Paper short abstract:

The present paper aims to analyze multiple discourses, ideas, practices and conceptualizations surrounding albinism at local level and the ways they are embodied and managed by people with albinism themselves in the wake of humanitarian interventions.

Paper long abstract:

From mid-2000s onward, international attention started to be drawn to the murders of people with albinism in the north-western part of Tanzania. Since the increase in attention to such issues, national health organizations as well as (inter)national NGOs have begun to carry out awareness campaigns for stopping the killings throughout the country on behalf of people with albinism and have implemented humanitarian aid programs, distributing sunglasses and sunscreen, in order prevent the insurgence of skin cancer. The present paper intends to analyze the many ways in which hypopigmented bodies of people with albinism are conceptualized in Tanzania. The examination aims to shed light on discourses, ideas and conceptualizations surrounding albinism at local level and the ways they are embodied and managed by people with albinism themselves. Particular emphasis will be given to multiple "traditional" perceptions, religious ideas, (bio)medical explanations and humanitarian actions about albinism and how they have determined the social position of people with albinism within the society. Such multiplicity of explanations is strictly intertwined with, on the one hand, the global flow of ideas and information brought to Tanzania by NGOs and governmental organizations, and, on the other, existing "traditional"/religious conceptions about albinism at local level. In this regard, the body and the skin of these individuals can be conceived as the surface in which heterogeneous discourses on and practices of albinism interact, conflagrate and intertwine and epitomize social structures and scientific knowledge.