Short Abstract:
The proposed panel invites critical perspectives on the massive expansion of transport infrastructures and its cost to road safety policy in Africa, questioning the assumptions of a public health approach to road danger by showing its complex links to predatory economic interests.
Long Abstract:
African landscapes and lives are being drastically reshaped by urban and rural investment in the road transport infrastructures and a newly found appetite for road building programmes, and for private motorized vehicle ownership.
The political, economic and social impacts of such continent-wide hyper-activity are difficult to gauge but the public health consequences, both in terms of road trauma and pollution-related diseases, are rapidly rising.
An indicative measure of the immensity of the problem is the focused humanitarian concerns being expressed by international organisations such as the WHO and the World Bank as to the pressing need to regulate and govern Africa's new automobilities.
The inauguration of the UN Decade for Global Action in Road Safety by the UN General Assembly, in 2011, signals the urgent need for national governments to act decisively to reduce the growing rates of road deaths and injuries in most developing countries.
As road danger is thus progressively being conceptualized as a public health issue, the prolific usage of medical metaphors outlining the problem as one of "prevention" and "cure" is becoming a mainstream discursive and agential framework for governments, NGOs and international agencies.
By inviting researchers specializing in different fields and contexts, the present panel proposes to unpack the present framing of road safety discourse and practice, and analyse how the epidemiological vision being put in place obscures the predatory economics and the poorly regulated transport policies that are bringing about the determinants of what is being seen as a problem of catastrophic proportions.
Accepted papers:
Session 1
Road accidents related to intercity transport on the island of Santiago (Cape Verde)
Gerard Horta
(Universitat de Barcelona)
Paper short abstract:
Based on fieldwork conducted on the island of Santiago in three different seasons of the years 2009, 2010 and 2011, we analyze the HIACE intercity transport system in relation to various social contexts that explain it and the recurrence of road accidents.
Paper long abstract:
Based on fieldwork conducted on the island of Santiago in three different seasons of the years 2009, 2010 and 2011, we analyze the private shared intercity transport system using HIACE vans (a term that we have been using in an emic perspective) in relation to various social contexts that explain it. The research is based on the fieldwork done around the HIACE "system" inside and outside these vehicles, inside and outside of the routes they take daily, and observing, participating, and interviewing the accompanying social spectrum that has a connection to it: passenger, drivers, employers, employees motorists, pedestrians, officials (politicians, police, transport), academics, government officials, ex-drivers etc..
This research aims to deepen the analysis of social processes and structural situations that lead to the outbreak of the road accident and try to clarify the reasons why the accident rate is much higher in certain areas than in others. As a backdrop, apart from the extreme importance of the system of ownership of the vehicle and the harsh conditions of the drivers and employees, there is also the struggle for space that occurs on the streets and highways between motorized vehicles and pedestrians.
Social dimensions of public transport in an island: identity, mobility and politics in the "hiace" station of Sucupira (Santiago, Cape Verde)
Daniel Malet Calvo
(ISCTE-IUL. University Institute of Lisbon)
Paper short abstract:
“Hiaces” are collective vans covering the main itineraries in the island of Santiago (Cape Verde). In this presentation I will discuss the centrality of this vehicle on reflecting the social and cultural characteristics of the island by an ethnographic overview on its central station, Sucupira.
Paper long abstract:
Public transportation "Hiace" vans, which link up the villages of Santiago island (Cape Verde) among them, are the most peculiar elements of the island's mobility. Its central station is settled in Sucupira Market, in the capital city of Praia, where the planning and regulation of public transports aim to move away "Hiace" from downtown to the suburbs. The function of the station within the Sucupira market will be examined considering the prevailing patterns of urban renewal model. Also, the social morphologies and appropriations flourishing in the Sucupira market spaces annexed to the station, will be evaluated. However, by traveling frequently in "Hiace" across the island it is noticeable the value of the vehicle as a way to measure all things: a "total social fact". Our ethnographic journey had the goal of finding out the relationship between traffic accidents and the "Hiace's system": the local concepts of risk in front of driving real practices; the organization of the ownership structure and the drivers' working conditions, normative rules and transgressions; the tactics for attracting clients within a tremendously competitive environment among drivers; the representations related to the cult of the vehicle and, finally, the specular function of the "Hiace" on reflecting socioeconomic conditions and sociocultural processes of the different places marked on their itineraries. This investigation was carried out in the framework of the project "Comparative study on social appropriations and land-use control in the urban centres of three African cities" (Ref. CSO2009-12470), founded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation.
The road to salvation: from Dire Dawa to Harar
Rodolfo Soares
(CEA)
Paper short abstract:
Reflecting about westernized ideas about road safety on the 50 kms road from Dire Dawa (1000m above sea level) to Harar (1800m above sea level), in Ethiopia.
Paper long abstract:
The 50 km road connecting Dire Dawa to Harar takes you into a unique journey. A distance that can be made in less than one hour will here be made in two.
On this two hours ride, while staring out with gaze at the beauty of the landscape, one passes through a huge variety of places, small villages and meet exquisite people.
Even if the mesmerizing landscapes offers an excellent distraction, it´s hard not to notice the wrecked trucks and the car carcasses on the sides of the road, the errant behavior of both drivers and pedestrians and the condition of the road.
Some questions immediately arise: what does "road safety" mean here? Am I safe? How can improve security in such conditions? Who, the Government, the World Bank, the World Health Organization? Even if this answers do not seem to have a easy answer, one important question can be addressed: the validity of the westernized idea of "road" in a place where a road is more than just a road but a trail, a path to salvation.
Rapid transformation of the built environment and its adverse impact on pedestrian movement
Genet Alem
(TU Dortmund University)
Paper short abstract:
Transformation of built environment is in most cases related to change in settlement density and pattern of traffic flow. This paper aims to highlight how such kind of transformation in character of built environment affects the pedestrian movement.
Paper long abstract:
Character of built environment and road network are linked to traffic flow and road accidents. Particularly, when the built environment is experiencing drastic transformation process, a careful study and planning of the traffic flow is crucial. In Ethiopia, the construction boom initiated by the government's development program is modifying the built environment of important cities in the country. This development program is among other things aiming at the improvement of supply and quality of infrastructures such as housing and access roads. For instance, in the capital city, i.e. Addis Ababa, vast part of the inner city is being redeveloped. The redevelopment program is replacing single story type of settlements by high rising business and residential neighbourhoods, as well as improving the capacity of road network for fast and active motorised traffic movement. On the other hand, the adverse impact of fast track roads crossing densely settled neighbourhoods is not given enough attention. Hence this paper discusses the problem that the drastic change of the built environment and in particular, the upgrading of road capacity aimed at the motorised mobility is causing. Taking the example of Addis Ababa, the paper indicates the current magnitude of road traffic accidents in Addis Ababa and how this might be complicated under the rapid transformation of the built environment.
A perforated water skin: safety on paved highways in Sudan
Osman Ali
(University of Khartoum)
Paper short abstract:
Using an anthropological perspective, the paper focuses on the safe use of paved motor highways in Sudan. Besides assessing statistics on traffic accidents and their frequently reported types and causes, it tackles a number of neglected related socio-cultural issues.
Paper long abstract:
The paper focuses on the safe use of paved motor roads, which means protecting the road users (i.e., pedestrians, drivers and passengers) against traffic accidents and the resulting hazards like deaths, injuries and damage of properties. It firstly assesses the most recent statistics on traffic accidents on the "national" paved highways in Sudan and their frequently reported types and causes. The traffic accidents as social occasions, the debate on causes and consequences of traffic accidents, the community efforts made for maintaining traffic safety on highways, the unfriendly relationship between motorists and traffic police, and the effectiveness of state regulatory apparatus are also tackled in the paper. The paper further deals with the case of Khartoum-Madani road that is considered to be the most dangerous highway in Sudan in order to put a hand on some important social aspects and local interpretations of traffic accidents.
The anthropological perspective, on which the present paper is based, was missing in all previous studies on road traffic accidents in Sudan, which, as a result, neglected important related socio-cultural issues. This is to say; the paper uses a different perspective in addressing somewhat different issues.
L'autre écoute of road danger in Africa: the occult as public health's other
Mark Lamont
(The Open University)
Paper short abstract:
A key theme that has been systematically ignored in most public health approaches to mitigating road danger in Africa is listening seriously to competing perspectives, including the occult, that may reveal insights into the multiple ontology of ‘safety’
Paper long abstract:
This paper proposes a radical idea: the problem with the so-called 'epidemiological turn' in road safety policy throughout Africa is not that it is institutionally weak, but rather that its political robustness threatens to overcome, silence and occlude other ways of understanding road danger. What other possibilities exist? The answer to this question is to allow for a multitude of seemingly disparate, even contradictory perspectives to come into dialogue. According to Tony Bliss, director of the World Bank's Road Safety Facility, one of the main challenges in curbing road danger globally is the classic problem of people talking past one another. In the African context, it becomes clear that the power of a public health perspective on road danger lies in the historical legacy of external medical intervention, in part, exemplified in histories of HIV/AIDS intervention. The relatively sparse successes of this approach over a quarter-century should make social and medical researchers take stock of proposals to apply this model to road danger, particularly considering the accelerated pace to which neo-liberal states are building roads. As such, this paper encourages a new kind of 'listening', in particular, to the popular etiological responses to rising road danger in the language of the occult, a listening without setting into place a hierarchy of understandings that admonish such perspectives as irrational and out of context. This paper argues, instead, that the success of public health in achieving its goals towards safer and healthier transport systems in Africa depends upon such listening.
Road accidents in Zimbabwe: the case of Chinhamo service centre
Edwin Mhandu
(University of Zimbabwe)
Paper short abstract:
The paper focuses on what people say concerning road accidents that occur on a one kilometre stretch between Koala and Chinhamo service centre.
Paper long abstract:
The paper explores urban myths concerning road accidents that occur between the 16 kilometre and 17 kilometre pegs along Seke road linking Harare and Chitungwiza in Zimbabwe. We argue that there exist a range of views with regard to the exact causes and nature of the carnage that occurs on the one kilometre stretch, that is from Koala to Chinhamo service centre. Some people argue from a rational standpoint that contributing factors to the high accident rate include the bend in the road, the state of disrepair of the vehicles, and the condition of the road. However, this does not explain the mysterious events often believed to take place on the Koala to Chinhamo stretch of the road. Within Shona traditional belief systems, a place where accidents usually occur is haunted by
the spirit(s) of a person or people who were murdered. The murdered people then come to haunt the living until the living atone for the murder. This paper considers the range of interpretations given to the accidents on this road, and argues that further accidents can only be prevented if all interpretations are recognized as valid.
A view at the birdseye nest: African road safety policies at the UNRSC forum
Manuel Ramos
(ISCTE - University Institute of Lisbon)
Paper short abstract:
This paper looks at the way the institutional world of UNRSC perceives the realities of road danger in Africa.
Paper long abstract:
In May 2011, the UN has innaugurated the Global Decade of Action for Road Safety. This initiative marks a decisive turn in the institutional views on road danger worldwide, strenghning the WHO epidemiologist concept that road accidents causing injuries and deaths are a public health issue to be dealt medically, or rather through the promotion of metaphorical medical discourses and the putting in place of preventing practices.
The composition, dynamics and negociative processes of the UNRSC, a mixed UN forum with consultive status for the UN secretary general, directly impact on the national policies connected to the Decade of Action, for it was from such body that this global initiative was funneled, and it is this body that monitors and evaluates it.
The present paper proposal offers a sneak view of how the UNRSC was involved in bringing African nation states, African regional organisations and African NGOs to the Decade of Action iniciative, and how difficult it is to gauge the current reality of road risk in Africa from the too abstract and formal world which UNRSC partners inhabit.
Citizenship behaviour, organizational integrity, and the practice of 'discretion' among members of a Nigerian paramilitary organization
Nnanna Onuoha Arukwe
(University of Nigeria, Nsukka)
Paper short abstract:
This paper explores the nexus between Organizational Citizenship Behaviour, Organizational Integrity, and the practice of 'discretion' among members of a Nigerian paramilitary organization
Paper long abstract:
Organizational citizenship behaviour could be roughly understood as extra role behaviours engaged in by members of an organization that are not formally rewarded by the organization, but which in the long run contribute to making the organization more efficient and effective. This paper examines the ramifications of Organizational Citizenship Behaviour (OCB) among members of a Nigerian paramilitary organization, the Federal Road Safety Commission of Nigeria (FRSC), with particular reference to a strand of extra-role behaviour that the members describe as "discretion", which in some instances amount to outright justification for corrupt (and even anti-citizenship) behaviour. The paper also examines the implications of "discretion" for the Organizational Integrity of the FRSC, which relates to the ethical climate of this paramilitary organization as well as members' perception of it. The paper ultimately attempts, relying on an on-going fieldwork and the thinking of members themselves, to understand the rationale for "discretion" among members of the FRSC and the implications of "discretion" and similar behaviour among members of the FRSC of Nigeria and indeed other governmental bureaucracies in the "modernization" agenda of the current Nigerian (and, by extension, African) political regime.