White Expatriates Research Articles

Rainbow Worriers: South African Afropessimism Online

The relationship between the rise of Afropessimism and the growth of global communication networks is more or less proportionate with the deepening of the digital divide. With fewer internal sources of information, news networks are portraying events in Africa as more tragic, more mysterious and more distant than ever before. This, in turn, has an off-putting effect on foreign investors and donors, who are becoming increasingly impatient with mounting reports of African corruption, misrule and political unrest. While South Africa's relatively advanced media infrastructure should exempt it from this trend, the discourse of Afropessimism is highly visible, both in news about the country and in posted responses to headlines. This article is concerned with the reception of reports on South Africa by one of the most vocal online groups commenting on events in the country: white expatriates. Focusing on the web presence of a number of popular sites, ranging from the Afro-dystopic to the Afro-optimistic, the article analyses the ways in which some South Africans living abroad are active in spreading pessimistic views about their homeland – a trend that is important because these views are beginning to dominate online responses. The article concludes that the high visibility of Afropessimism on blogs and on platforms such as YouTube is cause for concern, firstly because it indicates that events in South Africa are rapidly distancing it from world opinion, and secondly, because the country's future failure is increasingly being represented as a fait accompli.

African Feminist Contributions to Missiological Anthropology

Abstract Missiology has mainly been the interest of white expatriate missionaries. In the context of the growing focus of Christianity on the global South, this article looks into African feminist theology. Using theologians of the “Circle of the Concerned Women Theologians in Africa,” this article analyses some central contributions made by members of this Circle in the field of missiology. The most interesting feminist contribution to missiological anthropology is the search for a new cultural identity by modern African Christians. This search for identity includes a critical and positive view of African traditional practices. This contextualization process includes both the continuation and reconstruction of some of the practices which the Circle theologians have identified as not being oppressive. The African missiologists need in-depth anthropological and theological analyses to understand the variety of cultures in their societies and to contextualize the Gospel.

Organizing Whiteness: Gender, Nationality and Subjectivity in Postcolonial Hong Kong

This article looks at the negotiation and construction of new white subjectivities in the changing global workplace of Hong Kong. It explores how recent changes in the social and political landscape are being accompanied by complex transformations of work and working identities. Drawing on research conducted with white expatriates in the period since the return to Chinese rule in 1997, it reveals that whiteness, Britishness and gender are simultaneously both critical and unstable concepts that affect the ways in which these changing working identities are being managed and performed. The article explores interviews with a selection of British expatriates working in different contexts and identifies the key discourses that they draw upon as resources to position themselves as they talk about their working lives. These show that, while the colonial heritage is still evident, the interplay between global and local discourses and the formation of white, gendered subjectivities means that spaces are being created to renegotiate the established privileges and forms of entitlement on which work relationships have hitherto been based.

Clinical and laboratory features of patients with loiasis ( Loa loa filariasis) in the U.K.

To assess differences between Africans and expatriates, we reviewed records of 100 patients with loiasis presenting to The Hospital for Tropical Diseases, London. Fifty-one were black Africans, and 49 were white expatriates. A history of Calabar swellings was more common amongst expatriates (P = 0.0001, OR 8.1), whilst eyeworm was reported more frequently in Africans (P = 0.0038, OR 4.2). Higher eosinophil levels (P < 0.0001) and filarial antibody levels, whether measured by immunofluorescence (P = 0.047) or ELISA (P < 0.0001) were present in the expatriates. Africans were more likely to have microfilaraemia (P < 0.0025, OR 7.3), and among microfilaraemic patients, Africans had denser microfilaraemia (P = 0.012). The sensitivity of microfilaremia as a screening test for loiasis was 75% in Africans and 29% in expatriates. The sensitivities of filarial antibody tests in Africans and expatriates were 81% and 100% for IFAT, and 28% and 93% for ELISA. Following treatment, 63% of patients were considered cured, 25% were lost to follow-up and 12% had a documented relapse. The differences between the two groups of patients could be caused by differences in the chronicity of loiasis, but other explanations are also discussed.

Transference and Countertransference in Cross-Cultural Therapies

A brief overview of sociocultural influences in Kenya is followed by discussion of the treatment of an African Kenyan male patient by a white expatriate femal therapist, with focus on transference and countertransference aspects involved in cross-cultural therapy. Problems created by racial differences and the feelings of both parties are mutually experienced obstacles to the therapy, but can be of tremendous value to both patient and therapist.

SCHISTOSOMIASIS IN EXPATRIATES RETURNING TO BRITAIN FROM THE TROPICS: A CONTROLLED STUDY

Clinical features in 173 white expatriates returning to Britain with the sole diagnosis of schistosomiasis were compared with those in non-infected control subjects, matched for age and sex, returning from similar endemic areas. Infection was, with one exception, acquired in Africa. Schistosoma mansoni was found in 135 patients, S haematobium in 29, and mixed infection in 9.79% of patients with S haematobium had symptoms, compared with 47% of patients with S mansoni. Tiredness, headache, and gastrointestinal disturbance were no more frequent in symptomatic patients than in control subjects. In over 50% of patients with schistosomiasis the diagnosis was established from snips of rectal mucosa, and this raises the question of how best to look for infection in those who have been exposed. Urine examination and schistosomal serology appear to be the best screening methods; patients with haematuria or seropositivity should be investigated further.