Pub Date : 2020-01-02DOI: 10.1080/00020184.2020.1747879
Niren Tolsi
INTRODUCTION The Ruth First Fellowship brings together academic research and social activism in the tradition of the pioneering journalist-activist the Fellowship honours. The Fellowship seeks research and critical thinking that will inform activism, and activists who will bring their experience to enrich the world of research. It also favours younger, emerging voices that will benefit from the exposure. Work is presented as part of the annual Ruth First Memorial Lecture at the University of the Witwatersrand. Welcoming critical investigations of social dynamics in Africa, grounded in relevant, illustrative, qualitative, evidentiary approaches, African Studies provides support and partnership for the Fellowship, which is hosted by the journalism department of the University of the Witwatersrand. The journal encourages innovative contributions from established and new scholars that reflect current conceptual thinking and draws upon Africa in order to question received theoretical and methodological paradigms. When the Ruth First committee decided to focus on the media in 2018, journalist Niren Tolsi’s proposal promised a fresh approach to tackling the challenges the South African media is facing. In the wake of recent incidents involving fire in very different communities, in the Knysna area and in informal settlements, he undertook to look into how our news media covered these events and what the contrasting treatments and responses told us about the state of our journalism and news media. He placed this in the context of changes taking place in our media, notably the growth of social media, and asked what it told us about the impact this new technology was having on our public sphere. The ‘outrage machine’ of social media responded very differently to fire in informal settlements and more privileged areas such as the scenes of the Knysna fires, he showed, reinforcing antagonistic ethnic and class consciousness. Far from the original promise of new media technologies to expose us to a multiplicity of voices, it ensures we hear only what we want to hear, reinforcing social siloes rather than breaking them down. Tolsi writes: ‘The Ruth First Fellowship allowed me to think through some of the major challenges facing South African media. These include the effects of social media disinformation on SA's political stability, concentrated toxic media ownership in SA, the neuroscientific effects of social media's unethical design on the traditional bonds that mobilised communities against the worst excesses of state and corporate power. It triggered a personal quest to find SA-specific responses to this global media crisis so as to contribute towards defining a new journalism in this digital moment. Perhaps the most uplifting aspect of the fellowship has been the numerous responses I received from journalists – especially young journalists.’
{"title":"Fire and media: Towards a new South African journalism","authors":"Niren Tolsi","doi":"10.1080/00020184.2020.1747879","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00020184.2020.1747879","url":null,"abstract":"INTRODUCTION The Ruth First Fellowship brings together academic research and social activism in the tradition of the pioneering journalist-activist the Fellowship honours. The Fellowship seeks research and critical thinking that will inform activism, and activists who will bring their experience to enrich the world of research. It also favours younger, emerging voices that will benefit from the exposure. Work is presented as part of the annual Ruth First Memorial Lecture at the University of the Witwatersrand. Welcoming critical investigations of social dynamics in Africa, grounded in relevant, illustrative, qualitative, evidentiary approaches, African Studies provides support and partnership for the Fellowship, which is hosted by the journalism department of the University of the Witwatersrand. The journal encourages innovative contributions from established and new scholars that reflect current conceptual thinking and draws upon Africa in order to question received theoretical and methodological paradigms. When the Ruth First committee decided to focus on the media in 2018, journalist Niren Tolsi’s proposal promised a fresh approach to tackling the challenges the South African media is facing. In the wake of recent incidents involving fire in very different communities, in the Knysna area and in informal settlements, he undertook to look into how our news media covered these events and what the contrasting treatments and responses told us about the state of our journalism and news media. He placed this in the context of changes taking place in our media, notably the growth of social media, and asked what it told us about the impact this new technology was having on our public sphere. The ‘outrage machine’ of social media responded very differently to fire in informal settlements and more privileged areas such as the scenes of the Knysna fires, he showed, reinforcing antagonistic ethnic and class consciousness. Far from the original promise of new media technologies to expose us to a multiplicity of voices, it ensures we hear only what we want to hear, reinforcing social siloes rather than breaking them down. Tolsi writes: ‘The Ruth First Fellowship allowed me to think through some of the major challenges facing South African media. These include the effects of social media disinformation on SA's political stability, concentrated toxic media ownership in SA, the neuroscientific effects of social media's unethical design on the traditional bonds that mobilised communities against the worst excesses of state and corporate power. It triggered a personal quest to find SA-specific responses to this global media crisis so as to contribute towards defining a new journalism in this digital moment. Perhaps the most uplifting aspect of the fellowship has been the numerous responses I received from journalists – especially young journalists.’","PeriodicalId":51769,"journal":{"name":"African Studies","volume":"79 1","pages":"160 - 170"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2020-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/00020184.2020.1747879","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44970308","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-01-02DOI: 10.1080/00020184.2020.1721266
Clive Glaser
ABSTRACT Morris Isaacson High School in Jabavu, Soweto, has often been described as the epicentre of the June 1976 Uprising. It has become a focal point for memorials and annual commemorations. Few South Africans know anything else about the school. This paper argues that, while the school did in fact play an important role in the Uprising, it has a longer and possibly more important history as an educational institution catering to often extremely poor, working class families in the heart of Soweto. I discuss Morris Isaacson in historical memory, including an analysis of the filming of Sarafina! and conclude that in educational terms, Morris Isaacson has been much neglected. Astute leadership and committed alumni in recent years have managed to leverage the school’s political fame to attract state and private sponsorship. But this material assistance has not entirely resolved the school’s problems, which are mostly rooted in the deeper deprivation of its neighbourhood.
{"title":"Beyond the legacy of 1976: Morris Isaacson High School, popular memory and the struggle for education in central Soweto","authors":"Clive Glaser","doi":"10.1080/00020184.2020.1721266","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00020184.2020.1721266","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Morris Isaacson High School in Jabavu, Soweto, has often been described as the epicentre of the June 1976 Uprising. It has become a focal point for memorials and annual commemorations. Few South Africans know anything else about the school. This paper argues that, while the school did in fact play an important role in the Uprising, it has a longer and possibly more important history as an educational institution catering to often extremely poor, working class families in the heart of Soweto. I discuss Morris Isaacson in historical memory, including an analysis of the filming of Sarafina! and conclude that in educational terms, Morris Isaacson has been much neglected. Astute leadership and committed alumni in recent years have managed to leverage the school’s political fame to attract state and private sponsorship. But this material assistance has not entirely resolved the school’s problems, which are mostly rooted in the deeper deprivation of its neighbourhood.","PeriodicalId":51769,"journal":{"name":"African Studies","volume":"79 1","pages":"21 - 36"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2020-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/00020184.2020.1721266","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44437528","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-01-02DOI: 10.1080/00020184.2020.1740974
Ernest Toochi Aniche
ABSTRACT Classical African regionalism, as rooted in pan-Africanism, is a strategy for decolonisation, anti-colonial and neo-colonial struggles, and continental unity. Modern African regionalism is a means to achieving continental unity, collective self-reliance and economic transformation as well as to creating an agenda for solving African developmental challenges. The main objective of this paper, therefore, is to examine the historical evolution of pan-Africanism and regionalism in Africa from colonial to post-colonial era in order to trace the interface between them. The paper assesses the extent to which regional integration in Africa has been able to achieve its stated objectives and targets over the years. It also investigates the various obstacles, constraints and challenges that militate against the accomplishment of its objectives, opportunities and prospects. It then interrogates the narratives of the Western neoliberal theories of integration or approaches to African integration. Subsequently the paper suggests that there is a need to deconstruct them in the search for paradigm shift in African integration. It contends that there is also a need to evolve a new theoretical approach to African integration anchored on neo-neo-integrationism of post-neo-functionalism or post-modern integrationism of post-neo-nationalism.
{"title":"From Pan-Africanism to African regionalism: A chronicle","authors":"Ernest Toochi Aniche","doi":"10.1080/00020184.2020.1740974","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00020184.2020.1740974","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Classical African regionalism, as rooted in pan-Africanism, is a strategy for decolonisation, anti-colonial and neo-colonial struggles, and continental unity. Modern African regionalism is a means to achieving continental unity, collective self-reliance and economic transformation as well as to creating an agenda for solving African developmental challenges. The main objective of this paper, therefore, is to examine the historical evolution of pan-Africanism and regionalism in Africa from colonial to post-colonial era in order to trace the interface between them. The paper assesses the extent to which regional integration in Africa has been able to achieve its stated objectives and targets over the years. It also investigates the various obstacles, constraints and challenges that militate against the accomplishment of its objectives, opportunities and prospects. It then interrogates the narratives of the Western neoliberal theories of integration or approaches to African integration. Subsequently the paper suggests that there is a need to deconstruct them in the search for paradigm shift in African integration. It contends that there is also a need to evolve a new theoretical approach to African integration anchored on neo-neo-integrationism of post-neo-functionalism or post-modern integrationism of post-neo-nationalism.","PeriodicalId":51769,"journal":{"name":"African Studies","volume":"79 1","pages":"70 - 87"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2020-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/00020184.2020.1740974","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48506816","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-01-02DOI: 10.1080/00020184.2020.1754762
M. A. Houser
ABSTRACT In late 1978, South African Defence Force troops raided southern Angola's Cassinga settlement. They rounded up dozens of alleged SWAPO-PLAN combatants and held some for more than a decade. The resulting legal battles put to the test lawyering skills in both southern Africa and the United States, and they undermined the apartheid state's ability to crush dissent. This article considers the lens of the Cassinga detainee crisis to assess how South African, Namibian and American lawyers utilised American case law in South African courts. It begins with a brief discussion of the history of the involved parties and continues to discuss the saga and its outcomes. Both the South African state and its opposition viewed Cassinga's battles as central to exercising power in Namibia, and this demonstrates the centrality of the law and legal mechanisms to dismantling apartheid. It highlights the degree to which the law proved a useful tool for liberation movements to ensure the continuation of political dissent within South Africa, withstanding public repression of the 1980s. Ultimately, it regards the Cassinga case as representative of many that kept open dialogue between the South African state, liberation movements and the international community.
{"title":"Legal representation in lacuna: The Namibian Legal Resources Centre, Southern Africa Project, and the trial of the Cassinga detainees","authors":"M. A. Houser","doi":"10.1080/00020184.2020.1754762","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00020184.2020.1754762","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In late 1978, South African Defence Force troops raided southern Angola's Cassinga settlement. They rounded up dozens of alleged SWAPO-PLAN combatants and held some for more than a decade. The resulting legal battles put to the test lawyering skills in both southern Africa and the United States, and they undermined the apartheid state's ability to crush dissent. This article considers the lens of the Cassinga detainee crisis to assess how South African, Namibian and American lawyers utilised American case law in South African courts. It begins with a brief discussion of the history of the involved parties and continues to discuss the saga and its outcomes. Both the South African state and its opposition viewed Cassinga's battles as central to exercising power in Namibia, and this demonstrates the centrality of the law and legal mechanisms to dismantling apartheid. It highlights the degree to which the law proved a useful tool for liberation movements to ensure the continuation of political dissent within South Africa, withstanding public repression of the 1980s. Ultimately, it regards the Cassinga case as representative of many that kept open dialogue between the South African state, liberation movements and the international community.","PeriodicalId":51769,"journal":{"name":"African Studies","volume":"79 1","pages":"37 - 50"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2020-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/00020184.2020.1754762","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48399370","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-01-02DOI: 10.1080/00020184.2020.1732190
S. Bartal
ABSTRACT The purpose of this study is to closely examine Tunisia’s Rached Ghannouchi (Arabic: Rāshid al-Ghannūshī), the head of the Islamic movement in Tunisia, Ennahdha. Tunisia has a unique experience in Political Islam. I have examined the above personality and his political affiliation as a case study for this paper. Some new incidents have emerged lately in Tunisia that appear to be pointing to new, up-coming changes in the political life in that country. This paper will introduce these changes in Tunisia and their expected effects. For the purpose of this article, modern Islam no longer refers to Islamists as demanding a monopoly of power and imposing sharia law. Rather, it presents it as a means of achieving political goals. How Rāshid al-Ghannūshī has acted and what his thoughts have been since the Tunisian revolution (2011) up until 2017 are discussed in this paper.
{"title":"Rached Ghannouchi’s test: Political Islam and democracy in Tunisia","authors":"S. Bartal","doi":"10.1080/00020184.2020.1732190","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00020184.2020.1732190","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The purpose of this study is to closely examine Tunisia’s Rached Ghannouchi (Arabic: Rāshid al-Ghannūshī), the head of the Islamic movement in Tunisia, Ennahdha. Tunisia has a unique experience in Political Islam. I have examined the above personality and his political affiliation as a case study for this paper. Some new incidents have emerged lately in Tunisia that appear to be pointing to new, up-coming changes in the political life in that country. This paper will introduce these changes in Tunisia and their expected effects. For the purpose of this article, modern Islam no longer refers to Islamists as demanding a monopoly of power and imposing sharia law. Rather, it presents it as a means of achieving political goals. How Rāshid al-Ghannūshī has acted and what his thoughts have been since the Tunisian revolution (2011) up until 2017 are discussed in this paper.","PeriodicalId":51769,"journal":{"name":"African Studies","volume":"79 1","pages":"110 - 124"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2020-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/00020184.2020.1732190","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44511296","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-01-02DOI: 10.1080/00020184.2019.1695385
S. Adebayo
ABSTRACT This paper examines the complexity of postcolonial manifestations of race, alongside class, colonialism and nationality in Igoni Barrett’s Blackass. I adopt a (post-)Fanonian approach in investigating how the novel depicts the psychopolitics of race in the aftermath of the empire. I analyse the ways in which the novel draws attention to white supremacy as a global phenomenon not only restricted to the conceptual West or settler colonies but also in settings where the colonisers are no longer present. This feeds into the critique of neoliberal democracy that, apparently, is still heavily yoked in the whims and caprices of racialism.
{"title":"The black soul is (still) a white man’s artefact? Postcoloniality, post-Fanonism and the tenacity of race(ism) in A. Igoni Barrett’s Blackass","authors":"S. Adebayo","doi":"10.1080/00020184.2019.1695385","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00020184.2019.1695385","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This paper examines the complexity of postcolonial manifestations of race, alongside class, colonialism and nationality in Igoni Barrett’s Blackass. I adopt a (post-)Fanonian approach in investigating how the novel depicts the psychopolitics of race in the aftermath of the empire. I analyse the ways in which the novel draws attention to white supremacy as a global phenomenon not only restricted to the conceptual West or settler colonies but also in settings where the colonisers are no longer present. This feeds into the critique of neoliberal democracy that, apparently, is still heavily yoked in the whims and caprices of racialism.","PeriodicalId":51769,"journal":{"name":"African Studies","volume":"79 1","pages":"143 - 159"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2020-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/00020184.2019.1695385","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46538707","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-01-02DOI: 10.1080/00020184.2020.1755828
E. Bayeh
ABSTRACT This article examines whether the proliferation of overlapping sub-regional security organisations in Eastern Africa is an opportunity or a challenge to the security of the region. To this end, I used secondary sources of data. The data analysed show that the duplication of security institutions has detrimental effects namely, financial problems, inefficiency and ineffectiveness, conflictual competition, forum shopping and regime shifting. As far as the positive aspect of it is concerned, there have been negligible cooperative attempts, while all other possible positive effects discussed in the conceptual framework part are missing. Thus, it is evident from the findings that the proliferation of sub-regional organisations in Eastern Africa is more of a challenge than an opportunity to maintain peace and security in the region.
{"title":"The proliferation of overlapping sub-regional organisations in Eastern Africa: An opportunity for or a challenge to the security of the region?","authors":"E. Bayeh","doi":"10.1080/00020184.2020.1755828","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00020184.2020.1755828","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article examines whether the proliferation of overlapping sub-regional security organisations in Eastern Africa is an opportunity or a challenge to the security of the region. To this end, I used secondary sources of data. The data analysed show that the duplication of security institutions has detrimental effects namely, financial problems, inefficiency and ineffectiveness, conflictual competition, forum shopping and regime shifting. As far as the positive aspect of it is concerned, there have been negligible cooperative attempts, while all other possible positive effects discussed in the conceptual framework part are missing. Thus, it is evident from the findings that the proliferation of sub-regional organisations in Eastern Africa is more of a challenge than an opportunity to maintain peace and security in the region.","PeriodicalId":51769,"journal":{"name":"African Studies","volume":"79 1","pages":"125 - 142"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2020-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/00020184.2020.1755828","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45663105","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-01-02DOI: 10.1080/00020184.2020.1724767
Redie Bereketeab
ABSTRACT This article examines state legitimacy and government performance in the Horn of Africa (HOA). Drawing on the literature of the state and specifically on the HOA, as well as on primary research, this article seeks to examine the nature of state legitimacy. The wider literature indicates that state legitimacy derives from two sources: domestic and external. In an ideal situation, a symmetry exists between the two. In reality, however, there is usually an inverted relation. The notion of inverted legitimacy describes a reality where only one source of legitimacy, either domestic or external, prevails at a time. The inverted nature of state legitimacy causes chronic state crisis. The article provides a theoretical and conceptual analysis of legitimacy followed by empirical illustration. To that end, it discusses a number of theoretical and conceptual strands of state legitimacy. It argues that the origin of the state and consecutive external interventions destabilise and distort state legitimacy in the HOA. The article concludes that inverted legitimacy leads the state to malfunction and crisis. It further argues that state legitimacy determines government performance, as the latter also determines the former.
{"title":"State legitimacy and government performance in the Horn of Africa","authors":"Redie Bereketeab","doi":"10.1080/00020184.2020.1724767","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00020184.2020.1724767","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article examines state legitimacy and government performance in the Horn of Africa (HOA). Drawing on the literature of the state and specifically on the HOA, as well as on primary research, this article seeks to examine the nature of state legitimacy. The wider literature indicates that state legitimacy derives from two sources: domestic and external. In an ideal situation, a symmetry exists between the two. In reality, however, there is usually an inverted relation. The notion of inverted legitimacy describes a reality where only one source of legitimacy, either domestic or external, prevails at a time. The inverted nature of state legitimacy causes chronic state crisis. The article provides a theoretical and conceptual analysis of legitimacy followed by empirical illustration. To that end, it discusses a number of theoretical and conceptual strands of state legitimacy. It argues that the origin of the state and consecutive external interventions destabilise and distort state legitimacy in the HOA. The article concludes that inverted legitimacy leads the state to malfunction and crisis. It further argues that state legitimacy determines government performance, as the latter also determines the former.","PeriodicalId":51769,"journal":{"name":"African Studies","volume":"79 1","pages":"51 - 69"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2020-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/00020184.2020.1724767","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46283466","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-01-02DOI: 10.1080/00020184.2020.1750349
Garhe Osiebe
ABSTRACT In the 1982 documentary Music is the Weapon, Fela Anikulapo Kuti, arguably the inventor of Afrobeat, pronounced that: ‘My name is Anikulapo: I have death in my pouch. I can’t die. They can’t kill me!’ Fela passed on in 1997, yet his revolutionary practice, in message and in musical form, means that he lives on in the imagination. Over the last decade, Afrobeat has transformed in both terminology and practice. For some, Afrobeat has morphed into an ‘apolitical genre by an industry more concerned [ … ] with producing easy listening [and danceable] music’ (Negus 1996, 41). While Fela’s sons Femi and Seun Kuti continue to play Afrobeat as originally proposed, thus maintaining a relative patent on their father’s invention, the bulk of the current usage relies on simulation and as Afrobeats. This paper focuses on the practices of a selection of Afrobeats musicians who have appropriated the text, synthesised the sound, conjured the appearance and invoked the name and symbolisms of Fela. The paper draws from Tejumola Olaniyan’s delineation of the stages in Fela’s creative career in illustrating how contemporary popular musicians entextualise Fela in their respective creative careers. These Afrobeats artists have performed the ‘Fela stages’ in their corresponding bodies of work through several means including, but not limited to, the textually analogous, dedicatory, apparitional, amalgamated, and by the means of coming to realisation.
在1982年的纪录片《音乐是武器》(Music is the Weapon)中,affrobeat的发明者费拉·阿尼库拉波·库蒂(Fela Anikulapo Kuti)宣称:“我的名字是阿尼库拉波:我的口袋里有死亡。”我不能死。他们杀不了我!费拉于1997年去世,但他在信息和音乐形式上的革命性实践,意味着他活在人们的想象中。在过去的十年中,Afrobeat在术语和实践上都发生了变化。对一些人来说,非洲节奏已经演变成一种“由一个更关心制作容易听的[和可跳舞的]音乐的行业的非政治类型”(Negus 1996, 41)。虽然Fela的儿子Femi和Seun Kuti继续按照最初的建议玩《Afrobeat》,从而保留了他们父亲发明的相对专利,但目前的大部分使用都依赖于模拟和《Afrobeat》。这篇论文的重点是一些非洲节拍音乐家的实践,他们挪用了文本,合成了声音,改变了外观,调用了Fela的名字和象征。本文借鉴Tejumola Olaniyan对Fela创作生涯各个阶段的描述,说明当代流行音乐家如何在各自的创作生涯中演绎Fela。这些非洲节拍派艺术家在他们相应的作品中通过几种方式表演了“Fela阶段”,包括但不限于文本类比,奉献,幻影,合并,以及通过实现的方式。
{"title":"Methods in performing Fela in contemporary Afrobeats, 2009–2019","authors":"Garhe Osiebe","doi":"10.1080/00020184.2020.1750349","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00020184.2020.1750349","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In the 1982 documentary Music is the Weapon, Fela Anikulapo Kuti, arguably the inventor of Afrobeat, pronounced that: ‘My name is Anikulapo: I have death in my pouch. I can’t die. They can’t kill me!’ Fela passed on in 1997, yet his revolutionary practice, in message and in musical form, means that he lives on in the imagination. Over the last decade, Afrobeat has transformed in both terminology and practice. For some, Afrobeat has morphed into an ‘apolitical genre by an industry more concerned [ … ] with producing easy listening [and danceable] music’ (Negus 1996, 41). While Fela’s sons Femi and Seun Kuti continue to play Afrobeat as originally proposed, thus maintaining a relative patent on their father’s invention, the bulk of the current usage relies on simulation and as Afrobeats. This paper focuses on the practices of a selection of Afrobeats musicians who have appropriated the text, synthesised the sound, conjured the appearance and invoked the name and symbolisms of Fela. The paper draws from Tejumola Olaniyan’s delineation of the stages in Fela’s creative career in illustrating how contemporary popular musicians entextualise Fela in their respective creative careers. These Afrobeats artists have performed the ‘Fela stages’ in their corresponding bodies of work through several means including, but not limited to, the textually analogous, dedicatory, apparitional, amalgamated, and by the means of coming to realisation.","PeriodicalId":51769,"journal":{"name":"African Studies","volume":"79 1","pages":"88 - 109"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2020-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/00020184.2020.1750349","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44155010","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}