Benda Bilili – ‘look beyond the images’: representations and visual narratives of disability in Kinshasa

Abstract

In this article we address a number of visual narratives that represent physical disability in Kinshasa, D.R. Congo. Drawing on visual material that was collected before and during anthropological fieldwork (between 2010 and 2014) we offer an insight into the interrelation between representations and physical disability within a Congolese context, as represented in four documentaries. The text briefly reflects on representations of the ‘Other’ and wants to add a reflection on representations of disability that originate from an African urban context. Our examples are complemented with in situ analyses derived from fieldwork that question how particular narratives portray disability and dis(en)ablement within a Congolese socio-cultural context. Thus we invite to look beyond the images. Finally, the article adds a critical reflection about these visual narratives as dis/enabling through their specific construction of dis-ability.

Keywords:

• Physical disability
• Congo
• visual narrative
• representations
• urban environment

Notes

1. In Kinshasa the French term ‘personne(s) vivant avec handicap’ is often used, amongst others. This is translated here into ‘person/people with a disability’.

2. In Kinshasa the term ‘maman’ is used to indicate an adult (married) woman.

3. The conference, held in Iowa, in 1999 was entitled ‘Screening Disability: A Conference on Cinema and Disability’.

4. See, for example, Safran (1998) and Burch (2005) for literature reviews. Other work in photography, paintings and literature includes research from, for example, Rosemary Garland Thompson (1997, 2006, 2009) or Ato Quayson (2007).

5. Here, National Geographic represents Kinshasa also in ‘spectacular’ terms.

6. Belgian non-governmental organization Handicap International, for example, estimates that it is, in fact, closer to 10% of the total population.

7. The Congolese parliament approved the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (United Nations General Assembly 2006) in July 2013, with accession in September 2015, but there is still no signature.

8. People with a disability are mentioned in the article after a protest sit-in at the senate.

9. After the period of independence, with Patrice Lumumba (Minister-President of D.R. Congo 1960), followed by the period of the lion Moïs Tshombé (President of Katanga 1960–1963, Minister-President of D.R. Congo 1964–1965), comes the cycle of the leopard, which is the time of the Big Man Mobutu Sese Seko (President of D.R. Congo 1965–1997).

10. For extended information on people with a disability’s participation at the Beach, see, for example, Devlieger and Nieme (2011) and De Coster (2012).

11. At the time of research, trading took place between Brazzaville and Kinshasa. Because of a law in the 1970s people with a disability were exempted from paying taxes, which made the ‘import–export’ business profitable for them. Two members of the band, Ricky and Coco, met each other on a boat trip and started the band.

12. Their songs are collected in a debut album Très Très Fort. The title refers to the strength (and survival capacities) of Congolese people. Nowadays, the band has split into two successful new music bands.

13. One example is the story of an entire group of people with a disability and their families who during the last 10 years were forced to move from one place to the next. Neither the State nor the Church could provide a place for them and so they were repeatedly removed by military people. The group moved from Bandalungwa to Limite to Gombe. Finally, the community of Ndjili took charge of them and ‘placed’ them all together in a huge hangar. Subsequently the hangar is momentarily occupied by 30 families or more, living together in small spaces divided from each other by walls of cane.

14. Their extra-ordinariness is often emphasized in interviews or introductions to their music and directly emphasized in the commercial activities of the band.

15. For more information, see http://www.clapcongo.org/ (accessed November 10, 2015)

16. The remarks were part of a discussion that took place after the screening. The film screening was part of a two-day summer course ‘Langs de Congostroom’ organized by Davidsfonds at The Royal Museum of Tervuren, 4–5 August 2010.