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Popular Culture in Africa: Findings and Conjectures

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2012

Johannes Fabian
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Extract

One effect of specialization in the field of African Studies has been to prevent or hinder the study of subjects which, by their very nature, demand interdisciplinary interests and competences. Emerging popular culture is such a field. Division of labor among various social sciences and between the social sciences and the humanities—late-comers to Anglo-American concerns with Africa—have long worked like a conjuring trick: making vast and vigorous expressions of African experience de facto invisible, especially to expatriate researchers. African scholars have been slow to denounce this state of affairs, perhaps out of an elitist need to set themselves apart from the loud and colorful bursts of creativity in music, oral lore, and the visual arts emerging from the masses.

Résumé

LA CULTURE POPULAIRE EN AFRIQUE: RÉSULTATS ET HYPOTHÈSES

En raison de la division du travail qui s'est effectuée entre les diverses sciences sociales et les lettres, de nombreuses formes d'expression culturelle de l'Afrique post-coloniale n'ont pas été examinées. La notion de ‘culture populaire’ permet de remédier à cette situation en faisant appel à des données d'origines diverses. On examine ici un thème central, les rapports entre hommes et femmes, à travers trois formes de culture populaire du Zaïre: la chanson, la religion charismatique et la peinture. A partir de certaines notions élaborées par M. Foucault, on tente de démontrer que certaines manifestations culturelles qui semblent n'avoir entre elles aucun rapport en raison de leur appartenance à des périodes différentes et à des modes d'expression divers, constituent en réalité un discours cohérent. On s'est penché plus particulièrement sur les répercussions politiques de l'expression culturelle populaire.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 48 , Issue 4 , October 1978 , pp. 315 - 334
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1978

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