Distributed in N. America by Michigan State University Press
ISBN:9956-558-27-3
© Francis B. Nyamnjoh 2009
First published 2009
DISCLAIMER
All views expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Langaa RPCIG.
To all those who contribute knowingly and unknowingly…
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Lilly Loveless sat staring at her Gmail inbox, on a cold winter morning in Muzunguland. Unlike other days, she had come in earliest of all the postgraduate students at the Muzunguland African Studies Institute at Bruhlville, because she was expecting an urgent email. Her co-supervisor in Livingstonetown had promised her the contact details of an African colleague at the University of Mimbo where she was seeking affiliation to do fieldwork for her PhD on ‘Sex, Power and Consumerism in Africa.’ She was excited and relieved, now that her research proposal had been successfully defended and the way cleared for her to undertake her second African visit. The Ethics Committee had given her a tough time and asked grilling questions about the dangers of voyeurism posed by her proposed study, but she eventually sailed through reassuringly.
Funding had been secured from the Ministry of Cooperation, the Royal Aids Foundation and the Michel Foucault Institute for the Study of Sexuality and Power. Riding high on her accomplishments and bubbling with prospects, Lilly Loveless was set to go.
All she needed was a letter of affiliation: these famous letters without which, so she had been told, Muzungulanders find it impossible to penetrate the bureaucracies of African ministries of research. ‘No permit, no research’, that’s the maxim. Without a letter of affiliation she couldn’t even aspire to get a visa from the Embassy of Mimboland, the country tied to the grants she had received. She had tried persuading the consular officer. This might have worked, had she not, most regrettably, boasted that she was after all injecting millions of Mim dollars into the struggling Mimbo economy, so “Why all the fuss?” Her attitude seemed to have toughened the resolve of the consular officer, who came short of screaming: “Forget your bloody money, arrogant…!” Now she knew only a letter of affiliation from Dustbin’s collaborator at the University of Mimbo, bearing all the stamps and seals of approval, could deliver her visa.
She recalled reading, in Nigel Barley’s Innocent Anthropologist, of similar experiences the author had had with the embassy of another African country, not too dissimilar to Mimboland. She stood up and looked through her bookshelf for the book, opened the relevant page, which she had dogeared from her undergraduate Anthropology years and read.
How similar in their indifference to progress African countries are! And how insensitive to the need to protect even their own self-interest! To discourage potential visitors with such attitudes of callous indifference was worse than shooting oneself in the foot. Little had changed for the better, much for the worse.
Her experience of Africa was limited though, very limited. Apart from the masses of books she had read, books written mostly by Muzungulanders and by Africans whose knowledge of their continent was like a river humbled by the dry season, Lilly Loveless had had only a short two-week holiday experience of the lovely beaches of Sunsandland, one of the most exotic, exciting wonders of the tropics, dreams of which have kept many a Muzungulander going.
The email eventually came through. Lilly Loveless clicked and read:
Dear Lilly, the contact details of my Mimboland colleague whom I insist you meet as he has similar research interest to yours are:
Dr Wiseman Lovemore
Department of Social Work
University of Mimbo, Mimboland
Email: [email protected]
Dr Wiseman Lovemore is a fascinating and accommodating fellow whom I am sure you will like. He isn’t exactly international in terms of Google, but he is an intelligent man with solid convictions. I cannot locate his cell number, but his email address should suffice. Just email him your travel details, and if you are lucky and he checks his mail, which unfortunately he doesn’t do often, he would most certainly go to fetch you at the airport. If you miss him for whatever reason, simply make your way to the university campus upon arrival – some 40 to 50 minutes away by taxi, in Puttkamerstown. Ask the first person you meet, and you should be taken to the Department of Social Work where Lovemore is as solid as an oak and the easiest person to find.
Safe trip and enjoy your fieldwork.
Best
