Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-gtxcr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-24T23:42:00.435Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Rituals of Verification: Indigenous and Imported Accountability in Northern Tanzania

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2011

Tim Kelsall
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Holding people to account for their actions is a feature of all societies. This article examines two different mechanisms of accountability, both of which are used in the Arumeru District of Tanzania. The first is a form of ritual cursing called ‘breaking a pot'; the second is the local government financial audit. By placing both practices in the same frame the article aims to unsettle the conceptual divide between the rational and the irrational, the modern and traditional, the scientific and the occult. It also asks whether imported forms of local government, such as are represented by Arumeru District Council, might be made responsible via indigenous and indexical mechanisms of accountability, or whether imported institutions are best rendered accountable by ‘universal’ means.

Résumé

Rendre les individus comptables de leurs actions est une caractéristique commune à toutes les sociétés. Cet article examine deux mécanismes de responsabilité utilisés tous deux dans le district d'Arumeru en Tanzanie. Le premier est une forme de malédiction rituelle appelée «casser un pot»; le second est le contrôle financier de l'administration locale. En plaçant ces deux pratiques sur le même plan, l'article entend bouscler le clivage conceptuel entre le rationnel et l'irrationnel, le moderne et le traditionnel, le scientifique et l'occulte. Il demande également s'il est possible de rendre comptables les formes importées d'administration locale, comme celle que représente le Conseil du district d'Arumeru, pas des mécanismes indigènes et indexiques de responsabilité, ou s'il vaut mieux rendre les institutions importées comptables de leurs actes par des moyens «universels».

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 73 , Issue 2 , May 2003 , pp. 174 - 201
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2003

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ashforth, Adam. 1998. ‘Witchcraft, violence and democracy in the new South Africa’, Cahiers d'études africaines 38 (152): 505-32.Google Scholar
Bayart, Jean-François, Stephen Ellis, and Béatrice Hibou, (eds). 1999. The Criminalization of the State in Africa. Oxford: James Currey, for the International African Institute.Google Scholar
Chabal, Patrick 1992. Power in Africa: an Essay in Political Interpretation. London: Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chabal, Patrick 2002. ‘The quest for good government and development in Africa: is NEPAD the answer?’ International Affairs 78 (3): 447-62.Google Scholar
Chabal, Patrick and Daloz, Jean-Pascal. 1999. Africa Works: Disorder as Political Instrument. Oxford: James Currey, for the International African Institute.Google Scholar
Comaroff, Jean and Comaroff, John. 1993a. ‘Introduction’, in Modernity and its Malcontents: Ritual and Power in Postcolonial Africa. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Comaroff, Jean 1993b. Modernity and its Malcontents: Ritual and Power in Postcolonial Africa. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Controller and Auditor General. 2001. Auditor's Report on the Accounts of Arumeru District Council for the Year ended 31st December 2000. Dar es Salaam: National Audit Office.Google Scholar
Day, Patricia and Klein, Rudolph. 1987. Accountabilities: Five Public Services. London: Tavistock Publications.Google Scholar
Ellis, Stephen. 1999. The Mask of Anarchy: the Destruction of Liberia and the Religious Dimension of an African Civil War. London: Hurst.Google Scholar
Ferguson, James. 1990. The Anti-politics Machine: ‘Development’, Depoliticiza- tion and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Geschiere, Peter. 1997. The Modernity of Witchcraft: Politics and the Occult in Postcolonial Africa. Charlottesville VA and London: University Press of Virginia.Google Scholar
Geschiere, Peter. 1998. ‘On “Witch Doctors” and “Spin Doctors”: the Role of “Experts” in African and American Politics’. Working paper, Leiden: University of Leiden.Google Scholar
Gore, Charles and Pratten, David. 2003. ‘The politics of plunder: the rhetorics of order and disorder in Nigeria’, African Affairs 102 (407), 211-40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harjula, Raimo. 1989. ‘Curse as a manifestation of broken human relationships among the Mem of Tanzania’, in Jacobson-Widding, A. and Westerlund, D. (eds), Culture, Experience and Pluralism: Essays on African Ideas of Illness and Healing. Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. Uppsala: University of Uppsala.Google Scholar
Harper, Richard. 2000. ‘The social organization of the IMF's mission work’, in Strathern, M. (ed.), Audit Cultures: Anthropological Studies in Accountability, Ethics and the Academy. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Harrison, Simon. 2002. ‘The politics of resemblance: ethnicity, trade marks, headhunting’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 8: 211-32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoseah, Edward G. 1999. Essays on Combating Corruption in Tanzania and the Basic Legal Principles. Dar es Salaam: Ecoprint.Google Scholar
Hyden, Goran. 1997. ‘Civil society, social capital, and development: dissection of a complex discourse’, Studies in Comparative International Development 32 (1): 3-30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kelsall, T. 2000. ‘Governance, local politics and districtization in Tanzania: the 1998 Arumeru tax revolt’, African Affairs 99 (397): 533-51.Google Scholar
Kelsall, T. 2002. ‘Shop windows and smoke-filled rooms: governance and the repoliticisation of Tanzania’, Journal of Modern African Studies 40 (4): 1-23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Landell- Mills, Pierre. 1992. ‘Governance, cultural change and empowerment’, Journal of Modern African Studies 30: 543-67.Google Scholar
Larsson, Rolf. 2001. ‘Between Crisis and Opportunity: Livelihoods, Diversification, and Inequality among the Mem of Tanzania’. Ph.D. thesis, Lund: Department of Sociology, University of Lund.Google Scholar
Merton, Robert K. 1968. Social Theory and Social Structure. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Moore, Henrietta L., and Sanders, Todd (eds). 2001. Magical Interpretations, Material Realities: Modernity, Witchcraft and the Occult in Postcolonial Africa London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Moore, Sally Falk, and Puritt, Paul. 1977. The Chagga and Mem of Tanzania. London: International African Institute.Google Scholar
Moreau, R. E. 1941. ‘Suicide by “breaking the cooking pot” ‘, Tanzania Notes and Records 12: 49-50.Google Scholar
Mungure, Justin Elias. 2002. ‘Chungu (nungu) as a Curse in Traditional Religion among Wameru of the ELCT-Meru Diocese’, research paper submitted to the Faculty of Theology in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Divinity, University College, Tumaini University.Google Scholar
Olivier de Sardan, J-P. 1999. ‘A moral economy of corruption in Africa?’ Journal of Modern African Studies 37 (1): 5-52.Google Scholar
Power, Michael. 1997. The Audit Society: Rituals of Verification. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Puritt, Paul. 1970. ‘The Mem of Tanzania: a study of their social and political organization’. Ph.D. thesis, Urbana IL: University of Illinois.Google Scholar
Spear, Thomas. 1997. Mountain Farmers: Moral Economies of Land and Agricultural Development in Arusha and Mem. Oxford: James Currey.Google Scholar
Williams, David and Young, Tom. 1994. ‘Governance, the World Bank, and liberal theory’, Political Studies 42: 84-100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
World Bank 1989. Sub-Saharan Africa: from Crisis to Sustainable Growth. Washington DC: World Bank.Google Scholar
World Bank 2000. Can Africa Claim the Twenty-first Century? Washington DC: World Bank.Google Scholar