Given the success of African women’s literature in disseminating the African Womanist cause, this study examines popular Nigerian women’s lifestyle magazines to ascertain whether and in what ways...Show moreGiven the success of African women’s literature in disseminating the African Womanist cause, this study examines popular Nigerian women’s lifestyle magazines to ascertain whether and in what ways they are able to reflect, reinforce or contradict the African feminist agenda.Taking an interdisciplinary approach applying qualitative content analysis from literary studies to the content and feature articles of two Nigerian women’s magazines, this study thematically analyzes discourses and practices of femininity in the Nigerian media. Viewed from the African Womanist perspective, this research illustrates that, contrary to the generalization that representations of women in the media are stereotypical and destructive to women, Nigerian women’s lifestyle magazines construct positive images of femininity. Women are portrayed as actively carving out spaces for more freedom of choice and achievement for themselves in work, marriage and motherhood as well as issues that pertain to gender equality and empowerment. Magazine discourse thus mirrors the African feminist agenda, affirming that women’s sectional media can act as vehicles for the positive identity formation of women. Through the application of methods and paradigms from African women’s literary studies to the media, this research contributes to the current shifts in methodological approaches to feminist media studies and provides an understanding of how the mass media can play a role in women’s empowerment.Show less
The presence of indigenous heritage elements in all the various domains is a hardly avoidable fact in the Canary Islands. The ideological discourses from moderated nationalism to pro-independence...Show moreThe presence of indigenous heritage elements in all the various domains is a hardly avoidable fact in the Canary Islands. The ideological discourses from moderated nationalism to pro-independence perspectives, justify the attention towards “the noble indigenous past”. These political discourses help preserve traditional customs and celebrations in a process referred to as “folklorization”. This is mainly accomplished by turning the indigenous past into museums and ethnographic parks. Similarly,the Canarian moderate nationalism has become the main political force in the archipelago in the recent history of the Spanish democracy. While being for over 20 years in power, the nationalistic party Coalición Canaria has been able to build an identity discourse based on what Estévez called the indigenous patrimonization. The government has been offering funds to support the scientific research, the patrimony management and the encyclopaedic volumes on “Canarian themes” with didactic purposes, all of which have elicited an emotional legitimacy of the above-mentioned concepts. The patrimony management could also be considered as an important political and economical tool used to the re-creation, regulation and conservation of certain patrimonial elements of a culture that often occurs to the detriment of others. The experts’ view serves mostly as a filter through which material items of cultural patrimony are interpreted and regarded as valuable, while others are not. From the perspective of globalization, the protection of the historical patrimony can be interpreted as a resistance against the homogenization of social behaviors and consumption. However, tourists rather than the locals are the biggest consumers of this historical cultural patrimony. Thus, one could argue that it could have been created with the intention to satisfy the tourists’ demands (Estévez, 2004:16). On the one hand, a large part of the scientific community takes a stance against the indigenous heritage commercialization and its consumption by tourists and locals, based on the idea that such processes could undermine the intrinsic value of the indigenous heritage. On the other hand, the artists and their audiences continue to appreciate the value that is to be found in the indigenous imagination, as expressed in social situations when the audiences enjoy music and pottery inspired by the primal cultures of the first inhabitants of the Canaries. The concept of “folklorization” is tightly related to the general social interest of giving to the past a decisive role in the population’s destiny. This tendency provides the Canarian citizens a sense of feeling members of the same community/family and helps sculpt personality. In regard to the past generations, one can only use their remains to draw assumptions about the way they lived, but it is impossible to know exactly how they were and felt. In that sense, the museums assist in re-constructing the history according to scientific, political and ideological assumptions depending on the given historical period (Estévez, 2004:13). A consensual concern seems to exist in regard to preserving the traditions and conserving the cultural patrimony of the Canaries. However, the patrimony is selected through today’s lens. Hence, its preservation is linked to the current demands and uses of such cultural patrimony. In many cases, Estévez argues, the measures applied to classify what could be defined as patrimony, correspond to cost related and opportunistic criteria rather than scientific ones. Indeed there are many instances in the Canary Islands where the archaeology and patrimony management were interrelated with political purposes. In the present, a museum is meant to play a social function based on grounds of cultural democratization. Therefore, while visiting a museum, one expects a reflective and interactive exchange of contrasted scientific information provided to the public to draw their personal conclusions. However, when the explanations provided are too simple, obsolete or ideologically manipulated, the visitors are left with a feeling of confusion. This leads us to the argumentation that the proliferation of archaeological and ethnographical sites across the archipelago has not always been based on historical and archaeological motives, aiming to acquire a better understanding of the indigenous heritage of the Canaries. On the contrary, in most cases such proliferation has been based on economic profits, with tourists and also locals consuming their own patrimony at the cost of falsifying the history.Show less
Research master thesis | African Studies (research) (MA)
open access
For many Malawians the concept of home is strongly associated with the rural areas and one’s (supposedly rural) place of birth. This ‘grand narrative about home’, though often reiterated, doesn’t...Show moreFor many Malawians the concept of home is strongly associated with the rural areas and one’s (supposedly rural) place of birth. This ‘grand narrative about home’, though often reiterated, doesn’t necessarily depict lived reality. Malawi’s history of movement and labor migration coupled with contemporary rapid urbanization makes that the amount of people whose lives do not fit this grand narrative, is increasing fast. In the current context of extreme poverty, destitution and devastation – the latter due to the flash floods of January 2015 – slum areas in Blantyre city are growing and so is the number of street children and youth. Some of them are taken in by organizations such as the Samaritan Trust; a street children shelter. This program aims at taking street youth home by ‘reintegrating’ them in their (rural) communities. When asked, the majority of (former) street youth adhere to the grand narrative and state their home to be in a rural village. Yet at the same time, this home is a place they intentionally left and do not wish to (currently) return to. Hence they are generally depicted as ‘homeless’. I wondered: how do (former) street youth in Blantyre, Malawi, engage with ‘the grand narrative about home’ in trying to imagine their ‘becoming at home’ in the city? My thesis departs from the idea that (the search for) home is an integral part of the human condition. During eight months of ethnographic fieldwork in Blantyre, Malawi, I used qualitative methods – mainly interviews and participant observation – to come to an understanding of the meaning of home for (former) street youth. Some of them, the street girls, currently reside at Samaritan Trust and the former street youth are boys who formerly resided there. Their home-making practices in relation to a marginalized socio-economic position in an overall challenging economic context point towards more fluid and diverse constructions of home that exist alongside the grand narrative without rendering it obsolete. Under pressure, (former) street youth paradoxically attempt to solidify home – even though home remains fluid in practice. These attempts assist in coping with life in liquid modernity while they are at the same time fraught with contradictions, especially when these solidifications are themselves solidified in policies. These policies subsequently hamper (former) street youth’s becoming at home in town by following the grand narrative and thus confining their homes to rural areas. I conclude that home can best be seen as a fluid field of tensions (re)created in the everyday, thus leaving space for both (former) street youth’s roots and routes. An alternative way in which (former) street youth try to become at home in the city is by searching for a romantic partner to co-construct this (future) home with.Show less
