Ordinary Violence and Social Change in Africa

Abstract

VOLUME 31The This publication has been typeset in the multilingual "Brill" typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, ipa, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see www.brill.com/brill-typeface.issn 1570-9310 isbn 978-90-04-27155-5 (paperback) isbn 978-90-04-27256-9 (e-book) Copyright 2014 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill nv incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Global Oriental and Hotei Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill nv provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, ma 01923, usa. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper.For use by the Author only | © 2014 Koninklijke Brill NV Contents Acknowledgments vii List of Contributors viii Introduction: Ordinary Violence in Africa 1Jacky Bouju and Mirjam de Bruijn Changing Life Worlds and Contested Space Seclusion Practices among the Iraqw of Northern Tanzania 12 Jonathan Baker and Hege Wallevik A Chain of Family and Domestic Violence Extramarital Pregnancy and Social Rupture in Burkina Faso 27 Fatoumata Ouattara and Katerini Storeng Social Violence and Gender Inequality Mali's Young Bambara Domestic Workers 42 Jacky BoujuThe Itinerant Koranic School Contested Practice in the History of Religion and Society in Central Chad 63 Mirjam de Bruijn Surviving Structural Violence in ZimbabweThe Case Study of a Family Coping with Violence 84Otrude N. Moyo The Cyclical Exchange of Violence in Congolese Kinship Relations 101 Sylvie AyimpamKill the Witch! Anti-witchcraft Violence in the Central African Republic 117Aleksandra Cimpric Ordinary Violence towards Street Children (Shegue) in Lubumbashi (D.R.C.) 130 Olivier Kahola TabuFor use by the Author only | © 2014 Koninklijke Brill NV For use by the Author only | © 2014 Koninklijke Brill NV AcknowledgmentsWe wish to express our thanks to the authors who entrusted their work to this volume. The book had its origin in a research program with cemaf umr 8171 cnrs-amu in Aix-en-Provence "Conflits & violences structurelles ordinaires, Approche comparative et interdisciplinaire dans huit villes africaines". The book was certainly inspired by research done in the cdp (Consortium for Development Partnership) coordinated by codesria and the African Studies Center (asc) of Leiden, in the sub project: 'Local contexts of conflicts and peace building' that run from [2007][2008][2009][2010]. This collaboration was an opportunity for some scholars to present initial drafts of their paper in the French Bulletin de l ' APAD (n°27-28, 2007) entitled "Violences sociales & ex...

Traditional Practices and Support for the Strongman

“…While the Fulani, like the Korongo, attach no value to virginity, the Nupe as well as the Berber people from Morocco attach (some) value to it in theory but not in practice, the Bambara attach a great deal of value to virginity. Bouju (2014, 45) notes in this regard that “[t]he Bambara of Djennè place the virginity of girls when they marry among the most valued family virtues. As a consequence, the loss of a girl's virginity before marriage brings shame and disgrace to her family and herself.” So the value of a girl's virginity varies from virtually no value among the Fulani or the Tuareg to a maximum of a great deal of value among the Bambara 2 .…”

Made in Nigeria

“…Ethnographies that aim to understand duress should include information about our relationship with our interlocutors, as "social life is lived at the interface of self and other" (1998: 35). In other words, within the context of a wider ethnography, the feelings of our interlocutors and of ourselves are a window to understanding what factors play a role in the duress of a society: whether it is exposure to violent conflict, or harshness of a less obvious impact such as ordinary social violence embedded in the particular history of an individual and/or society (Bouju and de Bruijn 2014). We must therefore make silences, gasps, anger, laughter, frustration, sadness, fear, worry, and so on integral parts of our observations, interviews, and ethnographies, and we should not avoid the interpretation of these out of a fear of being overtly subjective.…”