Nemata Amelia Blyden. West Indians in West Africa, 1808–1880: The African Diaspora in Reverse. (Rochester Studies in African History and the Diaspora, number 8.) Rochester, N.Y.: University of Rochester Press. 2000. Pp. xi, 258. $75.00

2002 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
African Diaspora ◽  
West Indians ◽  
African History

WHO BELONGS TO THE ‘STAR PEOPLE’? NEGOTIATING BEER AND GIN ADVERTISEMENTS IN WEST AFRICA, 1949–75

2011 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 385-408 ◽  
Author(s):  
DMITRI VAN DEN BERSSELAAR
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Life Style ◽  
Market Research ◽  
African History ◽  
Modern Life ◽  
Foreign Companies

ABSTRACTThis article explores the different trajectories of advertising for schnapps gin and beer in Ghana and Nigeria during the period of decolonisation and independence up to 1975. It analyses published newspaper advertisements alongside correspondence, advertising briefs, and market research reports found in business archives. Advertising that promoted a ‘modern’ life-style worked for beer, but not for gin. This study shows how advertisements became the product of negotiations between foreign companies, local businesses, and consumers. It provides insights into the development of advertising in West Africa, the differing ways in which African consumers attached meanings to specific commodities, and possibilities for the use of advertisements as sources for African history.

Mbembe’s Matrix and the Matri-Archive

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Laura S. Grillo
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Postmenopausal Women ◽  
African History ◽  
Public Protest ◽  
Epistemic Violence ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
Female Genital

Abstract Achille Mbembe shows how the West’s denigrating projections on Africa as a chaotic void perpetrated a founding epistemic violence. The matrix of Black Reason, Blackness, and The Black worked systematically to justify colonialism and undermine African subjectivity. By maintaining its grip over the psyche, the postcolonial commandement effortlessly and indefinitely sustained subjugation. This is its ‘little secret’. Mbembe suggests that liberation may be possible by appealing to an archive from the ‘underside’ of African history to retrieve a self that is not constituted by toxic colonial projections. Drawing on my work An Intimate Rebuke: Female Genital Power in Ritual and Politics in West Africa, I argue that the traditional appeal by postmenopausal women to their ‘bottom power’ is just such a living matrix – a ‘matri-archive’. Performing this ritual in the context of public protest, the ‘Mothers’ deploy their own ‘little secret’ with the capacity to break the hold of the postcolony’s spell.

West Africa and the African Diaspora

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bayo Holsey
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
African Diaspora ◽  
Black Atlantic ◽  
Political Movements ◽  
African Countries ◽  
New Negro ◽  
Late 20Th Century ◽  
African Identity ◽  
New Negro Movement ◽  
Ongoing Dialogue

West Africa and the African diaspora share an intertwined history. From the earliest moments of the development of the diaspora, West Africans and members of the African diaspora have sought ways to connect to each other. They have done so through the exploration of cultural links, travel back and forth between West Africa and the diaspora, and the development of shared philosophical and political movements. They have celebrated the idea of a collective “African” identity shaped by people on both sides of the Atlantic including the Pan-African Movement, the New Negro Movement, and Negritude. The late 20th century has seen the travel of diasporic subjects to West African countries including Ghana, the Gambia, and Senegal, which have fashioned themselves as African homelands. Artists, activists, and migrants continue to travel back and forth between West Africa and various points in the African diaspora and, in doing so, shape the contours of the Black Atlantic World. The continuous communication and contact between West Africa and the diaspora constitute an ongoing dialogue that has led to cultural innovations on both sides of the Atlantic.

Postcolonial States and Societies in West Africa

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ebenezer Obadare
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
West African ◽  
Social Forces ◽  
African History ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
Lost Decade ◽  
Independence Era ◽  
Political Landscapes ◽  
Postcolonial States ◽  
The Military

Postcolonial West African history can be understood in terms of transitions across three successive eras: a post-independence era of high nationalism; the military era, characterized by profound political and socio-economic instability; and, finally, since the early 1990s, a democratization era, marked by continued swings between fevered hopes and anguished realities. These temporalities arguably converge on a singular leitmotif, namely, the attempt by state power to preserve its privileges and the struggle by social forces to resist the state and draw effective boundaries between the private and public domains. Gloomy for most of the “lost decade” of the 1980s, the prospect for such a project appears brighter today, especially in the aftermath of pivotal shifts in the global and regional political landscapes.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document