Ancestral Paradigms and modern lives. Relational living in Mozambique and DR Congo

The starting point for this comparative study is that HIV-AIDS programs in Mozambique and DR Congo are often ineffective because they use approaches based on inadequate concepts and paradigms. The relevant local paradigms concern ancestors and the taboos they instigated. Central is the notion of the strongly interdependent person together with ideas, experiences and practices regarded as so-called “witchcraft.” This comparative study among 13 different Bantu-speaking cultures in Mozambique and DR Congo shows that interventions in health or in law are more effective when they take local paradigms into account. For many Bantu-speakers, the relevant social and cultural issues are not secondary, despite the tendency of urbanized people to wrangle with reciprocity obligations, and Christians with the ambiguities involved. Since colonialism, the systematic negation of African cultures, practices, knowledge, values, morals and ethics has provoked an ambivalent or undervaluing attitude that many members of African “elites” have internalized. This negation is part of the worldwide push for uniformity through Christianity, capitalism and globalization. Chapters one to four describe the central paradigms of (1) ancestorhood, (2) the notion of the strongly relational persons, (3) the value of transmission of life and taboos interfering in the search for health and well-being, and some ‘framings’ dealing with these paradigms, by discussing ritual effectiveness, and (4) ambivalent vuloyi, okhwiri, kindoki and similar notions of so-called ‘witchcraft’ that influence vital strength in a sense-giving concept activated by, e.g., AIDS, misfortunes, death or inequalities. The author discusses main notions and categories used especially in health, education and law in eight Bantu linguistic areas in Mozambique and four other ‘Bantu’ linguistic areas of Southwest DR Congo, showing differences and similarities. The basic common values expressed in these paradigms are deeply anchored and part of life. Chapters five and six describe and discuss the application of the paradigms described in Part I in the areas of health (and education for HIV prevention) and law. The author suggests that social and cultural inclusion allows more effectiveness in interventions that aim to introduce behavioral changes. The health application deals with HIV/AIDS: how to motivate people to get tested for HIV; how to reduce the number of antiretroviral therapy interruptions, how to achieve more effective HIV-prevention education, in including also HIV/AIDS education in youth initiation rites. Chapter six describes and analyses practices in "living right", local palavers and rituals, which are used to treat conflicts in communities. Palavers and rituals help to manage conflicts between people who are perceived in terms of "witchcraft": there are strong similarities involving differences in the way healers and leaders neutralize the harmfulness included in okhwiri, kindoki and similar notions of "witchcraft". These examples testify to the relevance of multicultural practices conveying values, notions of morality and ethics deeply rooted locally. Chapter seven discusses the insistence of healers, leaders, and initiating counsellors that knowledge is involved in updated endogenous paradigms, contrary to the claims of physicians, lawyers, and development workers who in name of "modernity", deny the knowledge involved in "ancestral" practices and paradigms. These are often reduced to retrograde superstitions, either too religious or not religious enough, although they carry values that are relevant to many Bantu speakers in both countries. The author concludes in terms of multiple worlds and modernities, and questions any fundamentalist ontological assignment. The author discusses the ontological theories used in anthropology, which describe the "endogenous" paradigms as fundamentally ontological. Following the ethical critique of Levinas and Derrida towards fundamental ontology for its egocentric reduction to the self-measured similarity of "Being," the author analyses such ontological assignments for the Mozambican and Congolese Bantu context described. Do they establish "what is" in fixing identities? Or does rather a notion of relational life predominate, of becoming in multiple worlds where people combine multiple worlds, different approaches in great multiplicity, in coexisting multiple modernities. The recognition of the multiplicity of African categories and practices is relevant from the "local" point of view to which this study gives a voice, in a contribution to the decolonization of mind, knowledge and practices

Ram pressure stripping of the multiphase ISM in the Virgo cluster spiral galaxy NGC 4438

Ram pressure stripping of the multiphase ISM is studied in the perturbed Virgo cluster spiral galaxy NGC 4438. This galaxy underwent a tidal interaction ~100 Myr ago and is now strongly affected by ram pressure stripping. Deep VLA radio continuum observations at 6 and 20 cm are presented. We detect prominent extraplanar emission to the west of the galactic center, which extends twice as far as the other tracers of extraplanar material. The spectral index of the extraplanar emission does not steepen with increasing distance from the galaxy. This implies in situ re-acceleration of relativistic electrons. The comparison with multiwavelength observations shows that the magnetic field and the warm ionized interstellar medium traced by Halpha emission are closely linked. The kinematics of the northern extraplanar Halpha emission, which is ascribed to star formation, follow those of the extraplanar CO emission. In the western and southern extraplanar regions, the Halpha measured velocities are greater than those of the CO lines. We suggest that the ionized gas of this region is excited by ram pressure. The spatial and velocity offsets are consistent with a scenario where the diffuse ionized gas is more efficiently pushed by ram pressure stripping than the neutral gas. We suggest that the recently found radio-deficient regions compared to 24 mum emission are due to this difference in stripping efficiency.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, A&A, accepted for publicatio

Ongoing Gas Stripping in the Virgo Cluster Spiral NGC 4522

The Virgo cluster galaxy NGC 4522 is one of the best spiral candidates for ICM-ISM stripping in action. Optical broadband and H-alpha images from the WIYN telescope of the highly inclined galaxy reveal a relatively undisturbed stellar disk and a peculiar distribution of H-alpha emission. Ten percent of the H-alpha emission arises from extraplanar HII regions which appear to lie within filamentary structures >3 kpc long above one side of the disk. The filaments emerge from the outer edge of a disk of bright H-alpha emission which is abruptly truncated beyond 0.35R(25). Together the truncated H-alpha disk and extraplanar H-alpha filaments are reminiscent of a bow shock morphology, which strongly suggests that the interstellar medium (ISM) of NGC 4522 is being stripped by the gas pressure of the intracluster medium (ICM). The galaxy has a line-of-sight velocity of 1300 km/sec with respect to the mean Virgo cluster velocity, and thus is expected to experience a strong interaction with the intracluster gas. The existence of HII regions apparently located above the disk plane suggests that star formation is occuring in the stripped gas, and that newly formed stars will enter the galaxy halo and/or intracluster space. The absence of HII regions in the disk beyond 0.35R(25), and the existence of HII regions in the stripped gas suggest that even molecular gas has been effectively removed from the disk of the galaxy.Comment: to appear in The Astronomical Journal, 16 pages, 5 figures, 1 tabl

Radio continuum spectra of galaxies in the Virgo cluster region

New radio continuum observations of galaxies in the Virgo cluster region at 4.85, 8.6, and 10.55 GHz are presented. These observations are combined with existing measurements at 1.4 and 0.325 GHz. The sample includes 81 galaxies were spectra with more than two frequencies could be derived. Galaxies that show a radio-FIR excess exhibit central activity (HII, LINER, AGN). The four Virgo galaxies with the highest absolute radio excess are found within 2 degrees of the center of the cluster. Galaxies showing flat radio spectra also host active centers. There is no clear trend between the spectral index and the galaxy's distance to the cluster center.Comment: 13 pages, 12 figures. Accepted for publication in A&

Dust Streamers in the Virgo Galaxy M86 from Ram Pressure Stripping of its Companion VCC 882

The giant elliptical galaxy M86 in Virgo has a ~28 kpc long dust trail inside its optical halo that points toward the nucleated dwarf elliptical galaxy, VCC 882. The trail seems to be stripped material from the dwarf. Extinction measurements suggest that the ratio of the total gas mass in the trail to the blue luminosity of the dwarf is about unity, which is comparable to such ratios in dwarf irregular galaxies. The ram pressure experienced by the dwarf galaxy in the hot gaseous halo of M86 was comparable to the internal gravitational binding energy density of the presumed former gas disk in VCC 882. Published numerical models of this case are consistent with the overall trail-like morphology observed here. Three concentrations in the trail may be evidence for the predicted periodicity of the mass loss. The evaporation time of the trail is comparable to the trail age obtained from the relative speed of the galaxies and the trail length. Thus the trail could be continuously formed from stripped replenished gas if the VCC 882 orbit is bound. However, the high gas mass and the low expected replenishment rate suggest that this is only the first stripping event. Implications for the origin of nucleated dwarf ellipticals are briefly discussed.Comment: 22 pages, 7 figures, Astronomical Journal, August 2000, in pres

Low-Level Nuclear Activity in Nearby Spiral Galaxies

We are conducting a search for supermassive black holes (SMBHs) with masses below 10^7 M_sun by looking for signs of extremely low-level nuclear activity in nearby galaxies that are not known to be AGNs. Our survey has the following characteristics: (a) X-ray selection using the Chandra X-ray Observatory, since x-rays are a ubiquitous feature of AGNs; (b) Emphasis on late-type spiral and dwarf galaxies, as the galaxies most likely to have low-mass SMBHs; (c) Use of multiwavelength data to verify the source is an AGN; and (d) Use of the highest angular resolution available for observations in x-rays and other bands, to separate nuclear from off-nuclear sources and to minimize contamination by host galaxy light. Here we show the feasibility of this technique to find AGNs by applying it to six nearby, face-on spiral galaxies (NGC 3169, NGC 3184, NGC 4102, NGC 4647, NGC 4713, NGC 5457) for which data already exist in the Chandra archive. All six show nuclear x-ray sources. The data as they exist at present are ambiguous regarding the nature of the nuclear x-ray sources in NGC 4713 and NGC 4647. We conclude, in accord with previous studies, that NGC 3169 and NGC 4102 are almost certainly AGNs. Most interestingly, a strong argument can be made that NGC 3184 and NGC 5457, both of type Scd, host AGNs.Comment: 37 pages, 10 figures, ApJ, in press. Replaced with accepted versio