New Blog Series: “Track Changes”

This week we inaugurate the new series, “Track Changes,” on the CIHA Blog. In this feature, we link to online content that we have found to be problematic in its assumptions, framing, or language and provide a question or thought(s) provoked by each piece. Through the “Track Changes” series, we ask how portrayals and representations need to be not only rephrased, but also reframed and rethought.

These are ours for this week. We invite our readers to contribute other articles and posts that could benefit from a critical eye.

“From a Rwandan Dump to the Halls of Harvard”
(Michael Wines for The New York Times)
Isn’t this kind of a tired trope – the inevitable ride from an (African) hell-hole to the (US) glory heaven?
“Aid workers must heed local culture to save lives – Red Cross”
(Megan Rowling for Thomson Reuters Foundation)

While this piece makes good points about mismatched expectations and practices, is it problematic to refer to the “values and customs” of the recipients versus the “ingrained approaches” of the aid agencies? In other words, what kinds of cultural evangelism are being promoted by the media and/or aid agencies in this or other crises?

This is a good philanthropic piece, but the generalisation of Africa and Africans especially in the current Ebola discourse is troubling. Despite having extensive social and economic ramifications, an error of homogeneity – it poses a challenge to the geo-political understanding of the continent especially by some members of the American populace. Our previous Facebook post recapping the Hazlehurst, Mississippi High School principal’s incident attests to this.

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