Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-t5tsf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T16:39:12.721Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Localisation, Ghanaian Pentecostalism and the Stranger's Beauty in Botswana

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2011

Rijk van Dijk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This contribution considers the current position of the Ghanaian migrant community in Botswana's capital, Gaborone, at a time of rising xenophobic sentiments and increasing ethnic tensions among the general public. The article examines anthropological understandings of such sentiments by placing them in the context of the study of nationalisms in processes of state formation in Africa and the way in which these ideologies reflect the position and recognition of minorities. In Botswana, identity politics indulge in a liberalist democratic rhetoric in which an undifferentiated citizenship is promoted by the state, concealing on the one hand inequalities between the various groups in the country, but on the other hand defending the exclusive interests of all ‘Batswana’ against foreign influence through the enactment of what has become known as a ‘localisation policy'. Like many other nationalities, Ghanaian expatriate labour has increasingly become the object of localisation policies. However in their case xenophobic sentiments have taken on unexpected dimensions. By focusing on the general public's fascination with Ghanaian fashion and styles of beautification, the numerous hair salons and clothing boutiques Ghanaians operate, in addition to the newly emerging Ghanaian-led Pentecostal churches in the city, the ambiguous but ubiquitous play of repulsion and attraction can be demonstrated in the way in which localisation is perceived and experienced by the migrant as well as by the dominant groups in society. The article concludes by placing entrepreneurialism at the nexus of where this play of attraction and repulsion creates a common ground of understanding between Ghanaians and their host society, despite the government's hardening localisation policies.

Résumé

Cet article s'intéresse à la situation actuelle de la communauté migrante ghanéenne dans la capitale du Botswana, Gaborone, alors que les sentiments xénophobes et les tensions ethniques se développent dans la population. L'article examine les éléments anthropologiques de ces sentiments en les plaçant dans le contexte de l'étude des nationalismes dans les processus de formation des États en Afrique et la manière dont ces idéologies reflètent la situation et la reconnaissance des minorités. Au Botswana, la politique identitaire donne libre cours à un discours démocratique libéraliste au sein duquel l'État valorise une citoyenneté indifférenciée, en dissimulant d'un côté les inégalités entre les différents groupes du pays, tout en défendant d'un autre côté les intérêts exclusifs de tous les Batswana contre l'influence étrangère à travers la promulgation de ce que l'on a appelé une «politique de localisation». Comme beaucoup d'autres nationalités, la main-d'œuvre ghanéenne expatriée a été l'objet croissant de politiques de localisation, mais dans son cas les sentiments xénophobes ont pris des dimensions inattendues. En se concentrant sur la fascination populaire pour la mode ghanéenne et ses styles d'embellissement, les nombreux salons de coiffure et boutiques de vêtements gérés par des Ghanéens, en plus des nouvelles églises pentecôtistes dirigées par des Ghanéens qui font leur apparition dans la ville, on peut démontrer le jeu ambigu et cependant omniprésent de répulsion-attraction dans la manière dont la localisation est perçue et vécue par le migrant, mais aussi par les groupes dominants de la société. L'article conclut en plaçant l'entrepreneuriat au point précis où ce jeu de répulsion-attraction crée un terrain d'entente commun entre les Ghanéens et leur société d'accueil, malgré le durcissement des politiques de localisation du Gouvernement.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 73 , Issue 4 , November 2003 , pp. 560 - 583
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2003

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Anderson, B. R. 1991. Imagined Communities: reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. Revised edition. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Durham, D. 2002. ‘Uncertain citizens: Herero and the new intercalary subject in postcolonial Botswana’ in Werbner, R. (ed.), Postcolonial Subjectivities in Africa. London: Zed Books.Google Scholar
Durham, D. 2003. ‘Passports and persons: the insurrection of subjugated knowledges in Southern Africa’ in Crais, C. C. (ed.), The Culture of Power in Southern Africa: essays on state formation and the political imagination. Portsmouth NH: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Englund, H. 2001. ‘The quest for missionaries: transnationalism and township pentecostalism in Malawi’ in Corten, A. and Marshall-Fratani, R. (eds), Between Babel and Pentecost: transnational Pentecostalism in Africa and Latin America. Bloomington IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Eriksen, T. H. 1993. Ethnicity and Nationalism: anthropological perspectives. London: Pluto Press.Google Scholar
Evers, H. D. and Gerke, S. 1999. ‘Globalized market culture and market fundamentalism’ in Fardon, R.van Binsbergen, W. and van Dijk, R. (eds), Modernity on a Shoestring: dimensions of globalization, consumption and development in Africa and beyond. London and Leiden: EIDOS.Google Scholar
Geschiere, P. and Nyamnjoh, F. 1998. ‘Witchcraft as an issue in the ‘’Politics of Belonging’’: democratization and urban migrants’ involvement with the home village’ African Studies Review 41 (3): 69–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Geschiere, , 2001. ‘Capitalism and autochthony: the seesaw of mobility and belonging’ in Jean Comaroff, and Comaroff, John L. (eds), Millennial Capitalism and the Culture of Neoliberalism. Durham NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Gray, C. J. 1998. ‘Cultivating citizenship through xenophobia in Gabon, 1960–1995’ Africa Today 45 (3–4): 389–410.Google Scholar
Gulbrandsen, Ø. 1996. Poverty in the midst of Plenty: socio-economic marginalization, ecological deterioration and political stability in a Tswana society. Bergen: Norse Publications.Google Scholar
Hastings, A. 1997. The Construction of Nationhood: ethnicity, religion and nationalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Helle- Valle, J. 2002. ‘Seen from below: conceptions of politics and the state in a Botswana village’ Africa 72 (2): 179–201.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hobsbawm, E. J. 1990. Nations and Nationalism since 1780: programme, myth, reality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Jefferis, K. 1998. ‘Botswana and diamond-dependent development’ in Edge, W. A. and Lekorwe, M. H. (eds), Botswana: Politics and Society. Pretoria: J. L. van Schaik Publishers.Google Scholar
Konings, P. 2001. ‘Mobility and exclusion: conflicts between autochthons and allochthons during political liberalisation in Cameroon’ in de Bruijn, M.van Dijk, R. and Foeken, D. (eds), Mobile Africa: changing patterns of movement in Africa and beyond. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Konings, P. and Nyamnjoh, F. B. 2000. ‘Construction and deconstruction: anglophones or autochtones ?’ The African Anthropologist 7 (1): 5–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Larsson, A. 1987. ‘Old Naledi: the integration of an upgraded area into the capital city of Botswana’ African Urban Quarterly 2 (3): 311–320.Google Scholar
Malkki, L. H. 1995. Purity and Exile: violence, memory, and national cosmology among Hutu refugees in Tanzania. Chicago: Chicago University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mamdani, M. 1996. Citizen and Subject: contemporary Africa and the legacy of colonialism.Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Manuh, T. 1998. ‘Ghanaians, Ghanaian Canadians, and Asantes: citizenship and identity among migrants in Toronto’ Africa Today 45 (3–4): 481–494.Google Scholar
Marshall, R. 1993. ‘’’Power in the Name of Jesus’’: social transformation and Pentecostalism in Western Nigeria ‘’revisited’’ ‘, in Ranger, T. and Vaughan, O. (eds), Legitimacy and the State in Twentieth-Century Africa. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Marshall- Fratani, R. 2001. ‘Mediating the global and the local in Nigerian Pentecostalism’ in Corten, A. and Marshall-Fratani, R. (eds), Between Babel and Pentecost: transnational Pentecostalism in Africa and Latin America. Bloomington IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Maundeni, Z. 1998. ‘The struggle for political freedom and independence’ in Edge, W. A. and Lekorwe, M. H. (eds), Botswana: politics and society. Pretoria: J. L. van Schaik Publishers.Google Scholar
Maxwell, D. 1998. ‘’’Delivered from the spirit of poverty?’’: Pentecostalism, prosperity and modernity in Zimbabwe’ Journal of Religion in Africa 28 (3): 350–373.Google Scholar
Meyer, B. 1998. ‘‘’Make a Complete Break with the Past’’: time and modernity in Ghanaian Pentecostalist discourse’ in Werbner, R. P. (ed.), Memory and the Postcolony: African anthropology and the critique of power. London: Zed Books.Google Scholar
Meyer, B. 1999. ‘Commodities and the power of prayer: Pentecostalist attitudes towards consumption in contemporary Ghana’ in Meyer, B. and Geschiere, P.(eds), Globalization and Identity: dialectics of flow and closure. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Mosha, A. C. 1998. ‘The impact of urbanisation on the society, economy and environment of Botswana’ in Edge, W. A. and Lekorwe, M. H. (eds), Botswana: politics and society. Pretoria: J. L. van Schaik Publishers.Google Scholar
Nyamnjoh, F. B. 2002. ‘Local attitudes towards citizenship and foreigners in Botswana: an appraisal of recent press stories’ Journal of Southern African Studies 28 (4): 755–775.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Otlhogile, B. 1994. A History of the Higher Courts of Botswana, 1912–1990. Gaborone: Mmegi Publishing House.Google Scholar
Oucho, J. O. 2000. ‘Skilled immigrants in Botswana: a stable but temporary workforce’ Africa Insight, 30 (2).Google Scholar
Parker, A. Russo, M.Sommer, D. and Yaeger, P. (eds). 1992. Nationalisms & Sexualities. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Selolwane, O. 1998. ‘Equality of citizenship and the gendering of democracy in Botswana’ in Edge, W. A. and Lekorwe, M. H. (eds), Botswana: politics and society. Pretoria: J. L. van Schaik Publishers.Google Scholar
Selolwane, O. 2001. ‘From Infrastructural Development to Privatization: employment creation and poverty reduction in Gaborone’. Paper presented at the ‘African Urban Economies’ conference, African Studies Centre, Leiden, 9–11. November 2001.Google Scholar
Smith, A. D. 1994. ‘Ethnic nationalism and the plight of minorities’ Journal of Refugee Studies 7 (2/3): 186–198.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor, C. C. 1999. Sacrifice as Terror: the Rwandan genocide of 1994. Oxford: Berg.Google Scholar
Taylor, I. 2001. ‘’’Ditiro Tsa Ditlhabololo’’: Botswana as a developmental state’. Seminar paper, Sociology Department, University of Botswana., 25 October 2001.Google Scholar
Tishkov, V. A. 2000. ‘Forget the ‘’Nation’’: post-nationalist understanding of nationalism’ Ethnic and Racial Studies 23 (4): 625–650.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van Dijk, R. 1992. ‘Young Puritan Preachers in post-independence Malawi’ Africa 62 (2): 159–181.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van Dijk, R. 1997. ‘From camp to encompassment: discourses of transsubjectivity in the Ghanaian Pentecostal diaspora’ Journal of Religion in Africa 27 (2): 135–169.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van Dijk, R. 2000. ‘Christian Fundamentalism in Sub-Saharan Africa: the case of Pentecostalism’. Occasional Paper, Centre of African Studies, University of Copenhagen.Google Scholar
Van Dijk, R. 2001a. ‘Time and transcultural technologies of the Self in the Ghanaian Pentecostal diaspora’ in Corten, A. and Marshall-Fratani, R. (eds), Between Babel and Pentecost: transnational Pentecostalism in Africa and Latin America. Bloomington IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Van Dijk, R. 2001b. ‘African Pentecostalism in the Netherlands’ in Glazier, S. D. (ed.), Encyclopedia of African and African-American Religions. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Van Dijk, R. 2002a. ‘Localising Anxieties: Ghanaian and Malawian immigrants, rising xenophobia, and social capital in Botswana’. ASC Working Paper No. 49. Leiden: African Studies Centre.Google Scholar
Van Dijk, R. 2002b. ‘Ghanaian churches in the Netherlands: religion mediating a tense relationship’ in van Kessel, I. (ed.), Merchants, Missionaries and Migrants: 300 years of Dutch–Ghanaian relations. Amsterdam: KIT; Accra: Sub-Saharan Publishers.Google Scholar
Van Dijk, R. 2002c. ‘The soul is the stranger: Ghanaian Pentecostalism and the diasporic contestation of ‘’flow’’ and ‘’individuality’’ ‘, Culture and Religion 3(1): 49–67. Thematic issue (ed. S. Coleman): The Faith Movement: a global religious culture?CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van Dijk, R. 2002d. ‘Religion, reciprocity and restructuring family responsibility in the Ghanaian Pentecostal diaspora’ in Bryceson, D.and Vuorella, U. (eds), The Transnational Family: new European frontiers and global networks. Oxford: Berg.Google Scholar
Weiss, B. 1999. ‘The Barber in Pain: consciousness, affliction and alterity in urban East Africa’. Paper presented to the 15th Satterthwaite Colloquium on African Ritual and Religion, 18–21.April, University of Manchester.Google Scholar
Werbner, R. 2002a. ‘Citizenship and the politics of recognition in Botswana’ in Mazonde, I. N. (ed.), Minorities in the Millennium: perspectives from Botswana. Gaborone: Lightbooks.Google Scholar
Werbner, R. 2002. ‘Introduction: challenging minorities, difference and tribal citizenship in Botswana’ Journal of Southern African Studies 28 (4): 671–684.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Werbner, R. 2002c. ‘Cosmopolitan ethnicity, entrepreneurship and the nation: minority elites in Botswana’ Journal of Southern African Studies 28 (4): 731–753.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Willis, R. G. (ed.). 1990. Signifying Animals: human meaning in the natural world. London: Unwin Hyman.Google Scholar