the city will end up being a jungle of concrete. At present, it seems the city administration has become increasingly aware of this. It has planned to develop more than 100 parks, in the coming five years. <br />
<br />
For its part, Jyväskylä may need some of the Addis Ababa’s vibrant street life and spontaneity to balance its vast silence and predictable rhythm. One of the reasons for marital divorces in Finland, I was told, is lack of sufficient communication between husband and wife. Communication is minimized and assumptions are made instead, to the extent of reaching a breaking point. The pretext for the minimal communication, I was told, is avoiding redundancy of information or the telling of something which is obvious. A good friend of mine tried to explain this by relating the following story: </div>
<div>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
An old man wanted to visit a place whose location he didn’t know. He went to his friend’s family, who knew the place, and asked for somebody to accompany him. The lady of the house was gracious enough to give permission to her young son to accompany the elderly man. The old man and the young boy started to head toward the place. They walked in silence without uttering a word. After a long distance, the young boy, observing the dark sky with heavy clouds, commented, <i>“I think it is going to rain”</i>. There was no reply from the old man. After a while they reached their destination. The old man visited the place he wanted to see and they started walking back home. Again, all the way back there was no conversation. The only talk on the whole trip had been the earlier comment of the boy about the rain. Finally, after arriving at the boy’s home, the old man said to the boy’s mother, <i>“you have a good boy but he talks too much.”</i></blockquote>
</div>
<div>
Then, said my Finnish friend,<i> “you see, it is not that we do not talk but it is because we avoid the obvious and the redundant as much as possible. Why should the boy say ‘it will rain’ when it is obviously so!"</i> However, in my opinion, ideal cities could be created if Addis Ababa could share Jyväskylä some of its "noise" and man-made objects and Jyväskylä could lend Addis Ababa some of its silence and open spaces. Addis Ababa needs more "repose" and "reflection" and Jyväskylä more "wakefulness" and "action".</div>
<div>
<br />
For those who insist in favor of silence at the cost of objects: I think, communication and the need for bonding with fellow dwellers are inherent characteristics of human beings. The molecules of minerals, plants, animals and human beings bond with each other in order to exist for what they are. It is nature’s law that bonds and interaction produce life while separation and disintegration lead to death. Similarly, on a larger scale, residents need to bond with their fellow neighbors in order to enjoy a fulfilling life. Communication and social interaction is not a luxury but a necessity. It is not an externality to the collective identity of human beings but an essential characteristic. <br />
<br />
And for those who insist in favor of objects at the cost of silence, I share the quotation below on Malevich’s painting of 2015 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Square_(painting)" target="_blank">“the black square”</a> - devoid of any representational objects:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The traditionalists tried to laugh the picture off. They said Malevich had gone mad, he must’ve painted the black square in the dark! His response was straightforward: <i>"I am glad I am not like you. I can go further and further into the wilderness because it’s only there that transformation will take place. My black square is a bare and frameless icon for our times. Arise, comrades, and free yourselves from the tyranny of objects!"</i> (Andrew Graham-Dixon quoting Kazimir Malevich in the BBC documentary, <a href="http://nattonight.tumblr.com/post/32992550974/nausae-black-square-by-kazimir-malevich-1915">the Art of Russia, episode 2</a>.)</blockquote>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<i><b>Dr. Alemayehu</b> is Assistant Professor, Housing Chair, at the <a href="http://eiabc.edu.et/">Ethiopian Institute of Architecture, Building Construction and City Development</a> (EiABC),and the former president of the <a href="http://www.ethiopianarchitects.org/">Association of Ethiopian Architects</a> (AEA).</i></div>
<div>
<i><br /></i>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Source cited: </b>Dirk Hebel & Elias Yitbarek (2011). “Addis Ababa, Extracting Character from Voids”. In, Anza (East African Architectural Magazine), Bracom Associates, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Acknowledgements: </b>Serkalem Girma, Dr. Sileshi Yitbarek, <br />Kumneger Alemu, Sylvie Fanta and Prof. Laura stark. </span></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
Jukka Jouhkihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01624480759328080927noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1179777267505979669.post-73179869033798660592016-02-24T11:46:00.000+02:002016-02-24T19:20:35.129+02:00SEARCHING FOR A GOOD POLITICIAN IN INDIA<br />
<i>By Jukka Jouhki</i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <br />
<div>
On an earlier visit to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chennai" target="_blank">Chennai</a>, I interviewed slum dwellers about how they relate to voting, elections and politics in general (read more about it <a href="http://povdev.blog.jyu.fi/2015/03/in-india-biggest-voters-are-poor.html" target="_blank">here</a>). Since I was intrigued by the fact that <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs12116-012-9115-6#/page-1" target="_blank">the poor in India are the most enthusiastic voters</a>, one question I asked them was <i>“What is a good politician like?”</i> </div>
<br />
I was a bit surprised when at first, the most common response was something along the lines of <i>“there is no such thing as a good politician”</i>, or <i>“all politicians are fools.”</i> However, when I asked them to elaborate, many softened a bit and described how a good politician would <i>“not be very corrupt”</i>, and how he would <i>“keep only 75 % of the [public] funds to himself, and give the rest to his people”</i>. <br />
<br />
I wasn’t sure how much irony there was in these statements. But when I asked further, most people eventually said that a good politician should have an <i>“understanding of the needs of his people”</i>. He would ensure there was enough clean water, proper drainage, decent roads, and affordable meals for the poor. In more audacious scenarios wished for by slum dwellers, good politicians would provide quality education for their children and steady jobs for themselves.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi81hsow8vjGSe8YlPeXqh3giswOoz3Hrp92FOLRTy7IUbh1Fmm0sa817nJzFSFLhq3zNedaifQnmX_4EWAu6z_QpGZ3wlw_7SZihArjnF4tnFl2VLblnt6jtSG1YnrQvtNZoiYIBoPL_o/s1600/poster.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi81hsow8vjGSe8YlPeXqh3giswOoz3Hrp92FOLRTy7IUbh1Fmm0sa817nJzFSFLhq3zNedaifQnmX_4EWAu6z_QpGZ3wlw_7SZihArjnF4tnFl2VLblnt6jtSG1YnrQvtNZoiYIBoPL_o/s400/poster.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A political party's poster in a Tamil Nadu town (<a href="https://www.google.fi/imgres?imgurl=https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ce/Street_Scene_with_Movie_Posters_-_Thanjavur_-_India.JPG&imgrefurl=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desiya_Murpokku_Dravida_Kazhagam&h=2304&w=3072&tbnid=hoIK4aWq5lHOmM:&docid=6TWTVU8r-nfOPM&ei=A3fNVszJPKb4yQOy8JToDg&tbm=isch&ved=0ahUKEwiM16KqipDLAhUmfHIKHTI4Be0QMwhBKB4wHg" target="_blank">source</a>).</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
I was also surprised that honesty did not seem to be an essential quality of a good politician. During elections, a politician in Chennai – like in most democracies of the world – might make unrealistic if not fairy-tale like promises to voters in the slums. I was told that a candidate might claim to arrange a government job for a potential voter’s family or a university seat for each youngster of the family if he were to be elected. On a grander scale, he might promise to rid the state of its chronic drought by <a href="http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/tamil-nadu/six-river-interlinking-projects-will-be-implemented-minister/article3336784.ece" target="_blank">connecting the major rivers of Tamil Nadu</a>. Both politicians and voters knew that these promises would never come true, but were instead part of an elaborate election-time ritual. <br />
<br />
This kind of exaggeration was not held against the politician. A good politician could even lie if he only remained accessible to people after being elected. More important than honesty was the possibility that a citizen-voter could seek help from the politician in times of trouble – which usually meant that the citizen-voter had encountered a bureaucratic snag and needed the politician to smooth the way for him or her.<br />
<br />
The third surprise was that a good politician did not need to have lofty moral motives. When I asked my interviewees what kinds of people they thought wanted to become politicians in the first place, they answered: <i>“the selfish people”</i>,<i> “the rowdies”</i>, <i>“the business-minded”</i> or <i>“the ones who already have money and want more of it”</i>. Politics, to many, seemed like just another way of doing business, a lucrative career choice with benefits. Politics was not about helping people or working towards common ideological goals on behalf of the public good. As an interviewee told me, <i>“if you want to do good things for people, you don’t become a politician. You join an NGO.”</i> Thus accusing a politician of putting money first was like blaming a gardener for wanting his trees to bear fruit.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAKncLQI5DC1BG5Bkv3qG7A8SwXpdgTJLMp0Bba3Ny1YHKlUgkNKL1DaLuuAeIP7Y2pZiA57YelmQCPg1i_RvacoH0rgGlok0icb8V2zluf6zEltc1FnFb0yHUkiqy9YSCZ7ID60jM68c/s1600/Supporters_of_Vijay_Ganth_-_Kumbakonam_-_India.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAKncLQI5DC1BG5Bkv3qG7A8SwXpdgTJLMp0Bba3Ny1YHKlUgkNKL1DaLuuAeIP7Y2pZiA57YelmQCPg1i_RvacoH0rgGlok0icb8V2zluf6zEltc1FnFb0yHUkiqy9YSCZ7ID60jM68c/s400/Supporters_of_Vijay_Ganth_-_Kumbakonam_-_India.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Supporters of DMDK, the 3rd biggest party in Tamil Nadu (<a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f8/Supporters_of_Vijay_Ganth_-_Kumbakonam_-_India.JPG" target="_blank">source</a>).</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Many of my interviewees said they hated politics but that they would still like to become politicians themselves. As a young man said, <i>“it would be the only way to bring benefits to my family.” </i>Indeed, joining a political party was for many uneducated people one of the few ways to advance economically. If they could become affiliated with a party organization, even peripherally, then they might not have to spend as much money bribing officials because they were <i>“people of the party”</i>. They might also receive an informal job in the party organization. Also, party affiliates were usually rewarded in cash and in kind for their loyalty during elections.<br />
<br />
No one in Chennai could tell me the ideological differences between the two major political parties <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dravida_Munnetra_Kazhagam" target="_blank">DMK</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_India_Anna_Dravida_Munnetra_Kazhagam" target="_blank">AIADMK</a>. Their names even mean almost the same thing, both referring to the progress of the people. They seemed more like competing patronage networks (see e.g. <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/ca/academic/subjects/sociology/political-sociology/patronage-politics-south-asia" target="_blank">Piliavsky ed. 2014</a>) than political parties. However, when it came to the party leaders, my interviewees’ tone often changed to admiration and awe. For example, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jayalalithaa" target="_blank">Jayalalithaa</a>, the state prime minister, was different than a minor politician. She was indeed a “good” politician.<br />
<br />
<div>
Jayalalithaa – or “Amma”<i> </i>(the Mother) – is a former film star who used her popularity to serve her political career. She is revered as an almost omnipotent guardian of the people. Her pictures are everywhere – from government-subsidized cement sacks and bags of salt to party-distributed freebies such as table fans and school kids’ backpacks, reminding people of her benevolence. People even name their children after her, and she blesses all poor people with her five-rupee lunch scheme. <br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinpbLyjCDYEq7PougoHwWHnk94icX6OWsFQe-WDPQJ5i8j1kuUUohDb_IMEa75i-3KUmhncdtNMe23WQiU-de8MG3mfNLytlCpgplRBvA1Wliq1JxNJy1_YDktCs_OOO5xePwVdlPrQsw/s1600/Flex_board_of_J_Jayalalitha_in_Chennai_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="282" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinpbLyjCDYEq7PougoHwWHnk94icX6OWsFQe-WDPQJ5i8j1kuUUohDb_IMEa75i-3KUmhncdtNMe23WQiU-de8MG3mfNLytlCpgplRBvA1Wliq1JxNJy1_YDktCs_OOO5xePwVdlPrQsw/s400/Flex_board_of_J_Jayalalitha_in_Chennai_1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jayalalithaa's picture on the street (<a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a5/Flex_board_of_J_Jayalalitha_in_Chennai_1.JPG" target="_blank">source</a>).</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
To be sure, “Amma” does not deny herself the material benefits of her position. According to <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/05/magazine/what-happens-when-a-state-is-run-by-movie-stars.html?_r=0" target="_blank">the New York Times Magazine</a>, when Jayalalithaa was accused of having "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disproportionate_Asset_case_against_Jayalalithaa" target="_blank">disproportionate assets</a>" (= misusing public funds) in 2015, she couldn’t explain the extra 660 million rupees (approx. 9 million euros) she possessed, and when her house was searched by the police, they recorded <i>“10,500 saris, 750 pairs of shoes and 66 pounds of gold”</i>.<br />
<br />
But like benevolent kings and queens whose wealth equals their morality in Indian tales, it is understood that big political leaders must be rich to provide for their people. They must also be strong in their leadership. Party leaders were actually the only good politicians my interviewees mentioned. They hoped that one day the lesser politicians would be as good as their leaders.<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">
</span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">
</span>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Below: Prime minister M. G. Ramachandran and </b></span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>present prime minister Jayalalithaa before their political careers.</b></div>
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ic3PPT3QfoQ" width="420"></iframe></div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">
</span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">
</span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">
</span>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">
</span>Jukka Jouhkihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01624480759328080927noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1179777267505979669.post-87567280226097541442016-01-26T12:48:00.000+02:002016-02-18T18:43:57.159+02:00WRAPPING UP MOBILE PHONE RESEARCH IN RURAL INDIA<br />
<i>By Sirpa Tenhunen </i><br />
<br />
<br />
My more than decade-long research on the appropriation of mobile telephony in rural India is finally coming to a completion as I am scheduled to finish my book manuscript for the <a href="http://global.oup.com/?cc=fi" target="_blank">Oxford University Press</a> this year. The book will examine how mobile telephony contributes to social change in Janta, a village in the Bankura district in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Bengal" target="_blank">West Bengal</a> on the basis of long-term ethnographic fieldwork before and after the introduction of mobile phones. At this stage of the research, I am in a good position to take stock of the changes induced by mobile telephony in this region: did mobile phones contribute to development in rural West Bengal and how? <br />
<br />
By 2013, all households in the village I studied had phones, and most households possessed a smartphone. As phones became ubiquitous, differences in usage emerged. Low-income families share an understanding that phones need to be used sparingly, thus reflecting their financial means, whereas the upper classes can spend generously on phone calls. As especially the elder generations in this village only studied <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengali_language" target="_blank">Bengali language</a> at school, they are unable to read the English alphabet of their Chinese made cheap phones, and they find using their smart phones for leisure activities, such as listening to music, taking and storing photos, and watching movies, more interesting than browsing the internet.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHxlxb6JgXsobmWzeGVdy-AJO3h5TMxiGhF5BxzbCm7bSwjKL2KetE2Dq5U0S0mZTpYKTNfdNAXVKM8O1Fron_AENVMS4c0dSYbeAa5iqokrkvOIU9-_as6rv7w39FQQKudlV-BghzzdM/s1600/Janta%252C+West+Bengal.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHxlxb6JgXsobmWzeGVdy-AJO3h5TMxiGhF5BxzbCm7bSwjKL2KetE2Dq5U0S0mZTpYKTNfdNAXVKM8O1Fron_AENVMS4c0dSYbeAa5iqokrkvOIU9-_as6rv7w39FQQKudlV-BghzzdM/s400/Janta%252C+West+Bengal.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption">Village of Janta in West Bengal. © Sirpa Tenhunen.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
However, most phone owners do use the internet indirectly on their phones. They buy music, videos, and pictures, which are downloaded on their phone’s memory chip in shops selling chips, and content downloaded from the internet. The few people in the village who have used their personal phones to browse the internet all have a college education, and therefore belong to a minority. The few who have tried the internet have found many uses for it: chatting on Facebook, downloading music and movies, learning about prices, products, jobs, and exam results, as well as sending e-mail and accessing study sources such as literature and dictionaries. <br />
<br />
People mostly used their phones for calling their relatives and friends, and these calls contributed to changes in gender and kinship relations (Tenhunen 2014 and 2015). Mobile phones also helped to transform political practices by mediating political action and alternatives (Tenhunen 2011). When I asked mobile phone owners how they benefit from their phones, the prevalent answer was that a mobile phone enables one to do more in less time: One can now manage various errands within a fraction of the time and costs they previously required. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
My initial research on the mobile phone use of the early adapters in Janta supported earlier research findings on the economic benefits of phones for small scale businesses. It did not take the local entrepreneurs in Janta long to realize that mobile phones could help them extend their clientele. Phones helped people in diverse fields increase their income and their businesses’ efficiency (Tenhunen 2008). However, the picture of mobile phones’ economic benefits became more complicated after I had a chance to observe phone use in diverse economic fields over time. <br />
<br />
While some entrepreneurs were able to extend their markets beyond the village with the help of phones, most small scale entrepreneurs still concentrate on selling their services to villagers. While the villagers do call stores to inquire about a product’s availability, phones have not increased shopkeepers’ business margins considerably. Instead, shopkeepers maintain that they use phones for the convenience and not to increase their income. Depending on their ability to obtain credit from wholesale sellers, store owners can order stock for their village store from the nearby town. Consequently, they now spend less time commuting. However, the convenience offered by phones for doing business has helped more people set up shops, which has led to increased competition.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4b-lQ-_R-r2VJT5fHCVwcn4uJbEFZ3wzdQvjCmdk7ase4am8snw6vIiUX9HEPaNGYLcbV8dgROSO0t4g991TRzrXuRct7e97Hsie0lZvhKHBo6fTHjQodu740OrVOE0PBm9qLkFYFwG8/s1600/A+scene+on+a+road+of+Janta..jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4b-lQ-_R-r2VJT5fHCVwcn4uJbEFZ3wzdQvjCmdk7ase4am8snw6vIiUX9HEPaNGYLcbV8dgROSO0t4g991TRzrXuRct7e97Hsie0lZvhKHBo6fTHjQodu740OrVOE0PBm9qLkFYFwG8/s400/A+scene+on+a+road+of+Janta..jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A road in the village. <span style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: left;">© </span></span><span style="text-align: left;">Juha Laitalainen</span><span style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: left;">.</span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The biggest economic change in the village since the turn of the century was not due to the use of mobile phones, but to agricultural policies which led to small farmers’ decreasing profits. The price of fertilizers and gasoline has increased, while income from the sale of agricultural products has dwindled. Since farming small plots of land has become increasingly unprofitable, young men from small farms use their phones to find paid employment outside the village. Fellow villagers, who have already emigrated to work outside the village, provide information on job opportunities over the phone.<br />
<br />
Villagers perceive the ability to call for help as one of mobile phones’ most crucial benefits. I met people who had been motivated to purchase their first phone by a family member’s illness. Phones allow seriously ill patients in the village to be transported to a doctor, or a hospital, as it is possible to hire a car by phone. However, phones have not made it possible to summon trained medical help to the village in times of emergencies. Public health centers do not have sufficient staff to attend patients outside the center, and trained medical doctors in towns do not leave their clinics to attend patients in villages. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The self-taught doctor who lives in the adjacent village is the only person family members can call if a villager is too sick to travel. People do not trust either the public or private health-care systems in the region, nor those in West Bengal state. Faced with serious illnesses, the villagers prefer to spend large sums of money to travel outside West Bengal to obtain proper treatment at the few hospitals with a good reputation for fair pricing and reliable care. Phones help raise money for medical treatment from relatives and help patients stay in touch with the health-care personal outside the village, or with previous patients who have travelled to other states to obtain medical treatment. <br />
<br />
Phones thus cannot compensate for the shortcomings of the public health care systems nor do they make it possible to overcome the challenges farmers face due to changes in agricultural policies. The ways in which villagers cope with the over-priced private healthcare system through their phones shows the potential benefits of phones for healthcare. But identifying mobile telephony as belonging to the realm of the market hampers the use of mobile telephony for developmental purposes. Service provider companies have not been able to provide affordable healthcare solutions or useful information for low-income people as part of their business practices in sustainable ways. <br />
<br />
The rapid spread of mobile telephony in developing countries has raised hopes about the developmental potential of economic liberalization in the form of mobile telephony. My ethnographic research on the appropriation of mobile telephony in rural India shows that despite their many benefits for users, mobile phones alone do not solve developmental problems: there is a need for multiple solutions due to the complexity of social processes. <br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Sources</b></span><br />
<ul><span style="font-size: x-small;">
<li>Tenhunen, Sirpa. 2015. Mobile technology, mediation and gender in rural India. In Säävälä Minna and Tenhunen Sirpa (eds.) <a href="http://www.taylorandfrancis.com/books/details/9781138855588/" target="_blank">Innovation as Social Change in South Asia: Transforming Hierarchies</a>. London: Routledge. </li>
<li>Tenhunen, Sirpa. 2014. <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09584935.2014.899981?journalCode=ccsa20" target="_blank">Mobile technology, mediation and gender in rural India.</a> Contemporary South Asia. 22:2. </li>
<li>Tenhunen, Sirpa. 2011. <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00141844.2011.580356" target="_blank">Culture, Conflict and Translocal Communication: Mobile Technology and Politics in Rural West Bengal, India</a>. Ethnos. 76:3. </li>
<li>Tenhunen, Sirpa. 2008. <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9655.2008.00515.x/abstract" target="_blank">Mobile Technology in the Village: ICTs, Culture, and Social Logistics in India</a>. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. 14:3.</li>
</span></ul>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">
</span>
<br />
<div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">
</span>
<div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">
</span></div>
Jukka Jouhkihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01624480759328080927noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1179777267505979669.post-44816610995471673592015-12-31T13:15:00.001+02:002015-12-31T13:15:32.636+02:00STRANGERS AND FRIENDS: ROTATING CREDIT CIRCLES IN CAMEROON<br />
<i>By Sanna Tawah</i><br />
<br /><br />One evening in April 2013 in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamenda" target="_blank">Bamenda</a>, Northwest Region <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cameroon" target="_blank">Cameroon</a>, I and my research assistant entered a compound and walked to the back of a house. It was already dark, but we saw a dim light gleaming from an open door of a detached room accessible only from behind the house. The sole purpose of the room seemed to be for different kinds of meetings and gatherings. There were chairs distributed around the room, an old sofa and one small table. An elderly man, the chairman of the meeting, was sitting behind the table with a large accounting book in front of him. I and my research assistant were asked to be seated. <br /><br />There were some 20 people present in the meeting, both men and women who were seated on separate sides of the room. They explained to me that their group was called “Strangers”. The meeting started and the first topic to be discussed was my presence at the meeting, since after all I was a stranger among the Strangers. One woman suggested I should contribute and give money to the <i>njangi</i> members, because as a researcher I would “benefit” from the information they were going to give me. <br /><br />The chairman of the meeting asked me to introduce myself and my purpose of attending the meeting. I introduced myself and explained that I had come to learn about <i>njangis</i>, that is, rotating credit circles, and that I was thankful that they had let me participate in their meeting. The discussion continued for some time about my participation. Finally it was agreed that I could stay, and that I was welcome among the Strangers. Women began pouring white <i>mimbo</i> (white <a href="https://colinkorst.wordpress.com/2015/02/04/the-magical-white-wine-you-tap-from-a-tree/" target="_blank">palm wine</a> tapped from raffia palm trees) into cups and shared kola nuts among the <i>njangi</i> members. <br /><br />Members were called by name and they took their monetary contributions to the meeting chairman, who wrote individual contributions into the <i>njangi</i> accounts book. An active discussion and sharing of news was ongoing throughout the meeting. The members came from different backgrounds and occupations, but many of them were market traders in the markets in and around Bamenda city. After everyone had contributed, the chairman calculated the money. The lump sum was then given to one of the members, whose turn it was to receive the whole money pot this week. <br /><br /><i>Njangi</i> is the Cameroonian version of a Rotating Savings and Credit Association (ROSCA). They are <i>njangi</i> in the Anglophone region; in the Francophone areas of Cameroon they are called <i>tontine</i>. There are similar rotating credit circles or “money-go-rounds” all over the world: the <i>tanda</i> in Mexico, <i>susu</i> in Ghana, <i>upatu</i> in Tanzania and <i>arisan</i> in Indonesia to name a few. <br /><br />In Cameroon, the <i>njangi</i> is very important for small-scale market traders since it is mainly through the <i>njangi</i> that market traders, the <i>buyam-sellam</i> in Cameroon pidgin, fund their small trading businesses. The buyam-sellams are small-scale producers and literally ‘buyers-sellers’ travelling between small village bushmarkets and the larger town markets to buy and sell agricultural produce, consumer goods and other seasonal products. The nature of their trade is such that they are continuously on the move between rural farms, village bushmarkets and urban marketplaces. <div>
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOu6qmJnjluZzJcuV6BahVhpHWTzwEHNf_JOS9kCeFp9WKMy5PBf0KLOLIvaGCtRItENlFGMy52Fz1VsCeMhlXZoel7yUfRUqg1o-lEyByRZVTTN1ZgAO6G9YCMhC4IQTNDXGZufGJt-A/s1600/DSC02696.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOu6qmJnjluZzJcuV6BahVhpHWTzwEHNf_JOS9kCeFp9WKMy5PBf0KLOLIvaGCtRItENlFGMy52Fz1VsCeMhlXZoel7yUfRUqg1o-lEyByRZVTTN1ZgAO6G9YCMhC4IQTNDXGZufGJt-A/s400/DSC02696.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption">
Bamenda Food Market. © Sanna Tawah.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
<br />Due to their mobile trading style, the buyam-sellam trade is vulnerable to external market shocks and price fluctuations. <i>Njangis</i> meet traders’ financial needs when they need to make bigger investments in the trading business. It is an informal credit arrangement in which individuals, generally from the same neighborhood or trading area, agree to regularly contribute money to a common pot. The meetings can be weekly or monthly, and the group can be of different sizes and compositions. <i>Njangi</i> is played in market places, in meeting rooms, in private homes, in restaurants, in schools, basically anywhere that people decide to start one. <br /> <br />There are also other type of informal saving groups in Cameroon, since the buyam-sellam traders and small-scale farmers rarely have bank accounts. Some of them have accounts in local credit unions or with specific farmer’s credit unions, which have smaller service fees and are more adapted to the financial needs of the local farmers and small-scale traders. But having an account in a credit union does not solve the need for extra capital for making trade-related investments and supporting trading activities. Credit unions give out loans, but they come at an interest rate. In some cases, informal savings groups also give out loans, with a smaller interest rate than credit unions. <br /> <br />The rotating <i>njangi</i> cycle starts by drawing lots to determine who will receive the pot in which order for the duration of the <i>njangi</i>. For example, if there are 20 members, the <i>njangi</i> cycle is generally 20 weeks. The cycle of the <i>njangi</i> is such that in a weekly meeting, all the members contribute a certain amount, whether it is CFA 1000 (1,5 €), CFA 2000 (3 €), CFA 4000 (6 €) or more, and a treasurer collects the combined contributions. It is the surplus money from trade that is being put in the common pot, and the weekly pot represents a large amount of money equal to 20 individual week’s savings. Each week, one member receives the pot and can use it to invest in market trade, school fees, medical costs or any other needs the household may have. <br /><br /><a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jid.1686/abstract" target="_blank">Etang, Fielding and Knowles (2011: 464)</a> made a study in 2007 on ROSCAs in the southwest province of Cameroon in a village with approx. 1000 inhabitants. They noted that there were 17 active ROSCAs in the village, with a total of 426 members. The size of the ROSCAs varied between 11 to 45 members, and the average age of the ROSCA was 8 years. <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0305750X9400141K" target="_blank">Bouman (1995)</a> estimated earlier in the 1990s that more than 50% of the adult population in some African countries, including Cameroon, belongs to a ROSCA. <br /> <br />The <i>njangis</i> and savings groups I visited in Bamenda had been functional for much longer, for example in 2013, one had already operated for 15 years and another one for 26 years. I also conducted a survey with 78 market traders (43 female, 35 male) in Cameroon in 2013 and 81% of them belonged to a <i>njangi</i>. Many of them also belonged to more than one <i>njangi</i>: 46% belonged to one <i>njangi</i>, 40% to two <i>njangis</i> and 14% to three <i>njangis</i>, and 1% to more than three <i>njangis</i>. <br /><br />The figures show that <i>njangis</i> are a significant part supporting people’s livelihoods. My survey data from 2013 indicates that 71% of those traders who were <i>njangi</i> members attended <i>njangi</i> meetings weekly. However, it would need a larger survey to conclude whether <i>njangi</i> membership is nowadays more popular than in earlier decades, and what might be the reasons for their growing popularity. The <i>njangis</i> have an important social aspect also; the latest news are shared and plans are made. <br /><br />Although <i>njangis</i> are informal gatherings, they have commonly agreed-upon rules that are socially controlled, and social sanctions are used against those who do not follow the <i>njangi</i> rules. Even if members are not able to participate in the meeting in person, they can send their contribution with another member or ask a relative or friend to take their contribution to the meeting. <br /><br />I was told in the <i>njangi</i> meeting that the group ‘Strangers’ has been active since 1987. Some of its original members have passed away, some have moved away, and some have left the <i>njangi</i> due to other reasons, but in 2013 the <i>njangi</i> had been functional for 26 years and in 2013 it had a total of 30 members, of which 20 were present in the meeting. The Strangers was a combined <i>njangi</i> and savings group. Membership is decided based on whether the applicant is considered trustworthy and capable of keeping up with the weekly payments. <br /><br />Towards the end of the meeting I asked: why is the <i>njangi</i> group called ‘Strangers’? I was wondering if the name had a specific meaning. One elderly man stood up and explained that “We are called Strangers, because we are all strangers in this world”. <br /><br /> <br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>References</b> </span><ul>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Bouman, F.J.A. 1995. '<a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0305750X9400141K" target="_blank">Rotating and Accumulating Savings and Credit Associations: A Development Perspective</a>', World Development, 23 (3): 371-84. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Etang, Alvin, David Fielding and Stephen Knowles. 2011. ‘<a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jid.1686/abstract" target="_blank">Trust and Rosca Membership in Rural Cameroon</a>’, Journal of International Development, 23: 461-475.</span></li>
</ul>
<div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<!--EndFragment--></div>
</div>
Jukka Jouhkihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01624480759328080927noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1179777267505979669.post-72192864463388520052015-11-30T18:00:00.001+02:002015-11-30T18:03:44.823+02:00WHY CARE ABOUT SEXUALITY IN URBAN SLUMS?<div>
<br /></div>
<i>By Maarit Sinikangas</i><br />
<div>
<br />
<br />
My ethnographic research was conducted in one of the poorest slum area in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dar_es_Salaam" target="_blank">Dar es Salaam</a>, the most populous city in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanzania" target="_blank">Tanzania</a>, where I collected data in 2012 and 2014. There, rapid growth of the population and urbanization has led to increasing poverty and changes in the culture, religious rules and moral codes, and has supported the growing tendency of girls and women to engage in transactional sex. The term transactional sex refers to an economic exchange in which sex is exchanged for money or commodities. According to Nobelius (2010), transactional sex has been often referred to as prostitution in research literature but a distinction should be made between these two forms of exchange. Yet, there is still no shared view among researchers regarding the difference between sex work and transactional sex (Barnett et al. 2011). Why is transactional sex not the same as prostitution in the context of urban residents in the area I studied? <br />
<br />
Women living in the poor neighbourhood, let’s call it Kaya, have few choices to earn a living due to their low level of education. Many women earn their living within the informal economy, selling food, charcoal, or working as house maids for Indian merchant families. Starting a business requires capital which is often provided by the husband or relatives. Without capital or recommendations for a job, there are not many options for a woman. Men have better access to short term jobs (construction and work in the harbour, for example) and they are usually the providers for their families. During my fieldwork, it occurred to me that among the slum dwellers, there are large numbers of single mothers with no livelihoods. Their husbands or boyfriends have left them after discovering they were pregnant, or he had died or simply abandoned his family for other reasons. If this happens, a woman’s options are few; she needs to find a relative, husband or a boyfriend to support her financially. Another option is to become a prostitute, <i>malaya</i>, since it requires only sexual capital. The first choices are socially accepted, whereas prostitution is not only seen as immoral but is also illegal in Tanzania.</div>
<div>
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqiWYOlre3DM3aKxXCCpFOjSG1RJPrgPF-4d-f3U38LBAwlIVTxumkRZHPZY7Ys-K5salzu8jf8_pD3ALrQI2Blvwx3rH1aV9rENFP1Vp6X7JnELT_q5DFoCGZkHMjS670Dqj0gT-a-k8/s1600/DSC07499.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqiWYOlre3DM3aKxXCCpFOjSG1RJPrgPF-4d-f3U38LBAwlIVTxumkRZHPZY7Ys-K5salzu8jf8_pD3ALrQI2Blvwx3rH1aV9rENFP1Vp6X7JnELT_q5DFoCGZkHMjS670Dqj0gT-a-k8/s400/DSC07499.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption">Kariakoo market where women of Kaya go to buy supplies for sale. <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.56px; line-height: 14.784px;">© Maarit Sinikangas.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
In Kaya, many of my informants knew somebody who was a malaya, but no one admitted to being one. Both male and female informants told me that for the women in Kaya, prostitution is not a choice but something that has to be done to earn living. Informants seemed to feel sympathy for the malaya but in the same sentence, they criticized the choice as immoral. One local homosexual told me that life is easier for him in Kaya than in many other areas since people are more accepting there. I started to wonder whether a heterogeneous mixture of residents who share in common poverty, leads to tolerance of behaviours that fall outside moral and social norms better than other more homogeneous groups? </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
In Kaya, the <i>malaya</i> seem to occupy a certain status for many reasons: they do not have social networks to support them and their way to earn money is illegal. Further, the shadow of HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases is always present and their behaviour is not considered to be in line with religious virtues. When I asked men if they have had sex with a local <i>malaya</i>, they denied it. However, they knew where prostitutes live and work, and how much they charge. I was told that there are several ‘classes’ of prostitutes. It was striking to hear that the poorest women are on the street earning approximately 300 TZS (0.15 €) per client. They have sex in parks, cemeteries or in the clients’ cars. An expensive <i>malaya</i>, on the other hand, works in the night clubs, earning 40 000 TZS (18 €) for a “quickie” and 50-55 000 TZS (22-24 €) for a whole-night client.<br />
<br />
In the context of transactional sex, girls and women are not seen as deviants but as agents operating within social norms. To get a boyfriend to support her financially is accepted, since the man’s role as provider is seen as normal and the money given is seen as a token of caring. Women are expected to have sex with the men in return. Even though the money could be seen as income for the woman, the given meaning for the money is not income, but a gift. Money shows appreciation and interest, maybe there is also a continuation in the relationship. This kind of exchange meets the social expectations of a relationships between men and women and is expected also in marriage. Sometimes a woman crosses the moral boundaries with her behaviour: if a woman dates several men at the same time or has sex once just to get money or goods, the community begins to question her morality. Such women are called CD, which is an abbreviation from the word <i>changudoa</i>, originally meaning a fish, but in slang it refers to a young prostitute.</div>
<div>
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMAj1LjE4jw9dTNhLcyfj-YY7rOes7EqNwSvxI_BDTOV45cSacH49OFqFMcRNP_NH3wWHJzcw9cpI0zWtOI39YdqZG8xPnqee2vl2mAl53274CAfzffVIykyhJMiOFnquL3iSEEMIHUvs/s1600/DSC07526.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMAj1LjE4jw9dTNhLcyfj-YY7rOes7EqNwSvxI_BDTOV45cSacH49OFqFMcRNP_NH3wWHJzcw9cpI0zWtOI39YdqZG8xPnqee2vl2mAl53274CAfzffVIykyhJMiOFnquL3iSEEMIHUvs/s400/DSC07526.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption">Street view in Kijitonyama area, Dar es Salaam. <span style="font-size: 12.8px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.56px; line-height: 14.784px;">© Maarit Sinikangas.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Thus, the difference between prostitution and transactional sex lies in shared social norms and attitudes as well as in the social networks. The <i>malaya’s</i> livelihood is not seen as moral and acceptable, even though the informants understood that the motive for such behaviour was poverty. Prostitutes are considered immoral in society due to their lack of choice concerning livelihood and the illegality of their actions. Transactional sex, however, is seen as normal reciprocity in which the compensation is seen as a token of appreciation, not as a reward or salary. Nobelius (2010) shows in her study on transactional sex in Uganda that the modern exchange in sexual relations has been modelled on traditional institutions such as courting and bride wealth payments, which make the exchange and premarital sex socially acceptable. <br />
<br />
Currently, Dar es Salaam is the destination for most immigrants from rural areas in Tanzania: 31 % of rural migrants are moving to Dar. Most of them want to share in Dar’s economic growth. This makes Dar es Salaam a city which is largely composed of migrants. Historically, the number of male migrants has exceeded the number of female migrants, but since 2012 women between 15 and 29 years have become the biggest internal migration group (National Bureau of Statistics 2015). People are driven to cities in the hope of a better income and future, however, they often end up living in large urban slum areas lacking livelihood, running water, electricity, education and/or health care. Considering the great number of young, poor women moving to the city, it can be only guessed how many of them end up in sexual relationships. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Literature</span></b></div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<ul><span style="font-size: x-small;">
<li>Barnett, Jessica Penwell; Maticka-Tyndale, Eleanor; The Hp4ry Team (2011). The Gift of Agency: Sexual Exchange Scripts among Nigerian Youth. <i>Journal of Sex Research</i> 48 (4): 349-359.</li>
<li>National Bureau of Statistics (2015). <i>Migration and Urbanization Report 2015.</i> Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania.</li>
<li>Nobelius, Ann-Maree; Kalina, Bessie; Pool, Robert; Whitworth, Jimmy; Chesters, Janice & Power, Robert (2010). “You Still Need to Give Her a Token of Appreciation”: The Meaning of the Exchange of Money in the Sexual Relationships of Out-of-School Adolescents in Rural Southwest Uganda. <i>Journal of Sex Research </i>47 (5): 490-503.</li>
</span></ul>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">
</span>
<div>
<br /></div>
Jukka Jouhkihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01624480759328080927noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1179777267505979669.post-38854812902025898532015-10-22T16:22:00.000+03:002015-10-22T16:22:18.336+03:00A TANZANIAN PRESCHOOL FIGHTS THE CHALLENGES INHERENT IN POPULATION GROWTH<br />
<i>by Jyri Mäkelä</i><br />
<br />
<br />
The world faces enormous challenges in the coming decades. World population is currently at 7.2 billion and <a href="http://esa.un.org/wpp/unpp/panel_population.htm" target="_blank">has been projected to reach</a> its peak of 9 billion by the end of this century. However, given the newest available data, it is more likely that world population will rise to 12 billion, and it is unlikely to stabilize during this century. Population rise affects the whole world, but most of the growth will come from Africa. For example Tanzania, located in East Africa, <a href="http://esa.un.org/wpp/unpp/panel_population.htm" target="_blank">now has a population of around 50 million</a> and according to the United Nations it could be as high as 395 million by the year 2100.<br />
<br />
In Dar es Salaam, <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20131015224549/http://www.nbs.go.tz/sensa/PDF/Census%20General%20Report%20-%2029%20March%202013_Combined_Final%20for%20Printing.pdf" target="_blank">Tanzania’s most populous city</a>, population has grown from 1.9 to 4.4 million in just ten years and has recently claimed the title of largest city in East Africa, replacing Nairobi. Such a dramatic increase in population growth puts even more pressure on provision of basic needs such as education, livelihood, and housing. Under the circumstances, <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/rights/tanzania-youth-unemployment-crisis" target="_blank">Dar es Salaam and Tanzania are now facing a youth unemployment crisis</a> because annually 900,000 new job seekers enter the job market and only 50,000 to 60,000 formal jobs are created. With the projected population increase, the situation will worsen as every year more job seekers enter the market.<br />
<br />
Practical ways to improve youth employment are limited, but <a href="http://www.nbs.go.tz/nbs/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=90:integrated-labour-force-survey-2006-analytical-report&catid=106:labour-force-&Itemid=148" target="_blank">data from the Integrated Labour Force Report</a> show that the unemployment rate decreases with education. In Dar es Salaam in 2006, the unemployment rate for persons over 15 years of age who never attended to school was 38.1%, while for those who attended secondary school or above, it was 26.6%. Education is thus one way for young persons to improve their chances in the job market.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7OxP_auwK1-NNzqFFu0TLm2RZ-5AKLMvSRbpP5xvGukD-TtkIfF_SM6ggDjfcpI04yKfkgeoixX7oCYO-yhB0IogAxal-1JvIjARz6PL9KPWqbILsS66ywkKhy2AXirsSIGn5tdq2yBk/s1600/Koulu.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7OxP_auwK1-NNzqFFu0TLm2RZ-5AKLMvSRbpP5xvGukD-TtkIfF_SM6ggDjfcpI04yKfkgeoixX7oCYO-yhB0IogAxal-1JvIjARz6PL9KPWqbILsS66ywkKhy2AXirsSIGn5tdq2yBk/s400/Koulu.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption">A preschool in Tandale. © Jyri Mäkelä.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />Unemployment has a big influence on young people’s lives, and <a href="http://www.housingfinanceafrica.org/blog/a-pictorial-tour-of-informal-housing-in-kinondoni-dar-es-salaam/">one of the most affected areas is the ward of Tandale</a>. There, roughly 70% of the population lives on less than one dollar per day and the area´s schooling system is not adequate to meet the needs of young people. Fortunately there are also positive stories and in 2013 I had the opportunity to film a documentary about one of them. The aim of the documentary was to provide new perspectives on Tanzania’s schooling system at the grassroots level and tell the story of a preschool which differs from most other preschools in the same area. This school was opened just a few months before the documentary was made and it was founded by a local woman I will call Rehema. At the time of the documentary, the school had 26 students and new students started on regularbasis. The school now has over 40 regular students and those who graduated last year from the preschool can already read in Kiswahili, Tanzania’s national language.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE-xoYZEjjRU3ZdNGrA7LoKIKYDQP3XVj_iTjczMlD3aqfOw1deOlhKCmrhlouA5c0UbJ4rMO3hMEXQakZgZuKxFdrX8uug3hObx2-s6oaMo3ZOoA4SeaDwcXYPJYmCsn2ykdMtGoEwdA/s1600/Luokka.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE-xoYZEjjRU3ZdNGrA7LoKIKYDQP3XVj_iTjczMlD3aqfOw1deOlhKCmrhlouA5c0UbJ4rMO3hMEXQakZgZuKxFdrX8uug3hObx2-s6oaMo3ZOoA4SeaDwcXYPJYmCsn2ykdMtGoEwdA/s400/Luokka.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption">Rehema's class. © Jyri Mäkelä.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The children’s preschool day starts with a small crowd at the door. Dozens of kids take off their shoes at the same time. They are all heading for the first lesson. Soon everyone has found their seats and Rehema starts to teach. The weekly calendar includes English, mathematics, physical exercise, hygiene, drawing, song, Swahili and sport and games. Besides traditional subjects, Rehema also wants to teach life skills to the children, for example how to behave and how to take care of themselves in daily tasks. Those are the skills that children do not necessarily learn in impoverished homes from stressed and overworked parents. After morning classes, lunch time begins. First a lunch lady arrives with the food, but before anyone can start to eat, everyone washes their hands. For lunch the children eat porridge, sambusas and snacks. Everyone is enjoying the food, for some of them this might be the only hot cooked meal of the day.</div>
<div>
<br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGg-Hjg6mKzzHibDUIzGJ2BtbAhKmMdhZ0CLEPBv4x_GtGkyUlA-BUKFj4LMH8D2PNDkhccKN5AKsmeIceMAbCFV3zOg2bOvLL8o8gCmusRum3WeiUHUtxoWamv0Yce7EzLq5cuf5VKP8/s1600/Ruoka.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGg-Hjg6mKzzHibDUIzGJ2BtbAhKmMdhZ0CLEPBv4x_GtGkyUlA-BUKFj4LMH8D2PNDkhccKN5AKsmeIceMAbCFV3zOg2bOvLL8o8gCmusRum3WeiUHUtxoWamv0Yce7EzLq5cuf5VKP8/s400/Ruoka.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption">Lunch time. © Jyri Mäkelä.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Rehema´s school gives quality education to children, but good education is not a certainty in all Tanzanian schools and in many cases, schools fail to deliver necessary skills. With the current unemployment crisis in Tanzania, quality of education is now discussed more openly, but as <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0738059306001209" target="_blank">Ruth Wedgwood tells us in her article</a> in the <i>International Journal of Educational Development</i> in 2007, in recent years the quality of education has decreased in Tanzania. Compared to most preschools in the area, Rehema’s school is different. As a service to her community, Rehema takes in for free five children whose parents cannot pay the modest preschool fees. From the beginning, her goal was to give good education and better opportunities to children who are living in this chronically poor area, and so far she appears to have succeeded. The preschool has been open less than two years and it has expanded to include another site nearby and the second group of children has graduated to the first grade of primary school. </div>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhv5uw-qUD5DqV1YZ0tknaW7LRSL8vqIbr4lmPFQUzPj5ixOQyZxwjdzeB8o1NtvaqU4MU4AdNT9-Q0MWLmAKr78mILcs57OrT2jdSXIrFfB_u7uCL1tW5FPiFHiwmAKZLYdDfTCBYoaro/s1600/Taulu.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhv5uw-qUD5DqV1YZ0tknaW7LRSL8vqIbr4lmPFQUzPj5ixOQyZxwjdzeB8o1NtvaqU4MU4AdNT9-Q0MWLmAKr78mILcs57OrT2jdSXIrFfB_u7uCL1tW5FPiFHiwmAKZLYdDfTCBYoaro/s400/Taulu.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption">Learning the alphabet. © Jyri Mäkelä.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Upon entering primary school, these children already knew how to read and write, giving them a huge advantage over other children in their area and even in Dar es Salaam at large. With luck, this early advantage may translate into later opportunities in the job market. At least I am certain that because of Rehema’s preschool, these children and their parents are welcoming the future with greater hope than before.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Jukka Jouhkihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01624480759328080927noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1179777267505979669.post-22749758409891344652015-09-10T09:25:00.000+03:002015-09-10T09:25:55.421+03:00“JUST MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS” – YOUTHSCAPES IN ADDIS ABABA<i>By Susanna Myllylä</i> <br />
<i><br /></i>
<br />
Urban youth are much affected by redevelopment processes in cities, however, their experiences and vulnerabilities are relatively little acknowledged and diversified in urban planning and policies. The Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa is currently undergoing a massive renewal project as it intends to become the “metropolis of Africa”. Many old urban structures, such as government-owned, slum-like <i>kebele </i>settlements must give a way to modern housing and commercial areas, and to large-scale infrastructures such as roads and a light rail transit system. What is then the youth agency in this context?<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTDa5xmDOmS8CWcPIxwMaEnX88faOwOGVoGTpEhIUxJsgjb38jiNyHqZDXz6gISNeAdAH1tybe3tjlbgG-HoTiE-nNteVAEhE7cA-WmDs0GajZgZE_do41kkjCqzJtrOLGVTUP9Lma_xU/s1600/Kuva+1%252C+Addis7+005+pieni.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="242" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTDa5xmDOmS8CWcPIxwMaEnX88faOwOGVoGTpEhIUxJsgjb38jiNyHqZDXz6gISNeAdAH1tybe3tjlbgG-HoTiE-nNteVAEhE7cA-WmDs0GajZgZE_do41kkjCqzJtrOLGVTUP9Lma_xU/s400/Kuva+1%252C+Addis7+005+pieni.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption">Addis Ababa under transformation. © Susanna Myllylä.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
By examining the personal histories and future dreams of the youth, it is possible to study the modernization project of Addis at the grassroots level, rather than taking the more typical top-down approach. In my research (2014<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: FI; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">–</span>2015), I have searched for those young city-dwellers who live in the backyards of <i>kebele </i>settlements and face the worst living conditions. Although I would prefer to consider the youth as active agents and catalysts of urban development when there are enabling factors available, my research findings also indicate that many young adults find themselves in a frustrating, stagnant position. What follows is an example of one such narrative.<br />
<br />
This inner city <i>kebele </i>neighborhood is located near a busy road and a crossroads that will be expanded and thus the settlement will be partly demolished in the near future according to city plans. The site is busy with heavy traffic, street vendors, and small workshops. The air is filled with sand and dust from nearby light rail and road construction sites, adding to the severe air pollution from the smog and fumes of traffic and small industries. <br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH5-gBz4bdb52-WtLh3e17wuJvAK8vSXoZ-Byh2CoLtfEb5lmBddhcvOr7HtewvTkJImChDYyQLX0idgEuGTeoFptcCZDLQ5xV-W0euCy1S8NiPMDu6yJKW1I4dtWafB1610-Ih-nLnFM/s1600/Photo+2.+Divided+worlds.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH5-gBz4bdb52-WtLh3e17wuJvAK8vSXoZ-Byh2CoLtfEb5lmBddhcvOr7HtewvTkJImChDYyQLX0idgEuGTeoFptcCZDLQ5xV-W0euCy1S8NiPMDu6yJKW1I4dtWafB1610-Ih-nLnFM/s400/Photo+2.+Divided+worlds.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption">Divided worlds. © Susanna Myllylä.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Jirata (name changed), a 25-year-old man, was born in the city. He is an Orthodox Christian, a member of the Oromo ethnic group. His parents divorced when he was a child, after which his mother moved to the north and his father established a new family. Jirata was sent to his grandmother’s house. He has not had any contact with his parents since. Jirata’s eyes are filled with sadness, reflecting the abandonment and solitude experienced by many other young people in Addis, where children and adolescents are often left to their grandmothers’ custody after their parents’ divorce. Also Jirata’s three nephews were sent to live in their grandma’s two-room small <i>kebele </i>house. Since his grandmother is supported by other relatives rather well, nobody expects Jirata to contribute financially to the household: “I gave up on everybody and have sustained myself already since I was 8 years old. I have struggled for myself only – I do not want to count on, or depend on nobody.”<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Dropping out of school is common especially among the youth who live without their parents. In his early years, Jirata both studied and worked: ”I thought, I am strong enough”. According to Joanne Westwood (2013), issues related to working children often challenge our cultural perspectives about childhood and what is considered acceptable and appropriate. While it is important to prevent exploitative child labor, in cases of poverty not only children but also their families and communities can benefit from, and children can feel pride in, being able to make a contribution to their family, or paying for their education through work (Ibid). <br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLG5QVuPc7skvUdoMJx8wuSkVtMJBB31XOqqL-Bd17k_WsEUbCePpV1MGrQE8LtZanWKq7wrPJCiQ_dQq6t61jGMyPOT0Jk71pTcZawpnPeS0j2WRlzb4wAxu8fcz8CE9qEp1nhkrlMpY/s1600/Photo+3..JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLG5QVuPc7skvUdoMJx8wuSkVtMJBB31XOqqL-Bd17k_WsEUbCePpV1MGrQE8LtZanWKq7wrPJCiQ_dQq6t61jGMyPOT0Jk71pTcZawpnPeS0j2WRlzb4wAxu8fcz8CE9qEp1nhkrlMpY/s400/Photo+3..JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption">Another grandmother’s house to be soon demolished. © Susanna Myllylä.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Jirata’s personal history includes early school dropout and a series of menial jobs – also a typical narrative of <i>kebele </i>youth in Addis. He has worked as a carrier of loads for neighbors, a construction site worker, a minibus driver’s assistant, and a taxi driver. It is not formal work since he does not work for a taxi owner, but casually receives day-work from taxi drivers who are tired or otherwise want take a break: “I stand by the street and look for job opportunities. So me and my friends just hang around here, and I don’t know about other areas in the city and what they could offer.” To Western eyes, young men hanging around street corners may indicate laziness. However, in Addis it is part of the dynamics of the informal economy. It is also clear from interviews that a considerable part of the poor <i>kebele </i>youth have participated in the modernization project of the city by working at the numerous construction sites. Young women not only sell coffee and food (and compete for spaces on the construction sites in which to market these goods), but also they join the heavy work by carrying materials.<br />
<br />
As Jirata points out, ”not many young people have a good education here. Women and girls become pregnant before they have established themselves – which, is also the fault of men too. We have a lot of youth who are addicted to drugs or alcohol. I think we hardly have criminals here because people are involved only in their own things, and people are aware of the consequences if caught by the police. Occasionally here can be criminals arriving from other areas hiding from police.” <br />
<br />
For the <i>kebele </i>youth, uncertainties regarding livelihood; petty jobs and great daily variances in income make their lives vulnerable and insecure. Jirata thinks that a person with a good education can seek a job elsewhere, and get employment more easily: “For us, this is difficult, since our work is based on connections, in an informal way. My daily income varies a lot, sometimes I get 100 birr [roughly 4.30 euros], sometimes less or more. I want to become a fully employed taxi driver, but it is difficult since there are already too many of them.” Jirata’s assumptions regarding the better position of the educated youth, especially of the university graduates, may be partly true. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I observed that the university graduates living in <i>kebeles</i> often face long term unemployment, since there are too many educated applicants for each open job – a situation similar to taxi drivers. Hence it can be argued that the urban renewal project has been unable to improve the lives of the poorest youth. There can be found youth microenterprises and <i>kebele </i>loans for small businesses, but if one is an informal subrenter, it is not possibly to apply for such a loan. In addition, what I found striking among the youth was the lack of collective action and tight social security networks. <br />
<br />
Youth often feel restrictions in the congested kebele settlements: “In our compound there are many gossiping women, since they do not have much to do. They talk about other people’s affairs. That’s why I usually leave home early and go to the street to work, or look for work”. Jirata would like to continue studying, and earn enough to buy property for himself. He cannot afford to think of marriage because he has no savings, but he is optimistic about the future. An 18-year old can register for the government’s housing lottery system in order to receive an apartment in a block of flats known as a ‘condominium’. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Jirata has registered for a two-bedroom apartment, since he thinks he can afford to take care of the down payment and the required monthly payments: “I can’t wait to get a condominium. Here in the kebele we have to fight over shared resources, such as space, water, electricity – everything must be consulted and disputed with others. In a condominium, one minds his own business.” But he is aware of the uncertainties attached to these apartments: “I know people who have won in the lottery, but mostly they rented the house out in order to be able to manage the payments. I would rent it out too, if I were in a bad situation, but if I had a steady or better job, I would stay in the house.”<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2_6PQ-SKAMHDQTzsfkZQH8ic43dxMIshhAjcKaIosHwS0E5u0h_WvjlRCROdRsAVXYctizmdLOR6hpFwrPtplkUv9Vg69byqqaPweFkomCtXgb3gvnAtBc1LGVoRez-JrnRxPstrsNJA/s1600/Photo+4.+Addis+22.3.AK2+%25E2%2580%2593+pieni.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2_6PQ-SKAMHDQTzsfkZQH8ic43dxMIshhAjcKaIosHwS0E5u0h_WvjlRCROdRsAVXYctizmdLOR6hpFwrPtplkUv9Vg69byqqaPweFkomCtXgb3gvnAtBc1LGVoRez-JrnRxPstrsNJA/s400/Photo+4.+Addis+22.3.AK2+%25E2%2580%2593+pieni.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption">A new condominium area seen from a half-demolished <i>kebele </i>house. © Susanna Myllylä.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The youth have many views and ideas regarding the urban renewal project. Jirata points out the lack of alternatives for people: “Development is not well co-ordinated in the city. For instance, when the city starts demolishing a <i>kebele </i>housing area, the inhabitants are moved out before they have a new home, either in another <i>kebele </i>or in a condominium. People are forced to stay at their relatives’ houses for an unknown time. And in regard to road or light rail construction, the city should provide alternative roads, or when these are provided, they are in bad condition, having big holes and in the rainy season they are unpassable. We have too much congestion, which has made people angry and stressed, and we are used to saying: ”Oh this country!”<br />
<br />
Jirata does not hesitate when offering an explanation for the poverty in <i>kebeles</i>: ”Because they have just turned in upon themselves and keep complaining: ‘I am stuck in a poverty trap’. At the same time, they envy someone who has succeeded in improving his life. Or, for instance, an elderly woman from my compound selling charcoal on the street: she has taken her grandchildren to live with her, which makes an extra burden for her, especially if she does not get any support – she is being pushed downwards. Actually everybody is in the same situation here.” <br />
<br />
According to Jirata, he has been living <i>an accidental life</i>: “I have struggled a lot in the past; I have not had anyone or anything to rely on, and lacked support – even just to feel pity for me. I worried a lot, was frustrated, as I did not have any idea how to survive. Now I have a driver’s license so there is some hope for the future. But what I want is different from what I currently do. My life is just going on from one happening to another; things just happen to me.” Jirata is just one of many stuck in a position of inadequate life chances and poor living environments, in uncertain <i>youthscapes </i>(see Maira and Soep, 2004; cf. Christiansen, Utas and Vigh, 2006 ).<br />
<br />
What is then required to cause a positive shift in the personal development of the youth, and to help them become urban citizens who are better attached to Ethiopian society? This is a crucial question to be reconsidered in light of the contemporary urban renewal that emphasizes structures over people.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Literature</b></span><br />
<ul><span style="font-size: x-small;">
<li>Bourdillon, M. and Sangare, A. (Eds), 2012. <a href="http://www.codesria.org/spip.php?article1592" target="_blank"><i>Negotiating the Livelihoods of Children and Youth in Africa’s Urban Spaces</i>.</a> CODESRIA, Dakar.</li>
<li>Christiansen, C., Utas, M., and Vigh, H.E. 2006. Introduction: Navigating Youth, Generating Adulthood. In C. Christiansen, M. Utas and H.E. Vigh (Eds), <i><a href="http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A275555&dswid=-8350" target="_blank">Navigating Youth, Generating Adulthood: Social Becoming in an African Context.</a> </i>Stockholm: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, pp. 9–28.</li>
<li>Hino, H. and Ranis, G. (Eds), 2014. <i><a href="https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/16608/9781464801075.pdf?sequence=1" target="_blank">Youth and Employment in Sub-Saharan Africa: Working but Poor</a></i>. Routledge Studies in Development Economics (Book 107), New York.</li>
<li>Maira, S. and Soep, E. (Eds), 2004, <i><a href="http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/14086.html" target="_blank">Youthscapes: The Popular, the National, the Global</a></i>. University of Pennsylvia Press, Philadelphia.</li>
<li>Westwood, J., 2013, Childhood and Globalisation. In Maynard, T. and Powell S. (Eds), <i><a href="https://uk.sagepub.com/en-gb/eur/an-introduction-to-early-childhood-studies/book240653" target="_blank">An Introduction to Early Childhood Studies</a></i>. SAGE, London, pp. 11-21.</li>
</span></ul>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">
</span>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Jukka Jouhkihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01624480759328080927noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1179777267505979669.post-42816107776219295912015-08-14T11:52:00.000+03:002015-08-14T11:58:37.415+03:00DISRUPTIVE RESETTLEMENT POLICIES IN AHMEDABAD<i>By Jelena Salmi</i><br />
<div>
<i><br /></i></div>
<br />
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmedabad" target="_blank">Ahmedabad</a>, the most populous city in the state of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gujarat" target="_blank">Gujarat</a>, is often presented as a pioneer in urban development in India. Since the early 2000s, several beautification and infrastructure projects have been carried out in the city to the advantage of the middle and upper classes. In this process, the slums in the city center are depicted as nuisances that need to be removed in the name of sanitation and development. This is in line with the general trend in India – slum demolitions are increasingly pushing the poor to the fringes, because they do not conform to the aesthetic ideals of rapidly urbanizing world-class cities. In Ahmedabad, thousands of slum-dwellers have been displaced from city center slums and resettled in areas located mostly in the eastern periphery.<br />
<br />
One of the resettlement colonies – a site that I will call Vikaspur – is situated next to a polluted industrial area, twelve kilometers from the city center. I have been living next to this area for the past three months and have interacted with its residents on a daily basis. The neighborhood consists of 77 identical four-story concrete blocks arranged in orderly, straight lines extending into the horizon. Informal mosques and temples have been built by the residents in open spaces between the blocks. If you enter the area just before lunch or dinner time, you will see vegetable and <i>pani puri</i> (a popular street snack) vendors pushing their carts in the streets and hear them yelling the day's offers in a high-pitched voice. In the evenings, children use the open spaces to play sports: boys play cricket and girls badminton. In the meantime, their parents sit on <i>charpoys </i>(a rope-strung bed), relaxing from the day's work and exchanging rumors with neighbors.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbv2epEopdU9XCSMamfz8DtwD9c21ULfGi2zR_TK7oDiy7rhnPo-1O7WOw70J6vH9Xqi_JTjjzzQA74TFvVjsw7PgBNxa32e_oVUxhPN2DDkNY7WyVrBtLbHIrNwFYsqOPe0qc6phTeKo/s1600/KUVA+1_An+open+space+in+the+resettlement+area.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbv2epEopdU9XCSMamfz8DtwD9c21ULfGi2zR_TK7oDiy7rhnPo-1O7WOw70J6vH9Xqi_JTjjzzQA74TFvVjsw7PgBNxa32e_oVUxhPN2DDkNY7WyVrBtLbHIrNwFYsqOPe0qc6phTeKo/s400/KUVA+1_An+open+space+in+the+resettlement+area.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption">An open space in the resettlement colony. © Jelena Salmi.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Just a few years ago, most of Vikaspur's residents lived on the banks of the River Sabarmati that runs through the center of Ahmedabad. Due to a decision made by the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) to develop the banks of the river into a "vibrant and vital focus of the city", approximately 14,000 riverbank slum-dwellers lost their homes during the years 2005–2012. The riverfront residents were resettled into 18 different relocation sites, and apartments in these sites were allocated by a computer-generated random drawing of lots, breaking apart existing social networks of slums. Hindus and Muslims were, however, mostly resettled into separate colonies due to Ahmedabad's tumultuous history of communal violence. Vikaspur is an exception to the rule since it accommodates members from both religious communities.<br />
<br />
Although residents of Vikaspur that I have talked to seem happy with the government's initiative to build low-cost housing for the urban poor, they are invariably of the opinion that life was, nevertheless, better in slums, where they enjoyed the security of their established social networks and livelihood opportunities. "All the jobs were within five minutes' reach", recounted Farha, a Muslim woman in her 30s, who was previously working as a housemaid close to the riverfront. She has now been forced to quit working completely because her meager earnings would not suffice to cover for the travel expenses from the resettlement area to her former job. As employment opportunities are scarce in the urban periphery, people are compelled to travel to the city center for work. "Nowadays I have to spend 100 rupees [ca. 1.5 euros] a day for travel", stated Amir, a bangle salesman.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjYh0yLE8mMeyQywh6B093OZU6w_KnA0MXqnLJ9pSLZDTqcz-Jl2xtnxeVyVgeDPLudCunbvFI__imt8-XRhV4JJisTqdsb_2PoRLFYNhd-sW6i_cf1fu_tFqc5U_DFwMUWhHjJTElKjI/s1600/KUVA+2_Man+at+work.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjYh0yLE8mMeyQywh6B093OZU6w_KnA0MXqnLJ9pSLZDTqcz-Jl2xtnxeVyVgeDPLudCunbvFI__imt8-XRhV4JJisTqdsb_2PoRLFYNhd-sW6i_cf1fu_tFqc5U_DFwMUWhHjJTElKjI/s400/KUVA+2_Man+at+work.jpg" width="225" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Man at work © Jelena Salmi.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Spending time with Vikaspur residents, I have learned that they do not share feelings of sociality and mutual responsibility. When I have enquired about the most serious problems in the area, most interviewees have answered that it is the way in which people from disparate locations have been lumped together. Indeed, for the urban poor, living among one's relatives is often the only way to build and maintain social and political capital. A new <i>pakka </i>('permanent') house in the urban periphery hardly compensates for the loss of valuable relations. "We have been mixed like a packet of snacks", said a 45-year-old rickshaw driver named Rajendra. "I do not want to live with these people, but what other options have I got?" Mukesh, a 26-year-old Hindu man who works as a clothes salesman added: "The houses are good and it is a good move by the government to assign houses instead of slums. It's just that the population is mixed up badly here, so living is tough. Even if you walk on the road here, someone might pick a fight with you without any reason." Lack of mutual trust further limits the residents' ability to act collectively in order to access basic services. I have often been told that in Vikaspur "everyone just looks out for themselves".</div>
<br />
In an attempt to secure living space in a vulnerable situation, the people of Vikaspur tend to turn against each other and use caste and religion as a basis for social discrimination. For example, 27-year-old housewife Shraddha felt that allotting separate blocks for Muslims, caste Hindus and <i>dalits</i> ('untouchables') would solve the security problem in the area. Shraddha, herself an upper-caste Hindu, considered Muslims and <i>dalits </i>to be the ones who "use bad language", pick fights, loot, drink and use drugs. About a year ago, Vikaspur got its very own police station in order to restrain the clashes taking place between residents. The people that I talked to are, however, of the opinion that the continuous presence of police has led to even more trouble, since the culture of bribery thrives in marginal spaces.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqyAtLuZsYIr5ftyPw3PbjDt3-3sc49hCXi1skF9wKFkbIrtpPPu0oPUUhUm3BPMUamkKXQx8d4TkWPF-b6ALUMtTlSUAUmZM_UfJeY1cjgVVG-AGjzbKZOcsLpAIAf3fyY113qvgJb0k/s1600/KUVA+3_Empty+houses+waiting+for+residents.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="218" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqyAtLuZsYIr5ftyPw3PbjDt3-3sc49hCXi1skF9wKFkbIrtpPPu0oPUUhUm3BPMUamkKXQx8d4TkWPF-b6ALUMtTlSUAUmZM_UfJeY1cjgVVG-AGjzbKZOcsLpAIAf3fyY113qvgJb0k/s400/KUVA+3_Empty+houses+waiting+for+residents.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption">Empty houses waiting for residents © Jelena Salmi.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Ahmedabad is celebrated as the epitome of the new model in urban development in India, but the everyday reality of the urban poor tells a darker story. In Vikaspur, lumping disparate populations together has created an atmosphere of mistrust and fear, making people unable to act collectively to lobby for their rights. Policy makers' insensitivity to the importance of maintaining the social cohesion of demolished settlements has thus led to further socio-economic marginalization of the urban poor. Given that the residents share little more than their displacement, poverty, and the stigma attached to being <i>jhuggi </i>('slum') dwellers, Vikaspur's future prospects as a flourishing locality seem bleak. On a brighter note, however, a 20-year-old Muslim youth named Abdul was able to see a light at the end of the tunnel: "It is possible to establish a sense of community, but it is bound to take a long time."<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Literature</b></span><br />
<ul><span style="font-size: x-small;">
<li>Appadurai, Arjun 1996. Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minneapolis: University of Minneasota Press, <a href="http://www.google.co.in/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CCUQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fkarljaspers.org%2Ffiles%2Fwandering_mods_9.pdf&ei=3GqWVejaHNCWuQTBqaOIAg&usg=AFQjCNExsLpOpNuo-SypG6XJAbYHtf6Xqw&bvm=bv.96952980,d.c2E">ch. 9</a>.</li>
<li>Cornea, Natasha 2011. <a href="http://www.academia.edu/1213272/Negotiating_Space_Life_Space_and_Livelihoods_of_the_Urban_Poor_in_India">Negotiating Space: Life Space and Livelihoods of the Urban Poor in India</a>. MA Thesis. Social Development, University of Sussex.</li>
<li>Desai, Renu 2014. A Post-Mortem of Displacement and Resettlement under the Sabarmati Riverfront Development Project, Ahmedabad. CUE Working Paper 23, May 2014. Centre for Urban Equity (CUE). <a href="http://www.sabarmatiriverfront.com/">http://www.sabarmatiriverfront.com/</a></li>
<li>Tarlo, Emma 2003. <a href="https://books.google.co.in/books/about/Unsettling_Memories.html?id=3IO1WB2H8UUC&hl=en">Unsettling Memories: Narratives of the Emergency in Delhi</a>. London: Hurst.</li>
</span></ul>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">
</span>Jukka Jouhkihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01624480759328080927noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1179777267505979669.post-22309705151531702162015-06-07T11:15:00.000+03:002015-06-07T16:08:04.412+03:00ENVIRONMENT AND HOUSING: A PARADOX FOR THE URBAN POOR IN TANZANIA<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<i>By Laura Stark</i><br />
<br />
<br />
The United Nations defines a <i>slum </i>as an informal settlement in which residents lack access to tenure, safe water, sanitation, durability of housing, and sufficient living area. By 2030, the number of people living in slums will be nearly ¼ of the global population. Despite the billions of dollars spent to eliminate slums, such schemes have largely failed because they have not solved the underlying problem of <i>chronic poverty</i>. The poor cannot afford to rent or buy housing at market prices, and therefore demolishing slums does not actually solve anything, since the poor must simply start all over and find somewhere else to rebuild or somewhere cheap to rent, often in hazardous areas such as garbage dumps, flood-prone areas, or near industrial sites where nobody else wants to live.<br />
<br />
I have made seven field visits to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dar_es_Salaam" target="_blank">Dar es Salaam</a>,<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanzania" target="_blank">Tanzania</a>. It is the seventh poorest city in the world and the third fastest-growing city in sub-Saharan Africa, whose population is expected to exceed 5 million by 2020. Some five kilometres from the centre of Dar es Salaam, a neighborhood that I will call Kijito is home to some of the worst conditions in the city. Here people survive by working as, for example, construction workers, truck drivers and auto mechanics, or selling food in their neighborhood or on a busy street. Roughly half of the residents of Kijito informally own their homes, while the other half are renters, renting out a room or two for the whole family to live in. <br />
<br />
Entering Kijito from the main road, one encounters houses built of cement, arranged haphazardly and connected by open spaces where brightly-colored <i>kangas </i>(2-piece women’s garments displaying a message in Swahili) are hung to dry, children play barefoot, and women cook food over charcoal fires. Urban agriculture is also in evidence: corn and local vegetables were growing in the open spaces between houses, goats tethered to trees, and chickens roam the grass pecking at edible pieces of garbage. Although garbage and waste litter the uneven ground, the predominant smell in the dry season is that of smoke from charcoal fires. In the rainy season, as I later experienced for myself, the ground becomes a morass of foul-smelling water and slippery mud.<br />
<br />
As I and my interpreter passed through the settlement every morning, some residents greeted us in Swahili by saying good morning (<i>habari za asubuhi</i>) or peace to you (<i>salaama</i>). Children often waved and shouted <i>mzungu</i>! (white person) when they saw me from afar, and greeted me and my interpreter with the respectful greeting for elders (<i>shikamoo</i>, literally ‘I hold your feet’) when they walked past us. Despite the fact of being located near the centre of a city of nearly five million people, the main impression one gets of Kijito is that of a rural village: palm trees sway in the quiet breeze, interrupted only by the occasional blare of music from a radio, and usually only a few residents can be seen walking or carrying out daily tasks in the open spaces between the houses.<br />
<div>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ2sspXugGbQtpzslQmDd_9GWEghPLeO6we5BTNxkxAhyphenhyphen4zESC1N_cgLLNWHr90HKCyxy5EyeynpcoQ4JLiURHaEZdYFkaxkjMvlgmLAzsIUbRSWzezo8Tobn3ykj3s9ZTX8vYhyphenhyphenYdkUg/s1600/Sept.+2010_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ2sspXugGbQtpzslQmDd_9GWEghPLeO6we5BTNxkxAhyphenhyphen4zESC1N_cgLLNWHr90HKCyxy5EyeynpcoQ4JLiURHaEZdYFkaxkjMvlgmLAzsIUbRSWzezo8Tobn3ykj3s9ZTX8vYhyphenhyphenYdkUg/s400/Sept.+2010_2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption">A house with objects placed on the patio roof to hold down the sheets of corrugated iron. © Laura Stark.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
<br />
The first time I visited Kijito, what residents wanted most to show me was the small polluted river bordering their neighborhood, and I soon understood why. When I asked them what their worst problem was, nearly everyone answered: the annual flooding (<i>mafuriko</i>) caused by the river overflowing during the rainy season. Kijito is just one of several areas in Dar es Salaam in which climate change is starting to worsen annual flooding through sea level rise, variable rainfall, and more intense coastal storms.<br />
<br />
In a rainstorm, floods can appear suddenly, and are fast and frightening. I have seen them myself. They carry away people’s belongings, threaten lives, and spread human waste from pit latrines across the neighborhood. Flood waters erode and crack the walls of buildings which are usually made of substandard concrete, since people cannot afford to use high quality concrete. Roughly twenty homes along the river collapsed in 2014 during the rainy season (luckily the residents had already fled). During the floods, residents must seek shelter in another neighborhood on higher ground, and often have to pay for the privilege of sleeping in other people’s hallways. <br />
<br />
Flooding is caused in part by the unplanned nature of Kijito, which was originally built on farmland. As more people built houses there, problems began to arise because there was nobody to oversee where and how the houses were built. The plastic pipes which brought drinking water into households were cut by new residents who were digging foundations for their own houses, leaving existing residents without water. Residents built their houses haphazardly, leaving no room for garbage trucks or space for garbage collection. There was thus nowhere to discard their trash except in the river. Eventually, people who needed more space to build homes started piling large bags of trash along the river bank to serve as landfill, greatly reducing the capacity of the river to act as a drainage channel to the Indian Ocean during the rainy season.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaNYbONxegaXnyHkxmG0x0qEw-wugfIC-HvWl8IQWBkQgXlioo8dSwIcut1cuvJJxrA4kyzUB_kxZQQ7QzAJww1hpOhl0DIRd6Em5hUcOhE5FyFsGe0J5LCfx8NRYcEUqwB9Ly8x91uhk/s1600/garbage+along+river_edit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaNYbONxegaXnyHkxmG0x0qEw-wugfIC-HvWl8IQWBkQgXlioo8dSwIcut1cuvJJxrA4kyzUB_kxZQQ7QzAJww1hpOhl0DIRd6Em5hUcOhE5FyFsGe0J5LCfx8NRYcEUqwB9Ly8x91uhk/s400/garbage+along+river_edit.jpg" width="356" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Garbage along the riverbank. <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">© Laura Stark.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
<br />
One may ask why, if the floods are so bad, people living in Kijito don’t just move away. And some do, especially renters who can afford to pay higher rents somewhere else. But there are always more of the urban poor coming to take their place. Some renters stay for decades. And most residents are actually trapped in this flood-prone zone. The land owned by Kijito home owners is rising in value, but the land values of other central areas in Dar are rising even faster. If owners in Kijito sold their homes, they would not receive enough money to buy another home in a central area of the city. They would have to either rent a room, or buy a home outside the city where job opportunities, schools, and health clinics are almost non-existent. The poorest renters, too, are unable to move away from Kijito because they cannot afford higher rents in central areas of the city. Kijito is, residents have told me, one of the last places close to the city center where a person can rent a room for as little as 8 euros per month. Why? Because nobody else wants to live there. <br />
<br />
The residents of Kijito hope that the Tanzanian government – or anyone – would be able to help them. Indeed, the city government plans to dredge and widen the river by demolishing homes built along the riverbank as a means to prevent flooding. In Kijito, the demolition zone extends 30 metres from the river bank and includes 87 houses. For those persons unlucky enough to have a house near the river, no assistance has been offered to help them relocate after their homes have been demolished. <br />
<br />
Even if the the government or an NGO could take steps to prevent the annual flooding, many residents in Kijito would not be able to stay in the neighborhood long enough to enjoy this new situation. Rents would rise, and most renters would have to look elsewhere for somewhere to live. Right now, rents are low because in Kijito because wealthy people will not invest in land which is prone to severe flooding. The very thing which makes life most difficult for the poor in Kijito is the same thing which allows them to stay there in the first place: the low-cost of renting in a flood-prone zone. This is indeed a paradox for the poor. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4xHIplQQdEvhVN6cMGpwf14g9PjLri_yKSsTEplZ5qgBtAA1nmwDes0C2sxMB4D1iZ6dvifSb7ulbVXdb1AvkXO1NSg9CfHJCVzBMnno0j5GzwlWhwwSHyorsogzbqWXS8WqUrOaxkqY/s1600/collapsed+house_edit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4xHIplQQdEvhVN6cMGpwf14g9PjLri_yKSsTEplZ5qgBtAA1nmwDes0C2sxMB4D1iZ6dvifSb7ulbVXdb1AvkXO1NSg9CfHJCVzBMnno0j5GzwlWhwwSHyorsogzbqWXS8WqUrOaxkqY/s400/collapsed+house_edit.jpg" width="276" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption">A partially collapsed house along the riverbank in Kijito. © Laura Stark.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
<br />
The prosperity of cities is fueled by one dynamic: population growth. According to the UN and World Bank, concentrating people in cities reduces the cost of supplying basic services such as education, healthcare, water, housing and infrastructure. Population growth brings businesses and skilled workers to a single geographical location, and together with technological innovation, produces more efficient labour and capital markets, lowers transaction costs, and facilitates knowledge transfer through the density of networks. This means that more jobs are created nearest the densest parts of the city, and that more people want to live there, too, in order to minimize their transportation costs. This dynamic causes land values nearest the city center to rise in proportion to the centrality of their location. These same forces impact the urban poor: they need to live near the center to find the unskilled and informal jobs available there, but they usually cannot afford to buy homes or rent there. Residents of Kijito suffer greatly from flooding, but they need to live near shops, services, marketplaces and opportunities for day jobs. The floods are precisely what allow them to do this, because Kijito’s floods artificially lower the real estate value of land in Kijito. Floods prevent investors from wanting to invest, and have so far prevented the government or NGOs from upgrading Kijito’s infrastructure (putting in paved pathways, pipes for fresh water and sanitation). This has allowed poor renters to stay in Kijito, since upgrading usually leads to a rapid rise in rents. <br />
<br />
In their quest to be seen as modern world-class cities, many urban areas are currently trying to get rid of the ‘slums’ they see as embarrassing to their global image. But since their efforts do nothing to alleviate the underlying poverty of slum residents, the poorest renters remain on the move, searching for another place to live, settling for places with dangerous living conditions because the rents are lower there, and building new slums. Such mobile renters have, until now, tended to be invisible in urban planning, although they comprise a significant part of the urban population in every developing country. As researchers, we need to ask ourselves what can be done to solve the paradoxes they face.</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJOVDB4kzXVPV7G5Im6yiduHM_SkmG7fwtmP-lVS59t3IupOStl2zCfIe3nZBKazC5jGNspaYHsaVAc3jSMrgQBkSj0KMO7OW8tlvdTnAeNPV9XNM5vqez-TiX621SapoVVbBGqhFjaM4/s1600/walking+in+water_edit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJOVDB4kzXVPV7G5Im6yiduHM_SkmG7fwtmP-lVS59t3IupOStl2zCfIe3nZBKazC5jGNspaYHsaVAc3jSMrgQBkSj0KMO7OW8tlvdTnAeNPV9XNM5vqez-TiX621SapoVVbBGqhFjaM4/s400/walking+in+water_edit.jpg" width="316" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption">A resident of Kijito in her neighborhood the day before a flash flood. © Laura Stark.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
<br /></div>
Jukka Jouhkihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01624480759328080927noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1179777267505979669.post-13120272635106063292015-05-05T08:45:00.000+03:002015-05-05T12:45:37.542+03:00IS BETTER HOUSING JUST A DREAM FOR THE POOR IN ADDIS ABABA?<i>By Tiina-Riitta Lappi</i><br />
<br />
<br />
Large urban development projects for housing, infrastructure and construction of commercial buildings are taking place all over <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Addis_Ababa" target="_blank">Addis Ababa</a>, the capital city of Ethiopia. The whole urban landscape is changing drastically and these changes affect many people’s lives as well. In 2006, a massive development program was launched to provide affordable housing for lower income groups who do not have decent and healthy living conditions. <br />
<br />
So far around 170 000 condominium units of the planned 400 000 have been handed over to their new owners but for the poorest getting a condominium remains a distant and almost unimaginable dream. Those who receive a condominium are selected through a lottery which requires registration beforehand. In order to get a condominium, a person has to win a lottery first and then he or she needs to have the down payment, which is often too much money for the poorest to pay. That’s if they ever even win the lottery. I’m told that later, all who have registered will eventually get a condominium, but that may take years. <br />
<br />
In March 2015 I visited an unplanned, government-owned <i>kebele </i>neighbourhood situated close to the centre of Addis Ababa where I met Adina, an older woman living in a one-room house with nine other family members. Adina’s house is quite small and there’s barely enough room for everyone to sleep at night even when they have all the open space on the floor covered with mattresses. This family of 10 shares a kitchen and a toilet with four other households living in the same compound. <br />
<br />
<i>Kebele</i> houses like Adina’s are usually single-storey <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSUbhH0P1Es" target="_blank">mud and wood constructions called <i>chika</i></a>, constituting approximately 70 per cent of the housing stock in central parts of Addis Ababa. With their very low rents and favourable locations, <i>kebele</i> neighbourhoods are the best (and often also the only) available option for low-income households which comprise the majority of city dwellers. Since rental rights are for life, people rarely move away voluntarily. This has created tight and long-lasting social bonds in these neighbourhoods. <br />
<br />
Adina moved to her house 42 years ago and three other families with <i>kebele </i>houses in the same compound have lived there almost as long as Adina. They function like one big family in which each mother has her own role in taking care of the children in the compound collectively. One mother feeds the children, one takes care of washing the laundry, another makes sure the children are doing their schoolwork, and so forth. Tight social relations with neighbours are indispensable safety nets for the poor. Maintaining that social cohesion would not be possible in the condominiums, at least not to the same extent people are used to in their current living environment.<br />
<br />
As I was having coffee one afternoon at Adina’s house with her and six other women from the neighbourhood, they discussed the upcoming lottery, which would take place in a few days. All seven women, or at least some of their close relatives, had registered for a condominium so it was an exciting time for them, even if they still did not personally know anyone in the neighbourhood who had been lucky in the lottery. Adina said that she is desperate to get a good place for her husband to rest because he works two jobs and needs some peace and quiet in order to be able to sleep a couple of hours between 1am and 6am. He has to work at two jobs because he has many expenses, including his grandchildren’s school fees. <br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEit4c68n-afM-qTXqYY2h9XIap2Ko_XJgs54cV6pAc9nJkfNPs6xRHGJ15Wj5PlPgiu3tOPMDHEHB5YRlebApJmZkbbJnDfre87d0_yrWdvkBQkO7A0ll2YDlq6e3JhixLKbC4M0zP05N0/s1600/Addis+12-2012+263.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEit4c68n-afM-qTXqYY2h9XIap2Ko_XJgs54cV6pAc9nJkfNPs6xRHGJ15Wj5PlPgiu3tOPMDHEHB5YRlebApJmZkbbJnDfre87d0_yrWdvkBQkO7A0ll2YDlq6e3JhixLKbC4M0zP05N0/s400/Addis+12-2012+263.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Many daily activities are carried out in outdoor spaces. <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; line-height: 19.2000007629395px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">© </span></span>Tiina-Riitta Lappi, 2012.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
While drinking coffee, one woman commented on the condominium lottery by saying that people in her neighbourhood don’t know what actually happens in a lottery. <i>“It’s only in the newspaper, the list, so we don’t know if it’s fair or not. Even those condominiums that are given are not finished and you have to finish them yourself</i>”, she continued and gave an example. She told of her relative who received a condominium and worked really hard to make it habitable. By the time he was done and had moved into the condominium, he was so drained both mentally and physically that he got sick and died three months later.<br />
<br />
It’s not a unique story, since I have heard others like it, telling about what may happen to people moving into condominiums. Even if everyone dreams of having a better place to live, people believe that getting one may bring bad things, too. During an earlier visit to the same neighbourhood, an older man told me that he would shortly be receiving a condominium but could not afford to live in it. He would rent a room for his family of eight people and rent out the condominium in order to pay back the loan he had received from his relative to make the down payment for the condominium.<br />
<br />
The man described the situation in this way: <i>“My luck with the condominium lottery gives me both happiness and sadness, happiness because we have our own house now and sadness because of the financial problems we have. It’s frustrating to borrow money and not be able to start paying it back.” </i><br />
<br />
Later, I asked if any of the women I had been talking to had visited someone living in a condominium, if they had an idea of what it would be like to live in one, or how it would be different from their current life in a <i>kebele </i>house. Just two of them had visited condominiums but very briefly and they could not recall those visits very clearly. To me it sounded as if they were talking about a life that is so different from their own that it was almost impossible to comprehend. Certainly 170 000 condominium units have alleviated the general housing shortage but for the poorest of the poor, they have quite often turned out to be too expensive and in practical terms, out of their reach.<br />
<br />
People are desperate to have better homes and decent living conditions but getting there seems almost to be a dream without any connection to their actual lives. As one woman said, getting a condominium would be like <i>“rising from the dead”</i>, something totally beyond one’s imagination.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsifihzoUjmfJGKC5Gtisb-oOAHCP4XHHKrVFbRH2tSXJHivGSulnRievC3MyMqAiAtv_CrYDOALJIJFpbaUXCoy0sC4hKrDxNektIxJo02uhof4e4ddPRdfC5_lDf9-bhPKktHvTiQ4E/s1600/Addis+12-2012+443.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsifihzoUjmfJGKC5Gtisb-oOAHCP4XHHKrVFbRH2tSXJHivGSulnRievC3MyMqAiAtv_CrYDOALJIJFpbaUXCoy0sC4hKrDxNektIxJo02uhof4e4ddPRdfC5_lDf9-bhPKktHvTiQ4E/s400/Addis+12-2012+443.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Kebele </i>housing in Addis Ababa. <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; line-height: 19.2000007629395px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">© </span></span>Tiina-Riitta Lappi, 2013.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Literature</span></b><br />
<div>
<br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Ejigu, Alazar G. 2012. Socio-spatial tensions and interactions: An ethnography of the condominium housing of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. In Mélanie Robertson (ed.) <a href="https://www.academia.edu/1603785/Socio-Spatial_Tensions_and_Interactions_An_Ethnography_of_the_condominium_housing_of_Addis_Ababa" target="_blank">Sustainable Cities: Local Solutions in the Global South.</a> Warwickshire: International Development Research Center, 97–112.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Ejigu, Alazar G. 2014. <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs12132-013-9209-x" target="_blank">History, Modernity and the Making of an African Spatiality</a>. – Urban Forum (2014) 25: 267–293.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Gezahegn Abebe 2010. Re-settlement of Slum Dwellers in Contemporary Addis Ababa: The Perspectives of Relocated Households. Master’s Thesis. Department of Sociology and Human Geography, University of Oslo. [<a href="https://www.duo.uio.no/handle/10852/15906" target="_blank">Abstract</a>]</span></li>
</ul>
</div>
Jukka Jouhkihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01624480759328080927noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1179777267505979669.post-75138189046090278952015-03-31T07:52:00.000+03:002015-03-31T16:39:23.777+03:00IN INDIA THE BIGGEST VOTERS ARE THE POOR<div>
<i>By Jukka Jouhki</i></div>
<div>
<i><br /></i></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
In February 2014 I visited the <a href="http://www.cwdr.org/">Centre for Women’s Development and Research</a>, an organization working to improve livelihoods in the slums of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chennai">Chennai</a>, India. For a few weeks, I accompanied the staff members on their daily rounds in the slums and, thanks to the welcoming residents, got plenty of chances to talk with the people about their everyday lives. <br /><br />As I hadn’t done research among the people of the Chennai slums before, I was eager to know, well, everything. So we talked about religion, marriage, gender, work, free time, money, and all other issues that are, I guess, text book ethnology. However, as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_general_election,_2014">the national elections</a> were around the corner, people were very eager to talk politics. I found that every single adult I talked to had always voted whenever there was an election, and they were definitely going to vote in the next elections too. They said it was their duty. <br /><br />The enthusiasm, however, didn’t match their knowledge of democracy. Few people knew much about how the democratic system worked, and many had huge misconceptions about their rights and duties as citizens of the country. But what struck me as a unique aspect of democracy in India was that the poor were still the most active voters in the society. In other countries of the world, it’s the other way around. The rich and the educated are the most active voters. <br /><br />In India, however, the more disadvantaged and deprived one is by virtue of gender, wealth or education, the more likely s/he is to try to solve problems through negotiations with powerful figures in party politics. The middle and upper classes do not care as much about voting because feel themselves less involved in the practices of the democratic system. Their children do not go to government schools or colleges, they do not use the public transportation, nor are they dependent on public health care services. So what difference does it make to them who runs the show, since they are not watching?<div>
<br /><div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcboIJdvhzTqF_QYxsxK1Utk6FweAK5l0bcTeNdrJReKiEsGq17E4pmbLZpdSjXJfCjJERm7Hjf2zY9azRUU1UVN5HUITg0_CJwQh6OwTOGIvgH7DDad7K1jiplbk5cFGoAfA5TTwAK_Q/s1600/Jukka+post+pic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcboIJdvhzTqF_QYxsxK1Utk6FweAK5l0bcTeNdrJReKiEsGq17E4pmbLZpdSjXJfCjJERm7Hjf2zY9azRUU1UVN5HUITg0_CJwQh6OwTOGIvgH7DDad7K1jiplbk5cFGoAfA5TTwAK_Q/s1600/Jukka+post+pic.jpg" height="266" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">A labor faction of a Tamil Nadu party marching for their rights. <span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">© Jukka Jouhki.</span></span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I returned to India in December of 2014 for a month to dig a bit deeper. I found out that in the 1970s, the upper castes and classes and educated citizens still voted more than the uneducated lower castes and classes in India. But by the 1990s, the underprivileged classes had surpassed the elite in voting activity. The poor have begun to organize, use middle-men to concentrate their power on particular politicians, and utilize the political spaces provided to them by the constitutional democracy. By increasing their participation in the political sphere and demanding their due rights, they have challenged the hegemony of the rich and powerful. <br /><br />But there is a less political reason for the voting enthusiasm in the slums. The period of elections is full of celebration, posters, music, processions and parties, and it represents a rare time during which the poor feel they are equal to others in an otherwise stratified society. It is the time when the rich and the powerful come to them to beg—for votes. Also, while more wealthy Indians might vote out of a sense of civic duty, the poor vote because they wish to exercise one of the few rights they possess. <br /><br />It is often implied that Indian democracy is a very short-sighted one, that the poor are ignorant and abused voters who do not understand which political choices really benefit them. <a href="http://www.lse.ac.uk/anthropology/people/banerjee.aspx">Mukulika Banerjee</a> however, rejects this idea, and suggests that Indian democracy is a unique and perhaps even a relatively efficient political system which increasingly attends to the poor. According to the people I talked to in Chennai, the politicians do provide for the poor but they do it before the elections. They pave roads in the slums, construct public community buildings, repair houses, arrange for water connections or electricity outlets, give feasts and bring gifts to every household. After the elections, they disappear back into the fog of eliteness only to reappear before the next elections. <br /><br /> What puzzled me the most was that the poor in Chennai had very little trust in politicians and thought that every politician is corrupt, but still they viewed voting as an important act. I found that it was partly because of the corruption that they felt they had to go and vote. Otherwise someone else might vote in their name for a different party. That is to say, a political candidate might bribe an election official to get access to the list of registered voters in order to see who has not voted yet, and have a supporter use a forged identity to vote in the name of one of these inactive voters. In the end, the slum residents might see politics as a necessary evil but voting is nevertheless a sacred egalitarian duty. It doesn’t matter if you are powerful or not, you still have to stand in the same line to vote, and everyone has only one vote. Hence, at least on a voting day, even the poor are true citizens.<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Literature </b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Ahuja, Amit & Pradeep Chhibber 2012: <a href="http://www.polsci.ucsb.edu/faculty/ahuja/aa/Research_files/Ahuja%20and%20Chhibber%20-%20Why%20the%20Poor%20Vote%20in%20India%3ASCID%20%282012%29.pdf">Why the poor vote in India: ”If I don’t vote, I am dead to the state</a>.” Studies in Comparative International Development 47: 389-410. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Banerjee, Mukulika 2007. Sacred Elections. Economic and Political Weekly 42 (17): 1556-1562. [<a href="http://www.epw.in/special-articles/sacred-elections.html">Abstract</a>] </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Banerjee, Mukulika 2011. <a href="file:///C:/Users/Stark/AppData/Local/Temp/%E2%80%A2%09Banerjee,%20Mukulika%202011.%20Elections%20as%20Communitas.%20Social%20Research">Elections as Communitas</a>. Social Research 78 (1): 75-98. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Banerjee, Mukulika 2014. Why India Votes? New Delhi: Routledge. [<a href="http://www.amazon.com/India-Votes-Exploring-Political-South/dp/1138019712">On Amazon</a>] </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Carswell, Grace & Geert De Neve 2014. <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/anti.12081/epdf">Why Indians Vote: Reflections on Rights, Citizenship, and Democracy from a Tamil Nadu Village</a>. Antipode 46 (4): 1032-1053. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Harriss, John 2005. <a href="file:///C:/Users/Stark/AppData/Local/Temp/%E2%80%A2%09Harriss,%20John%202005.%20Political%20Participation,%20Representation%20and%20the%20Urban%20Poor.%20Findings%20from%20Research%20in%20Delhi">Political Participation, Representation and the Urban Poor. Findings from Research in Delhi</a>. Economic and Political Weekly 40 (11): 1041-1054. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Piliavsky, Anastasia 2014. <a href="https://www.academia.edu/1922763/India_s_Demotic_Democracy_and_Its_Depravities_in_the_Ethnographic_Longue_Dur%C3%A9e_In_Patronage_as_Politics_in_South_Asia_CUP_2014_">India’s Demotic Democracy and its ‘Depravities’ in the Ethnographic Longue Durée</a>. In Anastasia Piliavsky (ed.), Patronage as Politics in South Asia. New York: Cambridge University Press, 154-175. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Rana, Mahendra Sing 2006: India Votes: Lok Sabha & Vidhan Sabha Elections 2001-2005. New Delhi: Sarup & Sons.</span></li>
</ul>
</div>
<div>
<i><br /></i></div>
Jukka Jouhkihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01624480759328080927noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1179777267505979669.post-8873808729081421692015-03-17T13:00:00.000+02:002015-04-09T15:44:16.739+03:00HELLO WORLD!<div id="lipsum" style="margin: 0px; text-align: justify;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 14px; padding: 0px;">
<div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans; line-height: 14px;">
<br />
<b>Welcome to our research group's website!</b> Here you can find basic information about us and our activies. </div>
<div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans; line-height: 14px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans; line-height: 14px;">
In this section the members of our group will write about topics they are focusing on in their research. </div>
<div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans; line-height: 14px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans; line-height: 14px;">
If you are interested to know more about us please feel free to contact us via the contact form or send email to individual scholars listed in <i><a href="http://povdevgroup.blogspot.fi/p/who-we-are.html" target="_blank">Who we are</a>. </i>The leader of the research center is prof. <a href="https://www.jyu.fi/hum/laitokset/hie/en/staff/lstark" target="_blank">Laura Stark</a>.<br />
<br />
You can also go see our photos in <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/131318318@N06/" target="_blank">Flickr</a>.</div>
<div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans; line-height: 14px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans; line-height: 14px;">
Enjoy our blog!</div>
<div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans; line-height: 14px; text-align: right;">
<i><br /></i>
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i>- PovDev Group</i></div>
</div>
<div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px; text-align: right;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px; text-align: right;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px; text-align: right;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px; text-align: right;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyUvutts2qdtYJdfWB25EVZ2O697qw4_qlxC4OC58q2g1xIB7JISxDdjNUS9alg60R5Y-eA7cGfx0KAA4EaQ4_odLxRa4yOqMlImcpduGaNuDaOMdhXEE61ae4wfAL2M9OwB_vu1267hM/s1600/welcome_aboriginal_art_by_mundara_koorang_by_novynovy-d4lik7c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyUvutts2qdtYJdfWB25EVZ2O697qw4_qlxC4OC58q2g1xIB7JISxDdjNUS9alg60R5Y-eA7cGfx0KAA4EaQ4_odLxRa4yOqMlImcpduGaNuDaOMdhXEE61ae4wfAL2M9OwB_vu1267hM/s1600/welcome_aboriginal_art_by_mundara_koorang_by_novynovy-d4lik7c.jpg" height="216" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: xx-small; line-height: normal;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: xx-small; line-height: normal;">Pic from </span><a href="http://bit.ly/1Mlk7hA" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;">Deviant Art</a><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: xx-small; line-height: normal;">.</span></div>
</div>
</div>
Jukka Jouhkihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01624480759328080927noreply@blogger.com