Orientacoes superiores: Time and bureaucratic authority in Mozambique

Gonçalves, Euclides

doi:10.1093/afraf/adt045

Cited by 25 publications

(6 citation statements)

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“…Beggars’ use of state‐like bureaucracy to bring the image and form of the state into the field of begging thus goes beyond appealing to cross‐cultural symbols to calm tensions that delegitimize begging. Documents can realize desired realities (Bear ; Mathur ), a capacity that is closely related to the imagination and reproduction of state and civil society organizations (Gonçalves ; Hansen and Stepputat ; Poole ). Postcolonial bureaucracies often function by combining official regulations with informal norms, resulting in processes of “informal privatization” when government officials offer services for personal payment (Blundo ; Olivier de Sardan ).…”

Section: Begging As An Occupationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The “sale” of a document implied the start or continuation of a relationship rather than the end of it; it was a way of complying with the will of a donor, who would appreciate the temporal regularity and organization expressed in the promise of being obliged to donate only once a year. Documents can thus be used to manipulate the timing of policy implementation, which produces and reinforces bureaucratic authority (Gonçalves ). In an environment marked by a presentist orientation to time (Jewsiewicki ), the “contract” was an attempt to harness this ongoing authority and temporality.…”

Section: Balancing Acts: Between Autonomy and Dependencementioning

confidence: 99%

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Devlieger

2018

American Ethnologist

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One of the most conspicuous livelihood strategies for physically disabled people in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, is a particular style of begging known locally as “doing documents.” Confronted with the stigma of begging, disabled beggars create documents in an attempt to legitimize and regulate begging through formalization and bureaucracy, presenting their relationship with donors as NGO fund‐raising and government tax‐collecting. The dynamics of petitioning for these “contractual dependencies” provide a nuanced perspective on desired dependencies: dependencies can be presented in multiple ways, and people consider some dependencies more legitimate and valuable than others. Recipients are not passive but play a defining role in shaping these relationships, seeking a balance between proximity and desired distance to patrons. [dependence, disability, distribution, bureaucracy, begging, temporality, Democratic Republic of Congo]

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Section: Begging As An Occupationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Balancing Acts: Between Autonomy and Dependencementioning

confidence: 99%

Contractual dependencies:

Devlieger

2018

American Ethnologist

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“…Finally, secrecy has reinforced the role of orality as the privileged medium of communication within the state. Orality in itself is not new, but in the socialist regime oral messages were often recorded, transcribed and archived (Gonçalves 2013). Whenever the president, a minister, a governor or a district administrator held a private meeting with subordinates or visitors during the socialist period, a team of assistants were in the venue to record the entire session.…”

Section: Reverse Transformations and The Politics Of Secrecymentioning

confidence: 99%

The dead archive: governance and institutional memory in independent Mozambique

Machava¹,

Gonçalves²

2021

Africa

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Translated from the Portuguese expression arquivo morto, the dead archive is a site where files that have lost their procedural validity are stored for a determined number of years before they are destroyed or are sent to permanent archives. In Mozambique, where awareness and institutional capacity for proper archival procedures are still being developed, a common feature of the dead archive is the way in which files are untidily piled up with old typewriters, furniture, spare parts and other material debris of bureaucratic work and administration. In these archives, more than forty years of institutional and public memory lie ignored in leaky, damp basements across the country and in serious danger of irreparable damage. Drawing from various stints of historical and anthropological field research conducted between 2009 and 2016 in Maputo, Niassa and Inhambane provinces, this article examines the dead archive in order to explore the relationship between institutional memory and governance during the long period of austerity in Mozambique. Based on our investigation of the multiple layers of the dead archive, we argue that the Mozambican post-socialist government has sought to control institutional memory as a way to keep the ruling party in power in the context of multiparty politics. While the public sector has experienced conditions of austerity since independence, we show how, during the socialist period (1975–90) of single-party rule, the state's relationship with institutional memory was more progressive, with transparent and communicative archival practices. In contrast, despite the combination of public sector reforms and progressive legislation regarding the right to information, the multiparty democratic period (1990 to the present) has seen an exacerbation of administrative secrecy leading to less transparent and communicative archival practices.

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“…As the nurse continued to the next house, I lingered to chat with António, who described the frequency of meetings and visits his work required. Amid a symbolic economy of global health and development (Gonçalves 2013), such visits were key aspects of the performative repertoire of NGOs. Yet in António's recounting, each of the organizations that he encountered seemed as unhelpful as the next.…”

Section: Chws Before and After Alma-atamentioning

confidence: 99%

Global health's durable dreams: ethnography, ‘community health workers’ and health without health infrastructure

McKay¹

2020

Africa

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Tracing the persistence of community health workers (CHWs) as a key category in both global health policy and anthropological representation, this article asks how enduring scholarly investments in CHWs can reveal changing political stakes for both health work and ethnographic research. Amid renewed calls for a focus on health systems and universal health coverage, the article suggests that the durability of attention to CHWs is instructive. It simultaneously points to the imbrication of health with political and social relations and clinical and technological infrastructures as well as to how ethnographic investments in health systems can sometimes obscure the ambivalent politics of health. Drawing on fieldwork with CHWs, NGO staff and public health officials, and on public health literature on CHWs, it argues for greater attention to the political ambivalence of health labour. It suggests that the experiences of health workers themselves can serve as analytical examples in this regard, pointing to analyses that begin not with normative notions of health systems or the conceptual boundaries of global health ‘projects’ but with a focus on the contested relations through which health labour is realized over time. Such attention can also indicate possibilities for health beyond dreams of projects, clinics or health systems.

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Orientacoes superiores: Time and bureaucratic authority in Mozambique

Cited by 25 publications

References 0 publications

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The dead archive: governance and institutional memory in independent Mozambique

Global health's durable dreams: ethnography, ‘community health workers’ and health without health infrastructure

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