The Perils of Writing about "Africa"

I had tried to fit what follows into an earlier post as an afterthought but realized today that this topic deserves its own spot.

"Africa" is in quotes up there in the title because of how consistently the word gets misused -- casually tossed around like it stands for a single culture, a single country, a single "experience". Frankly, I get a little nervous using the word myself since it's been co-opted by such a wide and seemingly ill-informed group of writers.

We both want to write about our time in Kisoro while not following in this tradition. I've collected some blogs and pieces of writing that address and problematize the concept of our privileged perspective on the African continent.

Here are two posts by women getting real self-reflective and critical about their time abroad.

Sasha Grons -- White Girl Goes to Africa

Pippa Biddle -- The Problem with Little White Girls (and Boys)

Both pieces are well worth reading in their entirety. Here are two short excerpts:

These experiences [in low-resource settings] become more like commodities that we as students from the developed world buy and then cash in as “international experience” when we return home, perhaps to beef up a grad school application or to open doors to new job opportunities. We may leave behind token projects and some little pieces of trivia about our home countries, but what we contribute pales in comparison to what we gain; it’s really all about us in the end.                                                                  -Sasha Grons

I don’t want a little girl in Ghana, or Sri Lanka, or Indonesia to think of me when she wakes up each morning. I don’t want her to thank me for her education or medical care or new clothes. Even if I am providing the funds to get the ball rolling, I want her to think about her teacher, community leader, or mother. I want her to have a hero who she can relate to – who looks like her, is part of her culture, speaks her language, and who she might bump into on the way to school one morning....Sadly, taking part in international aid where you aren’t particularly helpful is not benign. It’s detrimental. It slows down positive growth and perpetuates the “white savior” complex that, for hundreds of years, has haunted both the countries we are trying to ‘save’ and our (more recently) own psyches.                                      -Pippa Biddle

It's a touchy subject, and one that tends to generate a lot of heated chatter in comments sections. Ms. Biddle's post got over 2 millions views and, according to her a lot of mean-spirited responses (probably a lot of encouraging ones too).


These next two sites are really great in a jarring way. "This is Not Africa" is self-described as "Posting all the awkward photos and texts that exoticise Africa." That pretty much sums it up. It's a good touchstone for how "Africa the country" gets popularly discussed and referenced.  "Gurl Goes to Africa" inhabits a similar space, if slightly sillier. It's a pretty delightful and cringe-inducing skewering of privileged tourists saying all the wrong things, like an extended version of the recent Onion article.

This is Not Africa

Gurl Goes to Africa

Binyavanga Wainaina wrote this next piece of satire as a vent against an old Granta "Africa" issue. It's wry and chastising and indispensable, as is the follow-up.

"How to Write about Africa"

"How to Write about Africa II: The Revenge"

This is a lot to keep in mind and, for me at least, it amounts to a lot of pressure when I imagine sitting down to write about what we're going to be seeing beginning in a few weeks. We'll take it one day at a time and always ask ouselves What Would White Gurl Do? And then do the opposite.