Liberian Agriculture, Black American Farming Experts and World War II

 “The West African state of Liberia’s independent (non-colonial) status placed it on a different trajectory from its colonial neighbors during and after WWII. It became an early recipient of American aide via agriculture and public health missions, as well as multiple large-scale infrastructural development. “Rural integration” became central to the objective of nation-building which intensified during the 1940s to 1950s. Focusing particularly on state-sponsored agricultural development strategies, part of the ambition of this research project has been to reconstruct the roles, routines and reflections of Black American technicians of the U.S. Economic Mission to Liberia while the spread “better” farming methods across Liberia’s rural interior during this era. Their hope was to mold a “model” African nation for decolonising African states. Above all, the “export” of the American supervised agricultural extension program promised to bring not just economic growth, but also improved standards of living to rural communities. With this said, the project aims to demonstrate those areas where “transference” was negotiated, challenged or simply went wrong; since even low-modernist development work could not be separated from politics.”

I had a problem coming to M&M; and there were two sides to it. The dizzying character of the ‘digital age’ and its sometimes-frustrating implications for oral history methods and practice was the first. The second was that a discourse on the ‘digital revolution in oral history’ which has gained interest and engendered scholarly reflections, was mainly active on the global North. However, that the rest of the world is not disconnected from the ‘digital revolution’ centrally inspired the key questions unpacked in this chapter.

The chapter stem from my on/off-going project, a part of which is captioned ‘Interrogating Imagi(ni)ng and Digital Social Network Technologies with Emphasis on Audio-Visual Testimony and Use in Ghana.’ Focusing on Ghana particularly, not only is the global North–South framing of the above-mentioned discourse in oral history unraveled, but how the ‘periphery’ (or South) may be speaking back to powerful geographies of knowledge production—intellectually and politically—at different levels is read as possibly disruptive of standardized oral history definition/practices, consequently poking academic rethinking about new forms of oral histories and the ethics of the digital revolution. Relying on empirical evidence from Ghana’s digital social network space (see Figs., 1 and 2), the chapter intends to deepen scholarly emphasis on and recognition of ‘different national and regional contexts [that] make for different types of oral history, and that all oral historians gain from international dialogue and comparative insights (Thomson, 2007).’ It is in this spirit that my overall claim that the emergence of mixed digital oral-cum-visual testimonies in Ghanaian social media spaces raise new questions (especially of methods) while inspiring fresh theoretical discourses that prioritize the specific context/s of oral history making and legitimization, is anchored.

Uncomfortable subjects up close: Political and ethical questions for the embedded researcher

Danelle discusses the myriad of questions about transparency, instrumentality, positionality and politics she encountered while doing research within a political grouping viewed as 'distasteful', yet who regarded her as 'one of them'. This formed part of her research project investigating the intersection of race and class in South Africa’s transition from apartheid to democracy, with a focus on white workers, their experiences and relationship with the state. Using archival and media sources, as well as oral history and ethnographic methodologies, she investigated how white workers negotiated the dismantling of the racial state and establishment of majority rule since the 1970s, relating this to the identity-based white minority politics characterising the post-apartheid present and the global ascendance of neoliberalism and identity politics.

We have come to understand and think of corruption as a malice, as a human practice in which all of our worst traits are embodied, in person, institutionally and indeed in processes as well. In Africa in particular, it has been and continues to be that the attitude of research on corruption has painted a rather grim picture of an evil of which Africa, its people and institutions, have to be accordingly exorcised if there is any prospect for Africa to move forward and join the post-industrial societies. No one or very few have asked the question: what is the socio-economic function of corruption? Even fewer have attempted to investigate corruption with value-free lens to reveal perhaps the nature of it and its multi-dimensions, some of which are very productive in places where states are generally performing poorly.

It is a truism that no human society is free of corrupt tendencies. But certain forms of corruption seem to further than undermine the human condition. It seems to make life easier and much more efficient than government bureaucracy. People facing high tariffs on roads for example seem to condone and favour bribes than paying the fine, and officers called to discharge government arrests also conform and demand such bribes. There is no simple way out than to admit that corruption, at least in its local dimension (as bribes, gifts and gestures of benevolence) makes otherwise long and tedious bureaucratic processes faster and easily accessible in places where there state's power and efficiency is minuscule (if not absent). By understanding the forms in which corruption adopts becomes a socio-economic currency, we may understand why its practices are rampant and normal in some parts of the world. The fact of the matter is that some states are simply not efficient enough to meet the needs of everyone they govern, and that some bureaucratic processes are quite arbitrary to the citizenry. Hence corruption practises becomes a currency by which loyalty, resources, services and life itself can be bought and traded. The call here is not to judge corruption but to understand that it has various dimensions at micro- meso- macro levels. A blanket approach totalising corruption in research and development practise does not help us understand what interventions can be made to interact policies with corruption in a socially relevant and desirable way.