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’.