By: Eva Schiffer

Eva Schiffer — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 23:38:20 +0000

Dear Susan,
It’s very interesting to see how ethnicity plays different roles in different parts of the world. When in Bolivia, I started a lot of my questions with: “Well, I know the situation in different African countries, where XY is the case… is it similar here?” In some ways Bolivia reminded me a lot of places like South Africa, because the difference between white and non-white was seen as strongly defining your chances in life. The picture of the indigenous ethnic diversity was less clear to me. On the one hand people said: “Oh, that doesn’t matter so much.” But then, when we discussed further they told me that this or that ethnic group was well known for always being in time or always being late. Oh, and there was that group that still suffered under certain forms of slavery regimes imposed upon them by other groups. This is all to say: Yes, ethnicity is an important aspect in understanding power and structures of society. If you were drawing a personalized net-map, you could use stickers of different colors for members of different ethnic groups. Then it becomes obvious immediately, which group is over- and under-represented…

By: Susan

Susan — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 04:10:51 +0000

You might also add into this power mix various ethnic groups that are represented (or not represented)inside a ministry, NGO, or in a policy or decision-making process.

Comments on: Dealing with messy realities

By: Eva Schiffer

By: Susan