European University Institute Library

Civic agency in Africa, arts of resistance in the 21st century, edited by Ebenezer Obadare & Wendy Willems ; foreword by Patrick Chabal

eng

index present

non fiction

Civic agency in Africa

electronic resource

dictionaries

870244287

edited by Ebenezer Obadare & Wendy Willems ; foreword by Patrick Chabal

Cambridge Social Sciences eBooks

arts of resistance in the 21st century

The recent wave of popular protests across North Africa and the Middle East has stimulated debate on the meaning and strategies of resistance in the 21st century. One key factor to emerge has been the absence of formal organizations in effecting the transformation of these states. To date, the literature on resistance in civil society in Africa has been dominated by exploration of the dynamics of formal NGOs, but this fails to take account of the changinglandscape of social change unfolding on the continent and the importance of both the local and informal. This book takes as its starting point what is actually happening on the ground, the expressions of resistance in thenon-governmental sphere and the various socio-economic, political, and artistic praxes that animate it. It examines the variety of organized and unorganized ways in which Africans exercise agency and resist state power. The bookevaluates the meaning of resistance and the politics of citizen action in Africa today; the way in which resistant practices impinge on the state and the kinds of state formations that are emerging as a response to citizen action;the use of popular culture as modes of resistance; and the power of cultural belonging in the public sphere. The book does not merely explore these practices but how agency and resistance engage, transform, co-opt, undermine, reproduce or reinforce the post-colonial African state. Ebenezer Obadare is Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Kansas; Wendy Willems is Lecturer in Media, Communication and Development in the LSE Department of Media and Communications. She was previously Senior Lecturer and Head of Department of Media Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand (2010-2012), where she remains affiliated as an Honorary Research Fellow.--, Provided by publisher

Notes on contributors -- Foreword by Patrick Chabal -- Acknowledgments -- 1. Introduction: African resistance in an age of fractured sovereignty / Wendy Willems and Ebenezer Obadare -- Part I. Postcolonial state formation & parallel infrastructures. 2. Global technologies of domination: from colonial encounters to the Arab Spring / Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni -- 3. Citizenship from below: the politics of citizen action & resistance in South Africa & Angola / Bettina von Lieres -- Part II. Embodied modes of resistance & the postcolonial state. 4. The politics of confinement & mobility: informality, relocations & urban re-making from above & below in Nairobi / Ilda Lindell and Markus Ihalainen. -- 5. Overcoming socio-economic marginalisation: Young West African hustlers & the reinvention of global capitalism / Basile Ndjio -- 6. Accepting authoritarianism? Everyday resistance as political consciousness in post-genocide Rwanda / Susan Thomson -- Part III. Popular culture as discursive forms of resistance. 7. Participatory politics in South Africa: social commentary from above & resistance from below / Innocentia J. Mhlambi -- 8. Laughing at the rainbow's cracks? Blackness, whiteness & the ambivalences of South African stand-up comedy / Grace A. Musila -- 9. 'Beasts of no nation': Resistance & civic activism in Fela Anikulapo-Kuti's music / Jendele Hungbo -- Part IV. Publics as everyday sites of resistance. 10. The power of resonance: Music, local radio stations, & the sounds of cultural belonging in Mali / Dorothea Schulz -- 11. Narrating the contested public sphere: Zapiro, Zuma & freedom of expression in South Africa / Daniel Hammett -- Index