{"title":"Afropolitan Masculinity: Forgeries of Wife-Owning Husbands in West Africa, 1850s–1950s","authors":"Ndubueze L. Mbah","doi":"10.1177/00020397231206133","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Between the 1850s and 1950s, when abolitionism masked neoslavery and engendered displacement and forced labour migration in West Africa, Africans used forgery as a survival mechanism. They forged legal documents, claimed multiple forms of citizenship and belonging as Afropolitans, and manipulated kinship and imperial bureaucracy in the quest for freedom. One arena of forgery examined in this article entailed the invention of “husband” as “wife-owner,” within a context of gendered aspirations for social reproduction in the age of abolition. Southeastern Nigerian male migrants mobilised freedom papers, labour contracts, marriage certificates, and the medium of petition-writing to fashion themselves into Afropolitan wife-owners in a bid to survive transimperial displacement, marginalisation, and subordination that arose from abolition forgery. Afropolitan masculinity illuminates how abolition forgery generated enduring structures of hierarchical gender relations in West Africa.","PeriodicalId":45570,"journal":{"name":"Africa Spectrum","volume":"17 3","pages":"267 - 293"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9000,"publicationDate":"2023-11-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Africa Spectrum","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00020397231206133","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"AREA STUDIES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Between the 1850s and 1950s, when abolitionism masked neoslavery and engendered displacement and forced labour migration in West Africa, Africans used forgery as a survival mechanism. They forged legal documents, claimed multiple forms of citizenship and belonging as Afropolitans, and manipulated kinship and imperial bureaucracy in the quest for freedom. One arena of forgery examined in this article entailed the invention of “husband” as “wife-owner,” within a context of gendered aspirations for social reproduction in the age of abolition. Southeastern Nigerian male migrants mobilised freedom papers, labour contracts, marriage certificates, and the medium of petition-writing to fashion themselves into Afropolitan wife-owners in a bid to survive transimperial displacement, marginalisation, and subordination that arose from abolition forgery. Afropolitan masculinity illuminates how abolition forgery generated enduring structures of hierarchical gender relations in West Africa.
期刊介绍：
Africa Spectrum is a peer-reviewed, Open Access journal published since 1966 by the GIGA Institute of African Affairs (IAA) in Hamburg. It is a multidisciplinary journal dedicated to scientific exchange between the continents. It focuses on socially relevant issues related to political, economic, and sociocultural problems and events in Africa, as well as on Africa''s role within the international system. There are no article processing charges payable to publish in Africa Spectrum. For more than five decades, Africa Spectrum has provided in-depth analyses of current issues in political, social, and economic life; culture; and development in sub-Saharan Africa, including historical studies that illuminate current events on the continent. Africa Spectrum is the leading German academic journal exclusively devoted to this continent and is part of the GIGA Journal Family. The journal accepts Research Articles, Analyses and Reports as well as Book Reviews. It also publishes special issues devoted to particular subjects.
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