1 Approaching the Archive
The first archival research brought me to the Africa Museum in Tervuren, Belgium, in particular the Archive of Colonial History, the Archive of Decolonisation and Independent Congo, and the Library of Contemporary History. The Archive of Colonial History holds a wide collection of writing on the (Belgian) Congoâs history, covering different periods, from Leopold IIâs colonial expansion policy to the formation of the Congo Free State in 1885, to the Congo under Belgian colonial rule from 1908, to the Congo after independence in 1960. The collection was therefore the right place to read colonial publications and approach colonial policies.
The Archive of Decolonisation and Independent Congo is vast, with valuable accounts from private individuals who lived or worked in the Congo or who carried out research there. It is a veritable goldmine of information, but one in which I felt lost. However, in the Library of Contemporary History in Tervuren, I came across issues of the workersâ magazine, Mwana Shaba, published by the Union Minière du Haut-Katanga. It immediately captured my attention because the articles in it implicitly disclosed the companyâs different strategies to shape its workforce, and sometimes even â though through the words of the editors â the voices of workers in the letters to the editors. Mwana Shaba thus became an important element of my corpus.
Nurses, teachers, postal workers, doctors, police officers, diamond mine employees, electrical workers, and engineers all had their own magazines produced by and for employees. These publications contained discussions about the profession as well as portrayals of the social lives of the workers and their families. Some magazines also gave tips on urban life, instructing their readers on how to open a bank account and how to plan healthy, nutritional meals after work in the evenings.1
The company archives of the UMHK/Gécamines/Umicore are located in the Joseph Cuvelier repository of the State Archives of Belgium, in Brussels. I spent several weeks there, browsing through minutes and annual reports. These documents proved to be another goldmine. All the topics about what were then called the âmain dâÅuvre indigèneâ (MOI, meaning native workforce) (my deletions),2 referring to Congolese and immigrant workers, were noted in detail: statistics on the demographic structure, school matters, the curriculum, housing, evening courses for the workers, organisation of leisure activities, health care, social problems in the settlement of the workers, demands by workers, and so on.
In my first readings of these annual reports, I was surprised that there was more material on social services (such as education, from kindergarten to evening courses for adults) than, for instance, statistics on workers employed in different kinds of services. Only after having engaged with my research topic for some months, and after the first stay in Lubumbashi, did it suddenly make sense to me that the UMHK was organising not only work-related matters but also the social life of the workers. Naturally, concerns for children and women found their way into the annual report of the Services dâAfrique, Département MOI, a company department principally intended to deal with matters related to work.
Thus, documents like these gave me an insight into the problems and perceptions of the company related to work, often in a context I initially would not have searched in for this specific kind of information. For instance, in the annual report of 1951, after a statistical overview of the number of children then enrolled in schools, numbers of African and European staff members, and so on, the report assesses the UMHKâs general guidelines. The first point refers to the companyâs aim for education within the UMHK, which is followed by a detailed description of course content for all levels of education, from primary school to professional courses, language education and courses for adult women. The general guidelines are well hidden between statistical charts and curricula, but they offer an important view of UMHKâs perception of male and female roles, which I had not expected to find there. Regarding men, the annual report said its aims were:
| To try to advance everything towards civilisation by the diffusion of Christian principles and notions of Western sociology (family, city, work, etc.) |
The UMHK s plan for the female population was presented as follows:
|
|
These extracts show that even in an annual report the text that accompanied the lists indicated the UMHKâs efforts to shape their workersâ lives, down to the roles that men and women were expected to fulfil. A list showing the legally determined holidays of workers was presented as follows:
| Nombre de travailleurs ayant bénéficié du congé.5 | Number of workers who benefited from the leave. |
The choice of wording, even for a statistical overview, tells us more than the numerical data does. In this example, the verb âto benefitâ clearly presents the workers as beneficiaries of the companyâs generosity, granting them what was legally entitled to them anyway. Seventy-three pages later in the same annual report, another statistic on the âelements of the human coefficient per campâ again presents the companyâs perception of the workers:
| It is normal that a man who works regularly sometimes asks for leave or is sometimes ill. It is also normal that, in spite of the holidays and the rest granted to him, he is sometimes absent. After all, to make the discipline prevail, it is sometimes necessary to resort to penal sanctions. |
In seemingly benevolent wording, the company comments on reasons workers do not report to work, with the added rationale that sometimes sanctions would be needed to ensure discipline. The chart that follows this statement is a numbered list of the reasons for absence from work. The sanctions, which become clear only when reading the chart itself, refer to prison, as used in the extract above. The indication that this punishment would be applied in extenuating circumstances reveals that the company must have been sensitive to âprisonâ at that time.
I read the annual reports of the UMHK with the following questions in mind: What was being said? Whose voice was it? Which topics were being discussed? And which discursive entanglements to other topics could be elicited?
It was clear that workersâ voices were muted in the UMHK documents. Therefore, talking to workers who had actually experienced life in the company would be of utmost necessity, especially regarding those topics that seemed important to me during my archival research and which were later brought up by the ODV s during the interviews and group discussions. Speaking with the workers directly was doubly important because the archival material mainly covers the period of the 1940s and 1950s, rather than the 1960s to the 1980s when which most ODV members had worked for UMHK/Gécamines. Documents for the latter period are much more difficult to access, not having been systematically archived after the end of colonial rule.
The invisibility of workersâ voices in the archival material does not mean that the voices did not exist. Harris discusses these ghosted voices and suggests that by reading sources in the archive in a spectral way these voices become visible. â[T]he work of archive is fundamentally spectralâ, he argues.7
Notwithstanding the fantasy of a comprehensive, complete archive, an archive is always an assemblage of fragments. In structuring an archive, no
Harrisâs understanding of the term âarchiveâ is insightful. He argues that the archive operates on three levels. First, there is a recording of a trace on or within a surface, the substrate.
[Second,] the substrate has the quality of exteriority; it is external to the psychic apparatus of an individual. In this understanding, traces located only within the latter are the traces of memory rather than of archive. So that traces of memory shared with others, in for instance âcollective memoryâ or âpublic discourseâ, because they have the quality of exteriority, can become archive.9
Third, such external traces must be considered worthy of protection, preservation and classification.
Harris argues that both the archive and the memory are best understood as belonging to the genre of traces. Neither should be anchored to notions of stability, durability and reliability because both are always already in the process of formation and both emerge out of the future.10 Harrisâs thoughts encouraged me to think of the voices of the workers as a part of the archive and/or as an alternative archive. The archiveâs content does not sit only in buildings fronted by information boards that announce opening hours and access rules. The archive is open and an assemblage of fragments, including (and of course excluding) silenced voices that can be awakened through interviews and the baraza.11
2 Interviews
During my first two research stays, I conducted 63 qualitative interviews with members of the Collectif. They were born between 1930 and the 1960s, in most cases as children to workers at the UMHK, and thus grew up in the companyâs housing compounds. Approximately three-quarters of my interviewees, who
The interviewees shared an immense amount of information, from childhood memories to their work life and all domains related to it through to their current situation. The members expressed great interest in participating. Towards the end of each stay in Lubumbashi, some addressed me and asked why I had not yet talked with them. In fact, the opportunity to conduct more interviews was limited by my time for these research visits. Furthermore, additional qualitative interviews would not have enhanced my insight. As Lepore states: â[H]owever singular a personâs life may be, the value of examining it lies not in its uniqueness, but in its exemplariness, in how that individualâs life serves as an allegory for broader issues affecting the culture as a wholeâ.13
Some ODV s had been participating in a research project called Ukumbusho (memory), grounded in oral history practices.14 This was the first iteration in 2000 of the oral history project âMémoires de Lubumbashiâ. The aim was to present at the Museum of Lubumbashi the research conducted by Lubumbashi University (UNILU) on memories of recent history and daily urban life in the mining city of Lubumbashi. The exhibition displayed objects that the participants of the Ukumbusho project had brought into the museum with their testimony.15
I was lucky to make contact with UNILU early on, but also with people from the Waza Arts Centre who were involved in the Ukumbusho project as curators. They put me in touch with Marc,16 who grew up in Cité Gécamines as a child of a blue-collar worker. He represents the new generation that is trying to overcome the situation of their parents, who he described as paralysed.17 He was a useful observer of ODV s, on the one hand having a critical distance from them because of the generation gap, while on the other hand supporting the group through his close-knit network (of trade unions and NGO s).
Marc became my most important research partner and key reference person â and teacher in many ways. Right at the beginning of my first stay in
The procedure of our meetings after the ODV weekly gatherings, to which I was then invited, was usually very formal, with the secretary taking notes on everything. I soon realised that I would not be able to operate in Cité Gécamines without this group. And at each of the many meetings I attended during the three stays in Lubumbashi, I had to explain what I intended to do. But at the same time, every member was extremely helpful and became interested in my research. They supported me in organising interviews, even putting interview lists together, and arranged for someone among them to accompany me every time I travelled to an interview.
They insisted on that point for my security. They explained that I would not be safe enough on my own, but if a member of the ODV accompanied me, I would be fine. Let me return to the hostility I faced on my first visit. The president explained to me that the people of the ODV were fighting for compensation, that they had been doing so for a long time, and that a representative of the World Bank was desperately expected. Even though most of them were aware that this representative would not come without advance notice, the long fight had exasperated some members, who had developed tunnel vision â the result being that any European showing up in the context of this meeting was likely to get into trouble. Rumours about the presence of the World Bank representative spread quickly, repeatedly, every time I was in Lubumbashi. It was thanks to the board members of the ODV that I was made aware of this and they put me under special surveillance now and then.
Shortly after my first meeting with the ODV s, I realised that an exclusive interest in the houses and the housing of workers would not make sense without taking into consideration the ODV s and their situation today. Being interested in a group that has a political agenda has its own challenges. The board members and I had several discussions on that point. I took time on several occasions to explain that, as a researcher, I would not be able to organise the money they were fighting for, nor would I personally interfere with the World Bank. However, it became important to me to make their voices heard. It was during the third stay in Lubumbashi, in July 2019, during the group discussions, that this effort was probably most apparent.
3 Shared Authority/barazaweb
I wondered how I could get closer to what is rightfully expected from any research based on qualitative methods, namely that â[t]he result of all of this
My desire to talk about my understanding of the topics discussed during the interviews with my research partners became a must. It was their voices that were important to contextualise and recalibrate my initial findings. It is important to acknowledge that producing âbetter, less distorted research accountsâ was (and still is) my ideal, but that there was a barrier, which had to be recognised â namely, the unequal power relations between the ODV s and me, whether I liked it or not. Therefore, it was essential to think about the recognition of the âotherâ, and, as a consequence, it was indispensable to think about how to draw close(r) to my ideal of a more inclusive research approach, which included sharing authority(ies) over knowledge production.
Pillow points to the imbalance of power between the subject/author/academic and the communities of research. She reminds us that there is quite a lot of research methodology for sharing power between research partners: âThis may include discussions of co-development of the research focus and analysis, use of extensive member checks, âsharing the dataâ with the subjects, and co-writingâ.20 But she rightly argues that â[A]s Trinh points out, this share of power is âgivenâ to the research subject, ânot takenââ.21 Thus, in our research we continually have to question the capacity of the subject to define themselves or even their desire to do so. Reflexivity, then, always occurs out of an unequal power relationship and, in fact, the act of reflexivity may perpetuate a colonial relationship while at the same time attempting to mask this power over the subject.22
My way out of this dilemma was to understand the ODV sâ own interest in me as a mediator for passing on the master narrative I described earlier. It was a relief to know that they too had their own agenda. However, I was aware that they could be pinning some of their hopes on me only because I was initiating the research. As Pillow and Trinh asserted, I was still the one âgivingâ them this opportunity or, to put it differently, I was the one actively claiming their (re)actions.23 Understanding our exchanges and negotiations as partners using
To recognise the âotherâ and thus consider the ODV s as equal partners, was important. I wanted to avoid being seen as âgenerousâ, one of the dangers that Pillow alerts us to: âThis characterization of the research relationship maintains a colonial relationship of one person with power, the researcher, who will then demonstrate humility and generosity toward the research subjectâ.24
The start would be, I assessed, to share my material with those who were the focus of the research, to â at least partially â offer them access to material they otherwise could not access. I tried to be transparent about how and where I got my information, and what kind of archival material I had collected so far, which served as my basis for the questions. Ideally, I hoped, the research partners would get an insight into how I gained the information that triggered the questions that guided the interviews.
A more inclusive research approach is sensitive to the questions of authority over knowledge production that challenge the generally accepted habitus in academia. The norm is to recognise the achievements of other academics by citing them, but we often ignore others who are equally important in the production of knowledge. They share their knowledge, their views, their perceptions, and we, as academics, evaluate them and sometimes cite them in excerpts when their statements help to underline our arguments. I am no exception. It is necessary to think about possibilities to âdeconstruct the authorâs authority in the research and/or writing processâ.25 I am aware that I am writing this monograph, I am the author, trapped in the constraints of our professional habitus. Thus, I am far from deconstructing my authority in the writing process. However, what I aimed for was to broaden the understanding of authority, at least during the research process, by asking my research partners to evaluate my reading of our interviews and discussions and to discuss their and my perceptions of the issues at hand.
La sociocritique cherchait, au contraire, à décrire le social dans le texte, elle montrait comment la représentation littéraire (codes rhétoriques, narratifs, dispositifs axiologiques, clichés, etc.) construisait une âidéologieâ.
[Sociocriticism, on the other hand, sought to describe the social in the text by showing how literary representation (rhetorical and narrative codes, axiological devices, clichés, etc.) constructed an âideologyâ.]27
Sharing with the ODV s some of the archival material as well as my preliminary research results and my reading of the issues discussed during the interviews, was an idea that emerged in 2018 from discussions with Sari Middernacht and Patrick Mudekereza from the Waza Arts Centre in Lubumbashi. I was inspired by reading about the approach of shared authority,28 which the Centre had been exploring in creative production and research projects, such as the Ukumbusho project. We decided to collaborate on a project called âMitaani #mapping Momentsâ, planned for July 2019. It would be a collaborative discussion of my research issues with the ODV s, with the Waza Arts Centre as a facilitator and as the space to exhibit the discussion results.29 In their very insightful study on the role of digital technologies in memories in Nigeria, Yékú and Ojebode (2021) discuss reconstructing history with and among the public, sharing archival material and transmission of history through digital means. They discuss the historical voices of âdigital subjectsâ who engage in conversations about the past. However, their focus is on interlocutors with access to digital platforms. In contrast, the ODV sâ lack of access to digital technologies, lack of electricity and so on turns them into âdigital subalternsâ (Yékú and Ojebode, 2021: 500). Therefore, it would not have been possible to work with them on a collaborative analysis using digital technologies. But, what Yékú and Ojebodeâs
In addition, we wanted to explore the notion of shared authority with all its possibilities and limits. Moreover, the project aimed to make the research process transparent and the research results accessible through a creative act, by using shared videography, so that the product of this approach would enable a collective creative response to sociopolitical issues.30
My desire to discuss the preliminary results of my research in the archives and the research based on the interviews with those actually involved was twofold. First, I wanted to share with the workers concepts and their modifications as reflected in the interviews and archival sources. Second, I was aiming at a collaborative analysis of the changing conceptualisations of the topics addressed in the discourse. Two of these topics briefly illustrate this point â work and identity.31
Work: Employment and the loss of it are the basis of existence of the ODV. Work, or âkaziâ, as the term is used in Swahili and by the ODV s, is thus one of the central concepts from which everything else starts. Up until the 1940s, work in the mining industry could certainly be described as similar to slavery: the living conditions of contract workers were not very different from those of slaves. After the Second World War, kazi took on a positive connotation and stood for âa good lifeâ.32 The change of connotation occurred against the backdrop of the UMHKâs urgent need for a stable workforce. Then, the company provided everything the workers needed in order to become and remain a controllable and efficient source of labour: housing, leisure facilities, health services, and so on. The focus was on the establishment of a society of workers organised according to the Belgian idea of how this society was supposed to function.
This rationale did not change much after independence in 1960. From the 1960s, the Congolese were increasingly given better positions and many became members of the companyâs cadre. The workersâ perception of kazi (work) changed in 2003, when they were forced to leave the company âvoluntarilyâ in
Identity: Of course, a diverse range of anchor points to identity exists, including social categories such as a blue-collar worker or member of the cadre, place of origin of the first generation that moved to Lubumbashi, and gender-specific categories. But primarily, all the interviewees identified themselves with the company.33 Promotion, for example, often entailed moving to a new house and changing work location, sometimes within Lubumbashi from Cité Gécamines to Makomeno. Thus, work had an impact on social and spatial mobility. Another identity-relevant topic was the pride in having been an agent of the company instead of merely a wheel in the system. This was revealed in statements such as âJâétais très fièreâ (I was very proud), âNapenda kazi, utarespectéâ (I loved the work, you were respected), or even total identification as a part of a company already at birth, such as âJe suis née dans le groupe sudâ (I was born into the southern group).34 Others would say âI was born to my parents who were [names])â. One interviewee in Makomeno was living in the boyerie and renting out his big house to earn some money. His living room was filled with objects of his past as a cadre of Gécamines, such as sports trophies, which he displayed with a great deal of pride and nostalgia.
The fact of having been a mineworker and identifying with that occupation manifested itself in different spheres of life â not only in those that related to the individual but also in the sphere of community. Strangleman describes mineworkersâ identity perceptions in Great Britain, and reports that their occupational identity and community identity, and the norms and values linked to them, âare produced and reproduced within the context of workplace and community networksâ.35 He points to the fact that stability and predictability
Interviews with the former workers revealed the concerns that were most important to them. They disclosed not only individual perceptions of a specific topic at a specific time but also discursive links to other topics. StrÃ¥th argues that this temporality of âconceptsâ allows a translation of past experiences into futures. Moreover, â[t]the gap between the imageries of the past and those of the future is continuously revisedâ.37 The provision of housing was not only one of the main means of control over workers by UMHK and Gécamines; the house was also an object that belonged to the ODV s during their whole work life. The interviews revealed the workersâ evaluation of these experiences.
Following the idea(l) of shared authority means first and foremost the willingness of all involved to talk to and listen to one another. Sharing authority, then, in its simplest version, âis shar[ing] in oral history by definition â in the dialogic nature of the interview, in the history-making offered by both interviewer and narratorâ.38
3.1 Planning the baraza
For the âMitaani #mapping Momentsâ exhibition in July 2019, the Waza Arts Centre and I decided to organise the baraza. The conversation between the ODV s and myself at the baraza were expected to be a collaborative analysis of the changing conceptualisations of the topics that emerged after the interviews, based on my thoughts after the archival research. Although the ex-workers had shared their individual perceptions in the interviews, during the baraza we planned a collective analysis between all ex-workers present and the researcher. My intention was to elaborate on the analyses in collaboration with the ex-mineworkers, and as a consequence to value their voices as equally important in the knowledge production process. Despite the challenges, it allowed all of us to communicate under the premise of being an important part of the project as a whole. We transgressed the borders of the sphere that our roles as either researcher or researched partner normally allowed and required.
The same idea, but under a different term â âparticipatory transdisciplinarityâ â is discussed by Mobjörk.40 Societal actors are partners in a joint research process where their knowledge is âequally valuable to scientific knowledgeâ.41 Another layer in the discussion of the framework of transdisciplinarity is the question of the motives behind the research. Who has which interest to participate, assuming that the research endeavour is indeed a shared one? I argue that both the ODV s and myself had an interest in co-operation and our own agendas.
The goals of the âMitaani #mapping Momentsâ project were threefold. First, as a researcher, I aimed at an analysis of the concepts related to the nexus of housing and nostalgia. In the process, the ex-workersâ voice should be given equal value. Based on the principle of shared authority, new ideas and additional societal knowledge to which I might have been otherwise blind should be enabled. This in turn would increase public acceptance of the research results. In addition, the documented baraza should serve as data for the analysis of the negotiation process about nostalgia.
The second goal was to highlight that the ex-workersâ voices were vital in a process of collaborative analysis, contributing equally to the different layers, changes and meanings of concepts. This approach would therefore democratise the production of knowledge. It would be a co-creation of scientific knowledge.
Third, the negotiation process itself and the objects linked to it (the filmed sessions and the cartoons of these discussions) would serve as curatorial material for the Waza Arts Centre, which would make them public and accessible to the ex-workers. It would allow critical examination of the research results by participants and the wider public.
The aim of this event was to present and discuss the idea of the planned baraza with all members of the ODV who were interested in participating. The first challenge was to find a fitting location. With the ODV board members, we decided on a location in Cité Gécamines. Access needed to be as easy as possible, so that no bus fares and long journeys were necessary. We scheduled the trigger event for a Friday, after the meetings at which the members of the association usually assembled. The board members distributed the information for this scheduled meeting. On 12 July 2019, the interested audience was large; approximately 100 chairs were set out and nearly all of them were taken. Three tables provided space for a projector, a laptop and the equipment for the microphones. The board members suggested that I should welcome everyone personally at the entrance. Patrick Mudekereza of the Waza Arts Centre formally opened the event and explained the general idea of the baraza. Then, I reported on my research that had started two years earlier.
I showed, for instance, pictures of the files I had found in the archives and explained how I worked with the idea to reveal the (colonial) stateâs, and especially the UMHKâs, strategies of implementing measures of control. I played a propaganda film by the UMHK, which was produced to celebrate the companyâs fiftieth anniversary in 1956 and which was a useful research source for me. This film showed the UMHKâs different measures of organising and controlling the workers â at least that was how we critically reflected upon it. However, the vivid and emotional discussion that followed the screening was not what I had expected.
Those present did not criticise the measures of âcontrolâ made by the company at that time. On the contrary, they argued that they had been âwell taken care ofâ, as shown in the movie (for instance, the kind of benefits awaiting newly arrived workers were described in detail), whereas today they felt neglected and deprived of the benefits they had enjoyed before 2003. Many participants shared their memories of how those measures were beneficial.
Discussing this film was the first moment in which sharing thoughts helped me recalibrate my assumptions about the workersâ positions. At another point during the trigger event, I explained to the audience the great importance to the research endeavour of the interviews that I had conducted earlier. Their
We therefore suggested that these baraza could be filmed, if the individuals involved would give us permission to do so. The filming of these discussions and negotiations would be done by two pairs of eyes â those of the Congolese artist Gulda El Magambo and of my colleague, Carl-Philipp Bodenstein. Sharing in this layer of performance would then be extended to the editing suite afterwards, to combine the perspectives of the two observers. The feedback would finally be shared as a collaborative product. The benefit of this endeavour was not only to document the process of sharing authority but also to extend the concept of shared authority on different levels through form and content and finally synthesise the two layers of performance.
3.2 Holding the baraza
The group discussions followed the week after, in Cité Gécamines; the board members had invited us to use their meeting room. The advantage was obvious: the place was familiar to those attending. After the trigger event we had eight group discussions scheduled, two for each of the four topics. For reasons that are very common and comprehensible in the research setting, two group sessions did not take place. Nobody showed up. There were funerals to attend or other priorities that prevented people from being present.
The gathering started after the videographers had set up the technical equipment for filming. The baraza were set up in half-circles, in the middle of which a small wooden table served as a pedestal for the microphones. The videographers set up four cameras and field-recorders close to the entrance of the room, facing a corner of two window-less walls, to the right and left of which sat the participants of the baraza. Natural light came through a facing window and shone on the participants, eliminating the need for additional lightning. Two cameras them remained stationary and captured the entire scene. The other two were hand-held, operated by Carl-Philipp and Gulda. ODV s who had attended the trigger event had agreed to be filmed; however, we asked each participant for their consent again. There were no objections. On the contrary,
After the welcome, the gathering started by addressing the language question. Would they prefer French or Swahili?42 Each time, we agreed that both languages would be used to allow the conversation to develop naturally.
Patrick Mudekereza took notes in French and Swahili, often combining both languages in one sentence. Later, I compared how he formulated the utterances in terms of language choice and found that he used and mixed the two differently from the actual verbal utterances documented in the films. Thus, the interesting observation was that mixing codes (using different codes within a sentence or utterance) is the normal usage of a plurilingual repertoire.
To end the âMitaani #mapping Momentsâ, the final event (le grand baraza) was organised by the Waza Arts Centre for the Friday of the following week. As soon as the baraza were over, the videographers started to work together to edit and grade the footage for a film that was planned to be screened to the ODV. The film was characterised by the fact that in order to be able to understand it, one had to have participated in the baraza. It was thus a film produced solely for those who had actually taken part in the project.
The grand baraza was held in the facilities of the Waza Arts Centre. Outside in the courtyard, a stage and a screen were prepared and plastic chairs were set up for the ODV s and other guests, who arrived in vast numbers. Patrick Mudekereza welcomed everybody, and the event started with the artist DJ Spilulu presenting a performance based on the audio files recorded during the baraza. For instance, he alienated my voice and combined it with extracts from the interviews. The ODV s listened carefully (as we all did) and frequently pointed to the one whose statement was heard. This was then followed by the performances of four poetry slammers, whose works commented the current situation of the ODV s.
At the same time, the accompanying exhibition was presented in the building. Colby, a cartoon artist, used the notes taken by Patrick Mudekereza during the baraza and turned them into art pieces, big drawings of the statements with accompanying illustrations that covered the walls of the exhibition room of the Waza Arts Centre. Chairs were set up in the room where viewers could watch a TV playing the film made by the videographers. I observed the visitors
In one very moving moment, a participant addressed me and said: âMama Daniela, il y a une erreur ici, je ne lâai pas dit comme çaâ (Daniela, there is a mistake here, I did not say it like that). Even though the error was not relevant for the overall argument (in my assessment) â the wrong type of machine had been depicted â it was important for the participant to clear up this inaccuracy. So, we took a red pen and corrected the art object. It was a moment when his voice indeed mattered.
During the screening of the film, after the poetry slam session, the participants went back and forth between the exhibition inside and the screening outside, not paying the careful attention we had hoped for. But they addressed us and expressed their view of the importance of this event. In the office, the participants who had attended the baraza could fetch an envelope containing prints of the pictures that Carl and Gulda had taken and money for the bus transport back to Cité Gécamines. It turned out that the screening had been planned at bit too late for the participants; for safety reasons they needed to return home before it got too late into the night. We had not considered this point, thinking only about the darkness we would need for an outdoor screening. This was another subtle lesson learned.
3.3 After the baraza
After the events, we brainstormed our approach. We concluded that perhaps it had not been the right decision to hold the exhibition in the gallery of the Waza Arts Centre and the screening of the movie in their courtyard. We had asked the ODV s to come to an art gallery because we considered it as the normative place for an exhibition. Maybe placing the representation of participantsâ voices in their own quartier would have been more appropriate. The question remained open.
Reviewing the group discussions of the baraza revealed many topics that had not popped up in the interviews I had led. The setting of the baraza had fostered discussions among the ODV s, whereas during the interviews my research partners had often waited for my questions and I was thus the leading voice. In the individual interviews, there was more criticism of the mining company or the supervision it exercised. Or introspective statements like âMaybe we were badly prepared because we were always given everythingâ. During the baraza, the participants were more confident about taking the lead in the discussion than had been possible during the interviews, even though the interviews were more open than structured. Still, the discussions during the baraza allowed more associative thoughts to be communicated.
3.4 Leaving the Spider Web and Entering the barazaweb
I conceptualise the baraza as a barazaweb, a methodological contribution to describe a research situation in which the participants constantly adapt to each other and to the situation. The barazaweb is especially important because it evolved from the field, showing how important it is to pay attention to how the field can nourish the theory and not necessarily the other way round. In speaking with the Nigerian writer and feminist Ogundipe-Leslie, it turned out I was using a âlocogeneticâ approach â that is, a method born out of the field and responding to questions raised by a specific context.43 Her social criticism questioned who speaks for whom, whose point of view counts, whose experience nourishes the theory. As indicated earlier, the baraza implies the idea of council/counselling, which boils down to the exchange of ideas central to the shared authority approach.
It was only when I was back home from Lubumbashi, when I started to carefully watch the filmed baraza, that it became obvious that in my role as a researcher I had decidedly influenced it. I chaired the group discussions, suggested topics and requested clarifications. I was a leading voice. However, I was not the only leading voice, and certainly not when discussions became emotional between the ODV s. Group dynamics appeared, and differences in hierarchy revealed themselves among the participants, such as between men and women, or between members of the ODV board and ordinary members of the ODV. I observed the strategies the attendees used to stress their positions; often, the choice of language was far from incidental, and they displayed politics and practices of remembrance of the glorious past to shape the picture of the miserable future awaiting them. The master narrative of Câétait bien à lâépoque was strictly maintained.
I was reflecting on the ODV s, my entanglement and our roles during the baraza when I read Jiménezâs text about the spider web.45 His metaphor, which I later expanded, proved to be very useful in untangling what I experienced as chaotic intersections of decision-taking. Jiménez uses the metaphor of the spider web to refer to âa world that holds itself in precarious balance, that tenses itself with violence and catastrophe but also grace and beauty, and that calls out and silhouettes promissory worlds of entanglementsâ.46 Jiménez is interested in the trap that the spider web represents. The trap unites the world of the prey and the predator and he thus uses the image of the trap to describe social theory. He explains that âit is one of my central intuitions that modern knowledge is essentially a trap to itself, such that most forms of explanation are guests unaware they are actually being hosted â predators who do not know their own condition as preyâ.47
Reflecting on the happenings during the baraza, I realised that the metaphor of the web that catches the prey was a helpful tool to think about what I had experienced, which until then I had felt was just a vague sense of us all permanently trying to get the upper hand on the issues, interpretation, the word, and so on.
I aimed to produce knowledge, knowledge that became more complex the further the research process went on. For knowledge production, I was looking for
We experimented with the format of our meetings: where we met (at cultural centers, in bars, at the Spanish National Research Council), but also with how we conducted a meeting. We took turn taking minutes, which we called relatorÃas (storytelling), and which sometimes read like ethnographic accounts, while at other times they looked like architectural sketches. Sometimes the remit of our activities seemed defined and taken over by the concerns of architects (who were overrepresented at La Mesa, which became a concern in itself), while on some occasions it was the voice of cultural agents or of urban gardening communities that assumed the wisdom of political praxis. Sometimes, even, it was the anthropologists whom everyone turned to for inspiration.48
I would like to emphasise again that I do not think of our roles as those of prey and predator, but I find the constant adaptation in the same network helpful. Particularly relevant for this study seems the point of taking the minutes of these meetings. Minutes are â at least in normative settings â the documentation of discussions and serve as the proof of what was taken up and sometimes of what was decided. My archive of the baraza is found in filmed baraza sessions. The ODV sâ archive is found in the minutes noted by the secretary, who chose to attend every baraza for this purpose.
Once again, it was only later, when I was back home thinking about my data and research, that I became aware that the secretaryâs minutes would be necessary to give me an insight into the ODV s â or at least the secretaryâs â perception of the points that were discussed during the baraza. Just like the minutes I had read in the archives of the UMHK, I would have access to a written record. In 2020, travelling to Lubumbashi was impossible because of COVID-19. However, many phone calls and emails to contacts in Lubumbashi, who then contacted the ODV s, were very helpful. I was able to place my request, which was then discussed among the ODV s during their following meeting in their clubhouse.
Their concern about the dangerous environment in which I was supposedly living might have speeded up the process. They agreed to prepare a report on the events of July 2019 and some days later I was sent scanned copies. It was a touching moment when I saw these pages; the hand-written testimonies reminded me of the first documents I had read in the UMHK archive in Brussels. This time, however, these were the words of the ex-workers, or at least the secretaryâs voice. I do understand the secretaryâs notes as a documentation of our discussions, which is â as much as a careful documentation of the weekly meetings â a complex record-keeping system that maintains the memory and the master narrative. It is very much a site of a corpus that has so far been invisible. It forms part of a new, alternative corpus that consists not only of the archival material in Brussels.
3.5 An Alternative Archive
Battley postulates the significance of complex record-keeping systems among communities who traditionally have been âotheredâ and whose â[r]ecords are embedded and embodied in the communityâs people, stories, processes and places of belongingâ.49 Battley rightly warns us that â[r]emoving community records into an archival institution and arranging and describing them to suit institutional systems strips away the communityâs own measures of authenticityâ.50
Battley illustrates the point of a record taken from the community to be placed in the archive with the following example, in an interview with a longstanding club member who described going to look at club records that had been transferred to the universityâs âSpecial Collectionsâ.
[â¦] there were also two big photograph albums, which again had been wafting around. Theyâd come out at Club functions. They used to sit in this wardrobe for a while. When I wanted to look at them, recently, theyâre now at the Archives in the University, so I had to put white gloves
on to be able to look at them [laughing], but I appreciate this was policy for Archives, so I guess weâve â¦â.
I describe the secretaryâs report in chapter five in detail to assure the authenticity of his voice. However, it is important to mention his report at this point in relation to his role as chronicler of the history of the ODV s; of course, at the same time he is also an ODV sharing in the same painful experiences.
Seen from this perspective, dependency and capacity for action offer a new methodological turn that opens up the possibility of a new alternative corpus (or ânew alternative archiveâ as Tchokothe suggests).51 It is one of shared collective memories, while ensuring that the people in the field are not disowned of their archives, knowledge and agency.52
that the knowledge practices we (modern scholars) have at our disposal are, in turn, conditioned to reinstate themselves. A consequence of this feature is that it may perform epistemic and ontological invalidations â or absences â of the possibility of the multiplicity of worlds.54
My aim thus is to present the multiplicity in knowledge production and the entanglements that contributed to this assemblage of knowledge. It is after all, to emphasise Strathernâs point, important to know how knowledge is produced. Equally important to me are two more questions: who owns knowledge and whose knowledge counts?
[a]s ethnographers, we use, manipulate, alter, edit, discard, reduce and recycle voices from both communities equally. Whether explicitly by signed consent (There) or implicitly through making oneâs writing (Here) public in journals or books, the voices we recruit â whether from those in or from the field â equally serve the ethnographer to explain, connect, theorise, concretise, illustrate, and advocate a particular ethnographic account.56
I am thus aware that, in the end, I am the one doing the textual representation of the ODV sâ voices and there is thus a risk that I might represent their voices inadequately, especially taking into account that â[e]very transcription is a re-telling, a new telling of a previously heard, now newly heard voiceâ.57
An appropriate approach to deal with this situation comes from Pillow58 and Visweswaran59 and their findings of the benefit of a reflexive approach: â[u]ncomfortable reflexivity, then, is not about better methods, or about whether we can represent people better butâ, as Visweswaran states, âwhether we can be accountable to peopleâs struggles for self-representation and
The analogy of the participantsâ entanglement in a spiderweb helps one understand how the ODV sâ master narrative was negotiated, and the knowledge production in the barazaweb helped me avoid the problem of becoming a platform for their goal and of them being instrumental for my goals. Our sharing in the barazaweb greatly dissolved the opposition of researcher-researched communities, while at the same time we did not affirm oneness and I did not pretend to avoid âotheringâ.61 The benefit of the barazaweb for the research was thus not âgiving voiceâ to the ODV s in a benevolent way, but accepting that they were taking their voice to frame their master narrative. Hence, their voice is a new voice in the alternative archive.
The following section focuses on the plurilingual situation of the research setting, because an understanding of the different languages and language attitudes in the area of Lubumbashi over the given research time forms the basis for the description of language choices for strategic reasons. These language choices were made apparent not only during the interviews and baraza but also in the company magazine Mwana Shaba, and to a lesser degree in the annual reports.
4 The Importance of Language Choice
The language(s) used in the documents created by the representatives of the colonial state, the UMHK and later Gécamines, the ex-mineworkers and myself during the interviews and baraza, mirror not only what is thought of the most appropriate mean of communication in mostly a plurilingual setting but equally reflect relations of power between those who write or speak and those who listen or read.62 Those involved in communication likewise chose a language to pursue resistance or offer concession. Thus, the language choice in the texts for this research is meaningful. Swahili and French are relevant in the context of this study, not because other languages were not used in
Swahili has been spoken in the eastern parts of the Congo, as well as in the region of Katanga and its capital city, what is now Lubumbashi, since at least the arrival of the Arabs. Swahili has been equally useful for European traders, missionaries and âexplorersâ;64 the coastal form from Zanzibar became the basis for a British controlled âstandardâ variety. But Lubumbashi Swahili is different. Schicho describes this creolised central variety (or central varieties) as a âbrokenâ version of Lubumbashi Swahili (or up-country Swahili), characterised by lexical borrowings from French and Swahili and other Bantu languages, language switches and transfer of syntactic structures from âStandard Swahiliâ to Lubumbashi Swahili.65 These linguistic differences emerged as individual and spontaneous phenomena. Ferrari et al. state that the simplified vernacular (which functioned like a pidgin) transformed into a widespread first language in Katanga: âLe Swahili tel quâil est parlé au Katanga est depuis longtemps un symbole du régionalisme katangaisâ (Swahili as spoken in Katanga has long been a symbol of Katangese regionalism).66 In addition, Swahili is part of the linguistic repertoire of immigrants and their descendants.
According to Fabian, Swahili was used in Katanga for two political reasons.67 First, it was an attempt to create a greater distance between the Congo and southern British colonies. The British colonies constituted a danger because of their interest in Katangaâs natural resources. Second, Swahili was considered a convenient means of communication to stabilise the workforce; controlling communication allowed not only the control of work life but equally other domains of life.68
For the Belgian colonial state and the UMHK, language policies were essential, because those communicating needed to make sure that they would be understood and that their ideas would be followed. At the same time, they tried to propagate Belgian norms through French. French was therefore chosen for colonial publications such as à chacun sa maison, publications aimed in particular at the évolués (âan upper class of educated Congolese who were granted certain rights following their assumption, to varying degrees, of a lifestyle similar to the European oneâ).72 French was also the language of choice for company minutes; these documents were meant for internal use and communication with the metropolis.
4.1 Language in Schools
In Belgium, the question of the appropriate language(s) in the colony had been discussed from the very beginning. Flemish nationalists in particular protested against the fact, that Congolese children should only be taught French and not it Dutch.73 However, for primary education in the Congo,74 the colonial authorities preferred African languages to European languages. Meeuwis states that in the colonial context, in nearly all primary schools the medium of instruction
In the annual report of 1950, in a section on courses for workersâ general education, the company explains that it would like to offer illiterates and semiliterates an opportunity to increase their knowledge of reading Swahili and spoken French to prepare them for further professional education.76 Still, the UMHK tried to put the emphasis on what they called âmother tongueâ, but that referred to Swahili. The workersâ ambitions to learn French were criticised:
| Sa grande ambition est de connaître le français, signe extérieur de civilisation. Calcul, mesure, dessin, langue maternelle, lui semblent superflus.77 | His great ambition is to know French, an outward sign of civilisation. Calculation, measurement, drawing, mother tongue, seem superfluous to him. |
In its 1953 annual report, the UMHK argued that it would be an absolute necessity to start teaching in Swahili, which would become the general language throughout Upper Katanga. However, in the first year, French would be an important curriculum subject. Starting from the third year of primary school, French exercises should include not only oral exercises but also writing and reading. In Grade 5, French should become the first language of instruction. All post-primary education should be taught in French.78
Thus, the schools for the workersâ children, who were envisaged as the companyâs future workforce, prioritised Swahili from the moment of enrolment. However, knowledge of at least basic French was also promoted. For the companyâs future managers and senior workers, French was vital and was therefore taught and regarded as the language of prestige and power.
The UMHK mainly chose French to communicate in written form with the workers, but Swahili played an important role.79 The UMHK chose a title in
4.2 Authenticité
The companyâs language policy was influenced by political changes, particularly when Congo gained independence in 1960. After his second coup on 24 November 1965, Mobutu Sese Seko intended to change Congoâs image. The country underwent a campaign under the motto of authenticité81 (authenticity), which reclaimed the nationâs African traditions.82 The Mobutu government began to change the names of the countryâs major cities in May 1966; Elisabethville became Lubumbashi, a move that represented a re-baptism, because the Belgian colonisers had already renamed the cities between 1885 and 1935.83 Mobutu stated: â[b]y the policy of [authenticité], the return to our sources, I hope to mentally decolonize my people, that is to say, to modify the structures left by the colonizerâ.84
This movement implied that he had to find a language for his ideology. Therefore, a conference was organised where intellectuals started debating language issues and made suggestions, but Mobutu was very much in favour of his own language, Lingala. However, authenticité did not contain a real language policy in which African languages would gain prominence. French remained the language of the state. The reason for this was the localised use of African languages in Zaire, which did not exceed the limits of the territory occupied by the communities speaking those languages.85 In 1971, for instance, Mobutu decided to replace the terms Monsieur and Madame, not with words used in Lingala, or Kikongo, Swahili or any other language from the Congo, but with Citoyen and Citoyenne, taken from the French Revolution.86 Mobutu was, however, favouring the French of France over the Belgians: the words septante (seventy) and nonante (ninety), used in Belgian French, were replaced by soixante-dix and quatre-vingt-dix, the French words for these numbers.87 Furthermore, even the
In the following section, some extracts from articles published in Mwana Shaba illustrate the UMHKâs choice of language to communicate to workers. The choice of Swahili for specific topics is of interest â the UMHK wanted to ensure workersâ comprehension.
4.3 Swahili and French
4.3.1 Announcements
In 1966, Mwana Shaba published an order informing workers that they were requested to always carry their identity documents.88 It published this notification in full length in French and in Swahili. The Swahili version includes terminology that is characteristic of Lubumbashi Swahili, which includes many words borrowed from French. They are marked with quotation marks and end marks in the original:
Kwa maombi ya âserviceâ ya âadministration Généraleâ ya mji wa Elisabethville kwa kutaka kupunguza kazi ya âcontrôlesâ ya wa-âagentsâ wa kuchunga kanuni wa-âcommissaires de policeâ na kwa faida ya watu wa kazi, tunakumbusha ya kama, kila mkaaji wa nji wa Elisabethville anapashwa kutembea kila siku na :
Vitu hivi ni vya kuonyesha wakate wote pale wakubwa wa kazi ya serikali wanaiomba.89 |
At the request of the services of the general administration of the city of Elisabethville in order to facilitate the controls of the agents of order (police commissioners) and in the interest of the workers we remind any inhabitant of the city of Elisabethville that he must permanently carry his identity documents:
These things have to be presented to the government employees whenever requested. |
In the same year, the UMHK announced the creation of shops where employees of the company could buy daily necessities at a reduced price.90 The text was
In the 1 June 1966 issue, Mwana Shaba placed an announcement for a section dedicated to letters to the editor, a section that had existed before but had been cancelled for some time.92 The announcement was published in French and Swahili, and letters from the readers were published in both languages. Each contribution ended with a short comment, such as thanks for the contribution or a reference to further information. The editors of Mwana Shaba added these comments in the language in which the letter was composed. The letters to the editors that were published were of course carefully selected and served as a measure to control communicative content by the company. In 1966, Mwana Shaba published the following complaint by a reader, which was followed by a reply from the publisher:
| M. Lambert Lukuka wa Panda anasikitika ya kuwa Kiswahili inapunguka zaidi na zaidi katika Mwana Shaba.
Français ni luga inaonekana kuwa na wasomaji wa kuenea. Habari yetu fupi inayoandikwa katika français na Kiswahili inawezesha kwa wasomaji wengi zaidi kwa kujizoea luga ingine. Lakini français ya vyombo vya ufundi tuseme, ni ngumu sana kwa kuiguza katika Kiswahili. Zaidi ya ile, ukurasa wetu wa âLa Boîte aux Lettresâ inajibu katika luga ile msomaji alitumia. Tena musisahau ya kuwa kizazi cha sasa kinajua français na kinaituia zaidi na zaidi.93 |
M. Lambert Lukuka of Panda is sad that Swahili is diminishing more and more in Mwana Shaba.
French is a language that seems to have a widening readership. Our short contributions written in French and Swahili enable more readers to practise the alternating language. But the technical French, letâs say, is very difficult to translate into Swahili. In addition, our âLa Boîte aux Lettresâ page responds to the message the reader used. And do not forget that the current generation knows French and uses it more and more. |
The complaint provided the publisher with the opportunity to expound on the companyâs view that workersâ French language skills should be improved. The response by the editor of Mwana Shaba implies the lower prestige that was attributed to Swahili in comparison to French. Swahili was presented as a language useful for communication as long as the topic did not concern any
4.3.2 In Memoriam
Obituaries were published in either Swahili or French in most cases: in Swahili for Congolese workers and in French for white staff members. Bilingual texts were published when the Congolese deceased person held a higher position. In 1966, for instance, the obituary for M. Alphonse Hamici was published.94 He was chef of the Cité and is described as the brother of the administrative director of the weekly newspaper La voix du Katanga. The hierarchy within the company and society thus had an influence on the language choice.
4.3.3 Swahili
The section Nouvelles de chez nous (News from Us) in Mwana Shaba was dedicated to news covering leisure and especially sport activities in the different locations in Katanga where the UMHK had its mines and camps. Additionally, letters to the editor were often (but not always) published in this section. Swahili was the choice for all this news, with the exception of the title of this section; sometimes the pictures illustrating a topic were accompanied by a caption in French and Swahili.
De Rooij analysed the section Habari za Kwetu (News of/from our Place/Home), as the section Nouvelles de chez nous was titled in earlier issues,95 looking at the letters to the editor in the April 1958 issue. The letters described the problems and concerns of the residents in the late 1950s. De Rooij argues that the letters that made it into the magazine nearly always presented complaints about the loss of traditional values and behaviour in the new urban centres of the Copperbelt. There were warnings against the dangers of alcohol, thievery and the changing attitude of young women who no longer automatically obeyed the old customs. De Rooij points out that during this period of rising political activity and unrest, it did not come as a big surprise that the letters to the editor did not contain any political issues. In addition, â[e]ven if some
De Rooij argues that the letters in Habari za Kwetu are examples of popular literacy because most of the employees of the UMHK were schooled workers. However, the actual proficiency in writing Swahili is difficult to assess. According to De Rooij â[t]he variability in spelling displayed in the letters allows the conclusion that there was no clear written standard variety which the writers could turn to and that to some degree their writing reflects the spoken language of that timeâ.97 What we gain from De Rooijâs analysis of the letters is an idea of the colloquial Swahili in the Copperbelt of the late 1950s.
The UMHKâs language policy left its traces in the status that is attributed today to Swahili and French, status that became obvious in the interviews and during the baraza. Swahili is the lingua franca among the ODV s. However, in communications between the members and the president of their association, French was more commonly used, even though the president is a Swahili speaker. In many ways the groupâs language use mirrored the hierarchical structures in which they had been socialised. This resulted, for instance, in very formalised openings of the meetings (three times a week in Cité Gécamines for the board members of the ODV) in French, followed by a prayer in Swahili. The discussions that followed and which I attended were characterised by a typical switching between Swahili and French, in which Lubumbashi Swahili borrows from French and vice versa.98 Whenever I was invited to talk during these meetings, to present my research project, deposit my interview requests or speak about any other issue, I had to follow the protocol given by the president in French.
I thus addressed them in French, but switched to Swahili after a while because I soon realised that the president or his secretary started to translate French into Swahili for some participants. Ex-mineworkersâ knowledge of French depends largely on the category of work they did. Blue-collar workers usually had less formal education and were thus less proficient in French, whereas those whose career paths ended in senior positions were required to have a very good command of French, not least because all the paperwork had to be handled in French. However, since the blue-collar and senior positions were classified into numerous subgroups, there was a broad spectrum of
Before I started an interview with the ODV s, I usually asked them what their language preference was. In Cité Gécamines, where ex-blue-collar workers usually lived, they most often were in favour of Swahili, whereas in Makomeno, the neighbourhood of the former cadres, French was usually preferred. In the course of the interviews, however, both languages were spoken. These interviews would certainly serve as a rich database to analyse code switching and code mixing by speakers and listeners with a plurilingual repertoire. However, in the context of this study, the purely morpho-syntactical discussion is irrelevant.
There was one interview that was in French only, although all the communication before and after was solely in Swahili, even without any borrowings from French. This interview took place in Makomeno, in the house of a former manager who had moved with his wife to Lubumbashi from Bukavu, a city at the very east of the DRC on the border of Rwanda. In this region, the Swahili is more similar to the Swahili from the East Coast and thus much closer to the variety I had learned. From the first moment I met him and his family our communication was in Swahili only; they even expressed their delight to speak âtheirâ Swahili. However, for the recorded interview, he insisted on French. As a manager, as he pointed out, he wanted to perform according to what was formally required. Thus, language choice is never only to ensure mutual understanding, but equally an assertion of the status linked to it.
The difference in language choice for a formal and a less formal setting also became apparent in July 2019 within the scope of the trigger event and the baraza in Cité Gécamines. The trigger event took place in a hall that belongs to one of the many church organisations in that neighbourhood. The formal setting, with tables for the projector and laptop, the microphone ready for the introduction by the Waza Arts Centre and myself, meant that during the individual welcomes, even the members with whom I usually spoke Swahili chose French, and it was no surprise that unknown people greeted me in French.
The baraza that followed the week after took place in the meeting room of the ODV board, a room that was familiar to me and to those attending. My introduction and initial statements to initiate the discussions were in French, but often borrowed from Swahili, especially when topics demanded specific descriptions, such as to discuss of the role of the tshanga tshanga (the chef de Cité in Cité Gécamines). During the discussion, though, I often switched to Swahili, especially when I responded to a participant who had made his or her statement in Swahili. The participants used both languages, some more French than Swahili, others more Swahili than French. What characterised these gatherings most was the discussions among the participants themselves (as I had hoped), who engaged enthusiastically in sometimes highly emotional debates. Everybody spoke according to their choice, it seemed. Nevertheless, I may have influenced the language choice during these discussions simply by my presence as a researcher from Europe.
5 Proceeding from Here
I proceed on the basis of two assumptions: that (industrial) paternalism existed, and that there is an interweaving of people and materiality. Both are relevant in the context of this research.
The ODV sâ master narrative of Câétait bien à lâépoque! and their constant recall of what they had been provided with by the UMHK require some remarks on paternalism and the industrial paternalistic approach by the UMHK that is visible in the archival material. Paternalism obviously left traces among the ODV s, in the sense that they felt âtaken care of wellâ.
The (ex-)workersâ perceptions of paternalistic experiences are not discussed in the literature. The âbeneficiariesâ of paternalism (which is critically discussed
5.1 Paternalism
I see these simple populations outside the large urban centers, and I feel myself more than ever the father of a family. And if I have ten children, that has prepared me to better understand these peoples ⦠We know that all the children of a family must work together to achieve the big goals. And these children are like the ten fingers of my two hands. When I am in the Congo, I listen to all the voices ⦠I say to those who only represent two fingers, âYou donât have the right to ask me not to take account of the eight othersâ.99
De Schrijver was, as Young explains, the architect of a radical decolonisation. Considering De Schrijverâs position, it was surprising that he used a metaphor that reduced the Congolese to children who needed to be taken care of. Belgiumâs role of mother and father was the blueprint for the UMHKâs approach towards their workforce, as I argue below.
Young further argues that paternalism as a guide to policy can be traced back to the founding of the Congo Free State in 1885, but until World War II the approach was more of an implicit assumption than a political theory.100 Up to that point, the Congolese had been simply considered immature and with no need of any further âsophisticationâ. But in the postwar era colonialism was on the defensive and needed justifications for its prolongation. This resulted in paternalistic colonial administration policies. â[R]educed to its simplest expression, paternalism required an aggressive expansion in social
Colonial âdevelopmentâ gained a foothold on various levels in different domains and in rural as well as urban areas. In the urban areas, for instance, âAfrican housingâ was promoted, as well as schools and hospitals. In the rural areas, the Fonds du Bien-Ãtre Indigène promoted welfare activities from sanitary campaigns to the provision of drinking water.102 At the societal level, for instance, â[t]he sale of liquor to Africans was prohibited until 1955. This restriction dated back to the Brussels Anti-Slavery Conference of 1889â1890; initially, it was no doubt a humanitarian measure to halt the ravages of alcoholism and prevent unscrupulous exploitationâ.103
In relation to companies, in 1946 the legislation adopted the establishment of Conseils dâentreprise, similar to company unions, which were a forum for discussions between labour and management about worker grievances.104 Half of the worker members were elected. Young argues that these bodies were a determining factor for the slow growth of African labour organisations.
Hailey is quite right to add that the âconcern of the Administration has not in fact been merely material; there has been a real element of good will toward the African population and its welfare. Good will is implicit in the paternal metaphor.â105
The goodwill of the mining companies in the region was seen as such by many mineworkers, as Larmer et al. also point out.
In Katanga, the provision of comprehensive social services by the triumvirate of the mine company UMHK, the Roman Catholic Church and the
Belgian colonial state created a system of paternalism which many mineworkers and their families genuinely regarded as generous.106
I consider the discussions on paternalism mainly as a discourse about a unilateral declaration, because the paternalistic metaphor simply reduces the âbeneficiariesâ of the measures to recipients lacking agency. For this study, I thus understand paternalism as a setting in which the mining company operated. This paternalistic approach is evident in the ideological orientation of the companyâs decisions, which can be seen, for example in the reports from the archives.
Since the paternal metaphor is at least implicitly used by the ODV s today as a reference point for a time when they lived in good circumstances, the question arises whether beneficiaries of a paternalistic approach are powerless or whether they find strategies to use the role of supposed powerlessness productively in order to cope with their current situation.
consciously presented themselves as âpoor widowsâ, as idealized stereotypes of suffering females who were believed to become needy and helpless at the death of their husbands. They told their stories in ways calculated to solicit sympathy. And this usually worked to their advantage since it placed men in the difficult situation of having to defend their âidealâ masculinity.108
By grieving in public, the widows drew attention to their social and economic needs. They reinforced the importance of the gender categories to prompt men, who had to uphold their own self-image, to guarantee the economic livelihood and social status of the bereaved widows. âAssisting widows in the tasks previously performed by their deceased husbands made men feel âstrongâ, âdynamicâ and âpaternalisticâ.â109 The widowsâ main aim was to acquire sufficient
Mutongiâs case study shows that at approximately the same time that the Lubumbashi mineworkers started their working careers in a paternalistic context, strategies to challenge the passive role existed, though in a different geographical and societal setting. Although I did not find evidence of these strategies in the archive, probably because of the corporate nature of the documents, I think the fact that the roles of beneficiary, passive and agent, can be reversed is important. Taking this line of thought further and applying it to the situation of ODV s, I conclude that they are not paralysed either, but also use strategies to voice their agency. The discourse on the past, the present and the future is thus shaped from different but intertwined roles.
5.2 Interweaving
The basic idea of actor-network theory (ANT), first developed by Bruno Latour and Michel Callon, is to bypass the subject-object dichotomy and instead focus on the interweaving of people and non-human âbeingsâ. The idea is not, as has often been assumed, to assign non-human things (such as objects, technology, animals, plants) attributes that are usually regarded as special features of the human capacity to act (such as consciousness, intentionality and eccentric positionality). On the contrary, ANT virtually refuses to make any a priori statements about the competencies, qualities and characteristics of the actors involved.110 Latour suggested that ANT should be understood as the science of associations. The idea is that the concept of the actor should be expanded. Latour argues that we can either follow social theorists and set up at the start which group and level of analyses we will focus on, or âwe follow the actorsâ own ways and begin our travels by the traces left behind by their activity of forming and dismantling groupsâ.111
I use this concept of ANT to underline my argument that spatial configurations and objects in a space, as well as materiality, influence society in a dialectical relationship. Law argues that the successful long-distance control by Portuguese colonists was based on an expansion that involved âthe
In the context of this study, I see spatial objects, especially houses, as non-human actors. I treat them as triggers of nostalgia, as I will explain.
Place can be understood as simultaneously imagined and embodied, an active site for social practices through history, memory, other people, and material things. [â¦] History is not stuck in the past but moves through the lives of people and places, and is constantly being recreated in the present through memories (Blokland, 2001; Kuhn, 2000) and the presence of material objects (Jones, 2010).114
6 Conceptual Background of the Nostalgia-based Master Narrative
Reflecting on nostalgia involves thinking from todayâs perspective about what has been lost. I approach nostalgia by taking a closer look at the discourse and then suggesting that nostalgia works as a backward projection to solve todayâs problems.
6.1 The Object of Loss
Odhiambo discusses the lyrics of a song by Jumanne Omari, a musician from Samia in western Kenya, whose works often dealt with proletarian labour.115 The following lines of a song from 1958 illustrate the virtues of humble domestic work:
| Kazi ya Kiboi
Inapendwa sana Na vijana Kwa sababu yake Wana pata posho Na nyumba ya bure. |
The work of houseboy
Is very much liked By young men The reason being They get rations and free accommodation.116 |
The work of a domestic servant is described as being attractive to young men, not because of the work in particular but simply because of the benefits linked to it: food and housing. This example illustrates that work was neither exclusively perceived as exploitative by employees, nor that the topic of this section is unique to Elisabethville/Lubumbashi.
Fabianâs History from Below is a remarkable work that discusses the booklet Vocabulaire de ville de Elisabethville,117 an account by André Yav, a former domestic servant. Yavâs narrative of Elisabethvilleâs history covers roughly
Because they thought [it good] to build for the black man just a one-room house. [But] this man had his wife and his children, some of them male, some of them female. Now this poor man with his wife and children suffered when he went to sleep and when he awoke. Who is this man? The poor man, the boy, who sleeps in one small room together with his children, female and male. When he goes to work, the poor boy, when he wakes up, he says to all this grown-up children: Mothers and fathers, you must excuse me. Get up and leave, or go first outside. Me, your old man, I want to put on my clothes first.121
And should this White man have two rooms, enough to give both to his employee, the boy, he puts a lock on it [to make it] his chicken coop or rabbit hutch. In that respect the White had a very bad spirit indeed. But there were many among them who had a very good spirit and took very good care of their people.122
The decline in living conditions is a topic not only among the exmineworkers but also in the verbal arts of Lubumbashi today. Sando Marteau is a performing artist who lives in Lubumbashi and is âone of the very few Congolese poets who consistently employ Swahili for their compositions. Full of melancholy tones, Sando Marteauâs beautiful, deep songs speak out the pain and malaise of contemporary Congolese societyâ.123 Rettová provides us with the Swahili lyrics of Marteauâs song Union Minère du Haut-Katanga:124
| Alikuwa mama wa Wacongomani wote,
mama wa watoto wa Katanga, mushariki wa ulimwengu muzima, na yeye wote walioneyamo.125 |
She was the mother of all Congolese,
the mother of the children of Katanga, a companion for the whole world, everyone found his place in it. |
The reference to âmotherâ is used synonymously for the mining company that offered a place for everyone and took care of her âchildrenâ. Also, the reference to ânot being abandonedâ is present in this song as it is in ex-workersâ narratives.
The second stanza states that âthe Congo is in tearsâ (leo Congo mu matshozi), followed by a reference to exploitation, asking the question âfor whose benefit?â (kwa faida ya nani?) in the third stanza. In the fourth stanza, todayâs mining companies are criticised: âstranger ate what was on the tableâ (Mutoka mbali alikuliya lwe ku meza) âwhile the Congolese picked up the crumbs on the
The nature of the problem described corresponds to the perceptions of the ex-workers. They explained how today the wealth is taken by foreign companies which leave no benefits for them. In the sixth stanza of the song, Marteau asks where the leaders are, who are missing in these times:
| Mabunge tulitshawa muko wapi?
Viongozi mune tu ongoza muko wapi? Kwetu kama aina kwetu, kwetu kama dju ya muti, mali yetu kama aina yetu, mali yetu kama ya benyewe. Atu oneyemo, atu oneyemo ma minings, sisi atu oneyemo.126 |
Our elected representatives, our parliamentarians, where are you?
Leaders who lead us, where are you? At our place, itâs as if we did not have a home; with us, itâs like being perched on top of a tree. Our riches are as if they were not ours, our riches are as if they belonged to someone else. We do not find ourselves in them, we do not end up in mining companies, we do not find ourselves in them. |
The same perception of missing leadership manifested in the interviews and during the baraza, when statements like âOn a besoin dâun conducteurâ (We need a leading figure [lit. driver]) were made. In Marteauâs song and among the members of the Collectif des ex-agents de la Gécamines, the UMHK â the mining company of the old times â is glorified whereas the state enterprise, Gécamines, which succeeded the UMHK, is criticised. Todayâs politicians and leaders are considered responsible for the economic decline.
Sando Marteau published another version of this song: Mama wa Wacongomani (Mother of the Congolese). In this version, âmotherâ is as a synonym for the UMHK. Many of the verses are similar, but this version includes a second verse that praises the mother for very specific qualities:
| Alijenga mabarabara, masomo,
mahospitali, miji mbali mbali, wafanya kazi wake wali lipa vizuri, mutoka mbali na mwana Congo wote walifurahi, kweli alikuwa mama wa wote.127 |
She built roads, schools,
hospitals, different cities, and the workers were well paid, foreigners and Congolese were all happy, she really was a mother to all. |
Sammy Balojiâs artworks are prominent in Jewsiewickiâs reflections on local collective memory and popular culture. Baloji works with a heritage that does not belong to him âbecause it was written from the gaze of elsewhere and refers to the generations of their fathers and grandfathersâ.130 With these âruinsâ that Baloji processes in his works he focuses on replacing old metaphors with new ones, with the purpose of reconstructing what is missing today.131 This artistâs work displays, as in Marteauâs songs, the nostalgia that permeates todayâs society.
In Native Nostalgia, Dlamini explains that sentiments of nostalgia confirm that peopleâs lives in the past were different in comparison to the current moment â though not in the way often imagined.132 The author assumes that nostalgia is âa sentiment of loss and displacementâ and âit is about present anxieties refracted through the prism of the pastâ.133 This sentiment usually erupts in moments when people feel adrift in a world that seems to be out of their control. This is certainly the case for the ex-mineworkers in this study, who regretfully refer to their good life in the past.
Following Boym,134 Dlamini135 delineates two types of nostalgia.136 First, he discusses restorative nostalgia, the emphasis of which lies in ânóstrosâ (return/homecoming). Thus, a person wishes âto rebuild the lost home and patch up
The ODV s did not make a single reference to a wish to convince me of the âtruthâ of the past. There is no master narrative to correct, as it does not exist. When I referred earlier to the Vocabulaire de ville de Elisabethville, it was not an attempt to compare the narratives of the domestic servant of that time with those of the ODV s. The life experiences are not the same (although Yav describes the economic crisis in the 1930s and the ODV s experienced a severe economic decline). It is no surprise that the longing for earlier work and better living conditions was common. In that sense, Worby and Allenâs approach to nostalgia seems to add a valuable aspect. They suggest that nostalgia âdenotes a specific way of enfolding the past into the present, and indeed the futureâ.139 Worby and Ally elicit Dlaminiâs different registers; in the sociological reading, they identify nostalgia as a particular sentiment that represents a symptom, and use that symptom to diagnose and explain an underlying social malaise.140 The workersâ painful longing (âalgiaâ) does not refer to returning home (ânostosâ) but can rather be seen as an expression of this mood that represents the symptom of the underlying malaise. Furthermore, the âhomeâ may have existed or it may have been purely imaginary; more importantly, it may belong to the past or to the future.141
Rosaldo discusses an additional and different aspect of nostalgia. He points to the fact that âagents of colonialism â officials, constabulary officers, missionaries, and other figures from whom anthropologists ritually dissociate themselves â often display nostalgia for the colonized culture as it was âtraditionallyâ (that is, when they first encountered it).â142 However, this category of nostalgia is not relevant for this study. The UMHK and the Belgian (colonial) state were far from innocent in altering or destroying âtraditionalâ life. I will
Nevertheless, the nostalgia of the Belgians in this sense is an important aspect, which is relevant to Mobutu Sese Sekoâs undertaking to change Congoâs imaginary. For example, he changed the name of Léopoldville to Kinshasa in 1966, and launched a campaign under the motto of authenticité (authenticity), which attempted to reclaim the nationâs African traditions.143 In the ideological manifeste de la Nâsele, published in 1967, he defined authenticité and Mobutism. From a political point of view, authenticité started in 1971 when Mobutu addressed the UN on 14 February.144 The motto of authenticité was created as an all-encompassing African philosophy and ârepresented a departure from the ferocity of the colonial experience and provided a cohesive and comprehensive value system (cultural, political, legal, and economic) to harmonize the past with the presentâ.145
I see the ODV sâ narrative of the glorious past as a possibility to elicit their âobject of lossâ in particular.146 Their nostalgic narratives are associated less with life as a whole than with different aspects and facets that constitute a workerâs life. I thus consider Câétait bien à lâépoque! as a concomitant feature and as a starting point to analyse how the workers interpreted and shaped their world on the basis of different facets expressed in concrete texts that represent the knowledge and thoughts of particular times.
[i]t is change, rather than continuity, which is more difficult to come to terms with for many people, as it can lead to a loss of ontological security
(Back, 2009; Giddens, 1991; Savage, 2008). A feeling of belonging may mitigate this loss (Bennett, 2012; May, 2013).
I thus see the strategies with which members of the ODV create their belonging to one group as a tool to cope with a life that radically changed in 2003.
Nostalgia is not a unique phenomenon among the ODV, and has been widely discussed under different perspectives in relation to economic decline. Bissell, for instance, examines nostalgia for the colonial past among Zanzibaris whose turning point was also economic change â the moment when the clove industry largely collapsed. âUnable to supply the âgoodsâ of life, the state faced increasing levels of discontent. In the streets, ujamaa socialism was widely seen as the source of economic and social stagnationâ.148
[t]he present must be compared to other moments and marked as a moment of declineâas in the fall of empires, for example, or national eclipse, or a loss of power and position by a particular social group. Moreover, nostalgia requires an object world to seize onâbuildings, fashion, images, and the ephemera of everyday lifeâ.150
As a false or fictitious history, the product of fantasy, nostalgia lacks a âproperâ distance or objectivity. Moreover, it is typically represented as a reaction to a larger and more encompassing set of forces: modernity or modernization; consumption, spectacle, and the eclipse of history; postmodernism; transnational or late capitalism; and, of course, globalization.151
The ODV sâ nostalgia is not a âcolonial nostalgiaâ as described by Bissell, because their longing focuses mainly on the company that took care of them, before
Nostalgia also gained interest among scholars working on the industrial sector, where it has been described as a strategy to create a feeling of belonging. Strangleman discusses nostalgia in reference to railway companies.152 He suggests that the past, history and identity are almost malleable and thus used by managements and/or governments to win consent for change, or minimise criticism among workers and the public.
In Stranglemanâs approach, nostalgia is seen a result of successful strategies used by those in power over others. In his work, managements or governments are responsible for creating a sense of belonging. They create a corporate culture that results in nostalgia among the employees. He refers to Gabriel,153 who argues that âmarginalised workers attach nostalgic meaning to a wide variety of animate and inanimate objects in their work lives, and from such attachments derive ontological securityâ.154 It is therefore worth examining the discourse of those in power, in the context of this study of a mining company. At the same time, following Strangleman, nostalgia becomes visible in the ex-mineworkersâ feelings of being neglected. Equally visible is how this feeling is linked to animate and inanimate objects that are intertwined with the lost employment.
The longing for what is lacking in the present is, following Pickering and Keightley, not only a yearning for what is not attainable anymore, owing to the irreversibility of time; it is also important to take into account that âto condemn nostalgia solely to this position leaves unattended not only more general feelings of regret for what time has brought, but also more general questions for how the past may actively engage with the present and futureâ.155
6.2 Nostalgic Backward Projection as a Solution to Current Problems and the Future
I have often reflected on the term âsurveillanceâ. I encountered it in its French usage in documents of the colonial state and of the UMHK alike in connection
A unique feature of the Belgian system was the Commission for the Protection of Natives [DW]. This body was designed to be a sort of moral ombudsman, to maintain surveillance [italics DW] on the administration and companies and to expose and denounce any exploitation of the African population.â156
I therefore read this noun exclusively as a synonym for monitoring, observation, control and as a term that describes a situation of a unilateral performance by a powerful instance, leaving those under surveillance in a position with limited agency. However, the actions of those in the subaltern position also leave traces that influence those in power.
One of the group discussions was dedicated to âsurveillanceâ, which we agreed upon at the trigger-event. From my side, I wished to discuss points that I extracted from earlier interviews. However, what I perceived as the control of workers by the company (such as the gong mentioned by almost all interviewees, which marked working hours and free time, or medical examinations to conduct medical experiments, unannounced house inspections or the careful compilation of films screened to workers in the leisure circles) was â to summarise it very generally â described as a feeling of âbeing taken care ofâ and ânot being neglectedâ. The ODV s linked what I considered as surveillance in all contexts to the company taking care of them.
The nostalgic sentiment of the lack of a general leading figure can be seen in comments by ex-workers during the baraza, such as âQuel papa va nous encore rassembler?â (Which father will gather us now?), âEst-ce quâon peut exister sans papa?â (Can we exist without father?), âOn a besoin dâun conducteurâ (We need a leader [lit. driver].) or âOn cherche un papa The early paternalist approach, un papa qui va nous conduire au paiement ya franca yetuâ (We are looking for a responsible father, a father that will guide us to our money being paid). All these statements refer to their current situation, where nobody is taking care of them anymore, expressing their feeling of helplessness. The term papa has another layer that goes beyond the simple reference to a father figure. It is used to describe a boss, someone from whom they can demand support in exchange for their manpower. However, that working relationship no longer exists. Hence, the call for a papa by the ex-workers is also a yearning for employment. Unfortunately, those times are now gone.
It is important to note that there were some voices with critical self-reflection among the ex-workers regarding their nostalgia. One participant in a baraza
The interviewees and participants of the baraza were socialised in a company structure that fostered an approach where workers were to be provided what was needed for life, while workers in return dedicated their life to their employer. Discussions on the dangers of the former paternalistic approach for oneâs own agency today, however, usually resulted in the intervieweesâ and participantsâ reference to the current lack of father figure.
The object of paternalist policy is to make the African a being assisted, insured and pensioned, instead of making him a free man ⦠Each native is provided with his standardized house, mass-produced furniture, pre-determined scale of food, his free time regulated to the last detail without a trace of imagination ⦠Man turned into a sort of vegetable, in an anticipation of the mechanical earthy paradise of Bernanos. But all times, men have found freedom in misery preferable to a comfortable slavery.157
The early paternalist approach by the UMHK is illustrated by the following words of a supervisor at the UMHK in 1935, which reflect the slogan âBonne santé, bon moral, bon rendementâ (âGood health, good morale, good performanceâ), launched in 1927:
| The supervisor of the exploitation supervises the training of his black worker (â¦) The camp leader ensures the proper discipline of his staff, during and after work (â¦) The missionary (â¦) inculcates to children and adults the principles of good morale and good hygiene. The doctor treats the sick and prevents diseases. All are involved in the education and raising the black. |
Paternalistic actions concerned not only work and leisure, but the most intimate matters, such as marriage. What Cooper postulates for French and British Africa equally applies to the Belgian ideology: âWomen as the provided forâ.159 Thus, the UMHK supported their workers in getting married as one of the measures of the stabilisation policy, as it is explicitly mentioned for instance in the annual report of 1937.160
| Les contrats de travail de longue durée (3 ans ou au minimum 2 ans) constituent avec les mariages des travailleurs (surtout des recrues) les bases les plus solides dâune bonne politique de stabilisation M.O.I. | Long-term employment contracts (3 years or at least 2 years) constitute, together with the marriage of workers (especially recruits), the most solid basis for a good stabilisation policy of the MOI. |
âAlready at the time of their recruitment, labourers were encouraged to take their wife and children with them, if they had any. If they did not yet have a wife, but had already started the âtraditionalâ negotiations with the family-in-law, the recruiter did everything in his power to make the marriage happen (Annual Report MOI 1947: 24â25)â.161
The UMHK had a marriage brokerage system that provoked feelings of helplessness among workers as they realised âthat they depended on their employer not only for wages, food and housing, but for love and family as wellâ.162 In
In the following chapter, I discuss the ex-mineworkersâ nostalgia against the backdrop of three concerns that are in the broadest sense linked to the overall topic of surveillance. First, the ODV sâ feeling of lacking stability, which I examine on the basis of the concepts of kazi (work), leisure, space and the controlling system of tshanga tshanga and malonda, invented by the UMHK. Second, heshima (respect) â all the ODVS reported, although in different ways, their experiences of loss of respect that went hand in hand with the loss of employment. I illustrate this topic with three individual accounts. The third concern refers to matters that I read as relevant for creating identities.
Emily Callaci, Street Archives and City Life: Popular Intellectuals in Postcolonial Tanzania, Radical Perspectives (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2017), 35.
MOI = main dâoeuvre indigène (native workforce). I have struck out quoted words from which I dissociate myself, and indicate this with the insertion [DW] The term âindigèneâ often appears as part of names or in quotations. For the benefit of readability, it is later no longer struck out, even though I dissociate myself from its use.
AGR 2 â n°655â03047, Rapport Annuel 1951, 28.
AGR 2 â n°655â03047, Rapport Annuel 1951, 28.
AGR 2 â n°655â03047, Rapport Annuel 1951, 20.
AGR 2 â n°655â03047, Rapport Annuel 1951, 93.
Verne Harris, âHauntology, Archivy and Banditry: An Engagement with Derrida and Zapiroâ, Critical Arts 29, sup1 (2015), 13.
Verne Harris, Ghosts of Archive (Abingdon, NY: Routledge, 2020), 60.
Harris, âHauntologyâ, 15.
Harris, Ghosts, 10.
Baraza is a singular and plural noun.
Jill Lepore, âHistorians Who Love Too Much: Reflections on Microhistory and Biographyâ, The Journal of American History 88, no. 1 (2001): 133.
Sari Middernacht, âFrom Collective Curating to Sharing Curatorial Authority: Collaborative Practices as Strategies of Democratisation in Exhibition Making in Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of Congoâ, (Unpublished MA thesis: University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2018).
Middernacht, âCollective Curatingâ.
For reasons of security, I have changed his name.
The experiences of the ODV sâ children were not the focus of this research.
Hertz, âReflexivityâ, cit. in Pillow, âConfessionâ, 178.
Patai, â(Response)â, cit. in Pillow, âConfessionâ, 177.
Pillow, âConfessionâ, 185.
Pillow, âConfessionâ, 67.
Pillow, âConfessionâ, 185; Minh-Ha Trinh, When the Moon Waxes Red: Representation, Gender and Cultural Politics (New York: Routledge, 1991).
Pillow, âConfessionâ; Trinh, Moon.
Pillow, âConfessionâ, 185.
Pillow, âConfessionâ, 179.
Meizoz, Postures, 41â42.
Jérôme Meizoz, âSociocritique, Ethnologie Et Sociologie De La Littératureâ, Romantisme 145, no. 3 (2009), 100.
See, for example, Frisch, Shared Authority; Frisch, âCommentaryâ; High, âSharingâ ; Middernacht, âCollectiveâ; Portelli, âLivingâ; Shopes, âCommentaryâ; Sitzia, âShared Authorityâ; Alistair Thomson, âIntroduction â Sharing Authority: Oral History and the Collaborative Processâ, Oral History Review 30, no. 1 (2003).
James Yékú and Ayobami Ojebode, âFrom Google Doodles to Facebook: Nostalgia and Visual Reconstructions of the Past in Nigeriaâ, African Studies Review 64, no. 3 (2021).
Carl-Philipp Bodenstein and Daniela Waldburger, ââThere Is a Fault Here! A Report on a More Inclusive Research Method in a Project in Lubumbashi (DR Congo)â, FIELD: A Journal of Socially-Engaged Art Criticism, no. 17 (2021); Daniela Waldburger, âIl y a une erreur ici !â Rapport sur une méthode de recherche plus inclusive dans le cadre dâun projet impliquant dâanciens mineurs à Lubumbashiâ, in Lubumbashi aujourdâhui: Langues, arts et société, eds. Flavia Aiello and Roberto Gaudioso (Paris: LâHarmattan, 2021).
These concepts are related to each other and can include several sub-concepts.
Dibwe dia Mwembu, âHistoryâ; Fabian, âKaziâ; Petit and Mutambwa, âLA CRISEâ.
For the discursive analysis of concepts of identity, see for example, Bucholtz and Hall, âIdentityâ; Ochs, âConstructingâ; Daniela Waldburger, Komorisch im Transnationalen Kontext, Grazer Plurilingualismus-Studien 3 (Graz: Karl-Franzens-Univ. Graz Treffpunkt Sprachen Forschungsbereich Plurilingualismus, 2015); Daniela Waldburger, âSocial identity/identities among plurilingual Comorians in Marseille (France)â, in Mobility and Minorities in Africa â Nova Collectanea Africana, ed. Michele Carboni (Cagliari: Nova Collectanea Africana Collana del Centro di Studi Africani in Sardegna, 2018), 193â214.
The UMHK and Gécamines had mining sites in different geographical locations.
Strangleman, âNetworksâ, 259.
Strangleman, âNetworksâ, 259.
Bo StrÃ¥th, âUjamaa â the Evasive Translation of an Elusive Conceptâ, in Doing Conceptual History in Africa, eds. Axel Fleisch and Rhiannon Stephens, Making sense of history 25 (New York: Berghahn Books, 2016), 186.
Frisch, âCommentaryâ, 113.
Thomas Jahn, Matthias Bergmann and Florian Keil, âTransdisciplinarity: Between Mainstreaming and Marginalizationâ, Ecological Economics 79 (2012): 2.
Malin Mobjörk, âConsulting Versus Participatory Transdisciplinarity: A Refined Classification of Transdisciplinary Researchâ, Futures 42, no. 8 (2010): 867, 870.
Mobjörk, âConsultingâ, 870.
For a discussion of the role of Swahili in Lubumbashi, see, for example, Ferrari, Kalunga and Mulumbwa, Le Swahili, 127; Daniela Waldburger, âSwahili in Eastern Congo â from a Dominated to a Dominant Language or Vice Versa?â, in Pluricentric Languages and Non-Dominant Varieties Worldwide: Volume 1: Pluricentric Languages Across Continents â Features and Usage, ed. Rudolf Muhr (Frankfurt, Vienna: Peter Lang, 2016), 149.
Molara Ogundipe-Leslie, âLiterature and Development: Writing and Audience in Africaâ, in African Literature and Africaâs Development: Mapping Intersections, eds. Anne V. Adams and Janis A. Mayers (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 1998).
Coghlan, âWhat?â, 333.
Jiménez, âSpiderwebâ.
Jiménez, âSpiderwebâ, 53.
Jiménez, âSpiderwebâ, 53.
Jiménez, âSpiderwebâ, 73.
Battley, âAuthenticityâ, 60.
Battley, âAuthenticityâ, 61â62.
Rémi A. Tchokothe, âArchiving Collective Memories and (Dis)Owning. Special Issue, ed. Daniela Merolla on Behalf of the International Society for the Oral Literatures of Africaâ, Afrika Focus 32, no. 1 (2019); Rémi Armand Tchokothe, âEntré en tant que cousin, sorti en tant que gendarmeâ: Visa Balladur, Kwassa Kwassa, (im)mobilité et géopoét(h)ique relationnelle aux Comores, Africa Multiple 2 (Leiden: Brill, 2023).
Tchokothe, âArchivingâ.
Strathern, âOpeningâ, 28.
Blaser and De la Cadena, âPluriverseâ, 6.
Segall, âCritical Ethnographyâ, 584.
Segall, âCritical Ethnographyâ, 584.
Segall, âCritical Ethnographyâ, 585.
Pillow, âConfessionâ.
Kamala Visweswaran, Fictions of Feminist Ethnography (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1994).
Pillow, âConfessionâ, 193.
Segall, âCritical Ethnographyâ.
Fairclough, Language.
Tshibanda, «Vocabulaire», 92â93.
Fabian, âMissionsâ.
Walter Schicho, âNonâacceptance and Negation in the Swahili of Lubumbashiâ, African Languages and Cultures 5, no. 1 (1992): 77.
Ferrari, Kalunga and Mulumbwa, Le Swahili, 107.
Johannes Fabian, Language and Colonial Power: The Appropriation of Swahili in the Former Belgian Congo 1880â1938, African studies series 48 (London, New York, Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1986); Johannes Fabian, âSimplicity on Command: On Pidginization of Swahili in Shaba (Zaïre)â, in The Fergusonian Impact, in Honor of Charles A. Ferguson on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday. Vol. 1: From Phonology to Society, eds. Joshua A. Fishman et al. (Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1986).
For a discussion, see also Gysels, âFrenchâ.
Fabian, Language; Gysels, âFrenchâ.
Such as Greek or Flemish employees of mining and railway companies.
Fabian, Language, 14.
Kristien Geenen, âCategorizing Colonial Patients: Segregated Medical Care, Space and Decolonization in a Congolese City, 1931â62â, Africa 89, no. 1 (2019): 111; Pedro A. G. Monaville, âDecolonizing the University: Postal Politics, the Student Movement, and Global 1968 in the Congoâ (PhD dissertation: University of Michigan, 2013); Makombo, Du Congo Belge. Geenen (âCategorizingâ) shows in her paper on the categorising and taxonomy used for colonial patients that further distinctions were in use, such as indigènes civilisés and indigènes évolués and others, which included divergent professions.
Michael Meeuwis, âThe Origins of Belgian Colonial Language Policies in the Congoâ, Language Matters: Studies in the Languages of Africa 42, no 2 (2011), 194.
Meeuwis, âBilingualâ, 1281.
Meeuwis, âBilingualâ, 1280.
AGR 2 â n°655â03046, Rapport Annuel 1950, 32.
AGR 2 â n°655â03046, Rapport Annuel 1950, 32.
AGR 2 â n°656â03050, Rapport Annuel 1953, 26.
No records of oral communication between the UMHK representatives and workers are available.
AGR 2 â n°657â03053, Rapport Annuel 1956, 44.
For a detailed discussion of authenticité and its effect on the arts, see for example, Van Beurden, Authentically African.
Van Beurden, Authentically African; Dunn, âImaginingâ, 235; Ngalasso, âEtatâ.
However, re-baptism does not apply to Lubumbashi, because the Belgians founded the city.
Dunn, âImaginingâ, 240.
Ngalasso, âEtatâ, 11.
Dunn, âImaginingâ, 248.
Ngalasso, âEtatâ, 21.
Mwana Shaba, No. 123, 15 April 1966, 15.
Mwana Shaba, No. 123, 15 April 1966, 15.
Mwana Shaba, No. 126, 1 June 1966, 2.
âVivre mieux dans des moments difficilesâ/âkuishi vema wakati wa magumuâ.
Mwana Shaba, No. 126, 1 June 1966, 14â15.
Mwana Shaba, No. 127, 15 June 1966, 14.
Mwana Shaba, No. 125, 15 May 1966, 15.
De Rooij, âLettersâ.
De Rooij, âLettersâ.
De Rooij, âLettersâ.
A description of the code switching and code mixing in Lubumbashi Swahili is not relevant here. In a recent contribution, Mutambwa concludes: âla langue swahilie ne serait aujourdâhui que lâensemble de ces différentes variétésâ (Mutambwa, âKiswahiliâ, 51).
Crawford Young, Politics, 59.
Young, Politics, 60.
Young, Politics, 60.
Young, Politics, 62.
Young, Politics, 66.
Young, Politics, 62.
Young, Politics, 63.
Larmer, Guene and Henriet, Across the Copperbelt 15.
Kenda Mutongi, ââWorries of the Heartâ: Widowed Mothers, Daughters and Masculinities in Maragoli, Western Kenya, 1940â60â, The Journal of African History 40, no. 1 (1999).
Mutongi, âWorriesâ, 68.
Mutongi, âWorriesâ, 70.
Lars Gertenbach, âDie Droge als Aktant: Akteur-Netzwerk-Theorieâ, in Handbuch Drogen in sozial- und kulturwissenschaftlicher Perspektive, eds. Robert Feustel, Henning Schmidt-Semisch and Ulrich Bröckling (Wiesbaden: Springer VS, 2019), 267.
Bruno Latour, Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory, Clarendon lectures in management studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 29.
John Law, âOn the Methods of Long-Distance Control: Vessels, Navigation and the Portuguese Route to Indiaâ, The Sociological Review 32, 1_suppl (1984): 235.
John Law and Vicky Singleton, âANT and Politics: Working in and on the Worldâ, Qualitative Sociology 36, no. 4 (2013): 491.
Bennett, âGifted Placesâ, 658.
E.S.A. Odhiambo, âKula Raha: Gendered Discourses and the Contours of Leisure in Nairobi, 1946â63â, Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa 36â37, no. 1 (2001), 262.
Translation by Odhiambo.
Fabian, History.
See Schicho (âLinguistic Notesâ) in Fabian, History; for linguistic and anthropological notes see Pauni and Dibwe dia Mwembu, âVocabulaire».
Fabian, History, 75.
In her very interesting contribution, Malevez discusses how male architects of colonial architecture contributed to the exclusion of men from domestic work: âIntimacy is one of the notions at the core of this process: by branding the home as an âintimate refuge from workâ for men, domestic manuals and architecture and design magazines implicitly excluded them from participating in domestic work. Intimacy was also a prism through which male architects thought about the layout of houses. Rather than aiming to impress the occasional visitor, they advocated for homes to cater to their inhabitantsâ needs, discarding at the same time the need for domestic servants. Homes became more rational and practical, but also more âintimateâ as a result.â (Malevez, âLes douceursâ, 2)
Fabian, History, 75.
Fabian, History, 77.
Alena Rettová, âSwahili and Swahili Poetry in Lubumbashi: The Language and Lyrics of Sando Marteauâ, ArchÃv Orientálnà 86, no. 3 (2018): 333.
Alena Rettová, Chanter lâexistence: La poésie de Sando Marteau et ses horizons philosophiques (StÅedokluky: ZdenÄk Susa, 2013), 90. I adapted Rettováâs orthographic version (compiling the morphemes belonging to one predicate, noun, etc. in one word) to facilitate understanding for readers of (Standard) Swahili, because Marteauâs specific orthographic style is not relevant for this chapter.
Rettová, Chanter, 90.
Rettová, Chanter, 91.
Rettová, Chanter, 88â89.
Schicho (Le Groupe Mufwankolo) and Fabian (Power), for instance, researched the theatre troupe Mufwankolo, who promoted the local variety of Swahili.
Petit and Mutambwa, âLA CRISEâ, 470.
Jewsiewicki, âLeavingâ, 6.
Jewsiewicki, âLeavingâ, 7.
Dlamini, Native, 12.
Dlamini, Native, 16.
Boym, Future.
Dlamini, Native, 17.
Nadia Atia and Jeremy Davies, âNostalgia and the Shapes of Historyâ, Memory Studies 3, no. 3 (2010): 182. âIn 1688, the Swiss doctor Johannes Hofer proposed a name for a certain type of wasting disease. The word combined the Greek Nostos, âreturn to the native landâ, with Algos, [meaning] suffering or grief; so that thus far it is possible from the force of the sound Nostalgia to define the sad mood originating from the desire for the return to oneâs native landâ (Hofer, 1934 [1688]: 381)â.
In neo-Latin, ânostalgiaâ = homesickness; in Greek, ânóstosâ = return (to the homeland) and âálgosâ = pain; todayâs meaning is probably influenced by the synonymous English nostalgia. Do you need this footnote, having made the point more or less in the footnote above?
Dlamini, Native, 18.
Worby and Ally, âDisappointmentâ, 468.
Worby and Ally, âDisappointmentâ, 460.
Piot, Nostalgia, 20.
Rosaldo, âImperialistâ , 107â8.
Dunn, âImaginingâ, 235. For a detailed discussion of authenticité and its effect on arts, see, for example, Van Beurden, Authentically African.
Daviel Lazure Vieria, âPrecolonial Imaginaries and Colonial Legacies in Mobutuâs âAuthenticâ Zaïreâ, in Exploitation and Misrule in Colonial and Postcolonial Africa, eds. Kenneth Kalu and Toyin Falola, 1st ed., African Histories and Modernities (Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2019), 171.
Vieria, âPrecolonialâ, 168.
Worby and Ally, âDisappointmentâ, 468.
Julia Bennett, âNarrating Family Histories: Negotiating Identity and Belonging Through Tropes of Nostalgia and Authenticityâ, Current Sociology 66, no. 3 (2018): 450.
Bissell, âEngagingâ, 219.
Bissell, âEngagingâ, 221.
Bissell, âEngagingâ, 221.
Bissell, âEngagingâ, 224â25.
Strangleman, âNostalgiaâ, 729.
Yiannis Gabriel, âOrganizational Nostalgia: Reflections on âThe Golden Ageââ, in Emotion in Organizations, ed. Stephen Fineman (London: SAGE, 1993).
Strangleman, âNostalgiaâ, 729.
Pickering and Keightley, âModalitiesâ, 920.
Young, Politics, 38.
Malengreau cit. in Young, Politics, 71.
Vellut, Les bassins, 52.
Cooper, Decolonization, 468.
AGR 2 â n°0654-03037, Rapport Annuel 1937, 12.
Cuvelier, âMenâ, 78.
Fetter, Creation, 146.