Abstract

In the past fifteen years, scores of high-profile murders of Africans with albinism have sparked a robust global movement for albinism rights. In Tanzania, disparate albinism stakeholders (wadau) attribute violence to an illicit market for albino body parts run by traditional healers and their patrons, who are said to believe in the extraordinary powers of these parts to access an unseen realm. This article tacks between stakeholders with albinism and composite sketches of a healer and her artisanal miner patient, to offer a theory of violence rooted in spectacle rather than belief. Focusing on albinism interventions as sites of spectacle, I employ a semiotics of quality to show how albinism becomes central to broader processes of illumination (kuongeza nuru). A semiotic approach to social movements moves beyond the sedimented categories and narrative tropes that compel activism to reveal a postactivist politics and ethics grounded in relationality. 

Muhtasari

Katika kipindi cha takribani miaka kumi na tano iliyopita, matukio mengi ya mauaji ya Waafrika wenye ualbino yamechochea vuguvugu kote duniani la kupigania haki za watu hao. Nchini Tanzania, wadau tofauti tofauti wa ualbino wanahusisha vurugu na soko haramu la viungo vya watu hao linaloendeshwa na waganga wa kienyeji na wateja wao, ambao wanadaiwa kuamini katika uwezo wa ajabu wa viungo hivi kufika kwenye ulimwengu usioonekana. Makala haya yanahusu wadau wenye ualbino na hadithi ya mganga na mgonjwa wake mchimbaji madini mdogo, ili kutoa nadharia ya vurugu iliyojengeka na tamasha lenye mvuto badala ya imani. Nikizingatia kuingilia kati kwa ualbino kama maeneo ya tamasha lenye mvuto, ninatumia semiotiki yenye sifa ilikuonyesha jinsi ualbino unavyokuwa kitovu cha michakato mipana katika kuongeza mwonekano. Mtazamo wa semiotiki wa harakati za kijamii unasogea zaidi ya kategoria zisizo badilika na mambo yote ya kawaida ya kila siku ya kuchochea wadau kwenye kuweka wazi siasa na maadili za wanaharakati zilizojengwa katika mauhusiano. 

Keywords

albinism; lightness; social movements; semiotics; qualisign; violence; Tanzania; ualbino; nuru; harakati za kijamii; semiotiki (masomo ya alama na ishara); qualisign (sifa zinazowasiliana kama ishara); vurugu

Copyright

Copyright (c) 2025 Jane L. Saffitz

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.