A chromatic presence: Barbara Hammer and “What You Are Not Supposed to Look At”

Since the 1970s, Barbara Hammer has been known for her photographs and experimental films chronicling and exploring lesbian experience. Since her 2006 diagnosis of ovarian cancer, she has ventured into an unflinching depiction of her own illness, aging, and dying. In “What You Are Not Supposed to Look At,” a 2014 collage series collaboration with Ingrid Christie, Hammer and Christie illuminate new modes of thinking about life, illness, and what we are describing the prismatic gaze: a mode of looking that subverts objectification and objectivity by positing sensuality, relationality, and spectacularity.     

Social Accountability and Institutional Change: The Case of Citizen Oversight of Police

This article examines the ability of social accountability to spur gradual institutional change at the municipal level, using the case of citizen oversight agencies (COAs) for police agencies. Using the gradual change framework and the social accountability framework to guide the empirical strategy and data collected through an original survey of COAs, the authors test the impact of COAs on institutional outcomes in policing. We find that, in accordance with the gradual change framework, the degree to which a COA reduces racial disparity in policing outcomes depends on its scope of authority and the degree of discretion afforded by existing institutions to police officers. In general, the wider the scope of authority, and the broader the discretion afforded by existing institutions, the greater the likelihood of change in institutional outcomes.     

“Go Back to the Land!” Negotiating Space,Framing Governmentality in Lambwe Valley,Kenya 1954–75

In 1954, the Lambwe Land Trust sought to address colonial concern to contain and control tsetse fly and thus the transmission of human trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness) in Lambwe Valley, Western Kenya. The Valley needed less tsetse, more people; less bush and more farmed land. Reflecting the confidence of the 1950s to control land, nature, and people, the Lambwe Valley Settlement Scheme (LVSS) was established. While other schemes in Kenya grew out of a tense period of land disputes or mega-economic development, this scheme was much more modest, ensuring that good science and good government would defeat the fly. This article elaborates on both. The first narrative examines the scientific background on trypanosomiasis and tsetse control in this region. The second focuses on the people: African settlers, colonial and African bureaucrats, representing district, provincial, and national governments, engaged in day-to-day planning. Arguments and debates ensued regarding land rights and management, involving local African council and state representatives with their constituents within the context of the settlement scheme. The archival records demonstrated the evolution of a civil society in this remote section of Western Kenya, in spite of an increasingly dominating Nairobi-based government. The records exposed local voices and local visions as ordinary people negotiated their lives in the shadow of big science, big government, and big politics.     

Intervening in Value Chains: Lessons from Zambia's Task Force on Acceleration of Cassava Utilisation

Abstract

Smallholder farmers operate in vertical supply chains. Therefore, an understanding of key opportunities and constraints up through the value chain becomes necessary for sustaining smallholder growth. Yet market analysis is of little value unless key private and public sector stakeholders agree to implement necessary reforms. This paper advocates an approach which marries together value chain analysis with a stakeholder task force to ensure that analysis of opportunities and constraints gets translated into actions that will facilitate commercial growth. Using Zambia's cassava task force as an example, the paper describes the value chain task force method and identifies elements critical to its effective implementation.