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- Convenors:
-
Matthias Krings
(Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz)
Izuu Nwankwọ (University of Toronto)
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- Format:
- Panel
- Stream:
- Linguistic and visual (de)colonialisms
- Location:
- Room 1098
- Sessions:
- Thursday 9 June, -
Time zone: Europe/Berlin
Short Abstract:
There are overabundant discourses on African-European encounters. This panel seeks contributions that privilege interrogation of humorously framed representations of the mutual 'other' in cultural productions from historical, postcolonial/decolonial, and postmodern perspectives.
Long Abstract:
Contacts between Africa and Europe have been shaped historically by explorations, slave trade, colonialism, and migration. Increased globalisation and internet penetration in Africa also means that African-European cultural exchanges are continuous, altering, and persistent. From a decolonial perspective, Ngugi wa Thiong'o (1986) talks about 'imperialist' and 'resistant' traditions confronting each other over cultural dominance in Africa, privileging a triumph of the latter. Within postcolonial studies, Homi Bhabha (2004) discusses mimicry, hybridity, and how intercultural exchanges mean that intersecting cultures mutate in varying measures. Amidst all these discourses, the continued intercultural exchanges between Africa and Europe generate overabundant lessons in politics and popular culture, with each side enacting its variant(s) of the representation(s) of the 'other' within.
In this panel, we are looking at these representations from the perspective of humour. Joke telling and other comedic enactments are beginning to be taken seriously in academic studies for the insight they provide in ways individuals produce and consume humour. Koziski (1984) refers to stand-up comedians as anthropologists and 'intentional culture critics', underpinning the idea of jocular anthropology, which situates joke-telling at the nexus of decolonisation efforts in African-European transcultural exchanges. The panel seeks contributions that examine humorously framed critical reflections on African-European encounters in popular performing arts, such as stand-up comedy, film, theatre, music, and dance - from Africa or Europe. While we may not be able to adduce the plethora of reasons for these contacts, this panel seeks to engender discussions on transcultural relations from the perspective of humour.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 9 June, 2022, -Paper short abstract:
This paper discusses "Wakamba Forever" a short Kenyan film that reinterprets a famous 1800s meeting between Chief Masaku and Her Majesty's servant called Macmillan. The paper is interested in how in this short film popular ideas about "wazungu" (white people) and "uzungu" (whiteness) are rehashed.
Paper long abstract:
This paper considers Wakamba Forever, a short film that was presented with the best film award at the 2018 Machawood Film Festival in Machakos, Kenya, as encompassing conversations about what mzungu (white person) or uzungu (whiteness) means to the everyday, or local, postcolonial Kenyan. It argues that Wakamba Forever parodies Hollywood tropes, especially in its reinterpretation of Marvel Studio’s Black Panther and re-appropriates the “black face” tradition, reposting it in a “white-face” form while toying with the historical event of the meeting between Chief Masaku and Macmillan in a dystopian fashion. Snatches of ideas of what whiteness is or is perceived to love or enjoy are given through a play of form so that there is a gesturing towards National Geographic films in its various channels with its interest on the bushes of Africa and its animals, as well as an embodiment of Victorian mannerism and attitudes in processes of the civilizing mission. Wakamba Forever borrows from popular culture in these conversations so that music, food, football, rumor, are brought into play in the discourse about what uzungu could be and how it could be dealt with. A key problem that runs through the paper is the assumption that because mzungu comes with the pains of domination, colonization, and dispossession of land and water, the typical mkamba, as Chief Masaku and his court are, has nothing positive to think about the empiricist, yet, in Wakamba Forever, contradiction, even confusion seems to be at play when meanings are sought.
Paper short abstract:
Data from actual behaviour and comic art can enable a re-examination of the relations between ‘the west and the rest'. I argue that such overlooked productions can activate a peri-centric soft power variant of decoloniality necessary for understanding and engaging with discourses about the ‘other’.
Paper long abstract:
Many aspects of Nigeria's social reality are as sensational as their comic simulations. A frenetic discussion among ‘free readers’ at a Lagos newspaper stand that I witnessed centred on how the sudden arrival of the nation's First Lady scuttled the rumoured marriage between her husband and a young female minister in his cabinet. One commentator quipped: “Buhari no be man” (“Buhari is not a man”), in response to a comment comparing this Muslim president and ex-soldier ‘with only one wife’, with an ex-German Chancellor who lives with his fifth. What decolonial supposition for re-theorising positionalities and their subjectivities is entailed in that punchline and its witty reference at the ‘civilized’ West? In a skit, a Nigerian who paid for an entry visa to Switzerland in search of ‘greener pastures’ found himself in Swaziland and asked to be deported. Meaning? Europe symbolises freedom and opportunities while Africa is dysfunctional. As physical and metaphoric boundaries are being reinforced in the west to limit foreignness, how do we reconcile this liberal notion of Europe with the 'reality' instantiated in the quipping above?
In this study, I used data from actual social behaviour and comic productions to show how humour can de-compartmentalize art and life to urge points, in this case re-examining the patterning of the relations between ‘the west and the rest. I argue that commonly overlooked productions of social experience can articulate a peri-centric soft power variant of decolonisation necessary for understanding and engaging with an emerging cultural vision of the ‘other’.
Paper short abstract:
Socio-cultural affiliations and nuances of artistic people define their identity, ethos, and ultimately, their worldviews. This paper seeks to investigate the dialectics of the cultural ideological leanings and representations of African comedians domiciled in the western world.
Paper long abstract:
Comedians are social actors that engage in playacting that is influenced by their worldviews which are reflectors of individualism or communalism, but with evident shift towards the contexts they identify with. Thus, the context the comedian favourably leans towards is the 'we' and the one that shows distance stance to her is the 'you'. Generally, African Comedians project ideologies by the juxtaposition of realities in the western world with the 'perceived' realities in Africa. This study seeks to study the dialectal stance of ideological representations in the jokes of African comedians residing in the United States of America, such as Noah Trevor, Michael Blackson, and Godfery. That is, the research is limited to the intercultural investigations of the comic performances of African comedians that mostly practice in western world as they express ideological representations about their African ties in their realities and experiences where they are domiciled. Triangulation method is adopted for the analysis of the data that are purposively selected. Matouschek, Wodak & Januschek's (1995) schema, and an eclectic submission on subversive dialectics are adapted for the analysis of the data. The analysis is expected to describe forms of cultural and political dialectics shown in the ideologies of the two contexts of the comedians as evident in their language use, especially from discourse-historical perspective.
Paper short abstract:
There is need to account for the contemporary African comedian who inhabits the dynamic African-European cultural contact nexus. The comedians explore attendant transcultural discourses thereby critiquing the representation of Africa by others while staking claim in the representation of others.
Paper long abstract:
The anthropological role of comedy in societies across the world has been acknowledged in previous scholarship. However, the notion of jocular anthropology exhibits problematic potentials owing to the existing binary framing of the concepts of anthropologist and comedian. For instance, Koziski (1984) underscores the role of both as intentional culture critics but considers the former as ‘a sympathetic outsider’ and the latter a ‘cynical insider’. This restricted view may not properly account for the contemporary African comedian who inhabits the African-European cultural contact nexus. Therefore, to contemplate jocular anthropology involves coming to terms with the possibility of multiple manifestations of the insider and outsider phenomenon. Indeed, African comedians demonstrate awareness of the interplay of global interconnections in a manner that negotiates the place of local cultures within the prevailing global configurations of political and epistemic power. The comedians creatively explore transcultural discourses that define such intricate relations with a view to critiquing the representation of Africa by others even as they stake their claim in the representation of others. To help unravel these dynamics, this paper intends to draw from Kuipers’ (2011) theorisations on the ‘politics of humour’ and the notion of ‘political aesthetics’ advanced by Holm (2017). Such an attempt would address the serious subterranean issues in the humour texts thus bringing them within the purview of transcultural discourse in the globalised world. This paper derives its primary data from South African Trevor Noah’s work which deserves critical attention owing to its transcultural demeanour.