Zeruzeru and Diverse Shades of Difference. A Study of People with Albinism in Tanzania.
Giorgio Brocco
Albinism is a condition present that attracted lots of attention in Tanzania, since the early 2000s, when media debates and worldwide newspapers have brought to world prominence the outbreak of alleged “medicine murders” in the country’s northwest mining frontier. Even though there was such an outcry regarding this phenomenon in Tanzania, little attention has been paid to life experiences and subjectivity of people with albinism and explanations about the condition. The present ethnographic research intends to analyze life situations, everyday experiences, and subjectivity of people with albinism in Tanzania. The main objectives of the present research will be: (1) to discover the social position of people with albinism within their families and communities; (2) to understand which moral terms members of the communities use in order to conceptualize and explain the social status of people with albinism; (3) to examine what it means to be living as an individual with albinism as an everyday experience and the ways through which people with albinism construct their ‘self’ and subjectivity as a reaction to their social and political condition; (4) to understand in which way local discourses and practices concerning the inheritance of albinism have been becoming interconnected to (bio-)medical explanations for the congenital condition and, furthermore, which gender discourses are active within these explanations; (5) to analyze in which ways the Tanzanian government and international humanitarian organizations and NGOs on behalf of people with albinism try to influence local perception and practices related to albinism e.g. through media and policies debates.
Duration
2014 - 2021
Funding
Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst (DAAD)
Supervisor
Prof. Dr. Hansjörg Dilger
Prof. Dr. Olaf Zenker