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'Connections
and transformations in Africa' : The Angola section of the Mobile
Africa Revisited project |
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A workshop at the African
Studies Centre, Leiden, the Netherlands, Tuesday 21
November, 2006 |
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return to: Index
page 'Connections and transformations in Africa'
Theme
group: ‘Connections, Technologies, Transformations.’
Workshop 21
November 2006.
Project
Title:
Mobile
Africa Revisited: A comparative study of the relations between
new communication technologies and new social spaces
Research
Team:
Mirjam de
Bruijn, African Studies Centre, Leiden
Francis Nyamnjoh, CODESRIA, Dakar
Inge Brinkman, African Studies Centre, Leiden
Danielle de Lame, MRAC, Section Ethno-Sociology and Ethno-History
Project
outline:
Over the
past decade the introduction of new Information and Communication
Technologies (ICTs) has taken on a revolutionary speed on the
African continent: internet and mobile phone services can now be
found in the most remote areas. These technologies have been
hailed as an opportunity for ‘marginalized’ areas to
become active participant in the ‘global village’. In
an opposite view, it is feared that the introduction of new ICT
will only lead to an increase of social inequalities. Hitherto
little research has been done on the actual impact of these new
technologies on social relations over longer distances, and the
views on new ICT from people from so-called ‘marginal’
areas. This project investigates the relations between mobility,
information and communication technologies and social space, and
seeks to interpret the influence of new ICT in the context of
earlier technological innovations, and histories of mobility and
‘marginality’.
Mobility
is one of the important features of economic and social styles of
the African continent and may take many forms, amongst which are
geographical, social and cultural mobility. Through migration and
mobility, people create societies that do not consist so much of
a community living in one geographical place, but rather of
multiple communities that are formed by strings of people,
relating to each other in socially different ways. These shifting
communities may comprise of people from various social
backgrounds and economic standing. In this project we are
especially interested in mobile communities that originate in
‘remote areas’, with specific histories of social in-
and exclusion, related to situations of poverty and crisis. These
mobile communities are often considered by outsiders as
positioned on the margins of society; not participating in the
mainstream economic, political and social life. People in these
networks may also view themselves as being deprived and feelings
of exclusion may be very strong. In the discussions on the
problematic concept of marginality, such emic views on
marginality in the context of shifting mobile networks have
largely gone unstudied We propose the term ‘mobile margins’
to denote the connections between ‘remote regions’ and
the migrant communities attached to them.
Modern
technology is often presented as antithetical to ‘marginalized’
regions. However, in this proposal we start from the idea that
patterns of mobility and contact are strongly related to the
introduction of communication technologies or their absence. The
appropriation and social shaping of these new means of
communication open up alternative alleys of contact and
relationships, while closing off, reinforcing or redefining other
routes and means of interaction and relating. In the dispersed
communities that are thus formed new social hierarchies may be
negotiated.
The
introduction of new communication technologies can have an
influence on lifestyles and create new mobility patterns that
link migrants with their home communities. The central question
in this project is how socio-cultural relations in ‘mobile
margins’ are transformed and maintained through the
appropriation of ICT. The project seeks to arrive at
interpretations of patterns of poverty, inequality in global
relations and social hierarchies without succumbing to the
dominant conceptualization of ICT in terms of linear technical
progress and the current definition of communities in the
developing world as mere recipients of ICT. Relations between
mobility, communication technologies and social spaces should be
understood contemporaneously and historically. A historical
perspective is particularly important in our quest to situate
‘marginalization’ as a differentiated and varied
process. The existing literature on new ICT often posits these in
a historical vacuum. In our conviction studying earlier
technological innovations may shed light on the processes of
appropriation and the impact of technologies of communication.
Research
questions:
To
summarise the guiding questions of this project:
- Is the
concept ‘mobile margins’ useful in interpreting the
relations between communities in ‘remote areas’ and the
migrant communities attached to these regions? How can we further
develop this concept and relate it to other concepts that have
been used to describe social groups in Africa?
- How do
new communication technologies, especially mobile phone and
internet, influence the formation of ‘mobile margins’?
What are the relations between the introduction of new
communication technologies, and social and political hierarchies?
Are new ‘virtual’ communities created or are existing
social structures changed or reinforced? What patterns of in- and
exclusion can be discerned in connection with the new
communication technologies?
- In what
ways are ICT appropriated in Africa’s ‘mobile margins’?
How does the use of new ICT relate to other, earlier examples of
innovations in communication technology?
- To
understand the changing meaning of ‘marginality’ in a
context of social change and new communication technologies, the
research is interested in the extent to which people from ‘marginal’
communities link their histories to notions of ‘centrality’
and ‘marginality’, of contact and isolation, of
inclusion and exclusion, of independence and dependence. How do
they interpret and evaluate the impact of ICT?
Methodologies
The
project aims at contributing to the debates in the field of
technology and society, and linking these to transnational
studies as well as to discussions on ‘marginality’. It
proposes a comparative study of various ‘mobile margins’
in and of Africa. Doing research in these domains
needs to be as flexible as the processes that are studied and
will demand for the development of alternative methodologies that
will indeed be part of this research programme. Most importantly,
these methods will revolve around strings of people rather than
geographical space. While there is some information about the
methodological implications of dispersed family history, we look
forward to combining these insights with current explorations in
the field of migrant cultures and trans-national studies, i.e.
multi-sited research and virtual ethnography. Source material on
new communication technologies, such as the mobile phone and
e-mail messaging, may transgress the traditional divisions of
oral sources and written documents and lead to considering new
methodologies for interpreting ‘virtual’ sources.
Case
studies
The
project is built upon comparative case studies. The case studies
will be in Grassfields and South West Cameroon, Central Mali, Central
Chad, Northern and South-eastern Angola, and Western Tanzania. Each
area has a different history with regard to the interplay between
the introduction of communication technologies, ‘marginality’,
and the historical dynamics of social hierarchies. These
differences are related to diversity in social, cultural and
religious ideas and practices surrounding mobility and
communication. Furthermore, the regions differ in terms of
geographical conditions and political history and they have a
specific history with regard to the introduction of ICT. The
effects of new ICT, its uses and appropriation, on social
hierarchies situated historically, will be the focus of all case
studies. Yet, in light of the particularities of each region, the
research questions will be addressed from a different angle in
each case-study.
In this
presentation we should like to specify the general research
questions in the light of the particular histories of the case
studies.
Angola
Introduction
Present-day
Angola largely revolves around the city of Luanda. Although no
reliable statistics exist, the United Nations was estimated that
in Luanda's population grew from 669,000 in 1975 to 2,697,000 in
2000, at least a quarter of the total population. Luanda is the
capital of the country and since independence in 1975 the ruling
MPLA party has had its seat there. Before long, the few
foreigners present would not venture out of the town. For many
Luandans, there is nothing outside the town. In political, social
and demographic sense, Luanda is the centre of the country.
Perhaps
with the exception of some parts of the Central Plateau, the
regions outside the capital are difficult to reach, economically
insignificant and politically marginal. In some areas mineral
wealth – especially oil and diamonds – are exploited,
but revenues benefit the Luandan elites rather than the local
population.
In
1961 war started in Angola. With some intervals the country has
known warfare until 2002, when long-time UNITA leader Jonas
Savimbi was killed in combat. Large areas outside Luanda became
inhabitable due to mining, fighting and the general impossibility
to cultivate. These areas could often only be reached by air;
emergency relief took the form of dropping food parcels from
planes. The infrastructure was entirely destroyed, while at the
same time educational and health services were discontinued. Many
people fled to the capital, even though Luanda itself was not
free of violence, poverty and disease.
Since
the peace was signed in 2002, many people have returned to Angola’s
countryside. Even though there are no facilities, people try to
start farming again and live of the land. The MPLA government,
with a longstanding reputation of neglecting the countryside,
does little to support the returnees, whom they regard as UNITA
supporters. International agents and church organisations try to
set up structures that aim at overcoming the conditions of
poverty, disease, hunger and lack of opportunity. It is by no
means certain that local people share the ideas and methods by
which these organisations work. No research has been done into
local ideals, needs and wishes. There is no information on
historical and existing networks by which people attempt to
overcome conditions of marginalisation. It is not known how
people interpret the situation in which they live and how it came
about.
This
statement about Angola’s political, social and economic
divisions does not imply that all of Angola’s regions are
marginal in the same sense. The societies at the fringes of Angola
as a country have very different histories indeed.
Northern
Angola
Background
Northern
Angola is a relatively well-known region as it once formed the
heartland of the Kongo kingdom. In the 16th century,
the kingdom had extensive foreign relations and fostered
considerable economic activity. Exceptional for the Central
African context, literacy came to be relatively widespread and a
Christian, literate elite was formed.
Decline
set in, however, and in 1668 the Portuguese sacked São Salvador
(now Mbanza Kongo), the capital. Trade continued during the
following centuries, but the king came to play a ceremonial
function only: autonomous constituencies formed political units
independent of the power of the king. At the Conference of Berlin
in 1884-1885, the former kingdom was split over various countries
- Angola, Congo-Léopoldville and Congo-Brazzaville. The old
heartland of the kingdom was ‘attached’ to Angola.
Despite this relative political and economic insignificance at
the beginning of colonialism, strong elite formation continued,
especially through the intervention of Baptist missionaries who
fostered a literate, Christian culture. These remarks are
indicative of the strong connections between Christianity and
literacy.
Members
of the educated, largely Baptist, French and English-speaking
elite formed the backbone of the region’s nationalist
movement, first called UPA, later FNLA. The most immediate
consequence of the beginning of the nationalist war in Northern
Angola (1961) was a massive population movement. Nearly all
people, moved; either to the Portuguese-held towns or over the
border into Congo/Zaire. The refugee community in Congo/Zaire,
over half a million people, came to stand in ambivalent relation
with the host population: on the one hand, French-speaking and
with many ties to Zairian politics, on the other, with a strong
sense of nostalgia and memories of the Angolan homeland. Upon Angola’s
independence, fourteen years later, many people expected that the
FNLA movement would constitute the major political force: it had
the strongest military forces and a huge following. Yet, when
fighting started between the Angolan nationalist movements, the
FNLA was defeated and those people who had returned from Zaire to
live in an independent Angola, had to flee once more, back to
Congo/Zaire, further away in the diaspora or on to Luanda.
Great
indignation exists among Northern Angolans about their position
in the country: they feel that the area was unjustly ‘attached’
to the rival kingdom of Ndongo, that Angola is ruled by Luandans
who do not acknowledge the regional cultures, that the MPLA
ruling elite does not recognise the contribution made by other
nationalist groups such as former FNLA combatants, that the Kongo
king should be restored, etc. Amongst Northerners in the
diaspora, in the Baptist churches and among Kongo leaders in Luanda,
‘Kongolanité’, pride in their Kongo identity, is very
important. It cannot be denied that tensions exist between
Luandans (Kalu) and people from a Kongo background: in 1993 it
even came to riots in Luanda whereby ‘Zairenses’, as
all Bakongo (irrespective of their Angolan or Zaire/Congo
background) are called, were attacked on the streets.
After
Jonas Savimbi, died in 2002, peace accords were signed between
the MPLA and UNITA. Ever since, IDP’s from Luanda and
refugees from Congo have started living in the Northern Angolan
countryside again. They find that nothing is prepared for their
coming and that they are left to fend for themselves, socially,
economically, politically and in terms of infrastructure. An
outbreak of the deadly Marburg disease in 2005 in the North
revealed the appalling inadequacy of the region’s health
services. Schooling facilities are limited to the extreme, while
those holding Francophone degrees find their way to the job
market blocked. Land conflicts occur returnees find their former
plots used by newcomers. Many people continue to live in poverty.
Questions
about communication
Shifting
communities are being formed by people resident in or commuting
between Northern Angola, Luanda, RDC and elsewhere (USA, Canada, Belgium,
Portugal, etc). These people relate to each other by various
means: through visits, messages, letters, and, since recently,
also by using the mobile phone. Before long the letter was an
important medium for Northern Angolans to remain in contact with
each other. During the war for independence that started in 1961,
guerrillas in the forests of Northern Angola kept an intensive
correspondence with refugees from the area who resided in Congo.
Piles of letters found by the Portuguese military were translated
by the secret police and are kept in its archives in Portugal.
In
2004, a bare two years after the war ended, a mobile telephone
network was extended to the Northern region of Angola and shortly
internet will become available. Mobile telephony is growing at
one of the world’s fastest rates in Angola. Mobile phone
lines already by far exceed the amount of fixed lines and, while
initially cellular phones were used mainly in the capital Luanda,
there is a rapid expansion in the rural areas.
This
development leads to exciting questions about changing social
relations in a post-war context. What groups amongst the
returnees use the mobile phone (in terms of gender, age and
social status) and in what ways does usage of the mobile phone
reinforce or alter social ties? Does the mobile phone influence
patterns of visiting, sending messages, writing letters, trade
and other ways of connecting people, given the recent past of the
war economy and the post-war developments in this respect? Who
has access to the new communication and information media and
through which channels? Are new social networks created through
new ICTs and do these affect social hierarchies? The questions
will be addressed with a focus on the mobile phone, but framed in
the wider dynamics of the introduction of new ICTs.
These
questions are especially important as patterns of literacy have
influenced social hierarchies in the region. As we saw,
throughout the colonial era, English missionaries and their
converts fostered a Christian literate culture and literacy
became relatively widespread. During the war the position of a
French- and English-speaking elite embedded in the Congo-Zairian
political context was strengthened, while at a meso-level
literate clerks and secretaries acted as brokers in communication
between Northern Angola and Congo/Zaire. Now that the war is
over, the political and economic leverage of these literate
elites may have drastically changed. How do they view the
introduction of the mobile phone? Do young people, women and
other groups that are viewed by the elites as ‘constituencies’
and not as ‘leaders’ use the new ICTs? In other words,
does the introduction of the mobile phone and the internet alter
the relations between social hierarchy and literacy? Are mobile
phones given a meaning as ‘fetish’ in the same way that
books, especially the Bible, were given during the war? Are the
new ICTs viewed as a form of ‘secular’ development, in
contrast to the perceived linkages between literacy, Christianity
and ‘progress’? How does the mobile phone relate to
letter-writing? Are new notions of monopolisation, privacy, and
orality-literacy in the making? These question obviously will
have a bearing on the notions of orality and literacy that have
informed debates about the introduction of the mobile phone and
internet in Africa. Furthermore it will be possible to address
the methodological questions about ‘virtual sources’ in
relation to oral and written sources through this case-study.
South-eastern
Angola
Background
For lack
of sources the historical reconstruction of the history of South-East
Angola is a difficult endeavour. Since 1780 the area was drawn
into the slave trade and people were taken out to be sold mostly
at the West Coast, but some as far as the East Coast of Africa.
In those days already, the area was called ‘Hungry Country’,
while during Portuguese colonialism, it was designated as ‘The
lands at the end of the earth’. The extremely decentralised
communities travelled alongside the rivers, living as subsistence
farmers on a slash-and-burn rotation system. Apart from a brief
rubber boom that ended in 1910, economic activities directed to
export were minimal, as there were no transport possibilities.
Slavery continued until well into the twentieth century. Colonial
rule hardly superseded colonial violence: the international
borders were only fixed in 1905, some parts of the region
remained exempt from taxes throughout the colonial epoch as it
was too costly to collect them and, in contrast to other parts of
Angola, hardly any colonialists settled in south-east Angola.
Missionary stations were only established at the fringes of the
region and no intellectual elite developed. Schooling
possibilities remained rudimentary and no health services of any
significance were created. If people learnt a second language it
was English, Fanagalo or Afrikaans rather than Portuguese: these
languages were picked up by migrants to the South African mines,
the Rhodesian Copperbelt, etc. The population density of 0,59
p/km in 1960 (for Cuando Cubango province) was one of the lowest
in entire Angola.
Mobility
has always been part of the life-style of people in this region.
People would move seasonally to stay on their fields, young men
would move from their father’s to their mother’s
brother’s house, women would frequently visited their place
of birth after marriage and relatives might stay on for lengthy
periods. People also moved to places further away. In the course
of the twentieth century the volume of migrant labour from the
region grew and especially young men, although also young women,
might leave for Rhodesia, South-West Africa and South-Africa. Death,
disease, witchcraft or quarrels could form a reason to relocate
or split an entire village, while before colonialism entire
village communities might have fled for slave raiders. In the
colonial ideal about residence people were supposed to have only
one address and a fixed residence. In practice people continued
to move; traveling was and is not merely a means of transport,
but constitutes the very gist of identity, of life. Thus, the
English question ‘Where are you from?’ is translated
with the word meaning ‘river?’. The answer to this
question about home and origin consists of the name of one of the
region’s rivers. Home is not conceived of one fixed abode,
but fluid, moving, and connecting many different places.
People
from this region were hardly involved in the Angolan nationalist
movements that started their activities in the 1950s. News of the
movements and of the events of 1961 reached the area, but only
after 1966 the region was drawn into the war. When MPLA
guerrillas – most of them with a Luandan background –
entered the region through Zambia, they were initially regarded
as strangers. As in Northern Angola, nearly all the region’s
inhabitants were forced to move during the nationalist war. Some
were abducted by either the Portuguese or the guerrillas, the
majority, however, fled into exile to SWA/Namibia and Zambia. The
patterns of mobility and agriculture came under increasing
pressure; it was not safe to stay as an independent farmer in the
region.
Disruption
became even worse after independence, when a brutal war started
between MPLA and UNITA forces. The region formed the battle front
of the fighting parties, with the battle of Cuito Cuanavale in
1988 as the most important military event. Terrible violent acts
were committed and nearly all civilians fled over the
international border. UNITA, however, had forced soldiers march
in and created its headquarters in the hamlet of Jamba. With
foreign money this became a town with electricity, military
schools, a hospital and other facilities. When the MPLA army
invaded the area in 1999, Jamba was completely sacked.
During
the war, most refugees from this area living in Zambia and Namibia
did not stress their ethnic or national identity: it seemed more
prudent to remain inconspicuous. Their notion of community not
being territorial, they stressed that ‘The land is the
people’, and wherever they lived, they should have the same
rights as the other inhabitants. Yet, as Northern Angolans in
Congo/Zaire, most of the refugees expressed an intense nostalgia
for their home-country. Most refugees either lived in refugee
camps or were illegals with hardly any access to farming land,
jobs, income, housing, etc. Since the peace was signed in 2002,
refugees from Zambia, Namibia and South-Africa have been taken
‘back home’ into south-east Angola. As there are no
facilities, famine poses a real threat to those who return. The
area is among the most densely mined in the world: starting
agricultural activities can be dangerous.
Questions
about communication
During Angola’s
prolonged war civilians from this area strongly resented both the
restrictions imposed by the fighting parties on their mobility
patterns and the fact that they were forced to flee from their
area. Although now people from the region hope to resume
agricultural activities, there are still many restrictions on the
possibilities for this. Due to mining and lack of transport,
former mobility and residence patterns cannot be restored.
Visiting people and sending messages both within the region and
over the borders is in many cases still impossible. It remains to
be seen how people from the area interpret this fact and how they
deal with it. Are new technologies regarded as a means to
overcome such restrictions?
This issue leads to proposing to relate patterns of mobility and
technology to the history and legacy of warfare. Cuando Cubango
province was the last to enter Angola’s mobile telephone
network (16 December 2004), and also now it is only available in
the provincial capital Menongue. How do returnees view the new
possibilities of new communication technologies? Do they see
these as related to the military communication system that was in
use during the war or are they framed in a dichotomy between
destructive and constructive technologies? Are the new
technologies used in tracing the large amount of missing people
from this region?
With
peace slowly becoming a more permanent feature, many
international and national organizations have embarked on
programmes that aim at reducing conditions of poverty. Especially
in Cuando-Cubango, with so few white settlers and foreign
visitors during its history, this is an entirely new phenomenon.
Yet, it is by no means certain that local people share the ideas
and methods by which these organisations work. No research has
been done on the local notions of ‘development’ and
people’s ideals about technological innovation and change
for the better. In the meantime, the development organisations
try to set up structures that aim at overcoming the conditions of
poverty, disease, hunger and lack of opportunity. These often
involve both managerial and organisational structures as well as
highly sophisticated technological assets, p.e. in the case of
mine action organisations. How are these new organisational and
hi-tech technologies viewed by people from the region? Do some
people try to use them as an opportunity in themselves? Is a
group of ‘development brokers’ in the making? And also,
vice versa, how do development organisations function in this
context, with few means of communication, transport, no accurate
maps, high risks for disease and accidents, few health
facilities, etc. Are they, rather than the local population,
pushing for the extension of new communication technologies?
There
is a growing tendency to relate development, security and global
migration. The questions about the legacy of warfare and recent
development technologies in south-eastern Angola may critically
review these debates and question the facile assumptions made
about economic push and pull factors as a factor in migration and
immediate relations between peace and development.
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