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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:
The advent of digital technologies has enabled Africans and Europeans to mediate their cultural encounters in more positive ways. This study focuses on how a European comedienne named Overszabi leverages the borderless nature of social media to perform 'Nigerianness' and gain popularity in Nigeria.
Paper long abstract:
With the advent of digital technologies in Nigeria, the affordances of participatory exchange on social media for both African and European users have opened up possibilities for mediations and negotiations of cultural encounters in more positive ways. This coincides with women's increasing subversion of men's hegemony in the cultural production of humor. Interestingly, Nigerians in Diaspora as well as European women in particular have also leveraged the borderless nature of social media to partake in the production of Nigerian-themed skits. This study focuses on this trend, exploring ways in which a United Kingdom-based Hungarian comedienne named Overszabi (Sabina Yuhas) adapts and re-creates comic contents produced by popular Nigerian comedians. A nuanced analysis of her comedy routines shows further subversions - through lip-sync and matching performance accouterments, she undermines the hegemonic European culture, dazzling her audience with a multiplicity of images that are neither fully European nor fully Nigerian. The study concludes that, although Overszabi's skits mark a healthy departure from reciprocal stereotyping between Africa and Europe, her successes are paradoxically unattainable by Nigerian comics who perform 'Europeanness'.
Paper short abstract:
A conversation between Appiah and Bhabha published in 2018 elucidates why people from all over the world meet in Berlin’s anglophone comedy clubs: they laugh at ethnic stereotypes performed on stage and practice what the doyens of post-colonial thinking refer to as cosmopolitan vernacular.
Paper long abstract:
Appiah and Bhabha discuss the political situation since 2017, because Trump, Brexit and restrictive immigration policies have challenged the concepts of cosmopolitanism they put forward. Appiah observes that the problem of how to live together in a globalised world is not solved by platinum frequent flyers, cosmopolitans who never converge with anything. Bhabha draws attention to migrants who have developed a cosmopolitan vernacular − a cosmopolitanism more of necessity than of luxury – more apt to confront the challenges imposed by globalisation.
The owners of Berlin’s anglophone stand-up comedy clubs, the hosts, most comedians and members of the audience are migrants. I arrived at the venues as a platinum cosmopolitan, and it took me a while to comprehend the practices of vernacular cosmopolitanism in these clubs. My view on ethnicity was forged by discourse analytical concepts of social constructivism and the reference to ethnic stereotypes on stage was unbearable for me. One might consider jokes on the length of Asian, African and European penises racist, and I often thought of leaving a show − I stayed because paradoxically I felt comfortable in these clubs: I simply enjoyed having a beer there; it was cosy and very easy to get in touch with other people.
My aim is to show that it is not enough to analyse jokes to understand why Berlin’s anglophone comedy clubs attract people from all over the world. It is necessary to converge with the whole setting and its corresponding practices to explain what happens when they meet.
Paper short abstract:
The proposed study examines cinema narrators and their audiences in perfomance to explore their reconstruction of foreign worlds represented in the films. It is an ethnographic approach, focusing on two video-cinema audiences in Narok namely ‘Prince’ and ‘Hawaii City Cinema.’
Paper long abstract:
Cinema cultures in Kenya have been characterized by a dominantly informal set of distribution and exhibition characteristics, whose metaphoric representation has been the movie shops and informal cinema halls (Kirsten Kanja, 2021). Admittedly, the increasing influence of digital technologies has had a negative impact of the movie shops and cinema halls (Joseph Ochieng Umira, 2020). However, typical of the rhythm of life in informal neighbourhoods, cinema cultures have evolved and adapted. One of the emergent modes of adaptation has been the rise of cinema narration. Studies, such as James Ogone (2020) and Kimani and Mugubi (2014) have focused on what one could term as the theme of translation and interpretation of the foreign films. In the words of Ogone “the commentator interprets the movie using local equivalents to enhance comprehension.” It has been argued that the process of translation is also artistic, and one way to attract and retain audiences in the informal exhibition spaces (Matthias Krings, 2013). A study of the commentator’s art and audience reception is thus important. The proposed study engages with cinema narration as a collaborative project in which the cinema narrator and his audience reconstruct and engage with foreign worlds, and the master narrative played plays out in the context of other narratives both in the spectatorship experience and also in audience’s extended commentaries. The study uses an ethnographic approach, focusing on video-cinema audiences in the Majengo neighbourhood of Narok. It focuses on two video-halls namely ‘Prince’ and ‘Hawaii City Cinema.’