Passing Through

I’m in my last 30 or so hours here, and my sadness is increasing by the moment. Though it’s nice to head homeward before feeling “finished” with this place, I know I leave many a stone unturned. I’m also a bit haunted by an offhand comment made by a researcher during a presentation I attended here. She presented material from a project she is doing on black lesbians with HIV, the vast majority of whom contracted it as the result of rape. She discussed some of the challenges of doing “insider” research, particularly on such a heavy topic, becoming embedded in communities where there is such great need (emotional/psychological, but also material), forging bonds and friendships with women only to watch some of them die. She described the psychic toll such work took on her, her need to stop doing the interviews for six months at one point, to heal from what she’d already experienced.

Despite the heaviness of her material, she also has a congenial nature and seemed at ease in the front of a room. As she was discussing these things, she motioned to the front row, where I was sitting, and joked, “When you’re Tey from New York, you just come, take get you want and leave.” There was nervous laughter in the room- by that point, many in attendance knew me and the work I’ve been doing here. My stomach dropped. I felt both embarrassed and sad. Because, on some level, though I know the comment was made without anger or even ill feeling, (I know the speaker, have spoken with her many times,) I also know she’s right.

This is not unconnected to my thoughts on poverty tourism. What does it mean that I can come here, interview activists and lawyers, collect my “data” and escape to my comfortable liberal urban life in New York? How does that fact feel for the people I’ve met here? I admit to reassuring more than one person of my imminent return, as it has become increasingly clear that some of the resistance to my presence (or mild “hazing”) I endured toward the beginning of my time here, was a direct result of individual people’s experiences of western researchers coming here, extracting people’s stories and leaving, often to publish work in which people feel used or misrepresented, often never to return.

There are a few ways I’ve confronted some of these questions in my time here. For now, all of my interview subjects hold positions at regarded NGOs, and though they did speak autobiographically with me, they did so, for the most part, in their “official” capacities. I stayed clear of questions that seek to elicit traumatic personal memories, though I received such information in small bits through the stories I heard. In everything I’ve done here, I’ve tried to be open to forging relationships with whomever I can, but also constantly cognizant of my status as “outsider,” and outsider with rapidly emptying hourglass…

And so, in my last day and a half here, I’m really wishing I knew when I could return. Not just because my “work” remains very unfinished, but because, as I’ve interrogated my place here, as I’ve talked to dozens of people, and forged nascent friendships with a few, I’ve come to realize that I don’t want to be a “researcher” who visits this place, leaves, writes, moves on and never returns. Something about this place, its fragility, the people I’ve met, leaves a deep imprint on me- and I’m in no way finished engaging with it or them- or with these issues of who I am in this place and best I can negotiate that.

I’m unsure what to do with the blog once I return home. I may use it to help me formulate thoughts or observations on my experiences over the past six weeks. I may just save it for my next journey here, whenever that may be. Any suggestions?

Jacaranda

And now for something totally aesthetic and not-at-all intellectual (or “esoteric” as my partner’s mother recently labeled this blog)…


I’ve just returned from 5 days in Cape Town, and beyond merely being relieved to be back in a city that FEELS like a city, complete with grit and density and the spirit that Joburg has- it seems the Jacaranda have exploded in my absence. Jacaranda trees are everywhere in Gauteng, and their purple blossoms litter the ground everywhere I look, the formal announcement of spring. (or exam season- at Wits, a popular saying goes, “once you see the Jacaranda bloom, you know it’s already too late to start studying for your exams!”) Melville, the part of Joburg I’m living in is lined with them- and they are breathtaking. Just thought I’d share… I'm sad I won't get to see the season truly run its course, but I'm headed home on Friday…

Poverty Tourism

It started with an email. I dashed off a quick note to Ayesha, the head of the IHRE program, for which I’m teaching, telling her I heard that group tours were a cheaper way than taxis to get into Soweto and I wondered if she had an opinion of which was the best one to take. I’ve been to Soweto with friends a number of times since coming to Johannesburg (or “Jozi,” as my locals call it)- for Soweto Pride, to visit some friends of friends, for the best dinner I’ve had here (mutton curry and pap at Nambitha’s on Vilakazi Street). My friends, however, don’t seem much interested in visiting the Hector Peterson museum, (named for the 12 yr old boy, one of 20 school children shot and killed during the Soweto uprising of 1976), featured in this iconic newspaper photo:
I'd like to see it, and I'm increasingly aware of how little time remains for me here. Ayesha wrote back, giving me the name of a well-known tour company, but telling me also that she objects to township tourism- a viewpoint with which my sympathies lay more and more. I had called this company the day before, but was put off by the invitation to tour a local church and enter the homes of residents in an “informal settlement.” Something about it felt invasive. I was uncomfortable…

This weekend, I’m in Cape Town for a batch of interviews and a few hours of relaxation by the water. Cape Town really feels like a tourist city to me, particularly the closer one gets to the ocean(s). It seems I can’t go anywhere without being approached by a barker or seeing a flyer proclaiming, “ Come for a township tour! Witness first hand the living conditions, joys and sadness of the ‘townships’ where the Democratic revolution was nurtured and fought. Home to Cabinet Ministers, poets, gangsters and workers!”

So, I’ve been thinking- what is it about bearing witness to poverty that appeals to so many visitors? Is it the particularity of South African history and the clear role of the township as a symbol of the apartheid government’s racist ideology? Is it the rare opportunity to "visit" poverty in relative safety, to see but to not have to stay? What's the draw? There is an incredibly engaging and vibrant culture in Soweto, but that’s not what these brochures seem to advertise.

So, I felt awfully clever when I thought of the term “poverty tourism.” Of course, I’m not the first to think of it. A quick Google search revealed a host of hits, including this article from the Mail & Guardian, a liberal SA paper, on the potential salutary effects of poverty tourism- money for the people in the communities. At least one interviewee claims that he doesn't find the traipsing of tourists through his home invasive... so does that make my discomfort paternalistic?

To be fair, it's also not just tourists who've been bitten by the township bug. A book on the SA bestseller lists this week, Khayalitsha: uMlungu in a Township, tells the story of an Afrikaans journalist's time living as the sole white person in "Khaya," a notoriously poverty-ridden township outside Cape Town. And that is the entire plot of the book- the fact that he did this- and copies are flying off the shelves as locals reach for their own glimpse into township life. (As more than one person has told me, the only white people who actually set foot in the townships are tourists; the locals avoid them or drive through at top speed.)

Anyway, I’m undecided about what to do- do I take the tour, refusing the parts that make me uncomfortable, or forfeit the chance to see the landmarks I’d like to see? An invocation of larger questions of outsider-ship that have been plaguing me in my time here...

Narrowing the Field of Possibilities

Hi, my peeps,

So, I think I’ve narrowed it down to two possible dissertation topics. Anyone care to weigh in? (C’mon, NYUers, I know you’re reading…)

OPTION #1: “Rainbow Nation: Democracy and the Consolidation of LGBT Political Community in South Africa, 1986-2006.”

South Africa is a fascinating paradox for anyone interested in studying sexual rights: one the one hand, it has the most liberal egalitarian Constitution in existence, which enshrines both gender equality and protections for sexual minorities. On the other hand, a deeply entrenched culture of patriarchal and homophobic violence mocks these revolutionary principles, creating a climate of fear and intolerance that is deeply palpable. It seems that the story of sexual rights in South Africa has reached a tipping point, where either these new rights will take hold and begin to create substantive social change, or the active, de facto resistance to this new legal regime will render these rights virtually meaningless for many LGBT South Africans. The story of how this came to be engages South Africa’s processes of democratization and constitution-making, as well as its rapid (by comparative standards) mobilization of a large network of NGOs focusing on sexual rights. This dissertation project examines the relationship between South Africa’s democratization and the consolidation of a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender political community. I want to analyze the rapid NGO-ization of sexual rights here, and its accompanying schemas of authenticity and authority, as well as it’s racial politics- and how they affect and are affected by the surrounding culture of patriarchal gender relations and violent resistance to sexual rights. By doing this, I hope to gain insight into the classic sociological question of whether law can, in fact, create social change.

OPTION #2: “Beyond the Body: Toward a New Theory of Gender-Based Violence”

This idea is less formed in my head, but I’ve got a bunch of data collected which I plan to analyze once I’m home. Broadly, I want to level a critique of the concept of “gender-based violence” employed by international human rights activists and NGOs. Essentially, the argument goes like this: the typical idea of gender-based violence relies on two distinct principles: (1) an essentialized notion of harm, (2) to a female body. Thus, IHR activists concern themselves with violent things that happen to womens' bodies: marital rape, genital cutting, veiling, etc. My work in South Africa provides evidence that there are many types of harm elided by these formulations: there are forms of gender-based violence that are about gender stereotyping and/or sexuality (e.g. reparative rape of lesbian women because they are lesbians, the identification of lesbians for attack because of atypical gender performance). There are also ideological forms of gender violence, like patriarchy and its associated legal regimes, property laws, legal exclusions, etc. There are institutional forms of gender violence, like the failure of police to intervene in domestic violence cases, because that is the “private” sphere, or the lack of specific policing or tallying of hate-based criminal activity. It would seem that the limited formulation of gender violence by human rights activists allows them to avoid engaging with thorny issues of cultural practice and western interventionism, but at the same time, it exacts its own consequences in the form of limited public understandings of what gender actually means. The dissertation would examine the history of debates around gender violence in a selection of cultural contexts, American, African, and possibly a third, to make sense of what might be done to forge a more comprehensive model.

What do you think? I'm listening... (See under-used "Comments" option below...)

The 07-07-07 Campaign

“Sizakele and Salome should have been here.”

This was the slogan embalzened on the t-shirts on marchers at Soweto Pride last weekend. It adorned signs and banners at the parade yesterday, too.

I realize that I’ve been mum about my actual research agenda here, and there have been a number of reasons: First, it’s shifted a bit as I’ve made myself available to what I’m experiencing. Second, though six weeks away from home can feel like a very long time, six weeks in a new cultural context, in a new community of people, in a new place- well, it’s actually not much time at all. I am almost four weeks in and I feel very green, and I’m still working on getting the lay of the land.

I can say this - there is an epidemic of horrific violence against black lesbians in South Africa. On July 7th, 2007, two lesbian women were raped and murdered in Soweto. A few weeks later, a 19 year-old lesbian was killed in KwaZulu Natal. Recent statistics from some community-based research show that astronomical levels of homophobia are experienced by LGBT people here, but black lesbians, in particular, are increasingly the targets of gruesome, often sexualized, violence and harassment (often from members of their own families and communities). Pride photos from yesterday show signs for the 07-07-07 Campaign- a coalition of activists and organizations here working to end this rampant homophobic violence.

I’ve been working in and among many of these activists during my time here, and I’m bearing witness to incredible spirit in the midst of daunting obstacles. South Africa has a deeply ingrained culture of patriarchal violence, in general- and a big, big crime problem. As we know from many examples from all over the globe, there is often a rise in crime and violence that accompanies the aftermath of democratic transitions- but the deeply gendered nature of what’s going on here feels, to me, particular to this time and place. Many people here fear violence, carry that fear with them daily- but the burden that rests on black lesbians, and in particular, masculine women, is deep and heavy.

This story seems to have galvanized people across the globe. Do a Google search for “Sizakele and Salome” and you’ll find articles and blog posts from the US, Europe, the UK, Africa, Asia… Marches and demonstrations have happened in many cities. People are touched. I find myself also deeply affected by it, even as I stand in solidarity and in wait for my return to a place where I feel mostly safe on the street. And, it goes to the heart of so much of what I do in my life and my work- which is to think about the ways in which our ideas of gender matter, what happens when we deviate from those norms what are the prices that we pay, emotionally, bodily, materially.

Anyway, for those who are interested, there is much to be found on the web about the campaign, including info on some of the more than 20 organizations joining together in protest of the police inaction on their behalf. Read up on it- I imaigne you'll be moved, too.