Modernisation and Distress in Men's and Women's Lives: African Experiences
Researcher: Liv Haram
The project was established in 2001 and ended in 2005
The research project deals with societies in transformation and rapid change brought about by modernisation and globalisation which increase stress and uncertainty in the everyday life of young men and women. Based on previous research from northern Tanzania, it aims to assess how people experience and live with economic, social and emotional stress. Rather than focusing on suffering and seeing people as merely victims of adverse circumstances, the project seeks to understand how people respond and act upon their life situation in an increasingly troubled world. More specifically, it seeks to identify those institutions and categories of persons mobilised under periods of great stress, on the one hand, and the economic and socio-cultural factors that limit such care and support in times of emotional stress and personal crisis, on the other.
How do people experience and live with grave problems,
such as, various forms of affliction, anxiety, death and grief? And
how do people respond to such problems; how are they manifested and
played out in particular life-settings or in the ‘local moral
worlds’?
How are uncertainties and suffering locally constructed? Do people draw
upon specific ‘cultural models’, techniques or prescriptions
and, thus, rely on a specific course of action when they are facing
grave problems and contingencies in life? Do Africans generally take
a pragmatic approach to suffering and misfortune, as some scholars have
argued, and might they thus be regarded as less likely to be alienated
and helpless in a risky or uncertain world? These are some of the central
questions that are addressed in the research project.
Study area
The study is conducted in Arusha town and the surrounding (semi-urban
and rural) districts. Arusha town, with a population of 134,708, and
its immediate surroundings, is an expansive urban area and an important
crossroad for business people and truck drivers travelling between Dar
es Salaam the capital of Tanzania and Nairobi in Kenya. Arusha is also
a flourishing commercial tourist centre and attracts people from all
over Tanzania as well as from other African countries and Europe. Like
most East African towns, Arusha now has a more balanced gender composition
compared with the past when male outnumbered women. People, and particularly
the young generations, living in the villages and roadside settlements
surrounding the town commute either daily or weekly to the urban centre,
for economic and social purposes.
The study applies a variety of anthropological methods, such as participants observation, household-survey, structured and unstructured interviews, extended case studies and disease and illness narratives.
Publications
2005
'Eyes have no Curtains': The Moral
Economy of Secrecy in Managing Love Affairs among Adolescent in Northern
Tanzania in the Time of AIDS’ in Africa Today, Vol. 51, No 4,
pp.56-73.
'AIDS and Risk: the handling of uncertainty in northern Tanzania', in Culture, Health and Sexuality, Vol. 7(1), pp. 1–13.
2004
Co-authored with Yamba: guest editors of African
Sociological Review, Vol. 8, No. 1. Special Issue 'Visiting
the Issue of Uncertainty in Contemporary African Lives', pp.
1–212.
Co-editing with Bawa Yamba: Introduction 'Visiting the Issue of Uncertainty in Contemporary African Lives' in African Sociological Review, Vol. 8, No. 1, Special Issue, pp. 1–11.
'"Prostitutes' or modern women?" Negotiating sexuality in northern Tanzania' (Chapter 10, pp. 211-229). In Arnfred, Signe (ed.), Re-thinking Sexualities in Africa. The Nordic Africa Institute, Uppsala.
2003
'AIDS,
Risk and Agency: The handling of Uncertainty in Northern Tanzania'
(Chapter 8, pp. 152-168). In Tersböl, Britt Pinkowsky (ed.) Gender,
Sexuality and HIV/AIDS. Research and Intervention in Africa. Köbenhavns
Universitet, 2003. ISBN: 87-983708-6-3.
'HIV Prevention and AIDS Care in Moshi and Arusha' (pp. 167-174). In Rekdal, Ole Björn and Yusufu Q Lawi (eds.) Gender, Generation and Communication in Times of AIDS: the Potential of "Modern" and "Traditional" Institutions. Proceedings from a workshop held in Dar es Salaam, August 6-8, 2002. ISBN: 82-7815-088-5.
'The Orphan Issue in Tanzania' (pp. 155-160). In Rekdal, Ole Björn and Yusufu Q Lawi (eds.) Gender, Generation and Communication in Times of AIDS: the Potential of "Modern" and "Traditional" Institutions. Proceedings from a workshop held in Dar es Salaam, August 6-8, 2002. ISBN: 82-7815-088-5.
2001
'Community
based health promotion: The potential of traditional and modern institutions,
Proceedings from a Workshop held at Lutheran Uhuru Hostel, Moshi Tanzania,
November 11-12,1999'. Co-editing with G. Van den Bergh, K M Moland,
and V. Nyonyo and R. Matweba. Centre for International Health, University
of Bergen. ISBN 82-7815-048-6
'In sexual life women are hunters: AIDS and women who drain men’s body. The case of the Meru of Northern Tanzania'. In: Society in Transition. Journal of the South African Sociological Association. Vol. 32 No. 1, 2001, pp. 47-55.
'AIDS and Body Politics. Gender Struggles and Competing Moral Discourses – The Case of Tanzania' (pp. 50-53). In HIV/AIDS Grasping the Reality of its Gender Dimension. Aprodev Good – Gender Orientation on Development. Annual Conference Report. Hosted by Norwegian Church AID (Order can be made to the Aprodev Secretariat in Brussels).
1999
'"Women out of sight": Modern Women in Gendered Worlds. The Case of the Meru of Northern Tanzania .’ PhD-thesis. Department of Social Anthropology, University of Bergen. ISBN 82-995467-0-2. Printed by Allkopi Bergen, Norway.
'Report on Brainstorming Workshop'. Programme on Marginalisation and Health (PROMAH). Executive Inn, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. December 2-4, 1998. (eds.) Haram, Liv, Kaaya, Sylvia and Jessie Mbwambo (134 pp.) Centre for International Health, University of Bergen. ISBN 82-7815-017-6
1997
'AIDS
making the socio-economic importance of sex deadly for Meru'.
The Arusha Times, April 16-30, 1997, p. 7, (Tanzanian Newspaper). Also
published in The Guardian, (Tanzanian Newspaper), 1997.
'"In sexual life women are hunters": AIDS and women who drain men's body. The case of the Meru of Northern Tanzania'. (15 pp.) Program and Abstract Book 8th International Congress. World Federation of Public Health Associations. Health in Transition: Opportunities and Challenges, pp. 101
1996
'The gendered epidemic: Sexually transmitted diseases
and AIDS among the Meru people of Northern Tanzania'. Bergström
S. and Holmboe-Ottesen G. (eds.) Reproductive Health Research in Developing
Countries. Proceeding from the HEBUT-Programme. Centre for Development
and Environment. University of Oslo. SUM Report No. 4 pp. 39-54.
1995
'Negotiating Sexuality in Times of Economic Want:
The Young and Modern Meru Women'. Chapter 3 (31-48). In: Klepp,
KI; Biswalo, PM; Talle, A (eds.) Young People at Risk: Fighting AIDS
in Northern Tanzania. Scandinavian University Press.
'Helsesøkande åtferd hjå pasientar med AIDS'. Talle, Aud; Haram, Liv; Heguye, Eli.S. (eds.) Tidsskrift for Den norske lægeforening, No. 26, 1995; 115:3284-5. Oslo.
'Health care seeking behaviour of AIDS patients'. Talle, Aud; Haram, Liv; Heguye Eli S. (eds.) Tanzania Medical Journal. Vol. 10 No. 1 September, 1995, pp. 19-21.
1993
'AIDS in the social and cultural context: Some limitations of the KAPB-questionnaire'. Centre for Development Studies. University of Bergen. Notat. No. 2, 1993. ISSN 08040-2470 (33 p).
1991
'Tswana Medicine in Interaction with Biomedicine'.
Social Science and Medicine. Vol. 33, No. 2, pp.167-175, Pergamon Press,
UK.
1989
'A child is born. A naturalistic observation'.
Staugård F. (ed.): Traditional Medicine in a Transitional Society.
Botswana moving towards the year 2000. (pp. 75-80). Ipeleheng Publishers,
Gaborone, Botswana.
1988
'"The Batswanas" Encounter with Western Medicine.
Cooperation or confrontation?' Cand. Polit. Thesis in Social Anthropology,
University of Bergen (Un-published).
Liv Haram is a social anthropologist trained at the University of Bergen. From 1989 to 1992 she worked as a researcher in a multi-disciplinary AIDS research and competence building programme in northern Tanzania. Based on research from the same area, her doctoral study examines gender relations in the context of rapid social change and a burgeoning AIDS crisis. Her principal research interests are problems of modernisation, gender-relations and sexuality. She has also done long-term field studies in Botswana. She has been employed at the Nordic Africa Institute since January 2001.