The Problem of Malawi in Western Discourse: Power, Patronage, and the Politics of Pity
Item
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Title
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The Problem of Malawi in Western Discourse: Power, Patronage, and the Politics of Pity
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Identifier
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d_2009_2013:97aaf671f3d8:11431
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identifier
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11853
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Creator
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Anderson, Norma J.,
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Contributor
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Barbara Katz Rothman
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Date
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2012
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Public policy | African studies | International relations | International law
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Abstract
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While recent sociological work on African social problems tends to focus on particular areas such as HIV/AIDS, this dissertation considers relationships and links between diverse social issues to argue that western-defined African social problems are not only disconnected from what Africans themselves see as their major needs but are also rooted in an historical pattern of power and inequality. Using Malawi as a case study I compare discourse about four diverse social problems---slavery, HIV/AIDS, climate change, and homosexuality. I demonstrate how these vastly different issues are related: each is framed and funded by foreigners and each is depoliticized, often blaming Africans themselves for various negative outcomes of global inequality. But despite the blame, these social problems are presented to the western public through a frame of pity that underscores the need for immediate western intervention.;Since the mid-1800s Malawi has experienced numerous and distinct cycles of western "help," interest, and involvement but each individual issue revolves around a central troublesome notion---that Malawi and Malawians are flawed and in need of western guidance and assistance to (re)achieve a more ideal state. In this way, even the most "well-meaning" attempts to address legitimate health and social problems further long-standing stereotypes of African helplessness and western superiority. Engaging theories of stratification, development, and realist constructionism, and relying on interviews, ethnography, and survey data, I interweave historical and contemporary western discourse about Malawi to analyze shifting and competing conceptions of what is wrong with the country as well as how these understandings have influenced western interventions. By contrasting western understandings and images of Malawi with Malawians' views of the same problems, this dissertation not only builds on stratification and development theories but also investigates practical reasons why western policy interventions have so often failed to create sustainable change.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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2009_2013.csv
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Sociology
