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Abstract
The boom of the humanitarian and development industry in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the demand for qualitative and quantitative research that has accompanied it have created a novel political economy of academic research in the region. An array of research associations and private data collection firms have emerged to respond to the international demand by Western universities and research projects. Like many industries operating on the continent, academic research has a racial dimension, which is rarely reflected upon, in part because it is often invisible to white Western researchers. This paper reflects on the creation and evolution of a non-profit association specialized in the collection of data in conflict-affected areas of eastern DRC. The research association was conceived by its Congolese and European founders as an enclave against the racism that pervades professional relations in the region, an experiment upheld by a collective commitment to academic research and an egalitarian ethos. Written from the perspective of three of its founding members, this paper analyses how racialized discursive repertoires and cognitive biases (re)appeared within the organization. We argue that these repertoires and biases serve to activate a particular mode of production, based on racial and geographic inequalities in working conditions and prospects. We interrogate the relationship between race and the system of production underpinning contemporary research, and show that, far from solely being a remnant of the colonial era, race constitutes a resource that can be tapped into, particularly in a context where empirical data, competition for funding, and ‘value for money’ are increasingly becoming the norm.
Le boom du secteur humanitaire et du développement à l’Est de la RDC et la demande en recherche qualitative et quantitative l’ayant accompagné ont créé une nouvelle économie politique de recherche universitaire dans la région. Un éventail d’associations de recherche et de cabinets privés de collecte de données a émergé pour répondre à la demande internationale de la part d’universités occidentales et de projets de recherche. Comme de nombreux secteurs opérant sur le continent, la recherche universitaire a une dimension raciale, à laquelle il est rare que l’on réfléchisse, en partie car cela est souvent invisible pour les chercheurs occidentaux blancs. Cet article se penche sur la création et l’évolution d’une association à but non lucratif spécialisée dans la collecte des données dans des régions de l’Est de la RDC affectées par les conflits. L’association de recherche a été conçue par ses fondateurs congolais et européens comme une ‘enclave’ contre le racisme qui caractérise les relations professionnelles dans la région, une experience soutenue par un engagement collectif à la recherche universitaire et une philosophie égalitaire. Rédigé du point de vue de trois de ses membres fondateurs, cet article analyse dans quelle mesure les répertoires discursifs et les biais cognitifs racialisés sont (re)apparus au sein de l’organisation. Nous avançons que ces répertoires et biais servent à activer un mode de production particulier, basé sur des inégalités raciales et géographiques de conditions et perspectives de travail. Nous interrogeons la relation entre la race et le système de production soutenant la recherche contemporaine, et montrons que, loin de n’être qu’un ‘résidu’ de l'ère colonial, la race constitue une ressource pouvant être utilisée, en particulier dans un contexte où, de plus en plus, les données empiriques, la concurrence pour obtenir des financements, et le rapport qualité prix deviennent la norme.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 In this article, we use the term ‘Western’ as a shorthand to designate Europe and regions where populations largely originate from Europe as a result of European Imperialism, namely North America and Australia. However, we do not use it in its essentialist and reified sense, which has imperial and colonial origins, similarly to the concept of Occident (Said Citation1978). Importantly for the purpose of this article, ‘Western’ is not necessarily white.
2 New and emerging markets such as the developing economies of the African continent represent competitive frontiers for firms seeking to capture consumers, and global technological inequalities favour the global data mining giants, who operate on the continent through a myriad of data collection firms that collect data which is then sent to advanced economies for analysis and storage.
3 Boshoff has shown that 35% of the research carried out on Central African countries is produced by their former colonial powers (Boshoff Citation2009).
4 Funding and resources are highly concentrated in Western institutions, with a smaller fraction going to research institutions in target countries.
5 In US and EU universities, a significant proportion of scholars whose work focuses on the African continent can be found in either development related departments or are development specialists working in African Studies departments.
6 We deliberately use the term ‘post-racial’ to show the contradictions between a project conceived as being beyond race and the manifestations of race within the project. Post-racialism, or the idea that a society has moved beyond race or racism, has been extensively critiqued in African American Studies (Gines Citation2014).
7 We do not consider that the analysis covers all dimensions of race. The empirical material presented here is based on our experiences as founding members of the organization. However, additional examples are taken from research projects, or personal experiences not directly associated to Marakuja Kivu Research, when these were relevant. As our objective is to provide examples of generic types of behaviours, we keep a narrative distance with recounted events, and do not attempt to identify or attribute behaviours to specific individuals, in order, also, to respect people’s confidentiality. We do, however, specifically identify the behaviour of white Western researchers as opposed to Congolese researchers, as this is key to our argument.
8 For a discussion of the genealogy and contemporary manifestations of colonial discursive frames and practices in eastern DRC, see, among others (Northrup Citation1988; Hoffmann, Vlassenroot, and Marchais Citation2016; Hoffmann and Vlassenroot Citation2014; Hoffmann Citation2014; Eriksson Baaz and Verweijen Citation2018).
9 Characteristically, the initial recollection by the white European researcher was that all had shared the same working conditions during that period, as both European and Congolese researchers often slept in the same village houses in the rural areas, ate in the same places, and travelled around on public transport and motorcycle. Yet, as this article was written, Congolese researchers underlined that this recollection wasn’t always accurate. In several towns, such as Kitutu, Kamituga, and Minova, the European researchers had spent the night in the local presbytery, more secure and more expensive than small hotels, in which the Congolese researchers had stayed.
10 Exclusion factors are multiple and range from the non-recognition of Congolese higher education diplomas, to difficulties to obtain visas, to financial barriers and the paucity and difficulty of obtaining scholarships.
11 In our experience, these are rarely costed into the budgets of research projects, which only include a daily salary. This seems to be the rule across research projects.
12 Numerous security incidents occurred during fieldwork. In 2014, two researchers had to spend three nights hiding in the forest due to ongoing attacks by armed groups in the Groupement of Baliga, territory of Shabunda, South Kivu. The same year, also in Shabunda, two researchers were arrested by Raia Mutomboki militias and spent several days in their custody. Researchers also routinely experienced harassment by military actors, which is rampant in rural eastern DRC.
13 On average, in these projects, researchers spent 1 month in the field without seeing their relatives, but this could go up to 3–4 months.
14 Paradoxically, some of the most difficult areas of research were those where the armed groups had a strong social basis, such as the Raia Mutomboki held areas of Shabunda, or the Nyatura held areas of the Highlands of South Kivu. As a result of the close relations between the population and the armed groups, researchers were constantly under scrutiny and implicit or explicit threat from armed actors.
15 Rural eastern DRC is characterized by strong ethno-territorial identities that have been reinforced by the armed conflict, and the suspicion towards strangers it produces. In our experience, and from the testimonies of Congolese researchers, this can considerably complicate data collection, particularly in areas with high ethnic polarization.
16 These include the collection of information on fieldwork sites prior to the research, having sufficient time once in the field to check security risks by spending time with local authorities, leaving the more exposed research sites before nightfall to travel back to more secure towns for the night, checking modes of transport as well as accommodation for security risks, and eating well and exercising to stay in good physical and mental shape.
17 Mobility, and the possibility of travelling in and out of the DRC, is another manifestation of the different working conditions, as only the Western-based researchers were able to do so.
18 Paulin Bazuzi, October 2017.
19 The term ‘cognitive bias’ is borrowed from the psychology literature. Cognitive biases are ‘systematic deviations from rational judgment, whereby inferences about other people and situations may be illogically drawn. As it relates to race, cognitive biases may serve to underscore the stereotype that people of colour, particularly blacks, are unintelligent and incompetent.’ (Park Citation2018, 1054).
20 Paulin Bazuzi, October 2017.
21 In a binary hypothesis test, which are one of the most used forms of statistical analysis in these types of projects, statistical power is conditional on both the magnitude of the effects to be detected and on the size of the sample (Angrist and Jörn-Steffen Citation2009).
22 This was either to prevent the upward re-negotiation of salaries and fieldwork costs, or, in some cases, to put downward pressure on salaries.
23 An example is that of a European researcher temporarily employed in one of the projects and with extensive experience of working in the region, who argued that the Congolese researchers were in fact paid too much in relation to normal pay in the region.
24 Normative conceptions of order have a longstanding genealogy in European discursive framing of the African continent.
25 Such narratives typically revolve around the idea that Europeans are hard-working and committed to work rather than money, while Africans are lazy and greedy, and date back to the colonial and pre-colonial period (Rönnbäck Citation2014).
26 Paulin Bazuzi, October 2017.
27 It is easy to see the shortcomings of the concept of community, in its reduced and generic form, in a context like eastern DRC. In addition to the inherent risk of conflating multiple and overlapping forms of social and political organization – the family, extended family, the network, the colline, the village, the neighbourhood, the imagined community-, the concept of ‘community’ seems particularly limited in a context of advanced militarization, where more than two decades of war has generated deep social polarisation and thoroughly transformed social entities (Wood Citation2008; Verweijen Citation2013, Citation2016). Communities do exist in multiple forms, but they rarely, if ever, correspond to what is designated by the generic version of that concept.
28 While large scale surveys carry inherent limitations in their capacity to nuance concepts because of time constraints, some nuance can be built in by disaggregating a concept such as community into several measures of an individual’s social networks, and by adding questions on perceptions of ‘imagined communities’.
29 Aimable Amani Lameke, October 2017.
30 Paulin Bazuzi, October 2017.
31 For example, concepts such as the ‘self’, often used in measures of psychological well-being and mental distress, can be difficult to translate into vernacular understandings.
32 Of course, there are many nuances to this, such as qualitative research based on extensive ethnography.
33 This expression is a reference to Chabal and Daloz’s ‘politics of the mirror’ (Chabal and Daloz Citation1999).
34 See, for example, the Bukavu Series: https://www.gicnetwork.be/silent-voices-blog-bukavu-series-eng/