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Fieldwork and Local Government: An Example from Tanzania1
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 May 2014
Extract
The problem of obtaining permission of national governments for field research in Africa has been frequently documented. The Research Liaison Committee of the African Studies Association was formed in 1966 with the purpose of serving as a center for collection and dissemination of information on U.S. scholars and their research in Africa, communications on the role and mode of research in Africa, referral of questions it was unable to answer itself, collection of files on research clearance regulations, establishing of contact on behalf of researchers going to Africa, and maintaining liaison with African studies groups outside the United States. In interviews conducted in East Africa for the Committee in 1967, Vernon McKay learned that control procedures associated with foreign scholars in Africa were only partially security oriented. Officials, especially those in the national capitals, were being inundated by would-be researchers. Although the value of research was not denied, officials suggested to McKay that research be directed toward needs of the host country -- toward studies that would aid its economic, social, and development planning. Local officials issued a plea that research results be made available to the host as soon as possible.
Research clearance problems in Tanzania are better structured than elsewhere in Africa. Applications are directed through the University College in Dar es Salaam. In Tanzania, as in other countries, even the clearance successfully completed must be followed by establishment of contacts and working relationships “upcountry.” Field research circumstances, especially pertinent to geographers, demand the tolerance, if not the active encouragement of local (subnational) government.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright
- Copyright © African Studies Association 1969
Footnotes
1
A paper presented at the Eleventh Annual Meeting of the African Studies Association at Los Angeles, 16-19 October, 1968. Research in Tanzania during 1966-1967 was made possible by a grant from the National Science Foundation, whose support is gratefully acknowledged.
References
2 See, for example, Hance, William A. and Curtin, Philip, “African Studies in Africa and the American Scholar,” African Studies Bulletin, 9, no. 1 (1966), 24–28 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; McKay, Vernon, “The Research Climate in Eastern Africa,” African Studies Bulletin, 11, no. 1 (1968), 1–17 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kopytoff, Igor, “The Research Climate in Francophone West Africa and Liberia,” African Studies Bulletin, 11, no. 1 (1968), 67–76 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; “New Clearance Procedures for Research in Niger,” African Studies Newsletter, 1, no. 2 (1968), 1 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and specifically addressed to geographers, Bernard, Frank E. and Walter, Bobbie J., “Clearance Problems in African Research,” Professional Geographer, 20, no. 1 (1968), 28–32 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
3 Africa Report, II, no. 8 (1966), p. 49 Google Scholar.
4 McKay, op. cit., footnote 1, p. 7.
5 McKay, op. cit., footnote 1, p. 7; Bernard and Walter, op. cit., footnote 1, p. 29.
6 United States, Department of State, Tanzania - Zambia Boundary, International Boundary Study No. 44, Washington, D.C., 1965 Google Scholar.
7 Much of the historical and cultural material presented here is from Brock, Beverly, “The Nyiha of Mbozi,” Tanzania Notes and Records, no. 65 (1966), 1–30 Google Scholar, as well as from personal field research.
8 My historical information on the development of the Village Development Committee system is by personal communication from Roger Yaeger. See also Lemarchand, Rene, “Village-by-Village Nation Building in Tanzania,” Africa Report, 10, no. 2 (1965), 11–13 Google Scholar, and Bienen, Henry, Tanzania, Party Transformation and Economic Development, Princeton, N. J.: Princeton Universith Press, 1967 Google Scholar.