The Power of Rumours: Violence Against People with Albinism and Political Crisis in Malawi

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Zanna Ramaekers - S2602407

The Power of Rumours:

Violence Against People with Albinism and Political Crisis in

Malawi

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MSc Cultural Anthropology and Developmental Sociology

In

Global Ethnography

By Zanna Ramaekers

S2602407

Under the supervision of Dr. A.L. Littlejohn

Leiden University 25th of June, 2020 Word count: 26197

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Acknowledgment

I would like to thank all the people with albinism that were a part of my research. Your stories are heartbreaking but your strength and perseverance is inspirational. I admire you all and I am grateful to have had the opportunity to hear and share your stories. They deserve to be told and you all deserve to be seen. I would like to give a special thank you to ‘Bahai’, who was always willing to meet me for coffee when I got lost in my research and helped me contextualize my findings. I would also like to thank the Association of Persons with Albinism in Malawi, Standing Voice, and _{The Centre for Human Rights and} Rehabilitation, for allowing me to make use of their networks, for their support as translator and guide, and for their time. Finally, I thank my supervisor, Andrew Littlejohn, for his continuous encouragement and his help in organizing my unclustered thoughts throughout the writing process. I am very appreciative of you all.

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Table of Content

Abstract ……… 4 Keywords ……… 4 Introduction ………. 3-14 Chapter 1: Living in Colour ……… 15-28 Chapter 2: Political Magic ………... 29-47 Chapter 3: Malawi’s Lifeline for Persons with Albinism ……… 48-54 Conclusion ……… 55-58 Reference List ……….. 59-63

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Abstract: Since 2014 there has been a noticeable pattern of attacks against people with albinism during election periods in Malawi. This is due to a belief that the bones of people with albinism are said to bring luck and wealth to its user. The correlation between the attacks and the political situation makes many Malawians with albinism suspicious that people with power and authority like politicians, colloquially referred to as ‘big fish’, are behind the demands of this occult economy and are thus involved in the attacks. This paper unpacks these assumptions by contextualizing the daily challenges faced by people with albinism and the rumours they produce within a larger Malawian political universe. Currently, Malawians with albinism are excluded in public and political life as subjects. Paradoxically, however, I argue that they are included as objects and political tools by those who are represented to enact political effects.

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Introduction

“Wooyeee APAM Wooyeee!” cheered the woman, in an audio-recorded message on the WhatsApp group chat of the Association of Persons with Albinism in Malawi, or APAM — a non-governmental organization dedicated to defending the rights of people with albinism (hereafter, “PWA”). It was shortly after 7:30 p.m. on February 3rd, 2020, and the first of many ‘woyee’ messages shared. Around me, I could hear distant cheering, clapping, and even a small explosion of some sort. Helicopters were flying around, for what I perceived to be, a show of the state’s authority to prevent the idea that during this time of political uncertainty, anything goes. Nationwide, most offices and shops were closed as were the schools, and it was advised, especially to the international community, to stay home. Everyone in Lilongwe seemed to have been glued to their radios or television in anticipation of the verdict about the constitutionality and legality of the May 21st, 2019 elections.

I felt lost. It was almost as though I was watching a documentary about politics in Malawi but missed the first half. I struggled to understand the plot and needed to rewind. To do so, I met with ‘Bahai’, a young man with albinism living in Lilongwe who had finished college and was working as a music teacher. He contextualized the 2019 elections for me and made it clear why it was controversial. As he switched seats to avoid the sun and share the piece of red-velvet cake we generously received from the café at which we met, Bahai mentioned that there were many “abnormalities” in the 2019 election. “One of the abnormalities was that they were using Tipp-ex to erase some figures [...]” he said. Although I am unsure as to who “they” exactly are, numerous articles address the victor of the presidential election, and the election itself, as the “Tipp-ex President” and “Tipp-ex election” (Mazzini & Mhango, 2020; Tyburski 2019; Sangala, 2019; Anzanu, 2020). The excessive tampering of votes using the correction fluid, among other irregularities, was brought forth by petitioners including two opposition parties. The Malawi Congress Party (MCP) led by Lazarus Chakwera, who came in second, and the United Transformation Movement (UTM) led by Saulos Chilima, who was third. The two parties joined forces and challenged the second presidential victory of Arthur Peter Mutharika, leader of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) since 2014. They wanted a new vote and the constitutional court had just decided in their favour after spending more than ten hours reading five hundred pages worth of irregularities.

Although I could not see the streets of Lilongwe (as it was strongly recommended by residential embassies to stay indoors), the sounds I heard and the messages I read expressed the emotional release and excitement many Malawians felt when they heard that the 2019 elections were nullified and a new

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election would take place in 150 days. Later that week, I was driving with Peter, the program leader of APAM, to a meeting about creating a national program focused on preventing avoidable visual impairments for PWA. I asked Peter what the decision of the constitutional court meant for Malawi. He mentioned that it is undoubtedly a historical moment because Malawi is the second country in Sub-Saharan Africa besides Kenya to annul the results of a presidential election (Freytas-Tamura, 2017). Peter described this event as a sign of Malawi’s maturing democracy. I then asked what this new election meant for PWA in Malawi to which he replied: _“this [the election] means that we should expect more attacks on persons with albinism, as the elections are imminent so that means more work, that means more lives are going to be lost_”.

While many know little about albinism in the biomedical sense, a concept of albinism has existed for a long time in Malawian culture and is associated with resentment and fear (Braathen & Ingstad, 2006:599). Biologically, albinism is a genetically inherited condition that exists in all populations, humans as well as animals (Braathen & Ingstand, 2006:600). The condition is divided into two predominant types. Firstly, there is _{ocular albinism (OA) — a lack of melanin in the eyes only (King,} 1987:311). The second type is oculocutaneous albinism _{(OCA) — having a lack of melanin in the skin,} eyes, and hair follicles. The focus group of my research are Africans with the latter type of albinism living in Malawi. Africans with OCA have sandy coloured hair, blue or hazel coloured eyes, and pale white skin. As a result, they look strikingly different from their national and continental peers. This difference has both physical and social repercussions dictated primarily by the socio-cultural setting of the community.

Let us begin with the physical repercussions of having OCA. For the skin, a lack of melanocytes results in extreme sensitivity to sunlight and makes one more vulnerable to sunburns, or worse, skin cancer (Van Dorp et al., 1983:1). PWA have to be cautious and minimize their time under the sun, which is easier said than done, especially in countries like Malawi where the sun shines almost daily and agriculture makes up eighty percent of employment (Regalia, 2019:12). Many Malawians, therefore, work long hours under the sun to make a living. In addition to the sensitive skin, those with OCA (and OA) are also visually impaired due to several conditions. These include nystagmus — the involuntary shaking of the eyes from side to side, photophobia — being sensitive to light, strabismus — being cross-eyed, refractive errors — a problem with focusing light precisely on the retina, poor depth perception, and poor visual sharpness (Yahalom et al., 2012, as cited in Lynch et al., 2014:226). Without treatment or visual aids, such conditions make it extremely challenging for PWA to enjoy the same rights as their non visually impaired peers do. It is an academic and social obstacle that further develops into limited opportunities for equal economic and political participation. I do wish to not minimize the challenges

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these physical impairments cause. However, they pale in comparison to the consequences that PWA face from being ostracized due to the socio-cultural meanings laid on their skin colour.

Malawi is one of several African countries where PWA are victims of deeply rooted beliefs in the supernatural. In such socio-cultural settings, the visible difference of PWA is construed through frameworks that both reduce the individual to a colour, white, while also embellishing their whiteness with mythological explanations. You can imagine the distress black parents feel giving birth to a child whiter than most Caucasians and having no idea that it is a genetic disorder. Without information about the condition, families, friends, and communities are at pains to explain albinism (Thuku, 2011:3). It is understandable that they try to fathom such ‘unordinary’ births through their own knowledge which, in this case, tends to lie in the realm of the supernatural. The relationship that Malawians have with the supernatural creates a unique worldview through which PWA are perceived and is worth exploring.

Beliefs in the supernatural play a role in how people imagine, engage with, and experience the ontology of the Other. Who or what is the Other, and what makes them to be different? These ontological questions have a multitude of epistemological ways of being answered. As a researcher, do I assume there is only one reality, several, or that reality is constantly debated and interpreted? Do I believe that knowledge can be measured, that reality can be interpreted, or should I focus on the tools available to solve my questions? In short, what research paradigm do I assume to study local ontologies about PWA in Malawi as a Western researcher?

Local ontologies have been characterized as relational theories of existence that start from interconnectedness and extend agency to non-human actors including animals, spirits, and things (Blaser, 2009; Kohn, 2013; Viveiros de Castro, 1998; as cited in Pauwelussen & Verschoor, 2017:297). Local ontologies are derived from local knowledge systems and are often dismissed as not being “really real” by the standards of Western knowledge systems. As a researcher trained within the Western knowledge system, I have almost an inherent tendency to explain indigenous ontologies through “fixing what does not add up” (Pauwelussen & Verschoor, 2017:292), or “filling the gap” by linking it to external signifiers that produce them (Kahn, 2019:472). I want to make local ontologies work in the Western knowledge system, but this is wrong. Navigating through diverse knowledge systems can be challenging as it is easy to produce troubling dichotomies about who is “right” and what is “real” (Tengö et al., 2017:18). By appealing to a form of Western knowledge, often rooted in science, and holding this as the universal standard of reality, it places other realities, perhaps of those we study, at an inferior level (Graeber, 2015:8). However, as Feyerabend argued, “science does not possess features that render it necessarily superior to other forms of knowledge” (Chalmers, 2013:139). Moreover, Feyerabend wrote that “given

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only to ignore the rule, but to adopt its opposite'' (2010 [1993]:7). Therefore, although we in the West know that albinism, scientifically, is a hereditary condition, in the Malawian socio-cultural setting we must remember that this is a limited definition. We must open ourselves up to the local knowledge systems of our interlocutors which are equally “real”, if not more. As Graeber said: “other incommensurable perspectives on reality [...] can be able to say other things that are equally true that science cannot say — or indeed, would never think to” (2015:27).

Throughout this paper, there will be instances where I will “fill gaps” through my Western knowledge system, especially when speculating on why supernatural ontologies are persistent. However, I hope I have addressed the challenges involved, both for conceptual work and ethnographic practice, in perceiving “reality” through two drastically different knowledge systems. Therefore, when I fall back into the habit of applying my Western lens to “fix” things, do not perceive this as being the “reality”. Instead, I want you to recognize that it is my way of using ontology as a heuristic tool to create a theory about how the reality of my interlocutors is constructed. I do not wish to assume that there is only one real world, one nature that is revealed by Western science, and that the notion of ontological multiplicity is only due to different perspectives about a single reality. However, as much as I would like to, it is impossible for me to think of witchcraft as my interlocutors conceive it. Therefore, although you and I should commit to the existence of ontological multiplicity (for now) and take interlocutors seriously, we must also challenge them and their knowledge system. I do so by prioritizing the definition of albinism as being a hereditary condition characterized by the complete or partial absence of pigment in the hair, eyes, and skin. I do not mean by this that local ontologies do not have powerful effects because we will see that they do. To combine my prioritization of the scientific definition of albinism with a dedication to taking ontologies serious as an object of study, I assume a critical realist research approach. This approach, allows us to better understand forms of world-making and how ontological multiplicities are shaped and used in Malawi (Pauwelussen & Verschoor, 2017:297).

Today, the most talked about and simultaneously most modern ontological construction of PWA in Malawi is that their body parts help to win elections. This is either by attracting voters with magnetic powers their bones are said to possess or by the money gained from selling them. The narrative of PWA being a political good luck charm, among other ontologies, places PWA in a state of vulnerability and ambiguity. PWA are at risk of being kidnapped, murdered, and having their limbs amputated. Even in death, PWA are not left in peace. Organ hunters often desecrate their graves and rob body parts (Thuku, 2011:10). Understandably, PWA go about living their daily life in fear while being heavily stigmatized and discriminated against. So much so, that the manifestations of their condition dis-ables them.

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In Malawi, PWA are currently recognized as disabled individuals by the Ministry of Gender, Children, Disability, and Social Welfare (_MoGCDSW). Their disability must be understood as being predominantly socially constructed as opposed to medically determined, for they must not only overcome their physical impairments but also the social and cultural barriers placed upon their “doing and being”, as understood through the social-relational model of disability (Clarke & Beale, 2018:33; Franklin et al., 2018:1). Barriers to doing refers to the socio-structural restrictions that exclude disabled individuals and barriers to being are, “ _{the social processes and practices which can negatively affect the psycho-emotional} wellbeing of an individual/community”_{(Franklin et al., 2018:1). Logically, barriers to doing} automatically influence barriers to being and vice versa. Therefore, the stigmatization faced from the supernatural beliefs on PWA paired with the lack of alleviation present for their physical impairments, creates a cycle of marginalization. This cycle makes it nearly impossible for PWA to overcome either barrier and to be an equal in Malawian society.

As Malawian citizens, most of my interlocutors with albinism felt neglected by the government. They argued that little was being done not only regarding the challenges they faced from their physical impairments, but also, more importantly, to stop the attacks against PWA. Possible protective measures range from enlightening the public to what albinism is in a biomedical sense and stressing the humanity of individuals with the condition so that predators, and those involved in this occult economy, are held accountable for their actions. Unfortunately, neither seems to be done effectively. Interlocutors repeatedly accused the police, the justice system, and the government, of being corrupt. Many believed that figures of authority, predominantly politicians, are themselves involved in the attacks against PWA. The DPP especially is considered a villain as they have been in power since 2005 and have not made a serious effort to tackle issues faced by PWA. Additionally, despite being ignored as a subject, my interlocutors with albinism believed that members of the DPP are involved in attacks because they secretly cherish PWA as an object.

To many, body parts of a PWA are considered a must-have for (political) success. As previously mentioned, it is believed that body parts of PWA are a type of good luck charm that attracts voters to politicians or allows them to make ‘quick-cash’ by selling them. Wealth and luck are desirable goods to possess, especially during competitive times such as elections. Political competitiveness seems to be at the root of the increase in demand for body parts of PWA. Several interlocutors argued that when Malawi was a one-party system, there were no attacks against PWA. They blamed the transition to a more liberal multi-party system for what they must now endure. Many also claimed that the electoral attacks on PWA started in 2014. Amnesty International confirmed that in that year, “an unprecedented wave of killings

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through Malawi” (2018:7). Interestingly, 2014 was the first year that Malawi held a tripartite election to choose a president, members of the national assembly and local councilors.

Despite there being no hard evidence, the speculations and rumours of political involvement bring PWA into the political narrative of Malawi. They are figuratively present while still being literally excluded due to the barriers they must overcome to be considered an equal member of society. The challenges faced by PWA were a hot topic in Malawi and was heavily used as a campaign tool during the 2019 elections. _{Politicians mobilized images of PWA for profit, albeit different from the literal} consumption of their body parts. Political competitiveness can thus also be assumed to be a reason as to why politicians were using PWA, and their struggles, as a strategic political ploy. _{Presidential candidates} presented themselves, and their agenda, as the solution to the systematic flaws that allowed for the crimes committed against PWA and enabled their marginalization. Moreover, interlocutors stated that it is not unreasonable to think that attacks against PWA occur and/or are taken advantage of in order to propound negative propaganda. It is, therefore, possible that attacks against PWA are part of smear campaign strategies attempting to damage the image of politicians (Arthur Peter Mutharika), political parties (DPP), and the political system (multi-party).

This dissertation concerns the paradox, laid out above, within the relationship between PWA and Malawian politics: how PWA are excluded from equally participating in social life and thus politics while being overly present as a commodity and/or strategy. This paradox inspired my research question(s): How does the political context shape the experiences of persons with albinism in Malawi and how do beliefs about and the often-violent use of those persons shape politics?

When pursuing my research questions, I learned that despite witchcraft being considered a traditional modus operandi, the recent attacks against PWA are not caused by witchcraft so much as by modern political and economic contexts: democracy and capitalism. The attacks on PWA (in and outside of Malawi) are often referred to as ‘ritual killings’ and imply a retreat to the occult (Amnesty international UK, 2017; Shalala, 2019; Masanja, 2015; Etieyibo & Omiegbe, 2016). Meanwhile, they emerge from pragmatic processes as opposed to ritual occult practices (Kahn, 2019:471). Electoral attacks against PWA are not rituals. Rituals are performances led by trained participants and ‘enjoyed’ by an audience prepared to receive the benefit of the practice. Yet, the attacks against PWA are done in secret and the market as well as the chain of predators remain a mystery. Moreover, the term ‘ritual’ connotes a religious or magic rite grounded in tradition. The electoral attacks “are not committed from any religious motive but for the purely material objective” to produce ‘power medicine’ (Schühle, 2013:1). These types of attacks against PWA should therefore not automatically be ‘simplified’ as ritual killings. This blinds us to the modern forces driving it, such as political competitiveness during democratic elections. Instead, what

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the commodification of PWA as a political lucky charm shows is that entrepreneurial ideas can take a dark turn as new profitable occult markets are being established when the demand is high.

That being said, ideas about magic and witchcraft should not be dismissed as imagined or old-worldly. They are beliefs that evolve and manifest themselves through mechanisms of the now and (re)produce real consequences whether they are “true” or not. Occult concepts can, therefore, thrive off of modernity. In such scenarios, we are not returning to ‘traditional’ methods of achieving a desired effect through rituals but are relying on modern mechanisms to revive occult practices and make them functional/advantageous in our current world. One of the modern mechanisms of Malawi’s current world includes democratic elections.

Most literature on occult economies is heavily focused on the ‘economy’, analyzing how forces of capitalism allowed for the line between the mundane and the miraculous to erode by fostering “fee-for-service theologies”, “prosperity gospels”, “get-rich-quick” scams, and “pyramid schemes” of various sorts (Comaroff & Comaroff, 2018:291). Although capitalist mechanisms are involved in my research, it is not the core cause for why body parts of PWA are being sold. Instead, I argue that Malawi’s modern democratic elections are believed to have created a market for body parts of PWA and that capitalism simply fuels it. These beliefs create rumours powerful enough to incite significant social and political effects in Malawi. Therefore, my research expands on the limited literature present where occult economies are studied through a political lens as opposed to an economic one.

Additionally, my research focuses on the pragmatic function of the ontologies of PWA as opposed to the common idiomatic approach taken in studies about occult economies. Western scholars in the framework of the supernatural tend to talk about witchcraft and good luck charms as being about something else, they are ‘filling the gap’ with critical commentary or misrecognition (Kahn, 2019:471). As Kahn wrote, “it is not always necessary to look outside occult narratives for some external signified—capitalism or colonialism—that produces them. The spaces that such discourses and practices create are often far more interesting.” (2019:472). I will, therefore, focus on what the assumptions on electoral attacks against PWA produce primarily by illustrating how they influence Malawi’s political discourse. However, I will also address what these assumptions express about the occult economy of PWA by discussing how external narratives, such as democratic elections, supposedly fosters this occult economy as the electoral attacks indicate. Both the pragmatic and epiphenomenon use of ontologies provide a fertile setting to produce rumours that are both damaging to PWA and politicians in Malawi.

To illustrate the influence of beliefs in the magical properties of the bodies of PWA, and the assumptions associated with their killings, I predominantly rely on the concept of ‘rumourscapes’ by

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Tanzania – how casino capitalism creates rumourscapes and occult economies. ‘ Rumourscape’ is derived from the famous notion of ‘-scapes’ by Appadurai (2003 [1996]). In this paper, I argue that rumours are relevant for understanding the relationship between PWA and politics in Malawi. As described by Masquelier, rumours “spin off of each other like many-headed hydras to simultaneously inform and confound listeners and to become more entangled as they spread and multiply” (2000:90). As such, they are continuously reinvented and reinterpreted based on the current and local need to explain the inexplicable. Moreover, the alterability of beliefs allows individuals to (re)gain control over seemingly obscure situations (Dilger, 2005:329 as cited by Schühle, 2013:5).

Schühle (2013) focuses on the local-regional relationship and how these function as a breeding ground for customized rumours. For example, near Lake Malawi, there is a prevalent superstition that body parts of PWA aid in catching more and/or bigger fish which further translates into the fishermen being able to make more money. Regional rumours about the supernatural powers of PWA are adapted to the local needs of fishermen thereby creating another head to the ‘many-headed hydras’. My research adds temporality to this spatial dimension, showing how the waves of attacks against PWA are dictated by the proximity to an election period. Additionally, Schühle argues that “translocal ‘rumourscapes’ neither transport ideologies, nor are they foremost shaped by modern mass media but are created through oral histories”(2013:24). Unlike Schühle, I place a greater importance on media, particularly social media, as numerous images, videos, messages and audios about attacks against PWA and political accusations are spread through online spaces such as Whatsapp and Facebook. Therefore, the media operates side by side with oral history in spreading rumours (Schühle, 2013:24). Schühle also states that “imaginaries which thus come into being do not necessarily feed on local or traditional systems of belief but emerge out of particular economic contexts and therefore are not embedded in cultural affiliation but rather bound to for instance certain professions and markets” (2013:5). As previously mentioned, in the case of my research, the particular context I focus on is not economics but politics.

The correlation between elections and increased attacks against PWA, the idea of political involvement, and the magical power of the body of PWA are assumptions made based on rumourscapes. All three phenomena are believed to be true because it is told by the media and heard through word-of-mouth. Yet, there has been no study done statistically measuring the said increase in attacks against PWA during election periods. There is no hard evidence of politicians being involved in the attacks against PWA in Malawi. Lastly, as we know through the biomedical definition of albinism, PWA are not supernatural beings. However, to once more clarify, this is not to say that the belief in these rumours are not true, it is because they are believed to be true that they have real social and political consequences.

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The observations made about the power of rumourscapes were done during my three-month-long ethnographic fieldwork on PWA in Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi. Using a critical realist approach within the rumourscapes, I aimed to understand how the world of albinism is interpreted and how these interpretations shape politics in Malawi. Interlocutors did not need to fit any gender, socio-economic class, religion, or political affiliation prerequisites to contribute to my research. However, it is worth mentioning that the majority of my interlocutors were from a rural area and a very low socio-economic class. Additionally, politics in Malawi is regional. The North tends to be either MCP or UTM, and the South is the home turf of Peter Mutharika and is thus predominantly supportive of the DPP. The central region, where Lilongwe is located, is known to (generally) be supportive of MCP. Consequently, my interlocutors are predominantly supporters of MCP with the occasional exception of a supporter for UTM.

When studying non-mainstream groups in societies vulnerable to stigmatization and/or marginalization, the researcher must adjust their data collection methods based on the sensitive nature of the research subject and the vulnerable position of the research subjects (Li, 2008:101). The adaptability of ethnography permits this, as it has numerous flexible methods to study sensitive issues while gaining in-depth descriptions about attacks against PWA in Malawi. The methods that I used were participant observation, ‘going along’, informal conversational interviews, and semi-structured interviews. Unfortunately, due to on and off negotiation processes with the gatekeeper, APAM, whose network I heavily relied on, I was unable to consistently practice participant observation in the rural areas of Lilongwe where the majority of my interlocutors lived. Consequently, I relied more on informal conversational interviews and semi-structured interviews. For my interviews in the rural areas, I relied on the use of a translator as I do not speak the local language in Malawi — Chichewa. In the city, I could find interlocutors who were comfortable speaking English. Through informal conversational interviews, I was able to let the interlocutor guide me towards topics that they deemed relevant, which was the start of me taking the political path within the research. The semi-structured interviews then provided the means to uncover a pattern among the answers given by my interlocutors when discussing the challenges that they face as a PWA and how the government is or is not contributing to these challenges. By recognizing patterns, I was able to triangulate my research within the network of interlocutors I developed over time. The data gathered through these methods were then transcribed and coded through an open and axial coding using the Atlas.ti program.

My findings will be presented in three chapters. Chapter 1: Living in Colour- contextualizes the ways in which PWA are socially and thus also politically excluded. It discusses barriers of doing and being that PWA deal with in greater detail and illustrates the cycle of discrimination that makes it

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addresses the suspected historical evolution of ontologies of PWA in Malawi. The second chapter: Political Magic, delves deeper into the events that are assumed to be responsible for creating a market for political good luck charms made out of body parts of PWA in Malawi. Moreover, it discusses the reasoning behind the strong belief that politicians are the drivers of this occult economy and how this influenced voting behaviour for the 2020 elections. The final chapter: Malawi’s Lifelines for Persons with Albinism, acknowledges the current efforts made to help PWA by the non-governmental organizations APAM and Standing Voice as well as the government-sponsored national action plan of 2018-2022. It also describes the shortcomings of these actors and provides recommendations based on my observations and experiences of collaboration and participation with these stakeholders. Lastly, a conclusion will follow in which I synthesize the key findings of my research and answer my research questions.

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Living in Colour

Malawi is a landlocked country located in South-Central Africa bordered by Tanzania, Mozambique, and Zambia (Briggs, 2019:3). The official language is English and the national language, as previously mentioned, is Chichewa (Briggs, 2019:27). The country is home to over seventeen million people but is geographically one of the smallest in subequatorial Africa (Briggs, 2019:2). Economically, Malawi is heavily reliant on agriculture, being the second-largest tobacco producer in Africa and the ninth-largest in the world (Briggs, 2019:23). Nonetheless, Malawi is one of the poorest countries worldwide and heavily dependent on foreign aid. In 2017, half of the population was living in poverty and a quarter was labeled ‘ultra-poor’ by the National Statistics/Worldbank (Briggs, 2019:24).

Culturally, contemporary Malawi is a marriage of “ _{deeply traditional and religious values” and} modernity (Munthali, 2018:9). All my interlocutors identified as being religious, with Christianity (mainly Roman Catholic and Protestants) being the most common religion practiced. In turn, when they asked about my religious background, the idea that I had reservations about whether there is a God or not was unimaginable to them. For many, God was the reason why they, or their family members, have albinism. They were, as they said: “created in the image of God”. Through their faith, many PWA, and their close circle, learned to accept the condition. However, as much as religion is a support system for PWA, other prevalent belief systems are an obstacle.

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Figure 1- A shop in Mitundu titled ‘God is Good Shop’ illustrating the importance of religion and how it is represented in the social and physical infrastructure of Malawi.

In addition to being religious, many Malawians adopt other supernatural beliefs including witchcraft (Briggs, 2019:27). The existence of witch doctors and witchcraft is deeply embedded in Malawian culture and is constitutionally recognized since 1911 when the Witchcraft Act was implemented (Malawi Law Commission, 2009:3). Under the Witchcraft Act, it is an offense to accuse someone of being a witch, claim that one practices witchcraft, and administer charms for the purpose of committing any unlawful act (Malawi Law Commission, 2009:8). _{The social reality of the dominant} belief in witchcraft has not been adequately addressed under the witchcraft act. The act tries to suppress the practice of witchcraft but does so without acknowledging the complexities involved.

To many Malawians, witchcraft is real. The idea that practicing witchcraft is a crime does not make sense to those believers. They perceive the law as foreign since it does not address the realities of their environment (Malawi Law Commission, 2009:8). Citizens also argued that the act infringes on their constitutional freedom of belief and opinion. Another critique of the act is that witchcraft allegations can be made against an individual to settle a personal vendetta (Malawi Law Commission, 2009: 9). In 2006 the government was requested to review the act as it did not translate into actions taken by the population.

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The conflicting shortcomings of the Witchcraft Act in Malawi are dangerous, it ignores the real consequences of the belief in witchcraft, meanwhile, whether the power of witchcraft is true is irrelevant. Its existence and exploitation alone contribute greatly to the construction of a socio-cultural environment in which PWA are heavily stigmatized.

According to the 2018 Malawi population and housing census main report, written by the national statistics office in 2019, there are over 134,000 PWA in Malawi. These biological Malawians with white skin, stand out and captivate the public imagination due to the (imagined and constructed) boundary of what it means to be black or white (Baker & Lund, n.d:281). Their inescapable visibility places Malawians with OCA outside of the black social identity. A social identity, for those of you who may not know, is an orientation tool based on notions of “us” and “them” gathered from first appearances and how these enable individuals to perceive other’s attributes and thus category (Goffman, 1963:11; Cramer, 2016:8). This is because, our reality is created out of our visual nature: “We form our impressions of others and the world around us primarily through what we see” (Jablonski, 2012:93). This process builds social categories and through such categories, colours lose their neutrality. Instead, colour is given meaning based on our minds and cultures. In doing so, we diminish a human to the meaning associated with the colour of their skin which allows for culturally determined stereotypes and beliefs to flourish. The more visibly different, the more likely it will influence the individual’s social interaction, which in turn shapes what is considered within the social identity and thus ‘normal’ and what falls outside of it and is ‘abnormal’.

This process of labeling makes up the social identity which is then internalized and influences social behaviour (Mclean & Syed, 2015:16). Therefore, if one is outside of the social identity one is reduced in the minds of society from a whole and normal person to a tainted, discounted one, thereby spoiling the identities of individuals who look different such as PWA (Braathen & Ingstad, 2006:601, Goffman, 1963:11). PWA in Malawi fall outside of mainstream social identity, falling into a dangerous spoiled identity whose construction is guided by multiple ontological alternatives. Many are trying to formulate their own answers about what exactly this difference is between Malawians with and without albinism. What PWA ‘are’ is thus a matter of contestation and the speculations are manifold. While interacting with interlocutors who have already shared that they are unsure of what albinism exactly is biomedically, I noticed that they do know bits and pieces of the biomedical definition. For example, many PWA know that their complexion is white due to missing “something” but what that something is and what the reason is for them not having it is a mystery to many. There remain many unanswered questions about albinism and it is challenging for interlocutors to find the answer because, to some extent, albinism

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is a taboo topic. Not because it is considered an inappropriate subject but rather an uncomfortable one for both for PWA and people without albinism to have.

I will call him Chris, a thirty-four-year-old man with albinism, a husband to a wife without albinism and father of four children, two of which also have albinism. He is the proud owner of a small shop and the chairperson for APAM in the rural area I occasionally visited during my research. Chris was raised in this area and knew all the families who had a PWA because it is his responsibility, as chairperson, to keep count of the population of that area. He was, therefore, not only my interlocutor but also a gatekeeper. Although we had some ups-and-downs due to the compensations I was expected to give at the end of every day we spent together, I am very thankful for Chris’s help in my research. I think back with fondness about him guiding the driver and me through dirt roads filled with ditches and bumps on which the bottom of the Nissan Note would scrap up against and make the most unhealthy screeching sounds. He always promised the roads would be good with the next family we would visit, but they rarely were and he would look back at me from the passenger seat with a mischievous smile saying “we are almost there” every time.

For much of his younger life, Chris believed that he was not Malawian but that he was a foreigner because he is “white like you” said my translator as Chris pointed towards my white skin. His father used to work as a janitor in a hospital where several doctors were white. When these doctors would visit Chris’s father at their home in the village, he thought that these doctors were his relatives, they were white like him, his father and mother, who also had albinism. He did not know that there was such a thing as albinism but as he grew older, he realized that he was in fact Malawian and that his whiteness is due to a hereditary condition.

Chris’s immediate family consists almost entirely of PWA. His mother and father, along with his five siblings, all had albinism, yet the topic of albinism was rarely discussed in their household. Ignoring the condition seems to be a common approach taken by many families. Parents of PWA and/or PWA themselves implied that if there is a conversation about what albinism is, especially at a younger age, it is usually bound to the conclusion that PWA are created in the image of God and are a gift from God, end of discussion. A young married couple and parents of two boys with albinism ages nine and five welcomed my translator and me into their home for an interview in which I addressed this topic. The room we were in was empty with the exception of a picture of Mother Teresa and Jesus titled _{Prince of Peace on the} mud wall, four colorful plastic tubs, one of which was filled with plastic dishes, a charcoal stove, and a mat made of bamboo for us, the guests, to sit on. During the interview I asked them if they knew why two of their sons were born white, the mother replied, “they were born like that, it is God who created them like that”. Several other interlocutors used a similar explanation for why they or their family member has

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albinism. Chris’s mother likewise said that she did not know what albinism was but when she saw another PWA she remembered thinking “ah it is okay, this is a gift, God has chosen us with this gift”.

As previously mentioned, the idea that God created PWA facilitates acceptance of the condition, both from the immediate social network such as family and friends, and the individuals themselves. It is outside of their control and them being chosen to look different makes them unique and special. Unfortunately, even with Malawi’s religious culture and the common belief that God created PWA in his image, stigmatization of, and discrimination against, PWA continue to prevail. Therefore, while there is a common belief that PWA are a gift from God, there is also an existing belief that they are a punishment from God for any wrongdoing the family may have done. However, mothers, in particular, are often to blame for having a child with albinism.

In Malawi, there is the idea that conceiving a child with albinism is the result of a mother’s infidelity with a white man, whether Caucasian or a PWA. Pregnant women should also not look or touch a PWA for this will also place her baby at risk of having albinism. They should also avoid the dancers of the _{Gule Wamkulu} — Great Dance. The Gule Wamkulu is a performance in which the dancers wear costumes and masks made out of wood, straw, and other tools to represent figures from the world of spirits and the dead. These dancers often portray evil characters to teach the audience about social and moral values (Mtonga, 2006). Although I was not able to see a Gule Wamkulu performance, a YouTube video shared by an interlocutor allowed me to understand why it is believed that viewing such a powerful performance could explain how a PWA comes to be (See: Kasiyamaliro, 2019). Lastly, another story shared by an interlocutor was that his maternal grandmother believed the mother of my interlocutor was drinking too much water while being pregnant which caused the pigmentation of the baby to “wash off”.

These accusations against the mother for being responsible for giving birth to a child with albinism reveal an interesting gender dynamic that is further translated into the idea that a child with albinism is conceived due to _{circumstances surrounding intercourse. Two mothers of PWA mentioned} that they were accused of having a sexually transmitted disease for them to give birth to a child with albinism. Another prevalent misconception is that a power imbalance between man and woman during intercourse can result in conceiving a child with albinism. Although I am still not confident what the interlocutors exactly meant with ‘power’, several parents of PWA mentioned that they heard that when both the mother and the father have the same power during intercourse, they will give birth to a child without albinism. However, if one is stronger than the other, they will have a child with it. The more scientific explanation given by interlocutors is that if the sperm is not equally as strong as the egg, or vice-versa, they will conceive a child with albinism.

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Sex seems to be a taboo topic within Malawian culture, this was revealed to me when conducting an interview with a mother and her daughter who has albinism. The mother requested her daughter of seventeen to leave the room when I asked what the cause is for someone to have albinism. Her explanation, the one that she “heard from people”, was that something went wrong during intercourse. She did not give any details as to what went wrong or what she assumes to have gone wrong but this moment revealed the discomfort that exists when discussing topics related to reproduction and sexual health. My translator explained that sex is talked about “when they are older” but gave no exact age. Chris, who was sitting next to my translator, also mentioned that high schools normally include sex-education in their lesson plan. Although it is good that sex-education is provided in the curriculum of public Malawian high schools, many Malawians drop out of school before receiving any sort of sex-education. The majority of my interlocutors and their parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts, do not have a diploma. Especially for PWA themselves, it is challenging to pursue an education due to the many obstacles that they have to overcome with minimum support.

Most of my interlocutors with albinism quit school before reaching high school. Students can go to public primary school at age five and remain for eight years. Secondary school then starts at age thirteen/fourteen. The main reason for them to quit school is their inability to keep up with the classes. As previously mentioned, PWA are, to some extent, visually impaired. Therefore, reading the board or other notes may be impossible or challenging for them. If the teachers allow it, students with albinism can try to sit at the front of the class in the hope of then being able to read, but this is no guarantee. According to APAM, PWA (and families of) especially, are amongst the poorest population groups in Malawi. As a result, most families of PWA cannot afford to buy glasses for their children to be able to read and thus be given the chance to equally participate in class. Moreover, public schools in Malawi seem to not receive adequate funding to provide resources to PWA, or other disabled students, that would allow them to fully participate and engage with the class materials.

A young girl with albinism, ‘Sarah’, was in standard four, which is grade four primary school. Prior to this academic year, she did not have any problems keeping up in school, but in standard four she would learn how to read and write. Her inability to read the board properly causes Sarah to not only read the word wrong but also spell words incorrectly. Her friends without albinism passed the first trimester exams, she did not. This was the first time that Sarah failed her trimester exams. Sarah’s story is one of many stories that discourage students with albinism to continue their education. Additionally, teachers are, according to my interlocutors, not trained to understand the needs of disabled students, including students with albinism. Many teachers are unaware that students with albinism cannot see properly or that classes outside under the sun (which is commonly done due to the lack of sitting space available for the

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number of students) damages their skin. Students with albinism are thus often ignored, or also discriminated against by teachers. It is important to note, however, that interlocutors also shared that many teachers do not discriminate and that there is a willingness to help but they simply lack the resources and funding to do so. Another reason for students with albinism to quit school is that they face constant bullying by peers.

For many interlocutors, school was the environment in which they consciously realized that they looked different, and thus, outside of their trust environment (which tends to be the family home or village) they are treated differently. A predominant form in which discrimination is practiced is through name-calling. Before being asked by her mother to leave the room, the seventeen-year-old girl with albinism who I will call Sofie likewise shared her experience of being called names and how this influenced her self-perception. “When she was young she was feeling normal, I think up until people started calling her names” my translator interpreted from Sofie’s reply to my question: “how did you come to the realization that you looked different?”. Another interlocutor that Bahai introduced me to, similarly expressed how being the target of name-calling has made her realize that she looked different. At Bahai and I’s go-to café, Bahai translated for ‘Laura’ in our interview. Laura shared that “she realized it [that she looked different] based on the names that people were calling her and that those were different from what others were being called. That is the time she realized that she is somehow different from others”_.

Name-calling is something all my interlocutors with albinism have faced at one point or another. Most of the name-calling was done during their childhood or when they go outside of their trusted environment to areas where they are not known personally. The names that PWA are often called include

azungu — white person, or _{azungu mbuli — poor white person, ‘yellow man’ — reference to an unripe} tomato, ghost, money, monkey, and more. Additionally, many fear to go near or touch a PWA believing the condition is contagious. Several interlocutors shared that their classmates did not want to sit next to them or sit in the same spot where the student with albinism sat prior. Sofie told my translator that “she heard that people with albinism are not worth staying with, they should stay alone, you shouldn’t be near them or you will get albinism”. Chris’s mother, ‘Judy’, who is forty-five years older than Sofie likewise shared that for much of her life, she has felt as though she needed to distance herself from others due to her albinism. She described how when she was younger, and attended primary school, “they [the pupils] didn’t want to sit near her, they were calling her names like “azungu”, they also didn’t want to sit with her on the same chair. When she was sitting on a chair and had to move and the teacher told another student to sit there, they were refusing”.

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To this day, Judy has made it a habit to distance herself from others. To some extent, her childhood experiences conditioned her to do so revealed an anecdote she shared about her attending a funeral at another village. It is customary for visitors to sleep in a house together and when she joins, she takes her clothes and the fabric that women in Malawi wrap around their waist to serve as an apron and puts them in the corner of the room where she intends to sleep. Meanwhile, the other women sleep more closely to each other. The women asked Judy why she is sleeping in the corner and distancing herself from others. Judy ended the story by saying that “when others tell her that she can come, she goes but if they don’t, she just stays on her own”. I asked her why she does not initially join the group and she replied that she feels that others do not want her near so she prepares herself to sleep alone. Judy’s experience gives insight into how pupils distancing themselves from students with albinism can have a long-term traumatic affect. Considering that Sofie is experiencing similar challenges as Judy was when she was in school, it seems that not much has changed throughout the years.

Classmates or outsiders from the village continue to form a crowd near PWA and make a spectacle out of them. Chris’s younger brother, ‘Eric’, shared how pupils were refusing to stay close to him because if they would touch him, they would also become white. Yet, they repeatedly shadowed him. Eric told me of a time when he asked for permission from his teacher to go to the bathroom and he said that: “others would follow me to see if the urine is the same as theirs. Even during eating, when eating something it was like they were asking each other, do they also eat like us? Do they eat food? Do they get hungry?”. Such experiences made it impossible for several interlocutors to focus in school or to enjoy going to school as it was a source of negativity and stress leading to low self-esteem. Additionally, if the student with albinism lived far from the school, the commute itself was considered a safety hazard for many. These students mainly walk to school due to the low-income status of their guardians and the lack of transportation available in the village. As a result, they would be exposed to the sun for an undesirable and unhealthy amount of time for their skin. Lastly, commuters can expose PWA to predators.

The reasons for the high percentage of school drop-outs from my sample of interlocutors are understandable. However, it is also undeniable that a lack of education brings upon additional challenges to the ‘being’ and ‘doing’ of PWA and contributes to the cycle of marginalization. To explain this cycle, let us start by understanding how a lack of support for the physical impairments that PWA have resulted in their decreased ability to _{fully be included in society or having the same opportunities as their} non-(socio-culturally) disabled peers _{(Franklin et al., 2018:4). With a lack of education, the chances of} finding employment are dramatically decreased for PWA (and anyone else). This phenomenon illustrates APAM’s earlier claim about PWA being amongst the poorest population groups in Malawi. To get by, interlocutors are dependent on intensive manual labour in the form of farming tobacco, maize, beans,

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pumpkins, eggplants, and groundnuts. For the majority, farming is firstly a means of having food for them and their family. Secondly, it is a business where the surplus of their harvest is sold at the market. However, due to their sensitive skin and lack of accessibility and affordability for protective gear such as sunscreen, hats, shades and long-sleeved clothes, farmers with OCA are unable to work the same hours as a farmer without OCA. Logically, their income is substantially lower than that of the average Malawian making it impossible to escape poverty. To give an idea of the average income, in 2017, the annual income per capita that year was around 1,200 (US$ Briggs, 2019:24). Their low income increases vulnerability to predators from the occult economy by simply not being able to afford a secured home. All interlocutors living in rural areas have a small house with no real windows, a door with a non-functioning lock, a tin or hay roof with, if they are lucky, cement walls instead of mud. Such living situations are the outcome of a minimally supportive government and a lack of mobilized support from existing organizations focused on improving the social welfare of PWA in Malawi. Without the support of these stakeholders, emancipation for PWA is unattainable.

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The need for their emancipation is not only to overcome their barriers to doing but to likewise prevent the deepening of the ontological alternatives of PWA, which is the main barrier to their being. Not finishing school or attending high school means that most of my interlocutors did not attend the course in which albinism and its biomedical definition is introduced. Interlocutors who were able to define albinism and expressed having an understanding about the condition, were individuals who received their diploma and found employment and/or are going to university or other forms of higher education. They learned the scientific definition of albinism in biology class which they took in high school at the age of sixteen, seventeen, or eighteen. The course touched upon genetics and evolution which included a chapter on albinism. Therefore, within this course, the subject of albinism is discussed and explained through a scientific and medical lens as opposed to a cultural and social one, perhaps for the first time for many.

There seems to be no clear starting point nor evolution of the ontological alternatives associated with PWA in Malawi but simply a speculative history. The earliest superstition recalled by several informants is from around the eighties and nineties, when it was believed that PWA do not die but that they simply disappear. This meant that PWA were not considered to be humans. Instead, they were commonly recognized as ghosts. _“[...] people in the community believe that a ghost looks white at night that’s why they associated our skin to that and with albinism it was very common to believe that we were a ghost” Bahai said. As a result, the disappearance of a PWA was not alarming, it is part of their nature as a ghost to vanish which meant that no missing person report would be filed. _“They believed that people with albinism don’t die, they disappeared. So when your child has disappeared you don’t even question it, you say ah, I knew, I knew that from his birth, he would not die, he would just disappear _” Bahai continued_.

Throughout the years, a multitude of mysterious narratives and rumours concerning PWA circulated throughout the country. These include that PWA have God in their hands, that their body parts help fishermen catch more and bigger fish, that intercourse with a PWA could cure HIV/AIDS and/or other sexually transmitted diseases, that the bones of their bodies are medicine made by witch doctors who crush it up and shape it into tablets. Their bones also have the power to generate wealth either by being sold at a high price, or placed in a cash counting machine and thus multiplying money. They are apparently also used as a type of battery to power a mysterious machine that produces money, said a young man with albinism studying public health, whom I will call Henry. He told me that: “[...] they said in Malawi, in Zomba, they have a certain secret place and there is a machine and that machine is used to make money. If it is needed to work you need two bones from a person with albinism”. Henry heard this story through an audio recorded message sent to him via WhatsApp. According to what Henry said, the

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audio circulated through Malawi. He does not know the name of the person who made the audio but believes that the man has been arrested for spreading this rumour.

Henry shared that he believes in the existence of this machine. I then asked him if he believed in the powers that body parts of PWA are said to possess, to which he replied: “sometimes I can believe, according to the way that things go, even with the stories that our erupting, I can think that it’s true”. In my interview with Chris, he also brought up this mysterious machine and claimed that the Secretary-General for the DPP, one of the highest officials of the party, is the owner. When I asked Chris about how he came to know that the Secretary-General owned the machine he said that “[...] people are saying that he has this machine, I heard it from radios and newspapers and WhatsApp groups, people were sharing this evidence”. What struck me was his use of the word ‘evidence’. I delved deeper into trying to understand what Chris perceived to be enough evidence for him to believe in the existence of this machine. I asked him if he had ever seen a picture of this machine, he said no. I then asked why he was so confident that it is true? Chris replied with: “it is true, although I just heard it from people, I believe it is true because when the radio says these things, we believe that it is true”. My translator went on to say that Chris said that he read it in the Nyasa Times and heard it from Zodiac radio, and other radio channels except for Radio One, which is the government radio. Zodiac radio is a self-dependent and privately owned radio channel. The owner of the channel is Gospel Kazako, a Malawian entrepreneur. The Nyasa Times is also a privately owned news outlet founded by Edgar Chibaka.

Not only did Chris and Henry believe in the machine that uses body parts of PWA to produce money, but they also believed in the supernatural powers that their bodies are said to possess, as did several other interlocutors. Interestingly, most of my interlocutors do not believe that PWA are ghosts, that they can cure HIV/AIDS, that they are good bait to catch fish but they do believe that their body parts are of high value and that they do help politicians to win elections. They believe so because they heard this repeatedly from people and if it weren’t true, the killings during election periods would have stopped a long time ago. The circulating stories, or rumours, about machines energized by body parts of PWA and the continuous trend of electoral attacks, led several interlocutors to believe that they are magical. It goes to show that rumours spread through word-of-mouth and through the media have the power to construct identities that some of my interlocutors adopt. Despite not having seen the machine, or experiencing anything that would indicate that they are magical, they are convinced in their supernaturalness. These rumours provide a reasoning for why attacks continue and speaks to the theory of how rumours are used to explain the inexplicable. Moreover, the authority of rumours are not limited to those who did not receive an education and have the tools to challenge them. Education or economic class does not play a

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not finish high-school believed in the same trend of rumours as Henry, who is from a higher economic class and educated.

Moreover, the rising tension between PWA and the Malawian government are integral in stimulating and sustaining these rumourscapes, including those of political involvement. Societal factors provided a fertile ground for rumours to spread, and as previously mentioned, many interlocutors blame the Malawian government for fostering their cycle of marginalization (Ghinai et al., 2013:1143). Prior to judgment day, I could sense that there was tension between PWA and the Malawian government. In the early stages of my fieldwork, I was helping Chris’s younger brother, John, build a framework for his hut-like structure to dry tobacco leaves.

Figure 3- Members of the community work together to bundle tobacco leaves and hang them from the structure seen in the background to dry them. This is the structure John was building.

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John is a twenty-three years old man with albinism. He quit school at the age of sixteen and has been a tobacco farmer since he turned nineteen. After only half an hour of placing and tying bamboo sticks together, I was already getting blisters on both of my index fingers while John was making one knot after the other without any complaints, under the scorching sun. He was wearing long light beige pants, a long-sleeved navy-blue shirt too big for his body with worn out, hole filled sneakers. While working together outside, a group of children sat near our hut in progress and made little puppets out of grass strings. Both John’s bamboo hut and the grass puppet showcase the resourcefulness and creativity that is found in low-income settings such as the one Chris, John, their family, and so many other PWA find themselves in.

After about an hour or two under the sun, I moved to the ‘front porch’ of John and Chris’s mother’s home to be in the shade as I felt my cheeks turning red and my skin beginning to burn, I needed sunscreen. John continued to work on the hut which was opposite of the porch. I asked John about whether he knew what sunscreen was and whether he used it. While John was one of the interlocutors who struggled in defining albinism, he did know how to take care of his skin. Like John, interlocutors knew that ideally PWA must wear hats and clothes that covered their bodies as much as possible. They also knew about sunscreen and (sun) glasses for their poor eyesight. However, their accessibility and the affordability of these materials is limited. John mentioned that he does try to use sunscreen as often as he can but that it may be financially and logistically burdensome. Sunscreen in Malawi is expensive and costs about 12000 kwacha for a bottle of 225ml which is about fifteen euros. Although it is a necessity for PWA in Malawi, it has the price point of a luxury item for most of my interlocutors, therefore they do not buy sunscreen consistently.

Fortunately, the state does provide free sunscreen once a month. In Lilongwe, PWA can pick up a free tube of sunscreen at the Kamuzu central hospital. However, the commute to the hospital from the village is relatively far and another cost that many families of PWA prefer to spare. Moreover, interlocutors have also shared that there is not always sunscreen available and that there have been occasions when they went to pick up sunscreen but there were no tubes left. While discussing the subject of accessibility to sunscreen, John and Chris shared that in 2019 the government handed out one bottle of sunscreen per PWA. Although this comes across as an act of generosity from the Malawian government, the donated sunscreen lotion was close to the expiration date upon receiving it. The way in which the two brothers were describing this story to my translator gave me the impression that they found it more insulting to receive (close to) expired goods, than no goods at all. This was the first of many frustrations that PWA expressed towards the poor governing skills in Malawi which opened up

m

y eyes to not only

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Yet, the lack of services and materials available for PWA is the tip of the iceberg. Logically, living as a PWA under such a system that fosters a cycle of marginalization based on barriers to doing and being causes PWA to not be an equal in Malawian society. Their inequality and vulnerability make them easy prey to predators that believe, or benefit from those who believe, in supernatural powers that the bodies of PWA are said to possess based on the ontologies that are spread nationwide. Their limited social integration undermines the way in which the discrimination and marginalization of this population is a gateway to gruesome human rights violation done against PWA. It is thus the government’s responsibility to address the systemic flaws to allow for the emancipation of PWA to happen in the long term while also investing in short-term solutions that not only break down the ontological alternatives of PWA but protect PWA while these rumours are told and believed. Yet, interlocutors say that the Malawian government is doing nothing. As a matter of fact, the passive approach of the government on the cases of attacks against PWA makes them suspicious. Many interlocutors strongly believe that politicians, or as they called them, ‘big fish’, are involved in the kidnapping, amputating, and murder of PWA, especially during election time when they need the power of the bones the most. This, according to several interlocutors, explains the correlation between election periods and an increase in attacks against PWA.

To summarize this chapter, it discusses the way in which PWA struggle to overcome barriers to their being and doing. Their barriers to doing are caused by their physical impairments and their inability to afford the necessary materials to improve them. Their poor eyesight paired with the lack of resources available for students with impaired vision prevents them to participate equally in class. This, in addition to being discriminated against by peers and teachers, cause students with albinism to quit school. With no education, PWA rely on manual labour such as farming. Again, they are faced with the challenge of protecting their skin while trying to make a living. Their sensitive skin and the lack of access and affordability of sunscreen prevents PWA from working equally long hours as their melanated peers. These struggles place PWA in a vulnerable state. Moreover, PWA exist in a socio-cultural setting that produces ontological alternatives of what albinism is and who PWA are. Whether this is due to a lack of awareness and understanding of the biomedical definition of albinism is not clear, but it is evident that the narrative of PWA is created by their local knowledge system that heavily relies on the belief in the supernatural to make sense of a white child being born from black parents. The ontological alternatives place PWA in a state of ambiguity, further fueling their vulnerability. The result of being in a position of vulnerability and ambiguity is that PWA are ostracized socially and economically, and get stuck in a cycle of marginalization that will further limit their opportunity to be equal in the Malawian society.

The Power of Rumours: Violence Against People with Albinism and Political Crisis in Malawi