Sparks of Otherness: Sparks of Otherness: Producing Representations of Albinism in Documentary Films from the Global North

My analysis here examines three of these documentary films – Zeru Zeru the Ghosts (2009), Black Man White Skin (2015) and The Boy from Geita (2014) – produced by media companies from the North. The present chapter sets out to highlight how these media productions represent the social, political and individual aspects of living with albinism, and the phenomenon of the violence against persons with the condition in Tanzania and other African countries.5 On the one hand, I outline how these documentary films portray humanitarian activities carried out by international NGOs and other humanitarian agencies from the global North (e.g. the United Nations). On the other hand, my examination reveals in which symbolic ways these media productions seek to illustrate Tanzanian and African social and political contexts.