Paper long abstract:

Taking as a starting point, James Ferguson’s (1999) definition of 'Cosmopolitanism' as 'worldliness at home' my paper discusses ways in which forms of orature have created a place for themselves in modern consciousness through a variety of transformative and in some cases 'tricksterish' means. I argue that modern, new and emergent performance genres often mask or draw from older forms as they become the vehicles for modern subjectivities in many societies in Africa. Then, drawing my examples largely from South African performance genres, and in particular from the genre known as 'imbube' or 'nightsong' I discuss how this form becomes a means whereby, in a contested and tension-filled social space, performers and audiences can test and negotiate their identities, shape and reshape them within a wider forum where forms of the local and the cosmopolitan, citizenship, gender and power are constantly being negotiated. I will explore in what way such performativities of identity can be seen as 'resistant', innovative or merely part of what Mbembe has called 'mutual zombification' in post-1994 South Africa.