(d)urban(a)

Create South Africa

Although I wrote earlier about Create South Africa's quilt project with the South Africa Parliamentary Millennium Project, I finally feel more prepared to write about my involvement with them so far.  In November of 2006 while writing a review essay on "material rhetoric," I included a catalog from the exhibition "Weavings of War:  Fabrics of Memory" in my consideration of "material" engagements with the public sphere.  In that essay I argued that a rhetoric of material insists textiles and clothing possess materialized agency, like Alfred Gell's notion of a secondary agent in Art and Agency or the notion of an actant in actor-network-theory.  In positing a rhetoric of material, we can challenge the Western depth ontology that devalues surface and expand the possibility of what may count as rhetorical engagement, as well as the types of cultures and actors who can produce rhetoric.

Part of the "Weavings of War" exhibition included the "memory cloths" created through one of Create South Africa's workshops.  These embroidered quilt panels disrupt expectations for craft work - they negotiate between invention and commonplaces within embroidery and quilt practice.

This panel, created by Pamela Grootboom in the Western Cape in December 2007, illustrates what I mean.  In the lower part of the panel, Pamela depicts two young people on the street exchanging drugs for money.  Above them she illustrates two young people making soup as part of a soup kitchen that Grootboom started in her township.  Both show relationships between people, the former damaging to the township community near Cape Town where Pamela lives and the latter benefiting the community and giving its young residents a safe place to go to help provide meals for themselves and others.  Most of us don't expect textiles or embroidery to approach subjects like drug use and the creation of soup kitchens and for that reason, these cloths arrest our attention more than merely reading a written account of the drug and poverty problem in Cape Town's informal settlements (or in economically depressed areas anywhere).  Besides, many of the participants in the program don't have the facility in writing English to be able to reach audiences outside of their townships anyway.

Reading about the project and seeing a few digital image reproductions of the cloths, however, was not enough for me to get a sense of how the project operates on a daily basis.  My curiosity about this particular nongovernmental organization (NGO) was embedded within a broader interest in handicraft NGOs operating within the "global South."  My previous experience with such an NGO was volunteering for the local 10,000 Villages fair-trade shop in Champaign, Illinois, but that was a comfortable retail shop with several new computer stations to assist management and volunteers in product information and location.  I think that was why I was so surprised when I went to the Create South Africa offices for the first time last Friday - there was such a difference.  The CAS office is located on Palmer Street - basically an alley that mostly houses auto body repair shops - in Durban's relatively crime-ridden downtown area.  The commercial building that houses the cloth archive is bare and the organization uses two PCs and a copy machine that are all nearly a decade old.  During the summertime, the office can grow warm, even with the circulating fan and the breeze coming in from the large window that lights the space, especially on a day like yesterday when M and I spent some time ironing and steaming the cloths before photographing them.  After the first few days I guess what I came to realize is that no matter how small or seemingly insignificant an infrastructure (economically and technologically speaking) - productive work (rhetorical and otherwise) can still happen.  I look forward to writing more about the work that happens during a week-long workshop when the cloths are made and I will have the opportunity to participate (assisting in embroidery and sewing instruction) during the next one in March here in KwaZulu-Natal.

Another Day of Extremes in Durban

Today was much different than yesterday (which I spent primarily dealing with the robbery - where dealing = sewing because I was too nervous to focus on anything else).  I can't wait to upload some of the photographs I took today and I hope to be consistently online again by the end of this week to do so.

This morning J and M (the women from CAS I work with) picked me up and we drove around north of the city from about 11am to 4pm.  First we went to Kwa Mashu - this was the first township I have seen since I have been here and it was such a range of extremes - the settlements there are labeled by letters.  The "N" section houses professionals (nurses, teachers, etc.) from the area and the houses were relatively nice (completed houses with four rooms, a gate, and electricity/water/plumbing) compared to other sections - in particular the "K" section.  This section consists mostly of what are called "informal settlements" by the government but what most people would realistically call metal shacks.  The standard of living here is so low and so hard for people that they have to steal electricity because Eskom (even though it's government-owned) has not installed safe electrical access in their area.  During times of heavy rain (such as we had last week for a few days) people can be electrocuted and fires can start because the electricity hasn't been grounded safely.  There is no running water here for each shack and there is often only one drop toilet for every 100 people.  Also during the rains the waste can be washed into the streets, enter nearby water sources, and devastate the health of those living in the area.   

In the center of Kwa Mashu, however, there is a community center that was opened in March 2004 that is a beautiful space that gathers community members together for performances of many kinds.  They have a recording studio and have produced albums, there is a men's dramatic performance group (the men were all previously in jail and have now committed themselves to community outreach) - there are so many amazing programs the Kwa Mashu Community Advancement Project has sponsored since opening its doors.  There I met Z, who does amazing video editing work (seriously - I was envious when I saw his awesome Mac studio complete with Final Cut Pro... especially with me being Mac-less for now) and he gave me a copy of a great short documentary that was made about two residents of Kwa Mashu.  I told him about Writing With Video, the course I have taught at UIUC and we might cook up some sort of video collaboration in the future involving my class (if/when I get to teach it again) and the community center- as I've placed a lot of emphasis on video production that focuses on local situations and how they connect to global issues.

After that we stopped at a casino in the area to have a laugh really.  It has been decorated to simulate a traditional Zulu village and it was really something.  The interior simulated a night sky (like the Paris casino in Las Vegas) and there were statues of Zulu warriors and animals everywhere.  As far as I could tell there were only slot machines rather than table gambling, but we spent most of our time outside to enjoy the views it offers guests of the coast of Durban - you could see Umlangi in the distance and also downtown Durban.  The Indian Ocean was so deeply blue.

Next J insisted we drive out to Tongaat to see a very special Hindu temple there, the Sri Jagannath Puri Temple.  Tongaat houses the Hulett sugar company (on the drive up there I could see fields of sugar cane - a new sight for me!), which has quite a history in the area.  Many Indians remain in Tongaat, as it was settled originally by Indian indentured laborers working for the sugar plantations.  I will write more about the Temple and its history later when I can include pictures.  Oh but we had a wonderful visit with Mr. Kamal, whose grandfather built the temple in 1900 - at a time when hardly anyone but Whites were allowed to own land.  But I should bite my tongue (typing hand?) for now, as I want to write about the visit and our conversation in detail later.

I'm home for the evening and will probably return to my sewing (and watching this horribly wonderful Afrikaans "soapie" they play on TV called "7 de laan" - at first I thought that I was watching it for "linguistic research purposes" but as soon as San Mari collaped from anabolic steroid use because her new boyfriend Conrad was administering them to her in secret so she would win a biatholon... I realized maybe I was getting hooked on ummm the "universal human stories" the program explores!). 

My thanks to everyone here and in the States who reached out to me and helped me deal with the robbery yesterday.  I know I wouldn't be feeling as safe and as better as I do now if it hadn't been for those who contacted me with their thoughtful messages, help, and conversation.  My friends make me feel so happy.

Clairwood Senior Citizens Group Presentation

This morning M and I spoke to the Clairwood Senior Citizens Group - a group of South African Indian seniors who meet every other Wednesday from 10-2 at the Clairwood Tamil Insitute.  The group started twenty-three years ago and has always met in Clairwood even though it attracts many of its members from Chatsworth, a nearby township originally designated for Indians during Apartheid.  The community of Clairwood has been challenged over the last forty years - it is situated close to Durban Harbor and is one of the only large areas of flat land nearby, so the city council has repeatedly tried to edge out residents to expand shipping container storage space for the Harbor.  We met in a large hall and had some black tea (with lots of cream and sugar) and a sweet cake before E, who coordinates the group, started with announcements.  He introduced M and me and then we took turns speaking to the group about Create Africa South and its Amazwi cloth project.  After speaking for a while, we went around the room and showed them four examples of finished cloths with their accompanying narratives and the photographs of the women who had sewn them.  When I was going around the room I was trying to get a sense if anyone in the group sewed and what sort of sewing they did.  There is one woman in the group who has been giving hand sewing lessons to some of the other women - they were working on aprons later that day.  When M and I returned to the front, we emphasized that many participants in the Amazwi project have never embroidered before, but they are still able to produce cloths depicting events and history they have experienced.  I also mentioned the project currently has no cloths made by South African Indian women (or men for that matter) and encouraged them to contact E or me if they would be interested in participating in a workshop in April.  While we were there I met S, who coordinates a related group for seniors in the suburb of Phoenix - he invited us to speak to them on April 3 (since we will be away in the Mpumulanga and possibly Limpopo provinces in the next couple of weeks) and told me that many of the women in that group have an interest in sewing.

Between these two groups, I genuinely hope I can organize a workshop to make cloths before I leave at the end of April.  The history of ethnic Indians in the Durban area is so important, and to have their contributions to the archive - if they are interested in participating - could be so amazing.  Ghandi spent twenty-one years in Durban and it was in Pietermaritzburg that his ejection from a first-class train compartment (even though he held a ticket) inspired his activism and sarvodoya (service to the community).  One of the Clairwood senior group's mottoes is "care, share, and serve" emphasizing their commitment to each other and their community.  E told me today how the democracy of 1994 did not mark unqualified progress for Indians in the area.  Under Apartheid they were not-White, so they were subjected to similar oppression and segregation as Blacks and Coloureds.  However, the post-1994 reforms, under the banner of Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) has not benefited South African Indian citizens.  They were never considered White, but will never be considered Black in terms of benefiting from a program like BEE, which attempts to rescind past discriminatory hiring practices, amongst other objectives.  I hope to write more about BEE when I read more about its history, function, and efficacy.   

Countdown Until My First Craft Workshop

This morning I just received *official* confirmation that Create Africa South and the South African Parliamentary Millennium Project will be conducting a five-day workshop in Nelspruit, Mpumalanga from 15-20 March.  My flight has been booked for next Saturday morning and I will be working during the workshop as a coordinator for Create Africa South (along with M and Mrs. Gambushe), primarily assisting in embroidery instruction.  I am so happy to know the workshop has been confirmed because the last couple weeks it has become increasingly clear to me that bureaucracy and the particular situation here (especially working with Parliament and communities of informal working women) prevents making long term plans easily. 

It has been humorous to me that these seemingly last-minute arrangements made here come at the same time as the higher education "funding season" in the United States for the following academic year.  During this time of year my department and other campus programs require a fellowship application where I must project my work and dissertation progress for the next year.  On the one hand, the research I want to do with these craft "democracy" workshops seems to fall through one day and then be confirmed the next.  On the other hand, I have to perform (through writing) my expectations of findings for these workshops and what I will be thinking about in a year's time.  I feel generally that I operate somewhere in between these two time parameters, so both tend to frustrate me - especially since my research forces the two together.

The second workshop (25-30 March) remains unsettled:  CAS will either remain in Nelspruit to conduct our own workshop without the support of the Parliament to collect cloths for our archive since we will be in an area that CAS could not afford otherwise to travel to.  However, the Parliament Project is pushing to conduct a workshop in the Limpopo province that following week, as they would like to complete all provinces soon and they have only completed three.  They have even suggested conducting workshops in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng provinces next month, possibly while I am still here.

Being in the Mpumulanga province has an added benefit for me as a tourist - Kruger National Park - as Nelspruit is close to the Southern area of the park.  The park is the largest game reserve in Southern Africa and its biodiversity is amazing.  Over the Easter weekend, I am going to stay in a backpacker's dorm in Hazyview, a small banana plantation town located outside of the park.  Since the bed only costs R80 a night (about $10 US), I can afford to take one or more guided wildlife tours into the park in hopes of seeing duikers (my favorite!), giraffe, rhinoceros, the elusive honey badger, and tons of other animals.

Off to Mpumulanga (15 March - 30 March)

M, Mrs. G, and I will be in the Mpumalanga Province for the next two weeks to conduct two workshops for Create Africa South's Amazwi Abesifazane project.  The first, held in Nelspruit from 15 - 20 March will be in conjunction with the South Africa Parliamentary Millennium Project and cloth production will focus on contemporary concepts of democracy for women participants.  The second, likely to be held in a rural area outside of Nelspruit from 25-29 March, will only be conducted by the three of us and cloth production will focus on history and experience. 

Over the Easter weekend I will be staying at the Gecko bushpacker's hostel - yay vacation! - just outside of Hazyview near Kruger National Park.  If you need to contact me for any emergency, the location information there is:  SABIE ROAD PLOT S 13; P.O. BOX 753  HAZYVIEW  1242; TEL.: 013 – 737 8140; FAX: 086 – 631 7143; EMAIL: [email protected]

I have decided to leave my laptop here in Durban - I imagine I will be able to find some internet cafes for access in Nelspruit, for at least the first week to check email and maybe quickly update current events.  Otherwise, I'll write about the trip after my return, during my last few weeks here in Durban.

I hope everyone enjoys the seasonal change... whether it is into Spring or Fall, the two seasons I love the most for the way they whisper both of promise and reflection.  I'll be thinking of my family on Easter and missing our egg-cracking championship.

The Process of Creating an Amazi Abesifazane Cloth

It was important for me to participate in the two workshops in the Mpumalanga province to meet the participants and to get a sense of the material conditions in which they produce the Amazwi Abesifazane cloths (conditions I referenced in my post yesterday), but also to understand the process of cloth production.  Many of the participants have never embroidered or done hand-sewing before, so I wanted to see how skills were imparted to them (by Mrs. Gambushe, M, and myself) and the choices they made at each step of their cloth production.  At the end of each workday, we collected the cloths from the women to distribute them the following morning.  I am still thinking through this practice of collection - in some respects it made me uncomfortable because of my concern that it was sending a message that we didn't trust the participants as rhetorical composers to work on their cloths by themselves or even care for the cloths through the night until the workshop the next morning.  Despite my concerns about this action, it is an established practice of the organization, and it made it relatively convenient for me, then, to take an image of each cloth at the end of each workday.  I've included the four stages of Thandi Mokwena's cloth.  She was a participant of the first week's workshop, sponsored by the Parliamentary Millennium Programme.  After composing her narrative and drawing a rough sketch for the cloth's design, CAS facilitators told her to hem the border of her cloth quickly with a large, running-stitch, write her name on the cloth, and then choose a more decorative border to complete the hem (she picked a relatively simple, bi-colored running stitch).  From there she transferred the sketch onto the cloth using a colored pencil and began embroidering.  She approached me during the middle of the second day with her sketch and asked me to draw figures to represent people onto parts of the structure she had already added.  During the last sewing day of the workshop she approached me again to draw figures in the small yellow house in the bottom left corner.  Both times as I sketched the figures for her, I referred to her original sketch and asked her if my rendering was acceptable to her.

Hand embroidery is a time-intensive medium.  It allows the producer time to make decisions and to add and subtract items relatively easily (provided the selection of fabric, needle, and thread are compatible and you're not using a large needle with a delicate fabric, for example, and rending holes in the fabric if you decide to remove any stitching).  What has continued to interest me about the embroidery for these particular cloths, is that the images that are slowly and carefully embroidered are meant to represent past histories and living conditions of the producers sewing them.  What thoughts does the producer consider, in this case Thandi, when she is embroidering a small, irregular rectangle that is meant to stand in and represent someone she has known that died?  How does it feel to embroider personal and representative subject matter, especially if you know it is intended for a larger audience?

Moonlighting as a PR Writer

This weekend has been relatively quiet - unlike the ocean, crocodiles, and giant Ridgeback puppies I got to frolic in, near, and with last weekend, I did a lot of reading and writing this weekend.  For the first part of the day today I composed the documents for Mrs. Gambushe that I mentioned on Thursday in preparation for her submission of sample products to Tradepoint Durban.  That put me in the role of a public relations writer where I drew on a lot of the conventions for writing about handicraft items and their producers that I have critiqued in the past.  I have attached a pdf of the complete "letter of motivation describing business and products" that Tradepoint Durban requires, but in a nutshell I retold the selective history of how Mrs. Gambushe started the community centre in 1995 and its role for providing skills development in the Umlazi township area.  After this retelling and providing basic information about the company, I went on to describe the objects she is offering for their consideration as a "fusion of three values that are central to the co-operative:  pride in the new South Africa, pride in Zulu tradition, and pride in the possibilities for women in South Africa today."  I spoke with Mrs. Gambushe about the particular products she was offering for consideration and listened to her describe them and their meaning in order to create this particular document.  I have reached a point where instead of merely criticizing appeals to tradition and women's economic empowerment when it comes to promoting handicrafts, I understand these appeals function and exist as strategic rhetorical commonplaces to situate the products for audiences of retailers and consumers.

I had to do additional research to address Zamukuziphilisa Sewing and Crafts' "Black Economic Empowerment Status."  The government introduced a "broad-based" plan of Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) to redress the previous economic exclusion of Black populations under apartheid.  The official documents are difficult for a layperson like myself to negotiate (at least over the course of a few hours) and I have noticed that there are several online services that offer fee-based assistance to help companies - from micro-enterprises to large corporations - assess their BEE status.  It's somewhat like a point system, where an enterprise receives a higher BEE rating for the number and level of Black (this includes Black, Coloured, and Indian) people and women that own, run, or are employed by the company.  I purchased an edited collection, Visions of Black Economic Empowerment, with commentary and critique of the system and its development that I look forward to reading.  For now, I don't know enough about it, how its intricacies work, or how its implementation/enforcement is effected to take a position on it.  I'm interested to know more about it.

Download ZamuInformation.pdf

Yapping About HIV/AIDS

An online article published in the past year suggested that with a healthful lifestyle and current anti-retroviral treatment (ARV), a person with HIV can come close to living a full life span.  This average person – where average means possessing access to ARVs and the means for healthful food and lifestyle choices - would only lose about thirteen years from his or her life expectancy.  This news seems to do more work to diminish the specter of AIDS and bring its consideration to the level of other serious, but manageable, health problems.  Somehow, though, practical medical assurances, countless NGOs devoted to HIV/AIDs issues, and constant reference to it in the South African media has done little to diminish the stigma of HIV/AIDS. 

 As many scholars have recognized (Susan Sontag and Paula Triechler in particular), the symbolic capital of AIDS and its “epidemic of significations” has bestowed the disease with metaphorical powers strong enough to overpower any one article that may suggest its manageability.  AIDS in South Africa has always been considered a heterosexual disease here – this was one of the key differences from a Western conception of AIDS then-President Thabo Mbeki emphasized in several speeches he gave over the course of 2000.  However, instead of highlighting its transmission through heterosexual sex, Mbeki insisted it was a cluster of illnesses caused primarily by poverty.  This obfuscation turned out to be statistically incorrect, but rhetorically in line with his position on economic and political development for the nation.  As Deborah Posel argues, “In [Mbeki’s] discourse on the epidemic, the meaning of AIDS was inseparable from the meaning and fate of the country’s newfound freedom.  AIDS threatened to extinguish the hope that had inspired the liberation struggle and that had animated the birth of the fledgling democracy.” 

But if that is a snapshot of the broad political sense of the epidemic, then what do glimmers on the ground look like?  Yesterday I accompanied R to Umlazi High School (a public school in the township of Umlazi outside of Durban), one of many schools in the area who she is approaching about participating in the YAP (Young and Positive) Program.  Organized by Create Africa South (the NGO I have been researching for my dissertation), this program asks students to “yap” about HIV/AIDs so that “learners themselves come up with a language that speaks to them when it comes to pertinent issues.”  In the future, YAP groups at school may organize and produce grassroots media about other issues, such as climate change, literacy, unemployment, etc.  I’m interested in the idea of encouraging students to create their own language, but I still wonder how much it can do to remove the stigma that continues to attach itself to the disease.

 Transmitting HIV remains a recurring theme on the “soapies” produced here, with the most common story being that of a trusting (generally female) partner who comes to discover her lover or husband has broken the commitment of monogamy in their relationship when she tests positive.  The devastation is a double one, then, and the management of HIV (through ARVs and lifestyle changes) remains a constant reminder of a reality that has failed to live up to the expectation and promise originally agreed to.  It is perhaps these associations – with their pain and heartbreak - that continue to feed the specter of AIDS here.

 This post has been a clumsy and ridiculously academic way of honoring someone who dared to have faith in someone else, only to be let down.  With love and respect for you…

A low-tech NGO without high-tech?

Technical frustrations abound recently for Create Africa South (CAS), the nongovernmental organization (NGO) I have been working with over the last year.  High technology has never been kind to CAS:  last year during intense rainstorms the roof of the office leaked, destroying one of the two remaining ancient PCs the organization ran there.  Several years ago their entire suite of new PCs were stolen in an armed robbery that, upon J’s description, was likely planned and based on observation of the delivery to the building.  Since that incident, CAS has taken a “no frills” approach to using high tech – in part to maintain a low profile but largely so that it doesn’t become dependent on items that can quickly vanish.

Upon arrival this year I was informed the other office computer finally ceased to function likely due to its age and the humid climate here.  It’s kind of humbling to be handed the electronic life of a decade-old organization on two burned DVDs.  Over this weekend CAS’s final desktop computer (housed at J’s home office) died – a victim of flooding due to this weekends heavy storms.  Over the last week in South Africa three days of heavy rain in different areas has led to the death of at least seven people (in Gauteng and KwaZulu Natal provinces) and the displacement of over 200 families – especially in Soweto, one of Johannesburg’s historic townships.  Right now the only functioning high-tech item CAS owns is a digital camera.  R and I have been mediating quite a bit of work and relaying emails for J on our personal laptops because there isn’t much else CAS can do at the moment.

As much as I get frustrated, the situation reminds me of the beauty of low technologies.  Much of the work CAS performs – imparting basic sewing and economic skills and collecting embroidered cloths – is low tech.  In our workshop last year in Mahushu we worked with the women only during the day in a building that lacked electricity.  Besides our digital camera, the rest of our materials consisted of pads of paper, regular and colored pencils with sharpeners, cloth, cotton embroidery thread, sewing needles, scissors, and a few sewn samplers to demonstrate stitches.  Much can come from little.  What are some of the advantages of low technologies?  Generally they can be practiced or crafted with little capital investment and the know-how for the practice can be understood by a single individual (in distinction to trends toward specialization).  But I’m not interested in drawing a sharp distinction or valorizing one over the other ­– rather I'm more interested in how technologies can work together to create opportunities for access and communication.

Create Africa South is Moving!

When I first wrote Create Africa South in the fall of 2006 about traveling to Durban to research their organization, I was told they were making plans to move their Amazi Abesifazane ("Voices of Women") collection into the Roberts House (a Victorian national monument and one of Durban's oldest-standing houses) to join with the Phansi Museum, which holds an inspiring collection of domestic objects representing Southern African cultures.  When I got here last year and saw the conditions the Amazwi collection were housed in - a skeletal, empty, multi-story building in humid conditions right next to the Indian Ocean, on a street more known for auto-body shops and after-hours prostitution than anything else - I realized their urgency for the move.  It was no place a general public audience would likely travel to view this tremendous collection of thousands of cloths:  a decade-long project that has developed a specific process and product along the way.

This Tuesday, with a bit of gruntwork on my part as well other friends of CAS, we will finally be moving the physical collection into a secure, temperature-controlled, storage room at the Phansi Museum.  The news of this coming through has made the countless meetings (several of which I have been in attendance) and proposals (the most recent I helped complete in mid-February) worthwhile.  Coming at a time like this, when the organization lacks any computer of its own, this news cheers everyone up quite a bit and helps us see a future for the project.