Travel, Humanitarianism, and Becoming American in Africa

Travel, Humanitarianism, and Becoming American in Africa

Travel, Humanitarianism, and Becoming American in Africa Kathryn Mathers Palgrave macmillan

TRAVEL, HUMANITARIANISM, AND BECOMING AMERICAN IN AFRICA Copyright Kathryn Mathers, 2010. Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2010 978-0-230-10806-6 All rights reserved. First published in 2010 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN in the United States - a division of St. Martin s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the World, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave and Macmillan are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-29091-8 ISBN 978-0-230-11558-3 (ebook) DOI 10.1057/9780230115583 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Mathers, Kathryn Frances. Travel, humanitarianism, and becoming American in Africa / Kathryn Mathers. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. 1. United States Relations Africa. 2. Africa Relations United States. 3. Americans Travel Africa. 4. Humanitarianism Political aspects United States. 5. Group identity United States, I. Title. DT38.1.M36 2011 303.48 26073 dc22 2010023226 Design by Integra Software Services First edition: December 2010

For Liz, Mac, and Anthony Wish you were here!

Contents Acknowledgments ix Introduction 1 1 Moving Fieldwork: Traveling with Americans to and from Africa 11 2 Vexed Ties: Africa in and out of America 41 3 Back to Nature: Americans Great African Adventure 61 4 Through the Glass: Encountering the Unexpected in Africa 89 5 Disrupting the Hyphen: Identity and Belonging in America 117 6 How Do They Know I am American? Travel and the Discovery of Home 137 7 Suffering Beauty: How to Save Africa without Changing It 155 Conclusion: Saving Africa: Love in the Time of Oprah 181 Notes 197 Bibliography 201 Index 215

Acknowledgments Books make it possible to travel vicariously to all corners of the world, and when we do get to go somewhere, they are important parts of our luggage. This book is about travel and is based on observations of travelers between America, where I now live, and my home, South Africa. The journeys these travelers took were always more about coming home than about South Africa. So I have written a book about the meaning of America and the ways that Africa is used to make sense of it. Such journeys, no matter their outcome, are powerful and intimate moments in people s lives, and it is amazing to me still that I got to share so many of these moments with so many people. This book is the result of the generosity of spirit and intellect of travelers, young and not so young, to South Africa. I hope that I have represented them in these pages with equal generosity, and I wish that their journeys always take them where they want to go. Travel, Humanitarianism, and Becoming American in Africa is based on my dissertation research in the department of anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. This work was made possible by some amazing institutional and personal contributions by faculty, staff, and colleagues at a range of Bay Area and South African organizations that supported my research or writing process, especially Nelson Graburn, Michael O Hare, Donald Moore, Elizabeth Colson, Peta Anne Katz, Marianne Fermé, Martha Saavedra, Thom McClendon, Ned Garrett, Nadya Connolly Williams, Margot Winer, Steve Thewlis, Bob Price, Neil Henry, Rehanna Rossouw, Linnea Sonderlund, Quinton Redcliff, John Parkington, Jeremy Mathers, Rachel Goddard, Te Guerra, and Michael Larice. I was able to begin the process of writing this book during a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Anthropology and Archaeology at the University of Pretoria. This was a provoking and provocative intellectual space that reintroduced me to the critical and engaged thinking of South African anthropology and to anthropologists like John Sharpe, Isak Niehaus, and Susan Cook, who engaged productively with my work.

x Acknowledgments The final iteration of the book was developed through a number of other writing projects and multiple conversations with some extraordinary women who have read my proposals, edited my work, and questioned my thinking, making me a better writer and a clearer thinker. I am so grateful to Zeynep Gürsel and Beverly Davenport for focusing this book and its argument and oh for those titles; for honing my writing and my argument during the Stanford years, I thank Julia Harrison and Susan Frohlick, Hussein Keshani, Cassandra Herrman, and Deborah Simpson. The final product benefited enormously from the careful reading of all these, as well as of other old and new colleagues and friends: Emily Burrill, Kat Charron, Kathy Coll, Jenny Cool, Robin DeLugan, Adriane Lentz Smith, Christian Lentz, Sima Rombe-Shulman, and Brett Whalen. My collaboration with Laura Hubbard has shaped my work in the best possible way; I hope this book is both tribute and inspiration to her. My beloved husband, Jehangir Malegam, and my maid of honor, Sarah Cervenak, have taken these roles seriously in helping this book be born. Thank you. I dedicate this book to three people who started me on my own intellectual and personal journey that took me from South Africa to American and back again but who died before I finished even my dissertation. Elizabeth Biggs was my friend and my first colleague who showed a very young girl the possibility of paving one s own intellectual path; Douglas McCready, my grandfather, taught me that doing the right thing meant asking hard questions and making tough choices; and Anthony Mathers, my big brother, gave me through his life and death the courage to stay on this journey. Portions of chapters 1 and 5 were initially published in Tourist Studies 8(1) April 2008 by SAGE Publications, All rights reserved. c 2008 Sage Publications http://tou.sagepub.com/content/vol8/issue1/. Portions of chapters 2 and 3 were initially delivered as The Reverse Gaze: The Impact of the South African Gaze on American Travellers, published in Visual Culture/Explorations Conference Proceedings, Department of Visual Arts University of Pretoria Copyright c Department of Visual Arts, University of Pretoria, South Africa 2005 (pp. 70 78), ISBN 1 86854 614 4. Portions of chapters 2 and 4 were originally published as Reimagining Africa: What American Students Learn in South Africa. Tourism Review International 8(2): 127 141 Copyright c 2004 Cognizant Comm. Corp. www.cognizantcommunication.com.

Acknowledgments xi Portions of Chapter 3 were originally published as Doing Africa: Travelers, Adventurers and American conquest of Africa with Laura Hubbard. In Tarzan was an Eco-Tourist...and Other Tales in the Anthropology of Adventure, ed. Luis A. Vivanco, and Robert J. Gordon. 197 213. Berghan Press, New York and Oxford. Copyright c 2006 Luis A. Vivanco and Robert J. Gordon.