This photo essay discusses the interactions between international and national nongovernmental
organizations (NGOs) and governmental organizations on the one hand, and
local populations and people with albinism on the other, in Tanzania. From the mid-2000s
onward, international attention started to be drawn to the aggressions toward, and the murders
of, people with albinism in the north-western part of Tanzania (Ntetema 2008). To date, around
74 individuals with the condition are said to have lost their lives (Smith 2015; Mlacha 2015;
Shigongo 2015). Since the increase in attention to such issues, national health organizations as
well as international NGOs have begun to carry out awareness campaigns on behalf of people
with albinism. At the same time, they have implemented humanitarian aid programs, distributing
sunglasses and sunscreen. Some organizations have also distributed grants and scholarships
to allow people with albinism to pursue their education.
The following essay presents connections between these supra-local actors who are
participating in the global flow of (bio)medical and human rights campaigns about albinism, and
persons with albinism themselves who, instead of simply being passively exposed to such
discourses, actively appropriate them in the making and remaking of their identities. In this
regard, people with albinism capitalize on the global flow of (bio)medical and human rights
campaigns on their behalf in order to enhance their inclusion within their families and local
communities, while attempting to redefine ideas of normalcy and able-bodiedness in Tanzanian
society at large. At the same time, this process of appropriation incorporates previous
conceptions of albinism derived from religious explanations, especially at the rural level, which
has not been deeply reached by governmental and international awareness campaigns.