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Food Security and feminization of migration in DRC: Rethinking Globalization
Processes.
Food Security and
feminization of migration in
DRC: Rethinking
Globalization Processes.
Dr. Lindah Mhando
Department of African and African American&
Sociology
Pennsylvania State University
Penn State Liberal Arts
Lindah mhando
Food Security and feminization of migration in DRC: Rethinking Globalization
Processes.
Dr. Lindah Mhando
Department of African and African American& Sociology
Pennsylvania State University
Thank you,
Abstract of my paper
1. Propositions
2. Challenges of Macro history modes
3. Forces of nature- Migration process
4. Why Congo
5. Women Roles
6. Resilience (Video)
1.We are confronted with two huge tasks in re-articulating of Globalization
processes.
(a) How to interconnect in each era the broad range of human experiences around the
world.
(b) How to identify patterns in the long sweep of past time.
Neither task is easy, though the first seems to attract more attention to historians.
Despite the limited significance of in earlier historical eras, world historians are rightly
concerned with this “integrative macrohistory"1 because it challenges perspectives
arbitrarily based on national, regional, and cultural units.

Ross Dunn has observed, "No periodization scheme for world history can intelligibly
integrate all, or even most, phenomena except perhaps at the very broadest and
"Periodizing World History," in The New World History: A Teacher's Companion, ed.
Ross Dunn (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2000), p. 359.

Just as our colleagues in the Annales school have discovered deeper meaning in
history in the long term (la longue durée), more of us in world history need to
emulate what David Christian call "Big History" by concerning ourselves with the
structure of ultra-long-term history.
The Challenges of Macro history modes

The macro history and its chronological cousin, others' quests for history's longterm meaning and structure have periodically captured my attention--- when
teaching the history of genocide disappearance of indigenous people.
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

Ladies & gentleman, recognization of indigenous rights and the claims of indigenous
peoples need to be seen in context of their systematic extermination, discrimination
and marginalization.
We are talking about 370 million people in over 70 countries are disappearing as we
speak. (The Twa (pygmies) in Eastern Congo, the nomadic pastoralist such as the
masaai and samburu in Tz& Kenya, Berber (Amazigh) in Algeria, the San in Sahel Kalahari desert in Botswana.
Over the years I have benefited from other debates about momentous turning points in
world history, notably the recent discussions over how and when the West overtook the
East, an event that Tom Friedman ( The World is flat) has persuasively argued that the
almost simultaneous ending of the Cold War and the rise of the Internet marked the
beginning of a new era of history.
Forces of nature-- Migration

In the spirit of such thoughtful works, this essay puts forward a simple temporal
model of world history. It proposes that globalization process can be divided into
just two ages: one dominated by divergence and, since about 1000 C.E., (an age of
convergence. Beginning with the early human communities in Africa and their
migration to the rest of the world, people honed their survival skills by adapting
culturally to a multitude of different environments. In relative isolation from each
other, communities refined particular specialized technologies, designed
appropriate clothing and food preparation techniques, worked out differing belief
systems and ways of reasoning, developed myriad languages and systems of writing,
and devised distinctive styles of art and architecture...

The change over was neither abrupt nor sudden. Forces for convergence had long
operated in parts of the ancient world: regional empires consolidated disparate
peoples and overlaid their traditions with a common culture, world religions spread
universalistic beliefs, and long-distance traders spread ideas and technologies as
well as goods. Irregularly at first and then with increasing force and speed after
1000 C.E., historical forces drew people closer and closer economically, culturally,
and politically. This "Great Convergence," as I shall call it, provides a useful
framework for understanding the past thousand years of world history and the
phenomena that in recent years have come to be called globalization.
 The essay is situated in the nexus of migration theories e.g.
1. The migration of Homo sapiens from Africa perhaps 100,000 years ago, to the Viking
visits to North America, and Chinese and Arab contacts with the Indonesian archipelago
2. Migration meant in essence the settlement of the globe.
3. In the absence of continuing exchange between old and new communities, migration
resulted in the continual goodbyes.
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4...Migrations gave rise to new cultures and societies that remained largely unaware of
their place in the increasingly diverse kaleidoscope of humanity.

If one inspiration for the Great Convergence model is thus derived from
considering a momentous watershed in the forward movement of historical events,
the other inspiration for the Great Convergence comes from looking backward
through time to discover the origins of the contemporary globalization. Social
scientists and journalists who address the globalization model generally treat it as a
recent phenomenon, produced by the end of the Cold War, the explosion of global
trade, and the spread of high-speed electronic communications.

To the contrary, the Islamic empires of Delhi (1206–1398) and Mali (ca. 1240–ca.
1500), and the founding of the long-lived Yi dynasty in 1396.
Connected to the rise of Indian Ocean trade were the African kingdoms of Great
Zimbabwe (ca. 1250–ca. 1450) and Solomon Ethiopia (1270 forward).
Meanwhile, the cultural map of the Old World was being altered by the spread of
Christianity in Russia and the spread of Islam in India, sub-Saharan Africa, and
Southeast Asia. Yet, because these developments were complex and reversible, none
is a compelling illustration of the process—unfortunately.

Although these various attempts to periodize the history of globalization are all
useful in some ways, the suggestion here is that the entire sweep of changes from
the completion of the "Full Circle" to the globalization of today can productively be
brought together in the larger framework of the Great Convergence, which also
broadens the scope of the issues to be treated.
2. An exploration of the complex trajectories of economic and cultural
convergence would require much more space than is available here, but the
simpler process of political convergence may serve to illustrate the kinds of
comparative and narrative issues that need to be addressed. Political
amalgamation has a very long history, until recent times largely in the form of
empire building.
Why Congo? (Political Empire)

The Great Lakes region is one of the most complex, conflict-affected areas in
Africa. The case of Twa brings the delicate question in Africa as who is Indigenous
person?
Where do they come from? Are they the bi-product of resistance of massive migration of
Bantu speaking people----- I want to invoke Fanon’s work here when ----addressing the
plight to elites in Algeria.
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
Other scholars argues that those who resisted wanted to maintained their distinct
linguistic, cultural and social characteristics didn’t fit in the pattern of ether gathers
or herders dichotomy hence spitted out in their own community.
Ladies and gentlemen, with the penetration of colonialism, their economic and political
structures reinforces the power to the people who were agriculturalist over the herders
and gatherers, setting down the rules of who had access to the state apparatus.--- On the
other hand the social services were completely denied to the indigenous communities.
The after math of colonialism we all know the “creation of an elite class” that now control
political, social and economic power---- (Like my predecessors I challenge you to take an
inventory of African’s political thinkers of social movt and liberation from CLR James and
his rearticulating of the role inviduals and class, Thomas Sankara, to Samora Marchel,
Cabral, Nyerere etc.—These
Focus on Women
I will now focus briefly on women:
3. There is correlation between the food security, culture and development. (No
matter where we want to begin, women issues must be at the center of
national agendas, government development programs. She is producer of food
supply more than 80 %, a care taker of sick (HIV/AIDS), burden with tradition
roles as (wife inheritance, gender violence, force prostitution, force
marriages, circumcision etc)
Several scholars have suggested the need to African women to talk and write about
their plights, (From Claudia Jones, to Flora Nwapa, to Chokwenye okonjo, to
Emecheta, Amadiume, Mc Fadden Bibi Titi etc)
The studies on food security suggests that, the major causes of hunger are generally
are due to overpopulation, economic standard and civil war. Furthermore, it was
noted that where unemployment or below subsistence wages are the only
alternatives available to those without formal education, and capital, the
consequences of land shortage may be tragic, particularly for women and children in
poor households.
The impact of western capitalist expansion, colonialism, imperialism and ensuing
poverty that results from extraction of resources including food from the field is
undeniable unprecedented. This is even more so in a day and age of ethnocide or
cultural destruction. ----How can we account for these processes on national
discourses when women are silenced? What are possibilities available to us for
conceptualizing our “world” and for imagining modes of action in that world? The
continuous silence which surrounds the poorest in the Democratic Republic of Congo
(DRC) is a serious crime. For more than a decade now, Congolese people in general,
and women in particular, are enduring incredible suffering. The DRC, with its sixty
million inhabitants, has been reported to have women constituting up to 51% of the
population. Unfortunately, this majority is without a voice!
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4. Observations & Resilience….
What makes the Congolese woman is used as an instrument of propaganda
and mobilization for political gain.???
1.Due to her current ignorance and patriarchal retrograde mentalities, her
education and development are neglected; she is absent from decision making
tables where her own future, as well as that of her family is discussed; and she
is the first victim of the wars and armed conflicts.
2.The permanent insecurity, violence and displacement of populations
regardless of the agreements signed at Sun City in 2002 and the recent
elections in 2006, is a forgotten tragedy, ignored without precedent in Africa.
Women are used to provide sexual and cooking services to the armed
militants, rebels and other groups. Their bodies are used as battle grounds.
The violation is a means of intimidation, humiliation and the destabilization
as well as destruction of local communities, by foreign and national arms
forces, the police and secret intelligence services.
3.This humanitarian catastrophe has driven the Congolese woman to the
forefront. She rose like a mother to say: “No to death, No to all forms of
violence, No to sexual abuses particularly rape, No to the malicious
destruction of the ecosystem, and NO to the war!
4.She rose like patriot to denounce the aggression and the occupation of our
country by Rwanda and Uganda armed forces or their support to rebels
groups, regardless of the general confusion maintained until this day by the
international community through the UN.
5.She rose like an activist engaged for change and the birth of a state governed
by the rule of law, which will enable her to create a space for viable
participation likely to support as well as favor the emergence of her
leadership.
6.In the face of this permanent political instability since independence the
country, widespread unemployment and economic recession, Congolese
woman have risen like providers and guarantors of food security. Her role is
visible in the fight against poverty and by her strong presence in the informal
economy.
7. Without the Congolese woman, there would have collapsed. She has been
present and has always intervened in all the vital sectors of public life: health,
economy, environment, civic education, human rights.
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8. Today and more than ever, the Congolese woman is conscious of her
responsibility as well as the role she must fulfill in the reconstruction of her
country. These are the voices they wanted me to share with the world….
Conclusion….in terms of
By moving the beginnings of the modern era back five centuries, it allows for the changes
associated with "modern" to be regionally defined and recognizes that they were often
discontinuous and operated on different schedules in different places. Equally important is
acknowledging that the impulse to teach world history is itself a product of our times and
to use the peculiarly intense convergence of our age to focus attention on the long
historical trajectory that helps us understand the present and contemplate the future.
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