African expatriates and race in the anthropology of humanitarianism

Abstract

Anthropological critiques of humanitarianism in Africa emphasize the workings of power, usually along lines of cultural, class, economic, and political difference. While these critiques often mention race, they engage less explicitly with structural racism and white supremacy as intimately woven into humanitarian professional practice. Such an engagement requires looking at how structures of inequality, white supremacy among them, shape the everyday practices of humanitarianism: from recruitment and hiring practices to reception and expectations by local staff. Drawing on work experience (7 months, 2003–2004) and ethnographic data from post-conflict Sierra Leone (20 months, 2005–2007) and recent in-depth interviews with former colleagues (2012), I focus on African expatriates working in African countries in which they are not ‘native’ to re-format critical analyses that have emphasized translational or intermediary roles for African elites. I argue that African expatriates navigate multiple levels and scales in their work and operate under conditions in which assessments of their expertise, mobility and professional ‘success’ are racialized. Ultimately, I suggest that expatriate Africans operate as figures that call into question the metaphors of direction and scale implied in a discussion of studying up in Africa, while they also compel anthropologists to examine how institutions embody and reproduce inequalities.

Les critiques anthropologiques de l'humanitarisme en Afrique mettent l'accent sur les rouages du pouvoir, généralement concernant les différences culturelles, économiques, politiques et de classe. Bien que ces critiques mentionnent souvent la race, elles engagent moins explicitement un dialogue sur le racisme structurel et la suprématie blanche comme intimement liés à la pratique humanitaire professionnelle. Un tel engagement exige d’étudier comment les structures d’inégalité, dont la suprématie blanche, façonnent les pratiques quotidiennes de l'humanitarisme: du recrutement et des pratiques d'embauche à la réception et aux attentes du personnel local. En s’appuyant sur une expérience de travail (sept mois, 2003-4) et des données ethnographiques sur le Sierra Leone d’après-conflit (20 mois, 2005-7) ainsi que des entrevues approfondies récentes avec d’anciens collègues (2012), je me concentre sur les expatriés africains travaillant dans des pays africains dont ils ne sont pas « natifs » afin de reformater les analyses critiques qui ont souligné les rôles traductionnelles ou intermédiaires pour les élites africaines. Je soutiens que les expatriés africains naviguent plusieurs niveaux et échelles dans leur travail et opèrent dans des conditions au sein desquelles les évaluations de leur expertise, mobilité et « réussite » professionnelle sont racialisées. Enfin, je suggère que les Africains expatriés fonctionnent comme des figures qui remettent en question les métaphores de direction et d'échelle implicites dans une discussion sur l'étude vers le haut en Afrique. Ils obligent également les anthropologues à examiner comment les institutions incarnent et reproduisent les inégalités.

Keywords:

• race
• white supremacy
• humanitarianism
• labour
• African expatriates

Mots-clefs:

• la race
• la suprématie blanche
• l'humanitarisme
• le travail
• les expatriés africains

Acknowledgements

Special appreciation is extended to Claire Wendland and Rebecca Warne Peters, whose initiative and critical insights made this special issue possible. Stacey Langwick provided helpful initial comments when I first presented the paper during the Studying Up themed panel at the 2013 American Anthropological Association meetings. Thanks also go to Jennifer Liu, Thurka Sangaramoorthy, and Yolande Bouka, who provided constructive feedback on earlier versions of this paper. Finally, I would like to acknowledge the friends and colleagues working in the humanitarian and development industries who provided camaraderie, shared their stories and continue to work under otherwise imperfect conditions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Johannes Fabian’s account of ethnographic writing is notable in its attempts to destabilize anthropological self-representations as rational, civilized actors collecting objective data about the subjects of anthropological inquiry. Rather, he shows how

there is overwhelming indirect evidence that European travelers seldom meet their hosts in a state of what we would expect of scientific explorers: clear minded and self-controlled. More often than not they too were ‘out of their minds’ with extreme fatigue, fear, delusions of grandeur, and feelings ranging from anger to contempt. Much of the time they were in the thralls of ‘fever’ and other tropical diseases, under the influence of opiates, high doses of quinine, arsenic and other ingredients from the expedition's medicine chest. (2000, 3)

2. Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for suggestions related to analyses of white femininity, particularly as it relates to Agnes’ desire to protect her local female colleagues.

3. Because I also must identify an ‘up’ to study and a position from which to study it, it may be helpful for readers to know that I identify as black, American and female.

4. Notable exceptions include Razack 1995. There is also an anthropological literature of humanitarianism that is rooted in affective, bureaucratic practices in the Global North, allowing for a more expansive notion of humanitarianism beyond professional work focused on alleviating suffering during complex emergencies like wars and natural disasters. These critiques, despite the significance of race in the research sites, also underplay racial analysis, relegating race to a category of representation alongside gender in terms of victimhood and saviourism (Abu-Lughod 2002; Fadlalla 2008; Ticktin 2007).

5. In the same essay, another racially tinged joke serves as a section title: ‘In my former life I was an unshaven, cigarette-smoking Frenchman.’ It is a quote from a former MSF volunteer whom Redfield identifies as an Asian American woman. This joke is accompanied by little exegesis of its meaning beyond the stereotypes about how a typical MSF worker looks, behaves and comports himself in the field. The stereotype of who works for MSF persists – white, European and male – even as its ‘local’/national workforce is considerably larger than its international staff and consists of many women (Pierre 2012, 361).

6. Indeed, others have discussed how anthropology – and particularly Africanist anthropology – continues to function as a white space (Brodkin, Morgen, and Hutchinson 2011; Brodkin 2014; Nyamnjoh 2012; Osha 2013). White Africanist anthropologists, in particular, have recently eschewed or downplayed racial analysis, while benefiting from structural benefits of whiteness in their field sites, in production of anthropological knowledge, and in hierarchical academic institutions (Harrison 2008, 2012; Ntarangwi 2010; Nyamnjoh 2004; Zeleza 1997).

7. When our field manager left, and was replaced by an east African expatriate, one of my friends, a UN volunteer from East Africa, asked me where the white expatriate had gone. I answered that the manager, a northern European, had since moved up to second-in-command in the office in the capital. My friend replied derisively in Krio, Sierra Leone's lingua franca, ‘Huh. Dat pikin?’ which meant, ‘That kid?’ Although my northern European colleague was a bit older than I, he was younger than my East African friend and probably had as much experience. In deriding the relative ‘youth’ of the promoted manager, my friend highlighted the frequency with which western NGOs had passed over older, more experienced managers to hire a young, white expatriate whose youth and white foreign-ness were perceived to be his or her primary assets.