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Welcome to the Abstracts and Bios section! Click on the letter range to find the Abstract or Panelist you desire. Working to Erase Misconceptions: The New Literature of AIDS in Africa By Since their discovery in 1981, the diseases of HIV and AIDS have become a widespread epidemic. However, while HIV and AIDS touch every corner of the globe and individuals from every walk of life, they are seen most prominently on the continent of Africa. The high statistical incidence of the disease on the continent is coupled with stigmas attached to those that are infected, as well as numerous misconceptions about the prevention, contraction and treatment of the disease. Although AIDS is a relatively recent phenomenon, there is a growing body of literature, both fictional and non-fictional, related to the disease. While this literature comes largely from American writers, there are also several African scholars and authors who have written on the topic. This paper will analyze African authors from both of these genres, including works such as the novel Far and Beyon’ and the collection of short stories Writing Still, as well as more scholarly non-fiction literature. These works will be analyzed in order to look at how they address central questions such as the prevention, contraction and treatment of HIV and AIDS, the stigmas associated with the disease in Africa, as well as the social and cultural implications of the disease. This research also seeks to identify the main audiences of these works and examine their effectiveness in raising awareness and promoting public health education in Africa.
Family Health Awareness as Conceptualised in Selected Yoruba Electronic Drama By Family health awareness is given a prime global focus due to the spread of
HIV\AIDS scourge in every society of the world. The Society for Family Health
and some non governmental organizations are at the forefront of the fight
against the spread of the deadly disease. The Yoruba literary artistes, also,
through their literary works have suggested the probable way out of this
menace. However, literary artistes’ crusade against HIV\AIDS is limited to the
educated elites. In order to have a wider spread of the awareness campaing, some
Yoruba radio and television drama presentations are being used for the crusade.
electronic drama is the most popular out of the various ways of communicating
Outlaw Orisa: Cosmological Imperialism and the Re-Making of Esu By This paper contends that while Esu -an Orisa that is a central figure in Yoruba cosmology- is revered amongst many of the Orisa spiritual traditions in the Yoruba diaspora, this deity largely remains “the devil” amongst the Yoruba-speaking populace both in Yorubaland, Nigeria and its more recent diaspora. This paper discusses the various constructions of Esu amongst Yoruba peoples and its diasporic communities while arguing that contemporary notions of Esu as “the devil” are a result of the violent insertion of Christianity as choreographed by Christian missionaries into Yorubaland. Hence a collision of two different cosmological systems which are anchored in and operate with different philosophical underpinnings: one Yoruba and the other British. British missionarism in Yorubaland has rendered a religious dichotomization and, at the very least, an ideological displacement of Esu in the Yoruba cosmological system. Toyin Falola’s discussion of this binary in A Mouth Sweeter than Salt will be utilized as the entry point for this argument, while Femi Osofisan’s, Esu and the Vagabond Minstrels, as well as the author’s own personal experiences as a Yoruba woman in the diaspora will be utilized to further complicate and move beyond such hegemonically-derived fictions about this dynamic Orisa.
Symbolic Representations in the Visual and Material Cultures of Africa and By The visual and material cultures of Africa are as diverse as the various cultural groups in which they are produced and sustained. However, despite their diversity, African visual and material cultures share the common import of functioning as vehicles for the communication of a group’s beliefs and identity. In this paper, the nature of several visual and material cultural practices in Africa is discussed and their contents are explored for better understanding of meanings and functions. Furthermore, the influences of African visual and material cultures on the African Diaspora are explored with focus on the African American community. These cultural influences are discussed with emphasis on how they impact the socio-cultural and economic relationships between African societies and the African American community.
Popular Culture in Mutual: Aid in Contemporary West Nigeria By Among the popular cultures in West Nigeria is self-help, which encompasses several socio-economic undertakings of the populace. The Cooperative concept is well known even in the Western world, as levels of hierarchies and structures, which facilitate mutually benefiting aids for the advancement of cooperators’ positions. The informal cooperative scheme is perhaps less known but which is popular in West Nigeria. It basically involves pooling funds of cooperators and giving same to individuals in turn, until every member of the group has received his share, whose value would be the total of his own periodic contributions. The mutual farming aid is another form of cooperation where cooperators work in turn as a team, in members’ farm holdings, until individual holdings have all benefited. This Paper attempts to examine the workings of these two schemes as outfits for equitable socio-economic mobilization. Although the dearth of empirical data in these areas has not facilitated the necessary validation for their desirability, both schemes nonetheless remain veritable tools of socio-economic emancipation of the people of this African sub-region. Reconstituting Institutions, Ritual and Spiritual Community: By The influx of African immigrants into different global spatial locations, especially urban America, has helped to reproduce and restructure different aspects of their cultural repertoires within their new clime. Among such reproduced formations are different aspects of their religions-its expressive forms, values, and underlying structural forms, especially those varying forms reflective of popular religiosity, and other unique cultural and ritual forms as specific derivatives from their aboriginal African cultural niche.
Ifa Belief System from its Spiritual Realm to the World Popular Culture Domain By Ifa is the Divine Message of Olodumare, Almighty God, to Mankind. It explains both secular and sacred aspects of human and inhuman lives. The present situation in the knowledge development sphere has brought this esoteric knowledge system to the world table of discourse of a Common Man. Of recent we hear people talking of Ifa Literary Corpus and Binary System; Ifa literary Corpus and Probability Theory; Mathematical observations of Ifa Literary Corpus; From Ifa Divination to Computer Science; and Ifa in the globalized world. The aim of the paper is to probe into the trend and sequence of Ifa from the world of spirits to a secular popular knowledge system. The findings revealed that Ifa is a living culture that is dynamics and fits in content and context with the new social happenings, occurrences and events. Abiodun Agboola is a Ph.D. holder in the area of Yoruba Indigenous knowledge for Agricultural Development currently teaching and conducting research in the Department of Agricultural Extension and Rural Sociology, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria and the Executive Director, Ifa Research Institute, Oyo.
Interaction of English with Yoruba Language: Case study in culture change By “Wir haben so viele Onkels” said the little German daughter of a Nigerian father and proceeded to list them on her fingers. Included in the list are friends of the father who had been introduced or mentioned with the prefix ‘uncle’. She said “since they are my uncles, they are part of my family, right?” Culture changes in part due to such factors as innovation within a culture, diffusion of ideas, subjugation by another culture, and through socio-cultural and political contacts and interactions between cultures. Colonialism, as a process of subjugation, brought forced imposition of English language and educational system to the Yoruba nation among others ethnicities in Nigeria. Embedded in any language are the psychology of the speakers, their worldviews and the principal classification of their experiences. The system of education reflects and facilitates the transmission of ethos, value, and institutional structures encoded by the language of a community. The imposed English language, enhanced by the educational system introduced to the Yoruba community new social structures and informed the reevaluation of others for example kinship terms and kinship types. This paper concerns culture change. Its main aim is to examine the imprint of English language in the familial relationship and cultural perspectives of kinship among Yoruba speakers of Nigeria. Specifically,
The data for this discussion will be drawn from Yoruba people in Nigeria and in the Diaspora.
Popular Culture and Political Behaviour in By Political Behaviour in post-colonial South-West Nigeria rivets in popular cultures as media of political activities. It is instructive to note however that this credo of the indigenous media and art dates back to the pre-colonial and colonial times. Little wonder then that the post-colonial political history has been enriched by popular culture (media). This paper submits that political behaviour in post-colonial South West Nigeria has been redefined by indigenous media – the slogans and slangs, court, poetry and music. These largely oral genres contributed immensely to the efforts at opening up the political space, affected positively or negatively the fortunes or misfortunes of the political actors. It is against this background that we seek to explore and answer questions like: What is the historiography of popular culture (media) in the political engineering or re-engineering of the society? How have the popular media affected political behaviour in post-colonial south west Nigeria? Who are the role actors in this important aspect of political behaviour? What are the positive / negative impact of popular culture on the political society? What is the future of this rich cultural interface with politics? Myths, Reality and Relevance of A Popular Culture: By Observation reveals that tribal mark is still a very popular culture among the Oyo Yoruba of South Western Nigeria. Though controversial, the continued relevance of the practice is not in doubt. A Mark of identification, beatification, reconciliation, legitimacy, a statement of rights, facial marks continue to mean different things to different people in different situations. For some African Americans and others in the Diaspora, it is a means of holding on firmly to a part of their double consciousness, an assurance of their Africaness, as well as a spiritual experience. Using oral tradition as the main source of information, the researchers attempted an examination of the popularity and continued relevance of tribal marks in Oyo town
Perception of Representations of Rituals and By Religion is one of the factors that Nigerians hang their believe on for safety and procurement of spiritual, material and safety needs. Because man is constantly living in fears is why there is always a drift from one religious movement to the other, be it Christianity, Islamic or traditional. There is no pagan in Nigeria. With the colonial and jihadist incursions into Nigeria , religious adherence has dropped from traditional beliefs to either Christianity or Islam. However, the manner of portrayal of religions in Nigerian movies paints a picture of confused elements. To some Nigerians, the traditional religion, symbolized through ritual elements is evil. Yet, many consult it for many making rituals. If the traditional religion is portrayed as efficacious as regards money-making medium, the portrayal of the negative consequences of amassing wealth through it to a great extent debunks its negative connotations. Analysis of Abela pupa a Yoruba movie and Evil seed depict the confused Nigerians who mostly double as ardent Christians but in actual fact are ritualists. While this paper wonders at the state of religious confusions, it shows that hypocrisy is the bane of those that jump nocturnally from one sect to the other and concludes that is man that is unstable and not the religious sects.
Our Culture, Our Crime? The Impact of Myth and By Culture is defined as the totality of socially transmitted behavior patterns, arts, beliefs, institutions, and all other products of human work and thought. The rich African culture contains myths which are believed to foster HIV/AIDS transmission. The prevalence rate of HIV/AIDS in Africa is 11% as compared to 0.8%, 0.3% and 0.1% in North America, Western Europe and worldwide respectively. Africa continues to have the highest incidence in the world. The continent is inhabited by 12% of the world’s population but accounts for an estimated 60% of HIV/AIDS population. HIV/ AIDS has also drastically reduced life expectancy in this region of the world. Concurrently, a high incidence and prevalence is also found among the African American. AIDS is a leading cause of death of African-American males ages 25 to 44. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), AIDS affects nearly seven times more African Americans and three times more Hispanics than whites. Is culture a major determinant in the transmission, prevalence and incidence of HIV/AIDS? The paper compares the African culture with the African American culture and with some other western cultures and examines the impacts and relationship of myth and culture on HIV/AIDS transmission. It draws conclusions based on this relationship and proffers necessary recommendations. Reconstructing Africa’s Popular Culture through music By While Africa is a poor continent today, it has an extremely rich musical
heritage. For centuries, it was the center for the great trans-global caravans
during the trade with the Middle East and Europe for slaves, weapons, jewelry
and salt. The memory of ancient Africa is alive today in the tales of the
griots- the professional historians, praise-singers and musical entertainers of
modern Africa.
Africa’s popular music today cannot be removed from its early history, African
kinship, the kingdoms, Slavery, and political independence. The Popular culture
MAMA Put: Why Men Eat Out in Contemporary Nigeria By That human beings eat to live and live to eat is a succinct summarization of the centrality of eating to man. Every human society has its own delicacies, which are reflective and indicative of the level of human development in such societies. The ritualization of eating experienced a major shift in the 18th and 19th centuries when eating assumed a more social function. Eating out was less known in Nigerian cities and major centers of commerce, industry and politics until the late 1980’s. And just as the opening years of the 1960’s were remarkable for night crawling and clubbing, the1990’s witnessed the proliferation of eateries where matrons /chiefs presided with grandeur, carriage and self-assuredness; confident of the taste of their cuisine and meeting the needs of their clients. The emergent middle class of technocrats and administrators in the finance, extractive and corporate world found solace in the less informal joints where nutritious, delicious and relatively cheap indigenous preparations could be enjoyed. The personal and friendly attention of the matron, her amiable mien and personal charm, the convenience and promptness of service, the availability of choice, and of course, the conviviality of the environment are enough appeals for regular patronage. Mama Put joints have a way of encouraging clients to enjoy good meals and at the same time treat a client’s, dates and friends in the friendliest way. They provide opportunities for socialization, display of affluence, and relaxation. The paper will discuss ‘Mama Put’ joints in Lagos, Ibadan, Kaduna, and Port Harcourt to underscore their relevance in contemporary Nigeria. It will also appreciate the impact of the new age on values and beliefs about food.
Alive and Well in the Caribbean: How African Popular Culture is From their creole languages to their equally famous carnivals, many of Puerto Rico’s island neighbors provide ready examples of the survival of African language and culture in the Caribbean. However, no less deserving of scholarly attention are the ways in which aspects of African popular culture and the very words used to name them have survived and continue to thrive on the Spanish-speaking islands. Although Puerto Rico shares many cultural similarities with the larger hispanophile islands of Cuba and the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico’s controversial status as a territory of the United States and the affect this has had on local popular culture has often absorbed the attention of academics and researchers. In addition, movements interested in romanticizing the jibaro, the peasant of European descent, as the symbol of island nationalism have often undervalued the African roots of many aspects of Puerto Rican popular culture. However, the call for equal attention to the ways in which African culture is reflected in island culture is growing. This study will investigate first how African popular culture is reflected in the vocabulary of Puerto Rican Spanish, relying on early and later etymological histories, popular “language of the street” dictionaries, and historical accounts of word usage. In addition, to the extent possible, the precise African provenance of the words will be investigated. The study will then focus on one example in each popular domain, e.g., the music/dance called bomba, discussing and illustrating its role in Puerto Rican culture, and relating it to possible African sources. The Diamond Pipeline and Literary Production: By The novels Death in Beirut by Tawfiq Awwad (1972) and The Story of Zahra (1986) by Hanan Al-Shaykh take their place on the “diamond pipeline” of literary production of the Lebanese in West Africa and, more broadly, Afro-Arab relations and the literary representations of those relationships. The term “diamond pipeline” in the diamond industry refers to the flow of diamonds from mine to consumer and the hierarchy of buyers privileged with access to the diamonds. But the term also functions as a lens for analyzing the emergence of Africa in the consciousness of two Lebanese novelists. The emergence of “Africa” in the novels reveals what much of the recent literature generated by human rights organizations and journalists regarding “Afro-Arab” relations do not: the connections between Lebanon and West Africa extend further back than the current relationships established between “terrorist networks” and war faction groups, like Al-Qaeda and Hamas and Lebanese diamond merchants in Sierra Leone. The idealized “dance” of globalization is not new to either region; the “flows of capital, people, ideas, and symbols,” in the words of Frederick Cooper, do not project out evenly, but often asymmetrically, and their movements are not rhythmic, reciprocal, or coordinated. Both Death in Beirut and The Story of Zahra are Lebanese civil war novels crisscrossed with the boundaries and routes of the diasporic Lebanese in West Africa. Through their protagonists, the novels reveal crises of masculinity and family betrayal that indicate new alliances, evoking Edward Said’s conception of the shift from filiative to affiliative identification in The World, the Text, and the Critic (1983). Insofar as the novels portray the ways in which the Lebanese civil war was fought over a construction of the nation, the problematic familial relationships presented in the texts provide a parallel construction to the struggles of inventing a community. Frederick Cooper conceives of the idealized, albeit fragmented, “dance” of globalization as one in which the “flows of capital, people, ideas, and symbols” (Cooper 2001, 193) do not project out evenly, but often asymmetrically, and its movements are not rhythmic, reciprocal, or coordinated: various players in the Middle East, Europe, and the US played a part in the Lebanese war and the Palestinian people’s displacement, but the war only played out in Lebanon and Palestine. The Guinea conveyed in Death in Beirut is today host to Sierra Leonean refugees who have fled a criminal war of extraction. This war made possible the flow of diamonds out of rebel-controlled areas of Sierra Leone to consumers across the world that rarely ask about or acknowledge the bloody trail that the stones leave behind. The novels’ treatment of the collapse of filiative relationships functions analogically with their narrativization of the dissolution of nationalist identity in Lebanon. Significantly, the emergence of Lebanese migration to West Africa in the texts, with respect to diamond mining and smuggling, critically points to the elements that bind and disunify African and Arab movements and alliances. The crisis of the family insists upon the collapse of the private and the public sphere in analyzing failed state formation in Palestine, dissolution of the state in Lebanon, and the representation, albeit out-of-focus, of recovering Guinea in its post-independence years.
Popular Culture and Reading for Pleasure By Wole Soyinka reminds us that for youths of his generation reading was a vital source of entertainment and that the cheap local and imported fiction that young men devoured was an integral element in urban popular cultures—part of an eclectic mix of newspapers and magazines as well as films, radio, and popular music. Booksellers were ubiquitous on the sidewalks and markets in African towns and cities, and readers snapped up the latest titles, circulated them among friends, discussed them endlessly, treasured or sold them as they moved on to the latest potboilers. In Nigeria, especially, Onitsha market literature fed a mass market for reading, but the equivalent on a lesser scale existed in many African countries. For historians, however, reading has been less often a subject than literacy; but as Stephanie Newell’s excellent recent work on Ghanaian popular fiction makes plain, reading represents a very important aspect of the history of popular culture in modern Africa.
Neither Bold nor Beautiful nor Young and Restless: By Western soap operas such as The Bold and the Beautiful, The Young and the Restless, Days of Our Lives, All My Children, As the World Turns, General Hospital, One Life to Live, and Passions are becoming increasingly popular in many African countries. This article examines the impact of these soap operas on African societies. It looks at the ramifications of globalization of entertainment and the infiltration of Western culture in innermost areas of life in African societies through two popular soap operas in Kenya - The Bold and the Beautiful and The Young and the Restless. The main objective is to find out why these soap operas are popular and whether they are indeed responsible for the things that they are being blamed for. Using newspapers, interviews, e-mail surveys and public conversations, this paper interrogates the influence of these TV shows on the Kenyan society. The paper will interrogate the ways in which these soaps have been received in Kenya, especially their social and cultural ramifications. Many of these shows question many old values and roles of men and women, and open up new ways of looking at love, relations, marriage, power, authority and nuclear family ideal. They promote equality of sexes while appearing to promote promiscuity. At the same time they may seem to encourage non-binding love affairs. I suggest that these soaps support ideals of equality between the sexes and have great appeal to the educated that speak and understand the English language in which they are transmitted. They have created tensions. In Kenya, this has made many church leaders and some politicians to condemn the soaps as being responsible for the level of moral decadence that afflicts society today. I will argue that soap operas provide space in which cultural experiences can be compared. They have also increased generational gaps and allowed for general social transformation that renders the authority of older generations and also of the church and state questionable. I would like to suggest that these TV shows open up the discursive spaces in which various taboo subjects such as love and sex can be discussed. They represent alternative areas in which debates on key social and moral questions can be debated. In that sense therefore, soaps contribute extensively to the founding of democratic public and private spheres. Soaps elicit creative tension, inscribing certain ideas and values in the minds of the viewers while simultaneously critiquing discourses of 'normal' in societal perception of love and sexuality.
NoSRA Model: The tool for normalizing image problems in Nigerian Video Movies By That the movie, a popular culture is an employment creation medium in Nigerian is not an over statement. With both trained and untrained as practitioners, and usually with a production budget of over Two million Naira, it has not only turned around the financial fortunes of these artistes, it has increased the foreign capital base of the nation. By its popularity both within and outside the nation and across genders, social status and age it, has cut for itself the niche, Nollywood. It ranks third to the Indian Bollywood and American Hollywood . However, underneath its wide acceptance is the problem of the type of pictures often painted about Nigeria and the representation of Nigerians. This is so even as the movie producers keep on developing new strategies to keep on accessing the fortunes the genre can generate. For instance, across cultures it has developed from local language based, to English as the medium of presentation, and to trans-cultural casting and
Bloom to Gloom and Grime to Crime: Fate of Migrants By The issue of emigration started from the colonial era; when Nigerian students on scholarship and politicians return to the country with mind blowing experiences of the write man’s land. The pursuit of Golden Fleece and the rise in status became eye openers. However, the crash in Nigerian economy necessitated the search for greener pastures abroad and national insecurities is another factor that accounts for the global drifts.
Mass Media Misrepresentations of Africa: A Case Study of Nigeria By Nigeria, an oil and intellectual rich country of 140 million people has been recently portrayed negatively in the US media by several television networks. The authors argue that the presence of a few rogues in the society does not warrant the media to stereotype the entire country as fraudulent. Furthermore, the authors aim to correct those negative stereotypes and portray contributions that Nigerians have made that often goes unacknowledged. Brian Ross of ABC in his report on 20/20 in December 2006 describes the city Lagos as “sprawling, crime ridden, corrupt disgrace of a city with a population of 20 million and an average income of $1”. Another issue noted by Brian Ross in his report is that “ripping of Americans has been celebrated in Nigeria”. He portrays the music of one musician as the view of the entire country. Topics of discussion in this presentation will include: an overview of Nigeria today focusing on cultural, environmental, social, and political issues to give the audience information about the country; positive contributions of Nigeria to the world community; and finally how the mass media continues to tarnish Nigeria's image by stereotyping Nigerians with the crimes of a few bad eggs. Finally, the presenters will conclude with recommendations of how to move forward and improve Nigeria and the overall African image. Audience interaction and participation will be strongly encouraged to formulate recommendations. As hardworking Nigerians in the Diaspora, we strongly feel inclined and responsible for improving Africa's image globally especially so that the future generation will be proud to identify with Africa. African Women and the Christian church their ministerial role: Myth or historical By There appears to be divergence views on the leadership roles African women should play as many of them scramble with their male counter part for ministerial position in the church. Those who based their assertion on the equality of Adam and Eve as depicted by Genesis account 1:26-27 are of the view that ministerial roles should not be the prerogatives of men. They argue that by the mode of creation, man and woman are created equal. Therefore, the ministerial role should not be the prerogative of men. But those who see otherwise are of the view that women should always play complementary roles since they are created as help mates.However, the advocates of equality were emboldened by the conferences of Mexico and that of Beijing where women issues were given impetus. This paper sets to probe each claim with a view to fervent out the authenticity and the extent to which they synchronize with the biblical injunction. The second, which logically flows from the first, is whether in reality modern women are following the footsteps of their biblical predecessors in the teaching of Christ. And thirdly, when viewed from the African perspective are modern women emboldened by the kind of religious roles played by the traditional women or are all these just personal egoistic ambition by them so as to put them at par with men in the church? These are the questions the paper aims to probe with a view to philosophically address the issue. Resistance and Anti-colonial Agitation: By The construction and development of the Nigerian railway between 1896 and 1960 was undertaken by the British imperial and Nigerian colonial governments. Throughout the colonial period, the Nigerian Railway was the largest single employer of labor, and by 1960 it had more 30,000 workers. Of this number, close to two thousands were European officials, mainly British. This minority group held and controlled the middle and top echelon of the railway organization. During the decolonization period (c. 1945 to 1960) Nigerian railway workers not only became more vociferous in their attacks of perceived racial discrimination by European staff and the management, they also started agitating for the rapid and complete “Nigerianization” of the staff of the corporation. To give practical effects to these efforts, the senior Nigerian staff formed the Association of Indigenous Officers on 27 May 1959; and to effectively mobilize its members, other categories of railway workers, and the generality of Nigerians, on the 26 June 1959, it decided to launch a newsletter. The first edition was published in August 1959. The Newsletter eventually became a thorn in the flesh of NRC’s management. Through the use of devastating editorials, poetry, sarcasm, wit, and derision, it drew attention to the failings of the Europeans, the management and the colonial government. Such was its impact that the management decided to post the association’s principal officers across over the country so that they would not congregate in one location to cause mischief! The paper therefore seeks to examine the operation, content, and success of the Newsletter as a tool of mobilization and anti-colonial resistance in the NRC.
Temne Agency in the propagation and Africanization of By This paper seeks to examine Temne stewardship and agency within the Islamic community in colonial Freetown. Why and how did the Temne become one of the dominant Islamic communities in a largely Christian settlement? While the Aku (Muslim Creole), Mandingo and Fula have been credited for their role in spreading the teachings of Islam in colonial Freetown in the 19 th and 20 th centuries, sources show that the Temne became by far the chief propagators of the religion in colonial Freetown in the 20 th century. In addition to being one of the preponderant propagators of the faith, the Temne also played a bigger role in the Sierra Leonization/Africanization of Islam in Freetown at this time. Temne agents such as Alhaji Gibril Sesay and Haja Sukainatu Bangura not only helped entrench Islam, they also influenced colonial policy in recognizing the relevance of Islam in the cultural development of Freetown. This paper examines these socio-religious dynamics and argues that though the extant literature privileges the role of Muslim creoles over non-Muslim creoles in spreading Islam, Temne institutions and agents proved far more effective in the Sierra Leonization/Africanization of Islam in colonial Freetown.
The Postcolonial Sublime: By The impact for and on Botswana of popular fiction is impossible to assess, though it is undoubtedly very considerable. The overwhelmingly popular detective novel series by Alexander McCall Smith, which thus far has seen seven volumes: The Number 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency (1998); Tears of the Giraffe (2000); Morality for Beautiful Girls (2001); The Kalahari Typing School for Men (2002); The Full Cupboard of Life (2003); In the Company of Cheerful Ladies (2004), Blue Shoes and Happiness (2006), has undoubtedly situated Botswana on the mental map of the world. This paper examines the emergence and growth in southern Africa of popular detective fiction, how the form has been adapted to suit current purposes, developments in the genre, and most saliently, the projection of a postcolonial sublime – an affirmation of sets of values and hybrid modern lifestyles which, while instantly understandable for the Western reader, are undoubtedly non-commensurable with those of the Western world and therefore difficult to assimilate, that is, unless such a reader endorses the inherent valorisation of the postcolony over the erstwhile empire. Alinesitoue: From a Diola Woman Prophet to Casamancais and Senegalese Cultural Icons By This paper briefly examines the prophetic career of Alinesitoue Diatta, a Diola woman, who was actively involved in the revitalization of indigenous religion and the critique of French colonial agricultural development schemes, before her arrest, exile, and death at the hands of the Vichy government in French West Africa. It will focus on the popular cultural contestation over her legacy, Senegalese or Casamancais, national or Diola. Her memory was kept alive by oral traditions, while French and Senegalese government officials kept her trial secret for forty-four years after her arrest in 1943. Her rain-making rituals, known as Kasila, continued to be practiced after her arrest, reinforcing Diola memory of her teachings and prophetic career. Partially in response to this movement, the government claimed her as a national heroine of resistance on behalf of all Senegalese. In 1987, President Diouf sent a commission to Timbuctou to find out her fate. He also declassified Senegalese archival sources which treated her trial and death by starvation, in 1944. A northern Senegalese writer wrote a play about her, claiming her as a heroine of Senegalese resistance, just as a Diola woman who had played her in the 1960s play claimed that she too had become a prophet and took on the name of Alinesitoue.
Bringing You The World? Representation of Africa in the United Nations Guided Tour By Since 1952, over 38 million people have taken the United Nations Guided Tour (UNGT) in United Nations (UN) headquarters in New York. The UNGT, conducted year-round on a daily basis, narrates the foundation of the World Organization, its organs, functions, and past and present activities, and includes a visit to the councils’ chambers, the General Assembly hall, several informational exhibits, and art works. This paper inquires whether old perceptions from the colonial and slave-trade period, such as Hegel’s dictum of Africa as "Unhistorical” and having "no movement or development to exhibit”, resurface in the representation of Africa in the UNGT? Analyzing photographs, the sequence of the tour, and the tour’s performative nature, I argue that this entrenched view continues to dominate the representation of Africa in the decolonization, peacekeeping, humanitarian assistance, and development discourses narrated on the tour. The Rhyme pays Senegal: Money, Politics, and Religion in Hip Hop By That hip hop brings money to its actors is not shocking or astonishing. It is known that the cultural industry is a gigantic machine which generates large profits. But what is striking, it is the ostentation with which the rappers exhibit their external signs of their financial success. The satisfaction of the acquired financial success seems all the more legitimate as it is about individuals who, by their social origin, were not destined to enjoy wealth and material comfort. This desire for wealth is polymorphic, ambivalent and it generates contradictory tensions which rap reflects. The rap lyrics have the merit to refer to precise facts and intend to remain within the field of a pictural criticism. In the excess of the polemic, the rappers reach an undeniable expressive effectiveness because they succeed in introducing in the texts the necessary dose of nuance which makes their speech credible. Last but not least, the roadblocks created by the Senegalese society justify why many young people turn ostensibly towards the religious values, particularly the Islamic ones, as the best way to resist those of the haughty Western Europe. Rappers and the hip hop culture intend to be the natural echo of this orientation.
"Infectious Beats: Appropriation of Hip Hop into a By This paper considers the appropriation of Hip Hop by the State in Zimbabwe as a tool of propaganda. Whereas scholarship in African American Studies, Africana Studies and American Studies posits Hip Hop music as a site of resistence to the political and economic marginalization of people of color in the Americas, the State in Zimbabwe has used the music to perform its being. Faced by domestic and international condemnation of its often violent land acquisition program and its mishandling of the ensuing political, economic and humanitarian crises, what it blames on western imperialism, the State in Zimbabwe appropriated Hip Hop music and "nationalized" it arguably to control western cultural influences to the country's youths. Whereas the youths were fixated on western, particularly American, popular culture, the State devised a strategy to shut out western music arguably as a way to both control western cultural influences and to perform the ways of being of statehood. The State stopped the playing of all foreign music on radio under its policy of 75% local content and channelled resources to sponsoring youth artists doing local versions of Hip Hop, R&B and Dancehall. This resulted in "urban grooves", a genre of music not-not hip hop. The music became a performance of nationalism and resistence to perceived disruptive cosmopolitan influences. But it also became a way through which desonant artists performed resistance to state appropriation. The aim of the paper is to explore the ways in which Hip Hop music in Zimbabwe ends up performing a contradictory double function as it is on one hand appropriated by the State and, on another hand, by desonant artists as a counter narrative to state normativity. This disturbilizes the recieved notions of Hip Hop as essentially liberatory and, hopefully, opens up a new discursive space that brings insight into understanding the deployment of music in politics.
By This paper asks why Omar El Mukhtar became part of a spontaneously formed popular tradition. Born in the colonized worlds of Asia and Africa through in the 1930s and 1940s, the martyr’s name is now part of an Arab ‘imagined community’. Though it may well be claimed that the pattern of collective memory differed in Italy, Libya, and other countries (from complete or partial removal to re-appropriation), we claim that Omar El- Mukhtar demonstrates a uniform source of identification in the form of institutional tributes, as well as popular and artistic and cultural memorializations. It became instrumental not only in the history of modern Libya, but contributed to the formation of different forms of Arab nationalisms during their struggle against colonialism. Our concern is here to show how the martyr has been and is still used for political mobilization in Libya. We also make the case by examining the use of the martyr in the Palestinian territories. We attempt a preliminary analysis of the activities of an insurrection group- the “brigades” or “forces of Omar al-Mukhtar’– from its original inception to recent occurrences.
Blackface in Africa: the Emergence of the Diaspora consciousness in By Since the beginning of the transatlantic slave trade in the fifteenth century
contacts between people living in Africa and the Diaspora have had influences
of changing importance upon the development of cultures on both sides of the
Atlantic Ocean. Commodities and people have traveled from Africa to America and
back, and performance styles have traveled with them ever since. While having
moved mainly from Africa towards America during the period of slavery,
performance styles of the American Diaspora started to travel in the reverse
direction, especially after the end of the Civil War in the United States.
Blackface minstrelsy was the first major performance style to move from America
towards Africa. Originating in the U.S. the genre of blackface minstrelsy
theater traveled to various places all over the world. My paper takes a look at
the city of Cape Town and at the Gold Coast colony, and how local people in
these two places consciously chose to adopt blackface minstrelsy incorporated
it into their own performance culture. Thus, they began to imagine themselves
as members of a transatlantic non-white community. These enlarged boundaries of
identity arose not only through print culture and mass
media but, above all, through an "active, performative process of consumption"
(C.Cole 2001: Ghana's Concert Party Theatre, 37). Practitioners and spectators
By In the 1950s, white and black South Africans were reading the same books, despite the segregation of schools and libraries under apartheid legislation. In the face of the best efforts of missionaries and others to "moralize leisure time" and promote reading for education and uplift, the books read across the color line were overwhelmingly fiction, and popular fiction at that: romances, thrillers, detective stories, and Westerns. Utilizing accession records from libraries in South Africa's Western Cape, this paper investigates reasons for the popularity of "low-brow" fiction during the early years of apartheid. Literary Cultural Nationalists as Ambassadors across the Diaspora By This paper examines the roles of writers of African descent in the early 20th century as (self-proclaimed) cultural ambassadors of their people. From 1915 to 1945, eight literary movements occurred more or less simultaneously among people of color who experienced racialized colonial oppression in disparate parts of the Atlantic world. This paper will examine four movements including the Harlem Renaissance in the United States, Claridade in Cape Verde, the New African Movement in South Africa, and the Creole Belizean Nationalist Movement in Belize, and these movements’ writers’ role as cultural ambassadors for their respective peoples. Black intellectuals became frustrated at their inability to assimilate fully or equally into the dominant colonial culture and developed a variety of pre-independence movements that asserted positive collective identities of the oppressed Black masses. These intellectuals laid the foundation for the radicalization of parts of the African petty bourgeoisie by identifying more with the culture of the dominated than that of the colonial oppressor and facilitating contact between the Black elites and the masses. These intellectuals were literary cultural nationalists because they used their prose and poetry as a vehicle for the social liberation of Black people. As cultural ambassadors these authors not only represented their people to respective dominant White societies, but they literally re-presented their constituents. They used local or folk cultures as the sources of the contents of their work, including vernacular languages. They used modern literary forms to depict the cultural groups they represented, and they used realist portraits of folk culture to build positive group identities against stereotypical images in the dominant culture, as well as to critique the oppressive situation and the oppressors. Each movement resulted in Black intellectuals’ greater awareness of cultural identity, and often resulted in a movement for political or social liberation. Old Wine in a New Wineskin: Ademola Dasylva’s Songs of Odamolugbe By The choice of Songs of Odamolugbe as survival model for African oral poetry in the paper being proposed is informed by the growing concern, and the quest for artistic relevance, sustenance and continuity of the oral tradition either in its original form, or transformed (printed) form in the new millennium. It examines Kofi Anyidoho’s (1991) valuation of text-oriented approaches to performance, an amplification of Richard Bauman’s (1977) preference for poetry as a dramatic experience. Anyidoho also warned on the likelihood of a problem that may attend a performer’s assumption of the responsibility to an audience for display of communicative competence. Modern African poetry is characterized by a hybridity of form, which Biakolo (1989) described as “a confluence of alternative media”; a combination of western and African indigenous poetic models. Odamolugbe poems are cast in a performative mode that compels its ‘watching’ audience (readership) to “hear” the poems while the performance takes place in the ‘audience’s’ imagination, to the degree that they dramatize the rich resources of Yoruba indigenous poetry combining in one sweep, the three modes: recitation (arangbo), chants (isare), and songs (orin); the three subgenres: panegyric (oriki), incantatory (ofo), and divinatory (ese Ifa), as well as three of their subsets: proverb(owe), riddle (alo apamo), and chain poetry (aro)- all of which give its audience the full benefit of a holistic aesthetic beauty that characterize Yoruba indigenous poetry. The study observes that the performative mode adopted in Songs of Odamolugbe employs largely the sound technology and less is dependent on the (reader’s) sight. It concludes that the approach can prove to be helpful in most African countries where the illiteracy rate is still high, reading culture still at its lowest ebb, and different aspects of folk or popular culture are competing for space in a Post-modernist African society. Black Modernism, Africa, and the Limits of Alliance By Simon Gikandi in his oft-cited essay “Picasso, Africa and the Schemata of Difference” documents white modernism’s and Picasso’s use of Africa as an object while ignoring the African body. C.L.R James in the second preface to The Black Jacobins made a case for Africa which is to find emulation in the book in order to demand the right of self-government. In this paper, I interrogate the relationship between Africa and black modernism. What if black modernist discourses duplicate white modernism’s treatment of Africa? What role did the Dark Continent play in the success or failure of black modernism? Was the relationship between the continent and black modernists that of equals? If not, what entitled black modernists and white patrons such as Nancy Cunard to speak for Africa and to use African artifacts? Did negritude writers from Africa and black modernists share the same agenda? What do contemporary Africans think of black modernism’s appropriation of Africa? To treat these questions, biographical information of some initiators and makers of black modernism and their actual involvement in things African will be considered. Theories and scholarship about the question of primitivism will be considered as well. I will also illustrate in different texts Africa and Africans’ representations in black modernist discourses. While I address these issues, ultimately, I am concerned with the gain that Africa made from the “collaboration”, if any, with black diasporic modernism. Popular music in Cape Verde: resistance or conciliation? By In the Cape Verde archipelago, a very special society was born. It developed as a product of the encounter between Portuguese and African people. Nowadays, Cape Verdean society appears as a fertile terrain to deal with social identification processes. There are innumerable identification projects developed by the groups that constitute this society. This paper is concerned with some of these projects, focusing on discourses and practices produced in the domain of popular culture. Two Cape Verdean musical phenomena – morna and coladeira – are examined in order to reach some of the constructions about Cape Verde as a totality and the groups that constitute that nation. The paper is the product of a research carried out in 2001-2002. The original investigation proceeded through two complementary stages. In the first one, I dealt with mornas and coladeiras as autonomous musical genres, dissociated from the contexts where they were originally produced and consumed. In the second stage, I examined sociability acts where the pair morna-coladeira was present. I investigated the experience with music and the meanings ascribed to it by Cape Verdeans. I propose to present some of these themes, originally studied at my dissertation. In particular, I look forward showing how popular culture in Cape Verde may swing from anticolonial speeches to discourses able to make popular classes and the colonial elite closer.
Dick Tiger, Hogan Bassey and the Golden Age of Boxing in Nigeria By When Dick Tiger beat Joe Torres to win the Light Heavyweight Championship in 1966, he became not only the first African to hold two championships (having regained the Middleweight belt from Joey Giardello the year before) but also a symbol of the new strength of Africans around the world, and most especially, Nigerians. His victory over Torres was also the high point in a long, storied history of fighters and of boxing in Nigeria. By the time he died of cancer in 1971, boxing in Nigeria had begun an abrupt terminal decline. In the 1950s and 60s, Nigeria had a vibrant boxing scene and the sport was second in importance only to football. Tiger, along with fellow World Champion Hogan “Kid” Bassey were the pinnacle of achievement in a sport that had long traditions, both in the British Colonial system and in various Nigerian martial societies. This paper looks at the amateur and professional “Golden Age” of boxing in Nigeria and its ultimate downfall due to corruption, impoverishment and Civil War.
Speaking to AIDS through public lives: legacies of Luambo Makiadi and Sony Labou Tansi By This paper explores the shape and limits of advocacy in the lives of two eminent Congolese artists: Luambo Makiadi 'Franco', the musician and composer, and Sony Labou Tansi, the novelist and playwright. At a time when AIDS was first emerging into public consciousness in this region of Africa, these men - among the most influential creative artists of their time - figured as original voices of social critique and as exemplary embodiments of collective experience. Their legacies are complex cultural sites in which we participate in the construction of the person, and can explore aspects of awareness of the epidemic across equatorial African communities.
What is Africa to Me?: Hip Hop, Teen Dreams, and Cross-Cultural By Abstract: In this essay, I examine the relationship between African and African
American popular culture as represented in “Uno’s World” and “Hangtime,” two
short films featured in Mama Africa. Each film centers on the decisions made by
adolescents who are coming of age in modern Sub-Saharan Africa. I analyze the
influence of African American images, music, and themes in the films, as well
as the larger messages regarding economic excess and self-destruction that are
products of contemporary Hip Hop culture.
In the introduction to Mama Africa, Queen Latifah explains that the films in the
series “intend to challenge the stereotypical perception of women and the people
Metaphors of Modernity: The Urban Woman in Onitsha Market Literature By Critics are generally in agreement that the plethora of chapbooks that flooded Onitsha and similar Nigerian urban centers in the 1950s and 1960s is a response to the extremely dislocating landscape of a formative urban modernity. However, the question of how to read these texts, how to engage them critically, or how to take them “seriously,” as Karin Barber exhorts, has continued to be a site of much controversy. One of the most favored approaches has been to see these texts as symptoms of their socio-cultural environment; however, this approach de-emphasizes the active roles Onitsha authors play in contributing to the construction of the urban psyche as opposed to passively reflecting it in their texts. Focusing on the particularly dislocating space of feminine identity and its paradoxical generation of a collective urban masculine ideology, I propose a study of Onitsha Market Literature informed by the cultural psychology theory of culture and psyche as co-creating. The identity of any socio-cultural space depends on how the human beings within that space take meanings and resources from it; however, in the process of seizing meanings and resources, the subjectivity and psyche of the humans within this space is modified. Having this in mind, I argue that Onitsha Market pamphlets are objects or resources in a socio-cultural landscape that readers in the Onitsha urban center seize as they construct an individual or a collective urban subjectivity and that the authors, in writing these texts, seize meanings from the urban landscape with the aim of redefining it. In essence, this study is aimed at showing how, in writing these texts, Onitsha pamphleteers are involved in a powerful cultural brokerage, seizing cultural resources from urban realities to construct forms of gender identities that help the male urban dweller find a foothold in an urban modernity transforming at a dizzying speed. The critical questions in this study, therefore, are: how did dislocating transformations in certain cultural spaces within Onitsha urban landscape result in the construction of a collective masculine ideology. Why do the authors, in an attempt to define and sustain this masculine ideology, seek to redefine urban female identities by clustering around female bodies as metaphors of a threatened modernity?
Popular Culture, Religiosity, and Symbolic Meaning: By mong the Idoma, inhabiting the Nigerian Middle Belt region (Central Nigeria) there exists certain popular cultures and perceptive representations that pertain to the meaning of healing and that equally influence certain attitudes. Traditionally, healing forms utilized different Idoma indigenous methods. Thereafter, this method was eclipsed by the modern healthcare originating through the efforts of the missionaries and colonial authorities. Today, there exists another layer that seriously attempts to access the religious ambient toward healing. All these different healing forms still overlap. Various Christian forms are increasingly emphasizing healing through the diverse forms that include prayers, healing anointing, lessing and sprinkling with water, the laying on of hands, among many other kinds of expressions. Thus, increasingly Christianity is becoming more and more associated with its healing potency, especially through supernatural means that express and emphasizes the dominant place of healing ministry, apparitions, and other symbolic forms as essential to faith and belief response. Popularly, the forms of Christianity that is privileged reflect one that can appropriately be directed toward ensuring wellbeing. This paper attempts to evaluate these popular cultural perceptions regarding religiosity and healthcare, while also analyzing their implications for Idoma overall wellbeing. This is essential given that many Idoma continue to utilize modern alongside traditional means for wellbeing, as well this new heightened form that appropriates Christianity for healing. I shall therefore attempt to offer relevant insights into the meaning of such development relative to what it entails Idoma overall individual and collective wellbeing, while equally noting their impact upon the operations for the various religious institutions involved in modern healthcare in Idomaland.
“Cutting the Head of the Roaring Monster”: By In 2006, the whole of Ghana went into a sort of verbal acrimony, public outcry and street protest when Gays and Lesbians in Africa chose the country as the venue for its international conference. By interrogating the public outburst, which surfaced mostly in local newspapers and on radio talk shows, we seek to explore the history of homosexuality in Ghana and its implication on religious, cultural and democratic ideals—especially, freedom of expression. Why did homosexuals in Ghana and abroad fail to garner support in their bid to host a conference in a country noted for her religious and ethnic tolerance as well as her pioneering role in Pan-Africanism/freedom movements during the colonial era? In order to establish the moral, religious and ethical contradictions associated with reformist disposition to homosexual behavior, we turn our search light to relevant sections of the Criminal Code of Ghana, which criminalizes some “unnatural” and “uncivilized” sexual behavior. Also we take a look at the seemingly unending debate about the presence or absence of homosexual behavior among people of traditional Africa. The relevant sections of the Criminal Codes, which came into existence during the colonial period, are needed to provide a historical reconstruction of reformists’ disposition to “abnormal” sexual behavior during the colonial era and the transformation that it has been taken. A good number of the reformists who called for the introduction of anti-homosexual laws in 2006 were not aware of existing sections of the Criminal Code, which can be used to prosecute people who engage in homosexual behavior. The historical appraisal of the moral and ethical considerations in the passing of laws on “abnormal” sexual behavior is needed to provide a clue into the colonial origin of the war against “unnatural’ sexual orientation.
Metaphysics and the Existence of God: An African Perspective By From the religious perspective, it is interesting to note that from antiquity, religion played a very important role in the life of man and the role has taken the greatest part of man’s life. The simple reason for this is due to the fact that the religion did not give man freedom he deserved to think clearly about himself and about phenomena on occurrences in the universe in order to arrive at an intellectual explanation of problems that confronted him. Owing to the limitation, all phenomena in the universe whether good or bad, by on small, beautiful or ugly, etc. are interpreted from the religion point of view especially in Africa. But I have a contrary opinion. To us in philosophy of which metaphysics is the core, where other theories and branches of philosophy have failed to offer explanation, metaphysic has provided one. This is because metaphysics is such that it clears the ground for explanation before it proceeds to building the explanation. We are talking about the phenomenon God (African Deity). Culture, Communication, Business, and Politics in Senegal By Unfortunately, Africa is misunderstood and mistaken .The use and misuse of stereotype about Africa denies it a lot of positive things that occurred on that great continent. Very often, disturbing images, literature, statistics, Media’s coverage, and so on deny any credit to Africa. Aren’t you familiar with the following stereotyping of Africa: Wars/ Conflicts/ Ethnic Division (Somalia; Sierra Leone, Liberia. C. d’Ivoire; Rwanda; Darfur, Military Coups (Nigeria), Health/Pandemic: HIV/AIDS (Uganda, S Africa) ; Hunger (Niger); Malaria, Political Instability (C. d’Ivoire) Lack of Democracy, Ineffective Governments, Corruption (Cameroon), Human. Rights violations (Sudan), lack of Economic Growth, Poor Education, Safari /Animals /Jungle ? But Africa is not a country; it’s a beautiful continent of more than 54 countries within encouraging, satisfying, and exemplary model in every important issue the world faces today. There are countries with strong leaders that are growing politically, economically, socially, and juristically. Senegal is one of them. Understanding basic elements to overcome cross cultural issues is a must nowadays with an increasingly global market place force, and an ethnically and culturally diversified business environment. Although Senegal is culturally very diverse and rich like any other African country; it constitutes an interesting and unique case. Senegal is a model of democracy in Africa. Senegal is one of the best democratic models around the world. Senegal, a small third world country has kept its political and social stabilities. Senegal has been so peaceful when every single country on the continent has experienced some form of unrest. Senegal did escape the waves of violence that occurred on the African continent so far. Senegal is stable and unique because it has never experienced a military coup, ethnic conflict, ethnic cleansing, major political violence, or malevolent dictatorship. Good governance, electoral process, transparency, tolerance, low levels of corruption, and great respect of human rights make Senegal a great republic and a great country. This is rooted in a Senegalese culture of respect and stability driven by beliefs, behaviors, habits, traditions, morals, and values. An accurate understanding of Senegal, of the Senegalese, of Senegal’s culture, and political system is a must for anyone who want to understand the why Senegal is the way it is today. Understanding these issues provides also, a favorable business environment. Business practices of North American and Western European businesses would probably encounter lots and lots of problems due to cross-cultural and cross-communication misunderstanding and mistaking. Fortunately, culture can be learned. “Culture is a body learned behavior, a collection of beliefs, habits and tradition, shared by a group of people successively learned by people who enter the society” Mead (1951). Understanding cultural sensibility would save us from trouble.
Reclaiming the Past or Assimilationist Rebellion? By Sociologists argue that the social situation in which one lives plays a major role in determining one’s sense of self and role(s) within society. Theories of the self suggest that identities are plural and shifting. That one’s self is shaped and transformed by the events of the outside world. Film scholars such as David Bordwell contend that films have symptomatic meanings, that is, they can reveal something about the society in which they were produced. In this paper, I attempt to explore the representation of transformation within the context of films whose narratives center on blacks within the United States. More specifically, I am concerned with how and why black Americans become “African” in cinema. In other words, I am concerned with the moment at which a character modifies his or her appearance and/or behavior in a manner that is reflective of our notions of what it means to be African. For instance, at what point in the narrative do cultural expressions such as clothing, hairstyles and music change to embody the spirit of Africa. And, how is that transformation constructed and viewed by the audience? Is the transformed self viewed as more “authentic,” more black? Do these changes signal a conscious anti-assimilationist stance within the context of the United States? Or, do they serve to reclaim a past that one has lost? Films such as Bush Mama, Sankofa, The Color Purple, A Raisin in the Sun, as well as episodes from several television shows will serve as examples.
Western Images of Africa in African American Heritage: Myth and Fact By When my mother died in 1999, I found among her possessions a book describing pre-colonial Yorubaland in what is now Western Nigeria. I was taken aback at how much it expanded my consciousness and exploded my preconceptions about Africa and Africans. I had never realized before how much I had unquestioningly assumed that African “civilized” history and culture began with the entrance of Europeans to the “Dark Continent.” To my surprise, history books and firsthand accounts revealed a complex culture that had risen independent of any Western influence and had evolved for centuries into a sophisticated and intricate civilization very different from those of other continents. Sexuality in Caribbean Performance: The Blue Devils of Paramin, Trinidad By This paper examines the pretended homoeroticism and homosexual assaults in the Blue Devils performance in Trinidad Carnival. The performance includes pretended intercourse, fellatio and anal penetration with baseball bats. Their performance started at emancipation of slavery in 1838 in Trinidad and continues to the present. It is therefore implicated in the history of colonialism, slavery, and emancipation. Some scholars speculate that the performance of pretended homoeroticism is a metaphor for exploitation in slavery. The Blue Devils masquerade is found throughout Trinidad during the annual carnival in the towns of Arima, Point Fortin, and especially in the mountain district of Paramin. Covered from head to toe in blue mud, or with laundry bluing mixed with petroleum jelly, the Blue Devils reenact European mimicry of enslaved Africans in pre-emancipation carnivals. Europeans participating in the pre-emancipation carnivals blackened their skins to mimic enslaved Africans. At emancipation, freed Africans were allowed to participate in carnival, and applied black varnish to their already dark skins to imitate the make-up used by Europeans in carnival. The Blue Devils masquerade emerged from this practice. I argue that the source of the homoerotism metaphor for power structures in slavery is the memory of actual sexual violence, punishment and exploitation of enslaved Africans on sugar plantations. Why does this performance exist in post-colonial Trinidad today in the absence of colonial masters? I will look at the contemporary shift in the place of the Blue Devils performance in the overall Trinidad Carnival milieu and its continued resonance in popular culture.
Inventing East African Hip-Hop: Youth and Musical Convergence in East Africa By East Africa has never fallen short of musical repertoire boasting hundreds of authentic and diverse rhythms and tunes as many as the communities that inhabit the region. For many years though, East African broadcasting media have been dominated by music from elsewhere including neighboring Congo, West Africa, Caribbean reggae, British pop and various American genres. Until a few years ago, only a handful of East African artistes managed to fully penetrate the local market, let alone the region. As a result, the music industry in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania experienced very low activity almost seeming non-existent. Starting in the late 1990s, the music terrain in East Africa dramatically changed. Spurred by the liberalization of the airwaves, East Africa has witnessed rapid growth of music-only FM radio stations and private television stations. The music industry response has been tremendous with a strong presence of recording house and emergence of an East African hip-hop genre. Despite constant criticism of aping American hip-hop genre, young artistes have attracted large audiences across East Africa utilizing the local languages in their performance. This paper explores the East Africa hip-hop music genre and in particular the performance, content, language use and audiences. Identifying the factors that have contributed to the popularity of the genre, I will critique the representation of socio-economic and political issues in the music. The paper will examine aspects of commonalities leading to music convergence in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. Finally, I will present a prognosis of the future of hip-hop music in East Africa.
By The 1974 revolution in Ethiopia was a landmark in the country’s history. It virtually affected every aspect of life in Ethiopia. One of the areas where its impact witnessed is on popular culture such as music. The latter was transformed from being the reflection of the dominant ethnic group and the upper class into becoming an expression of the multitudes. It also began taking notice of the new phenomenon in Ethiopian society, migration and refugeeism. The Role of Nigeria’s Print Media in the Fourth Republic By With the dawn of the Nigerian Fourth Republic in 1999 there began an era of greater openness in the public forum with regards to mass political opinion. This has been a step forward not only in terms of freedom of speech and political awareness, but also in terms of the ways in which government and privatized media outlets attempt to voice and sway public opinions. This study examines the ways that print media -- notably newspapers and magazines -- illustrate the attitudes, perceptions, and issues in Nigerian society. Through an examination of the preceding media camps, this paper will approach this issue from three distinct perspectives. Firstly, it will distinguish the ways in which the Nigerian government is attempting to develop a national ideology via the media. Secondly, in counterpoint, the paper will examine how private media is presenting criticism of government practice and policies. Thirdly, the paper will examine the ways in which print media has shaped the Fourth Republic’s education, economic, health and government institutions.
“Imported from America” or fugitive forgeries: By Erupting into apartheid South Africa’s black urban life in 1951, and fiercely promoting a black popular culture, Drum magazine became Africa’s biggest selling magazine. Reflecting South Africa’s thriving black urban environment, Drum disseminated images and narratives drawn from American and African-American culture: gangsters styled on Hollywood, hard-boiled detectives, underworld comedies and pulp romance stories. These cultural products were crucial to the reconfiguration of black South African identity from “tribal” to “modern”. Despite unprecedented migration to urban areas, finding symbols of black urban identity was no simple task due to the Nationalist government’s policy of apartheid that was inscribing black identity as “tribal” and rural. To represent black modernity, writers and artists thus turned to readily-available forms of popular American and African-American culture. While Drum is widely acknowledged for its pioneering investigative journalism and literary short stories, its Americanised “popular” content has, with few exceptions, been critically dismissed as lacking political engagement and capitulating to American culture. This critique was inaugurated by the eminent Bernth Lindfors’ seminal work on black South African writers in the 1960s. Lindfors points out the “worst” of Drum: “imitations” where “everything has been imported from America”. Taking Lindfors’ terms as my point of departure, this paper challenges the dismissal of popular culture that has dominated critiques of Drum and the theoretical models that underpin it – as denying the agency of local writers and audiences. My analysis reveals the critically discerning ways in which American popular culture was adopted and adapted by black South Africans. I argue that, through their use of popular culture, Drum writers and artists were politically engaged in creating new spaces for a black urban subjectivity -- that was in direct defiance of apartheid ideology.
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_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Africa Conference 2007: Popular Cultures in Africa Convened by Dr. Toyin Falola and Coordinated by Tyler Fleming for the Center for African and African American Studies Webmaster: Adam Paddock |