Amphibious Phenomenologies of Albinism in Africa

Author(s)

Giorgio Brocco

Abstract

Over the past two decades, albinism in Africa has received wide media, political and scholarly attention, particularly in relation to violence and discrimination. This article offers a critical, interdisciplinary analysis of historical and contemporary scholarship on albinism in the continent, examining how colonial racial taxonomies, local moral-religious ontologies, biomedical classifications, humanitarian advocacy and cultural representations intersect in shaping, representations, meanings and practices of albinism. Building on Kwame Edwin Otu’s notion of amphibious subjectivities, I introduce the concept of “amphibious phenomenologies” to describe how people with albinism navigate overlapping epistemic regimes in everyday life. Rather than treating biomedical, religious, local and humanitarian frameworks as mutually exclusive, the article demonstrates their simultaneity and negotiation across domains of stigma, violence, health, governance and display. Furthermore, I argue that international NGOs, UN bodies and activist organisations function as responders to violence and as producers of narratives that translate situated local experiences into global categories of disability and human rights. By foregrounding epistemic plurality and embodied negotiation, the article reframes albinism not solely as a biomedical condition or humanitarian crisis, but as a dynamic site of onto-epistemic contestation, political visibility and cultural transformation.

Organisation(s)

Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology

Journal

Journal of African Cultural Studies

Pages

1-16

No. of pages

16

ISSN

1369-6815

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1080/13696815.2026.2691702

Publication date

2026

Peer reviewed

Yes

Austrian Fields of Science 2012

509002 Disability studies, 504009 Ethnology

Sustainable Development Goals

SDG 3 - Good Health and Well-being, SDG 16 - Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions

Portal url

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/6d553b4d-3d2a-4506-8e29-1fc03e225f66