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Yoruba culture has been a part of the Americas for centuries,
brought over by the first slaves and maintained in various forms
ever since. In Oduduwa's Chain, Andrew Apter locates that culture,
both spatially and analytically, and offers a Yoruba-focused
perspective on rethinking African heritage in Black Atlantic
Studies. Focusing on Yoruba history and culture in Nigeria, Apter
applies a generative model of cultural revision that allows him to
identify formative Yoruba influences without resorting to the idea
that culture and tradition are fixed. Apter shows how the
association of African gods with Catholic saints can be seen as
strategy of empowerment, explores historical locations of Yoruba
gender ideologies and their manifestation and change in the
Atlantic world, and more. He concludes with a rousing call for a
return to Africa in studies of the Black Atlantic, resurrecting a
critical notion of culture that allows us to go beyond the mirror
of Africa that the West invented.
For postcolonial Africa, modernization was seen as a necessary
outcome of the struggle for independence and as crucial to the
success of its newly established states. Since then, the rhetoric
of modernization has pervaded policy, culture, and development,
lending a kind of political theatricality to nationalist framings
of modernization and Africans perceptions of their place in the
global economy. These 15 essays address governance, production, and
social life; the role of media; and the discourse surrounding
large-scale development projects, revealing modernization's deep
effects on the expressive culture of Africa."
How can we account for the power of ritual? This is the guiding
question of "Black Critics and Kings," which examines how Yoruba
forms of ritual and knowledge shape politics, history, and
resistance against the state. Focusing on "deep" knowledge in
Yoruba cosmology as an interpretive space for configuring
difference, Andrew Apter analyzes ritual empowerment as an
essentially critical practice, one that revises authoritative
discourses of space, time, gender, and sovereignty to promote
political---and even violent---change.
Documenting the development of a Yoruba kingdom from its
nineteenth-century genesis to Nigeria's 1983 elections and
subsequent military coup, Apter identifies the central role of
ritual in reconfiguring power relations both internally and in
relation to wider political arenas. What emerges is an ethnography
of an interpretive vision that has broadened the horizons of local
knowledge to embrace Christianity, colonialism, class formation,
and the contemporary Nigerian state. In this capacity, Yoruba
"orisa" worship remains a critical site of response to hegemonic
interventions.
With sustained theoretical argument and empirical rigor, Apter
answers critical anthropologists who interrogate the possibility of
ethnography. He reveals how an indigenous hermeneutics of power is
put into ritual practice---with multiple voices, self-reflexive
awareness, and concrete political results. "Black Critics and
Kings" eloquently illustrates the ethnographic value of listening
to the voice of the other, with implications extending beyond
anthropology to engage leading debates in black critical theory.
When Nigeria hosted the Second World Black and African Festival of
Arts and Culture (FESTAC) in 1977, it celebrated a global vision of
black nationhood and citizenship animated by the exuberance of its
recent oil boom. Andrew Apter's "The Pan-African Nation" tells the
fascinating story of this cultural extravaganza, from Nigeria's
spectacular rebirth as a rapidly developing petro-state to its
dramatic demise when the boom went bust.
According to Apter, FESTAC expanded the horizons of blackness in
Nigeria to mirror the global circuits of its economy. By showcasing
masks, dances, images, and souvenirs from many of its diverse
ethnic groups, Nigeria forged a new national culture. In the
grandeur of this oil-fed confidence, the nation subsumed all black
and African cultures within its empire of cultural signs, and
erased its colonial legacies from collective memory. As the oil
economy collapsed, however, cultural signs became unstable,
contributing to rampant violence and dissimulation.
"The Pan-African Nation "unpacks FESTAC as a historically situated
mirror of production in Nigeria. More broadly, it points toward a
critique of the political economy of the sign in postcolonial
Africa.
This landmark volume compiled by Jacob K. Olupona and Rowland O.
Abiodun brings readers into the diverse world of Ifa-its discourse,
ways of thinking, and artistic expression as manifested throughout
the Afro-Atlantic. Firmly rooting Ifa within African religious
traditions, the essays consider Ifa and Ifa divination from the
perspectives of philosophy, performance studies, and cultural
studies. They also examine the sacred context, verbal art, and the
interpretation of Ifa texts and philosophy. With essays from the
most respected scholars in the field, the book makes a substantial
contribution toward understanding Ifa and its role in contemporary
Yoruba and diaspora cultures.
This landmark volume compiled by Jacob K. Olupona and Rowland O.
Abiodun brings readers into the diverse world of Ifa-its discourse,
ways of thinking, and artistic expression as manifested throughout
the Afro-Atlantic. Firmly rooting Ifa within African religious
traditions, the essays consider Ifa and Ifa divination from the
perspectives of philosophy, performance studies, and cultural
studies. They also examine the sacred context, verbal art, and the
interpretation of Ifa texts and philosophy. With essays from the
most respected scholars in the field, the book makes a substantial
contribution toward understanding Ifa and its role in contemporary
Yoruba and diaspora cultures.
Yoruba culture has been a part of the Americas for centuries,
brought over by the first slaves and maintained in various forms
ever since. In Oduduwa's Chain, Andrew Apter locates that culture,
both spatially and analytically, and offers a Yoruba-focused
perspective on rethinking African heritage in Black Atlantic
Studies. Focusing on Yoruba history and culture in Nigeria, Apter
applies a generative model of cultural revision that allows him to
identify formative Yoruba influences without resorting to the idea
that culture and tradition are fixed. Apter shows how the
association of African gods with Catholic saints can be seen as
strategy of empowerment, explores historical locations of Yoruba
gender ideologies and their manifestation and change in the
Atlantic world, and more. He concludes with a rousing call for a
return to Africa in studies of the Black Atlantic, resurrecting a
critical notion of culture that allows us to go beyond the mirror
of Africa that the West invented.
For postcolonial Africa, modernization was seen as a necessary
outcome of the struggle for independence and as crucial to the
success of its newly established states. Since then, the rhetoric
of modernization has pervaded policy, culture, and development,
lending a kind of political theatricality to nationalist framings
of modernization and Africans perceptions of their place in the
global economy. These 15 essays address governance, production, and
social life; the role of media; and the discourse surrounding
large-scale development projects, revealing modernization's deep
effects on the expressive culture of Africa."
Even within anthropology, a discipline that strives to overcome
misrepresentations of peoples and cultures, colonialist depictions
of the so-called Dark Continent run deep. The grand narratives,
tribal tropes, distorted images, and "natural" histories that
forged the foundations of discourse about Africa remain firmly
entrenched. In "Beyond Words," Andrew Apter explores how
anthropology can come to terms with the "colonial library" and
begin to develop an ethnographic practice that transcends the
politics of Africa's imperial past.
The way out of the colonial library, Apter argues, is by listening
to critical discourses in Africa that reframe the social and
political contexts in which they are embedded. Apter develops a
model of critical agency, focusing on a variety of language genres
in Africa situated in rituals that transform sociopolitical
relations by self-consciously deploying the power of language
itself. To break the cycle of Western illusions in discursive
constructions of Africa, he shows, we must listen to African voices
in ways that are culturally and locally informed. In doing so,
Apter brings forth what promises to be a powerful and influential
theory in contemporary anthropology.
When Nigeria hosted the Second World Black and African Festival of
Arts and Culture (FESTAC) in 1977, it celebrated a global vision of
black nationhood and citizenship animated by the exuberance of its
recent oil boom. Andrew Apter's "The Pan-African Nation" tells the
fascinating story of this cultural extravaganza, from Nigeria's
spectacular rebirth as a rapidly developing petro-state to its
dramatic demise when the boom went bust.
According to Apter, FESTAC expanded the horizons of blackness in
Nigeria to mirror the global circuits of its economy. By showcasing
masks, dances, images, and souvenirs from many of its diverse
ethnic groups, Nigeria forged a new national culture. In the
grandeur of this oil-fed confidence, the nation subsumed all black
and African cultures within its empire of cultural signs, and
erased its colonial legacies from collective memory. As the oil
economy collapsed, however, cultural signs became unstable,
contributing to rampant violence and dissimulation.
"The Pan-African Nation "unpacks FESTAC as a historically situated
mirror of production in Nigeria. More broadly, it points toward a
critique of the political economy of the sign in postcolonial
Africa.
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