tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/yoruba-culture-25290/articlesYoruba culture – The Conversation2023-12-14T13:37:55Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2181742023-12-14T13:37:55Z2023-12-14T13:37:55ZNigeria’s flamboyant aso ebi dressing style is popular - but it’s become a financial burden<p>Aso ebi – “family uniform” – is the Yoruba custom of people dressing alike for social events. The custom is rooted in kinship (ebi), an important aspect of Yoruba social life since precolonial times in what’s now south-west Nigeria. </p>
<p>Words like <em>molebi</em> (kinsmen) and <em>olori ebi</em> (head of the family) point to the importance of kinship in this culture. The saying <em>eni to so ebi e nu, apo iya lo so ko</em> literally translates as “whoever deserts his kinsmen straps on his/her shoulder a satchel of misfortune”. Aso ebi expresses these values visibly: uniform dressing is intended to reinforce unity and fraternity. </p>
<p>Historically, Yoruba kinsmen wore the aso ebi – usually specially chosen fabrics – during celebrations for group identification.</p>
<p>At first, inclusion and participation in uniform clothing for social events was restricted to blood relationship and mutual ancestry. As time went on, belonging to a group through uniform dressing extended beyond family circles.</p>
<p>From the early 20th century, aso ebi became more about the need to communicate <a href="https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Aso-Ebi-%3A-The-Dynamics-of-Fashion-and-Cultural-in-Ajani/29cda686a2d9600811366015789dea8f0a24c282?utm_source=direct_link">social worth</a>. My interviews with some elderly people in Ibadan revealed that, during this period, it was referred to as <em>ankoo</em> (uniformity) or <em>egbejoda</em> (group uniform). Blood ties became a less important consideration for participation.</p>
<p>Nowadays, aso ebi is a regular <a href="https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/234690994.pdf#page=1">feature</a> at social events like weddings, funerals, birthdays, conferments and political rallies across Nigeria. </p>
<p>As a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=ybH50nYAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate">scholar</a> of costume in theatre, I’ve always been fascinated by the aso ebi custom. In theatre, costume helps tell a story, among other functions, and aso ebi is also a costume in the performance of a social event. </p>
<p>I wanted to know more about the modern aso ebi trends. Anecdotal evidence suggested that the practice was becoming something of a burden for some people. My <a href="https://journaljesbs.com/index.php/JESBS/article/view/1041">research</a> bore this out: I found that the financial burden of purchasing aso ebi was prominent among its perceived drawbacks and strengths alike. </p>
<h2>Aso ebi as costume</h2>
<p>In theatre and film, costume transforms actors into characters and depicts setting, culture, age and occupation. It tells the audience something about the character’s social class, economic worth and status in a hierarchy. Costume can project personal characteristics, deliberately or unwittingly. It can help depict relationships in a group.</p>
<p>In daily life, too, clothes give us nonverbal clues about their wearers. They reveal age, mood, sex, culture, social status, religion, occupation, political affiliation and so on. </p>
<p>At social events, participants can be regarded as performers as well as audience members. Wearing aso ebi, participants are able to play premeditated or spontaneous roles.</p>
<h2>Modern trends</h2>
<p>In the last few decades, aso ebi has been <a href="https://www.google.com.ng/books/edition/Aso_Ebi/E84qEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Aso+Ebi:+Dress,+Fashion,+Visual+Culture,+and+Urban+Cosmopolitanism+in+West+Africa&printsec=frontcover">embraced</a> by other ethnic groups in Nigeria and the diaspora. The trend has extended beyond the geographical and social landscape of the Yoruba people. </p>
<p>Part of the reason may be its propensity to add glamour and spectacle to events. But even more importantly, it may be due to its inclusion tendency, since it gives wearers a sense of involvement, seemingly excluding some non-wearers, thereby drawing social Lines at social events. </p>
<p>It is common for guests to wear identical fabrics like wax prints (Ankara), lace, brocade and other materials to events. </p>
<p>Planning and coordinating this wearing of uniforms at events has become quite a business. Usually, a celebrant chooses the fabric, determines the price and monopolises the sale to guests. Often the intention is to make a profit. Guests can’t haggle over the price and are expected to turn out in the fabric for the event, thereby creating the impression of solidarity and support for the celebrant. </p>
<p>Affordability and social integration have become more significant considerations, pushing kinship to the back seat.</p>
<h2>Beyond the glamour, the distress</h2>
<p>Despite the popularity of aso ebi, my <a href="https://journaljesbs.com/index.php/JESBS/article/view/1041">study</a> found that it is causing some distress. </p>
<p>I administered questionnaires to 270 Yoruba adults (135 men and 135 women) in Osun and Oyo states in south-western Nigeria, asking them about the challenges and merits of wearing aso ebi. Participants indicated whether they experienced any of a list of challenges such as cost, competition and issues of personal taste. The list of potential merits included boosting camaraderie and collective sense of purpose, and benefits to the producers of the uniforms.</p>
<p>The results showed that the main problem with aso ebi was the financial burden of having to buy the fabrics continuously. This stems from being obliged to attend social events and the tendency for reciprocity: “I bought your aso ebi, buy mine.” People end up with a large stock of fabrics and are limited in their ability to buy, store and wear their own clothes.</p>
<p>Another challenge is that buyers of aso ebi fabrics don’t have a choice or the option of bargaining, since it is non-negotiable. And the fabrics and uniforms are not always to the individual’s taste.</p>
<p>Participants also felt that aso ebi encouraged unhealthy flamboyant competition.</p>
<p>When they responded to the list of potential merits, they gave equal weight to aso ebi as a booster of social incorporation and cohesion, and as a source of economic value for individuals who make the fabrics.</p>
<p>The practice has been <em>commodified</em> to the extent that cohesion, equality and social egalitarianism may be taking a back seat. Aso ebi is fast becoming a point of dissension, segregating wearers. It has a propensity to create social gulfs, distancing wearers and placing them on different tiers of the same ladder.</p>
<p>However, according to my study findings, the benefits of aso ebi – like comradeship – still outweigh the challenges.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218174/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Susan Olubukola Badeji is affiliated with a non-profit organisation.
Women Forward Innovative Development Initiative WFID. We are based in Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria. Our aim is Women empowerment in order to alleviate poverty.</span></em></p>Aso ebi - colourful fabrics worn at social events in NIgeria - makes parties glamorous but the cost can also be burdensome.Susan Olubukola Badeji, Lecturer, Redeemer's UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2045692023-05-21T10:11:24Z2023-05-21T10:11:24ZNigeria’s city of Ilé-Ifẹ̀ has survived and thrived for 1,000 years: here’s how<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527512/original/file-20230522-8471-udx56t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Men arrive for the celebrations for the Olojo Festival in Ile-Ife.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/men-arrive-for-the-celebrations-for-the-olojo-festival-in-news-photo/1243465845?adppopup=true">Samuel Alabi/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>By the end of this century, the three <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0956247816663557">most populous cities</a> in the world are expected to be in Africa, with Lagos in Nigeria leading as home to 88.3 million people.</p>
<p>When thinking about what city life is like now and could be like in future, it’s helpful to know something about African urban history.</p>
<p>It’s a <a href="https://markuswiener.com/books/the-history-of-african-cities-south-of-the-sahara-from-the-origins-to-colonization/">history</a> that goes far back, long before the onset of European colonial rule in the late 19th century. And the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Yoruba-culture-geographical-Afolabi-Ojo/dp/B0007AJB6W">Yorùbá-speaking area of west Africa</a> was a key player in the continent’s ancient urban history. </p>
<p>Ancient Yorùbá towns and cities, such as Ilé-Ifẹ̀, Ọ̀wọ̀, Ìjẹ̀bú-Òde, and Ọ̀yọ́-Ilé, have attracted attention from different disciplines – especially <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/1368563211">sociology</a>, <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/26109263">anthropology</a> and <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/581348">geography</a>. But their deep history, including how, why, and when they developed, isn’t well known. </p>
<p>In a <a href="https://www.brepolsonline.net/doi/pdf/10.1484/J.JUA.5.133451">recent article</a> I set out my findings on the early centuries of Ilé-Ifẹ̀, in south-west Nigeria. </p>
<p>Ilé-Ifẹ̀ <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/31069933">occupies</a> a central place in Yorùbá history and identity. It is claimed to be the <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/134236">harbinger of Yorùbá civilisation</a>. More than a thousand years old, Ilé-Ifẹ̀ is one of the oldest and longest-occupied cities in Africa. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/881237478">Ilé-Ifẹ̀ literally means “House of Abundance”</a>. The name also refers to a place that is diverse and always expanding. In my paper, More than a thousand years old, Ilé-Ifẹ̀ is one of the oldest and longest-occupied cities in Africa.
. </p>
<p>My archaeological and historical findings <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Yoruba-New-History-Akinwumi-Ogundiran/dp/0253051495/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3JSE0VSNINING&keywords=the+yoruba+a+new+history&qid=1683303629&sprefix=the+yoruba%3A+a+new+%2Caps%2C103&sr=8-1">show</a> how Ilé-Ifẹ̀ became a commercial hub, a pilgrimage and intellectual centre, a magnet for migrants, and a legitimator of social order for a multi-lingual region about 1,000 years ago.</p>
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<img alt="A man holding work tools" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525583/original/file-20230511-18-99kbzb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525583/original/file-20230511-18-99kbzb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525583/original/file-20230511-18-99kbzb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525583/original/file-20230511-18-99kbzb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525583/original/file-20230511-18-99kbzb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525583/original/file-20230511-18-99kbzb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525583/original/file-20230511-18-99kbzb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The author’s excavation in Oduduwa Grove in 2014.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Akinwumi Ogundiran</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<h2>My research</h2>
<p>I began my study of Ilé-Ifẹ̀ in the mid-1980s, learning historical, ethnographic and archaeological field methods in shrines, temples and sacred groves in the city and its suburbs. I later researched oral traditions and ritual archives in the ancient city to understand indigenous urbanism (the way people relate to the built environment), social organisation and governance. My research extended to other parts of the Yorùbá-speaking region in Nigeria, combining archaeological methods with oral traditions, rituals and language history. I also benefited from published scholarship on Yorùbá history.</p>
<p>My comparative and interdisciplinary approaches highlighted three kinds of urban scale: complexity, multiplexity and referentiality. </p>
<p>Complexity is about social organisation and communities building from the ground up. </p>
<p>Multiplexity is about the way diversity of skills and social differences are cultivated and harmonised to form an organic whole greater than the sum of its parts. </p>
<p>Referentiality is about the values the city generates for its residents and a vast area beyond its core. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-long-view-sheds-fresh-light-on-the-history-of-the-yoruba-people-in-west-africa-162776">A long view sheds fresh light on the history of the Yoruba people in West Africa</a>
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<h2>Community building as urbanism</h2>
<p>My key finding was that the <em>raison d’être</em> of urbanism in Ilé-Ifẹ̀ was community building. Unlike some other African urban centres, such as the <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/971462750">Swahili cities</a> in East Africa, Ilé-Ifẹ̀ did not begin as a terminus of long-distance trade routes. Neither did it begin as a hub of craftworks. </p>
<p>Rather, it started as a political unit integrating smaller social units called <em>ilé</em>. The city <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Yoruba-New-History-Akinwumi-Ogundiran/dp/0253051495">came into being</a> as a result of the self-organising strategies that several <em>ilé</em> embarked upon at the end of the first millennium AD.</p>
<p>They did this to manage resources and potential conflicts in the face of increasing population and ecological stress.</p>
<p>Ilé-Ifẹ̀ soon set the pace for urbanism in the region through overlapping innovations in sociopolitical ideology, technology and cosmogony (ideas about how the world began). </p>
<p>The intellectuals and political leaders of Ilé-Ifẹ̀ <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Yoruba-New-History-Akinwumi-Ogundiran/dp/0253051495">developed</a> a coherent framework for Yoruba city-making by standardising the ideology of divine kingship and what an urban layout should look like. For example, spatial arrangement of the palace, markets, temples, city walls and gates, crafts centres, and road network. They developed a new cosmogony that unified and universalised the Òrìṣà pantheon -the deities in Yorùbá religion.</p>
<p>They also created <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/39540639">a new economy that centred on primary glass production</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/7053610462">The glass industry in Ilé-Ifẹ̀ was devoted to bead-making.</a> Glass beads were <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Yoruba-New-History-Akinwumi-Ogundiran/dp/0253051495">used</a> to legitimise divine kingship across the region and to finance external trade that brought imports such as brass and possibly salt and silk from across the Sahara. Ilé-Ifẹ̀’s trading partners <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Yoruba-New-History-Akinwumi-Ogundiran/dp/0253051495">included</a> cities on the River Niger and other parts of the western Sudan region, such as Timbuktu and Gao. </p>
<p>The city was also a centre of learning. Its intellectuals created schools, some of them devoted to <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/9530098196">healing and wellness</a>, <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/824618137">astronomy</a> and <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/945376243">critical inquiry through divination</a>. They attracted students from far and near. </p>
<p>Commemoration and religious sites were set up across the city that attracted tourists. Many of these sites survive today as <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/205471">sacred groves</a>.</p>
<p>Our findings show that the community-building origins of Ilé-Ifẹ̀ made ancestor veneration important to the well-being of households, families and the city. <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/44441752">Mortuary art</a> was an important sector of the city’s economy. </p>
<p>The city’s economic buoyancy made it a magnet for immigrant labourers and fortune-seekers. The significance of its bead production also attracted diplomats, traders and pilgrims from across the region. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-we-found-the-earliest-glass-production-south-of-the-sahara-and-what-it-means-142059">How we found the earliest glass production south of the Sahara, and what it means</a>
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<p>All of these made it a cosmopolitan city. Consequently, it attained the moniker “city of daybreak”, a nod to its status as a place of novelty and innovations. </p>
<p>During the 13th and 14th centuries, <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/35790974">the core city was about 4km in diameter</a>. Beyond that, its satellite areas <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Yoruba-New-History-Akinwumi-Ogundiran/dp/0253051495">stretched for about 30km</a>. </p>
<p>The city of Ilé-Ifẹ̀ has weathered many storms in its long history. Its growth was interrupted at different times <a href="https://www.brepolsonline.net/doi/pdf/10.1484/J.JUA.5.133451">by drought, famine, epidemic outbreaks, political intrigues, warfare and economic collapse</a>. Its community-building foundation and enduring institutions likely explain its resilience. Now a city of about half a million people, it offers lessons to urban planners and city managers everywhere.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204569/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>For the research related to this article, Akinwumi Ogundiran gratefully acknowledges funding from the Ijesa Cultural Foundation, Boston University Humanities Foundation, Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, National Endowment for the Humanities, American Philosophical Society, and the Carnegie Foundation. </span></em></p>We need deep-time African urban history and theories to make sense of contemporary urban life and anticipate its future possibilities in African terms.Akinwumi Ogundiran, Chancellor’s Professor, and Professor of Africana Studies, Anthropology & History, University of North Carolina – CharlotteLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1812982022-07-14T13:51:38Z2022-07-14T13:51:38Z100 years of pop music in Nigeria: what shaped four eras<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/474073/original/file-20220714-9528-riyftf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nigerian musician Fela Kuti and his band in Harlem, New York, 1989.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jack Vartoogian/Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The global outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in the early months of 2020 shut down nearly all physical and social human activities. For musical practice this meant near death. Performing music is, after all, one of the oldest forms of social human engagement.</p>
<p>In Nigeria, the shutdown of concerts and public music performances was swift. Not even the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Nigerian-civil-war">Nigerian–Biafran War</a> of 1967 to 1970 could shut down all of Nigeria. In fact, popular music activities boomed in Lagos as bombs rained on Biafra. </p>
<p>The pandemic was a watershed moment and offers a compelling reason to trace the trajectory and evolution of popular music in Nigeria 100 years ago since the birth of the modern state. </p>
<p>In a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/18125980.2021.1958696">study</a> I surveyed the various political, economic and social events, trends and choices that characterised the 98 years between 1922 and 2020, giving consideration to how they shaped popular music practices and experiences in and of Nigeria.</p>
<p>Nigeria became a modern state in 1914 when British colonial powers <a href="https://www.cfr.org/blog/lord-lugard-created-nigeria-104-years-ago">amalgamated</a> the northern and southern protectorates into one unit. A <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLK327Yn1041LnQlDoL_D-eEQH-vH5MheP">music recording</a> in London in 1922 by Rev Josiah Ransome-Kuti (grandfather of music icon <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-art-provocateur-fela-kuti-who-used-sex-and-politics-to-confront-58599">Fela Kuti</a>) is regarded as the first formal effort at commercialising and “popularising” Nigerian music. </p>
<p>From that beginning, four periods emerged from the study: I called them the foggy years, the interactive-budding period, the liberal period and the mononationalist period.</p>
<h2>1922–1944: juju and palm-wine music</h2>
<p>For the first 22 years there was a foggy or unclear direction in the emergence of popular music practices in urban Nigeria. In this short time, two world wars and internal economic and sociopolitical tensions interfered with and delayed the growth of popular music. They limited social life among the youth, calling young men to enrol into the West African Frontier Force that fought for <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Frederick-Lugard#ref162502">Britain</a>.</p>
<p>These years witnessed early recordings by musician <a href="https://www.discogs.com/artist/1427104-Domingo-Justus">Domingo Justus</a> and political activist <a href="https://blackplaqueproject.com/biography/ladipo-solanke/">Ladipo Solanke</a>. The early recorded music was sung in the style of a hymn in a <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Yoruba">Yoruba</a> church, accompanied by plucked string instruments like the banjo.</p>
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<p>The arrival of the guitar was followed by the rise of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/art/juju-music">Jùjú music</a> style in Lagos. Jùjú was basically a modern <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Yoruba-language">Yoruba-language</a> reinterpretation of its traditional, precolonial Àsìkò music with the principal instrument known as jùjú (the tambourine). It was led by such artists as Tunde King, whose song <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eTISSYI5sA">Aronke Macaulay</a> was produced in 1937. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.britannica.com/art/palm-wine-music">Palm-wine music</a> emerged, expressing a combination of styles but mostly accompanied by guitars and banjos and performed at palm wine drinking bars in the emerging urban areas. It was championed by Israel Nwaoba, G.T. Ọnwụka and others. Also notable is the appearance of the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AquQg1Ifqg">Ọnịcha Native Orchestra</a>, which combined only musical instruments of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Igbo">Igbo people</a> while exploring various social themes and trends in their native singing style.</p>
<p>The church, the guitar and the tavern all influenced early popular music in Nigeria.</p>
<h2>1945–1969: highlife and civil war</h2>
<p>The next 24 years saw interaction and budding among Nigerians as a new sociopolitical order emerged from the ashes of the Second World War. A <a href="https://www.rescue.org/article/african-nations-struggle-independence">wave</a> of decolonisation and talk of independence spread throughout colonial Africa. There was increased participation of Nigerians in mainstream social and political affairs. </p>
<p>With this a new generation of musicians emerged who would – through extensive interactions across nations and personalities – forge a decolonised popular music culture. They moved from the colonial influences they had been subjected to from birth. </p>
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<p>It was at this time that Nigerian <a href="https://www.britannica.com/art/highlife-African-music">highlife</a> music and the highlife music of Ghana and other nations evolved. It spread along the West African coast, essentially from increased cultural interactions between Africa and the West. “High” was in the name because highlife was reserved for “highly” placed Africans resident in urban centres. </p>
<p>It mostly adopted simple Western tonality, chords and instruments (like guitars, brass horns and bands) to perform popular themes (like love, mourning and joy), either in local languages, <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-west-africas-pidgins-deserve-full-recognition-as-official-languages-101844">pidgin</a> or English. The marching bands of the colonial military formations were a major influence in the emergence of highlife. A few of the early notable exponents were <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/artist/bobby-benson-mn0002293410">Bobby Benson</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/victor-olaiya-stadium-hotel-highlife-and-nostalgia-136072">Victor Olaiya</a>, <a href="https://www.discogs.com/artist/680972-Steven-Amechi-His-Rhythm-Skies">Stephen Amaechi</a>, <a href="https://www.naxos.com/Bio/Person/Samuel_Akpabot/17615">Samuel Akpabot</a> and <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/artist/rex-lawson-mn0001209429/biography">Rex Lawson</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/victor-olaiya-stadium-hotel-highlife-and-nostalgia-136072">Victor Olaiya: Stadium Hotel, Highlife, and nostalgia</a>
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<p>During this period, female artists joined the popular music industry for the first time, among them <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLh0navM_hhzN-q9hK8QQPO5DXqb-BvgTV">Foyeke Ajangila</a> and <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/artist/madam-comfort-omoge-mn0000230994/biography">Comfort Omoge</a>. And while US-influenced jazz and twist styles were introduced in Nigeria, Jùjú was also being championed. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Nigerian-civil-war">Nigerian–Biafran War</a> brought the era to an end by 1969.</p>
<h2>1970–1999: Afrobeat and oil</h2>
<p>The liberal period marked the most diverse and expansive moment of popular music practices in Nigeria so far. After the war, regional popular music styles and practices came to the fore. And new influences came with imports of foreign popular music such as pop (<a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Michael-Jackson">Michael Jackson</a>), rock (<a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/the-Beatles">Beatles</a>), marabi (<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-legacy-of-iconic-singer-miriam-makeba-and-her-art-of-activism-178230">Miriam Makeba</a>) and others. </p>
<p>As influences mixed, new Afro-based music genres rose. Most celebrated of these was Afrobeat (<a href="https://theconversation.com/nigerian-icon-fela-is-long-overdue-for-the-rock-and-roll-hall-of-fame-156870">Fela Kuti</a>). Afrobeat is a fusion of rich African polyrhythms and Afro-American forms like jazz and reggae. It was influenced by local political struggles and the US <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/American-civil-rights-movement">civil rights</a> movement. </p>
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<p>But there was also Afro-reggae (<a href="https://www.allmusic.com/artist/sonny-okosun-mn0000039654/biography">Sonny Okosun</a>), Afro-jùjú (<a href="https://www.allmusic.com/artist/sir-shina-peters-mn0001204638">Shina Peters</a>) and Afro-pop (<a href="https://www.discogs.com/artist/1312414-Theadora-Ifudu">Dora Ifudu</a>). There was increased participation of women in the industry (<a href="https://www.theafricareport.com/199004/nigeria-for-onyeka-onwenu-it-aint-over-till-the-slim-lady-sings/">Onyeka Onwenu</a>, <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/artist/queen-salawa-abeni-mn0001010176">Salawa Abeni</a> and others).</p>
<p>Middle class income grew as a result of the first oil boom in Nigeria. Added to this was the rise of pentecostal Christianity among young people as well as the rise of sophisticated Lagos nightclubs. The likes of <a href="https://thenativemag.com/shuffle-ronnies-way-feel-rap-laid-foundation-nigeria-rap/">Ron Ekundayo</a> and <a href="https://www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2021/06/20/floods-of-tributes-for-benson-idonije-at-85/">Benson Idonije</a> would foreground the explosion of Nigerian deejays from the 2000s. In this period popular music styles were often adapted to gospel themes. </p>
<h2>2000–2022: Naija hip hop and Afrobeats</h2>
<p>With the start of a new century came a seismic shift from a diverse to a singular focus in Nigerian popular music. The new government of <a href="https://theconversation.com/obasanjo-from-a-nigerian-village-to-the-pinnacle-of-power-on-the-continent-179862">Olusegun Obasanjo</a> decided to pursue a local content policy. This meant that local music was foregrounded in media and broadcast. This would help form the “Naija hip hop” scene. </p>
<p>Naija hip hop is a profusion of US/global hip hop, Afrobeat, highlife and other Nigerian/African styles mediated through computer-aided technology. It boasts local rhythms, languages and dance styles. A remarkable feature of the Naija hip hop movement is its branching out into <a href="https://theconversation.com/from-nigeria-to-the-world-afrobeats-is-having-a-global-moment-179910">Afrobeats</a> – an interlinked fusion of various Afro-based genres that has given Nigeria the greatest global fame and acceptance since its emergence as a modern nation-state in 1914.</p>
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<p>Just a few of the notable artists of this period include <a href="http://www.afrobios.com/-Plantashun+Boiz">Plantashun Boiz</a>, <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/artist/lagbaja-mn0000125482/biography">Lagbaja</a>, 2Face Idibia/<a href="https://www.instagram.com/official2baba/?hl=en">2Baba</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/2niteflavour/?hl=en">Flavour</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/asaofficial/?hl=en">Aṣa</a>, <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/artist/davido-mn0003057150/biography">Davido</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/who-is-nigerian-music-star-wizkid-and-why-is-he-taking-over-the-world-179775">Wizkid</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/temsbaby/?hl=en">Tems</a> and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/burnaboygram/">Burna Boy</a>.</p>
<p>I characterise this period as mononationalist because of the one-dimensional focus on a particular nationalist musical movement (Naija hip hop) that has dominated.</p>
<h2>Today</h2>
<p>The global COVID-19 pandemic’s shutdown of public life boosted online music structures and opportunities while helping to contain the unchecked powers of music pirates. This allowed many more talented and younger artists to emerge independently. But COVID-19 brought heavy economic losses to artists and music industry workers. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/from-nigeria-to-the-world-afrobeats-is-having-a-global-moment-179910">From Nigeria to the world: Afrobeats is having a global moment</a>
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<p>In 2022, the Naija hip hop phenomenon, whose child is Afrobeats, is surging on with hit songs tearing competitively into the global soundscape. As Nigeria marks a century of popular music practices and experiences, it appears that the mononationalist era may last for a full generation (three decades) or more before another episode emerges.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/181298/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chijioke Ngobili does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Nigerian popular music - Afrobeats - is storming the world’s stages. But it’s just the latest stage in a vibrant century of recorded music in the country.Chijioke Ngobili, Lecturer in Music, University of NigeriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1627762021-06-27T08:44:48Z2021-06-27T08:44:48ZA long view sheds fresh light on the history of the Yoruba people in West Africa<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407624/original/file-20210622-15-19458vb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A group of drummers playing traditional Yoruba drums.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/an-old-drum-beats-a-path-from-the-ancients-to-erykah-badu-news-photo/144148269?adppopup=true">Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP via Getty Images </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRy92OJCtcY">Yoruba</a> are among the most storied groups in Africa. Their ancestral homeland <a href="https://theculturetrip.com/africa/nigeria/articles/an-introduction-to-nigerias-yoruba-people/">cuts</a> across present-day southwest Nigeria, Benin Republic and Togo in West Africa. They <a href="https://theculturetrip.com/africa/nigeria/articles/an-introduction-to-nigerias-yoruba-people/">number</a> between 35 and 40 million. Their dynamic culture, philosophy, arts, language, sociology and history have attracted <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Yoruba-Nine-Centuries-African-Thought/dp/0810917947">numerous studies</a>. </p>
<p>What has been missing in this rich literature is a deep history that benefits from a diverse range of disciplines and sources. <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Writing-African-History-Rochester-Diaspora/dp/1580462561">Scholars</a> have long recognised the value of combining different methods and sources, beyond documentary and oral traditions, to study pre-colonial African history. </p>
<p>I wrote <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv177thv2">The Yoruba: A New History</a> to fill this gap. The book is a product of the studies I have carried out in different parts of Yoruba region over the past 30 years as an <a href="https://pages.uncc.edu/akinwumi-ogundiran/">archaeologist, anthropologist, and historian</a>. </p>
<p>By providing insights from different disciplines I have been able to uncover new themes in Yoruba history.</p>
<p>I provide a 2,000 year account of cultural changes and continuities, how local and global processes have affected social transformations, the meanings people made out of their experiences, and how these affected actions, and what the consequences were. </p>
<p>I weave multifaceted stories about ups and downs, successes and failures, coping with risks and opportunities and solving existential crises. These have ranged from climate change to shifting global political economies, and the impact on the ideas of gender, class, and power, among others.</p>
<h2>The history</h2>
<p>In the first half of the book, I account for how the Yoruba community evolved on the western side of the Niger-Benue Confluence in present-day Nigeria <a href="https://www.nhbs.com/the-cambridge-world-history-volume-2-a-world-with-agriculture-12000-bce-500-ce-book">about 4000 years ago</a> and the dramatic changes that stimulated their <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv177thv2">rapid geographical expansion between 300 BC and AD 300</a>. </p>
<p>The climate change that commenced in the last quarter of the first millennium BC, <a href="http://cup.columbia.edu/book/the-way-the-wind-blows/9780231112086">known as the Big Dry</a>, sparked this expansion process. Extreme droughts pushed families and social groups to look for new water corridors and resources. The early centuries of this ecological crisis were also a period of new technological innovations, especially the <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1022222325095">adoption of iron metallurgy</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="The book cover" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408135/original/file-20210624-17-17a0ptn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408135/original/file-20210624-17-17a0ptn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408135/original/file-20210624-17-17a0ptn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408135/original/file-20210624-17-17a0ptn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408135/original/file-20210624-17-17a0ptn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408135/original/file-20210624-17-17a0ptn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408135/original/file-20210624-17-17a0ptn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The Yoruba: A New History.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Akinwumi Ogundiran</span></span>
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<p>By the time the Big Dry ended and optimum wet conditions returned in the 3rd AD, the Yoruba had expanded from the Niger-Benue Confluence <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv177thv2">as far as the Atlantic coast</a>. The second half of the first millennium AD was a period of <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv177thv2">rapid socio-political innovations</a>. The idea of divine kingship alongside a unique system of urbanism evolved in multiple places and <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv177thv2">became the basis of social order</a>. </p>
<p>Between the 12th and 14th centuries, Ile-Ife was the centre of the Yoruba world. It was an emporium and holy city. Its economy was based on a novel technology of glass manufacture mainly devoted to making beads, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv177thv2">the primary currency of power, authority and wealth in the region.</a></p>
<p>Ile-Ife remains the only place in sub-Saharan Africa known as an industrial centre for <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0021934717701915">primary glass production</a>. </p>
<p>Ile-Ife used its technological and economic advantages to restructure the ideology of divine kingship. It also used this advantage to standardise the Yoruba religious system (Orisa pantheon) and make itself (literally) the beginning and end of time. It brought vast territories, as far as the River Niger and the Atlantic coast, under its political control and cultural influence. These <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv177thv2">included even non-Yoruba-speaking peoples</a>. </p>
<p>For these and other reasons, I concluded that Ile-Ife built the first empire in the Yoruba world during the 13th and 14th centuries.</p>
<h2>Collapse and rebirth</h2>
<p>The Ife Empire came to an end by 1420 due to <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv177thv2">several colliding factors</a>. These included long spells of drought that kicked off around 1380 across West and East Africa (the equivalent of the <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/04/01/how-the-little-ice-age-changed-history">Little Ice Age</a> in the northern hemisphere), political disturbances in Western Sudan (for example, the collapse of the Mali Empire), and internal crisis within the Ife Empire. </p>
<p>Conflict, war, disease, famine, and dynastic changes <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv177thv2">rocked</a> most of the Yoruba world and other parts of West Africa. </p>
<p>It was not until the late 16th century that the region began to recover, thanks to <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv177thv2">regional cooperation notably championed by Oyo</a>. By then, the political landscape had been permanently changed. Some of the minor kingdoms of the Classical period were now in control (for example, Oyo), and several new states emerged from the rubbles of the old ones. </p>
<p>This was also the beginning of the integration of the Yoruba into a newly emerging global political economy that focused on the Americas and the European maritime might. </p>
<p>The book explores how the commercial revolution of this early modern period, especially the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40282457">Atlantic slave trade</a>, shaped Yoruba political landscape, culture, and society starting from the early seventeenth century through the mid-nineteenth century. </p>
<p>During this time, the Yoruba economy <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv177thv2">became far more monetised than before</a>. There was an overall increase in productivity due to economic specialisation. The cowrie currency that powered this economy was imported while the external trade of the region was driven by <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv177thv2">a dependency on imported addictive commodity – tobacco</a>. Both <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/african-studies-review/article/abs/jan-hogendorn-and-marion-johnson-the-shell-money-of-the-slave-trade-cambridge-cambridge-university-press-1986/4A5EC59DD8F214A81F5655182D06149A">cowries and tobacco exports</a> were exchanged for human cargo in the Bight of Benin, where <a href="https://iupress.org/9780253217165/the-yoruba-diaspora-in-the-atlantic-world/">almost a million Yoruba</a> entered the Middle Passage, mostly between 1775 and 1840. </p>
<p>The second half of the book focuses on the effects of this new experience on social valuation, the theory of rights, privileges, and power, as well as gender and class relations. </p>
<p>I bring it to a close with the collapse of the <a href="https://www.fulcrum.org/concern/monographs/1r66j125t">Oyo Empire</a>, the second empire in Yoruba history, and its aftermath in the mid-nineteenth century. </p>
<h2>Reflection</h2>
<p>In the concluding chapter, I reflected on what this 2000-year history means for the present. </p>
<p>The book tells the story about the unique gifts that the Yoruba people gave to the world in social organisation, resilience, technology, arts, philosophy, religion, and ethics. </p>
<p>From time to time, many scholars, <a href="https://www.academia.edu/4351601/Crises_of_Culture_and_Consciousness_in_the_Postcolony_What_is_the_future_for_Nigeria">including me</a>, have lamented how African historical experience rarely informs public policies in contemporary Africa, mainly because <a href="https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789463005159">policymakers have a poor understanding</a> of that history. </p>
<p>An awareness of the challenges faced by ancestral Yoruba and how they solved those problems for more than 2000 years is as important as understanding why they came short in some instances. </p>
<p>In searching for solutions that address contemporary challenges, it would help to pay more attention to African history.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/162776/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Akinwumi Ogundiran receives funding from the National Humanities Center, National Endowment for the Humanities, Wenner-Gren Foundation, American Philosophical Society, Dumbarton Oaks, and Yip Fellowship (Magdalene College, University of Cambridge). </span></em></p>By providing insights from different disciplines, a new book uncovers new themes in the history of Yoruba people of West AfricaAkinwumi Ogundiran, Chancellor’s Professor, and Professor of Africana Studies, Anthropology & History, University of North Carolina – CharlotteLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/881922018-02-12T14:58:41Z2018-02-12T14:58:41ZWhy tackling sexual violence is key to South Africa’s decolonisation project<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205473/original/file-20180208-180829-14sgqi3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South Africa has been dubbed "the rape capital of the world".</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Horrific incidences of rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment are so common in South Africa that it has been dubbed the “<a href="https://www.news24.com/MyNews24/The-Rape-Capital-of-the-World-20140821">rape capital of the world</a>”. Yet these issues have been curiously neglected in the country’s politics.</p>
<p>In South African political discourse, transforming race relations is prioritised over the transformation of gender relations. Race and gender are regarded as two separate projects, and improving race relations in the aftermath of apartheid and colonialism is presented as more pressing than tackling gender issues.</p>
<p>But, as South African feminist scholar <a href="https://scholar.google.co.za/citations?user=SMB9nJoAAAAJ&hl=en">Shireen Hassim</a> argues, the country is bedevilled by a kind of race discourse which silences and displaces feminist attempts to discuss the workings of gender power politics. At the same time, she argues, political power is gendered and masculinised in ways that remain unacknowledged.</p>
<p>Many feminist scholars have shown that gender is deeply intertwined with the colonial project’s racism. Their research suggests that neither the logic nor the effects of racism within colonial and post-colonial contexts can be properly grasped without clearly understanding the gender dimension.</p>
<p>In a <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1350506817732589">recently published paper</a> a colleague and I focused particularly on the work of three such scholars: Nigeria’s <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Invention-Women-African-Western-Discourses/dp/0816624410">Oyèrónké Oyĕwùmí</a>, a sociologist; Argentinian philosopher <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=ciTuCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA49&lpg=PA49&dq=sociologist;+Argentinian+philosopher+Maria+Lugones&source=bl&ots=KuE1GyTiIQ&sig=QgwlW_qBo3FvLZx93TULGe2-gPM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwihmtuh_p_ZAhVYOMAKHTMEDJoQ6AEILTAB#v=onepage&q=sociologist%3B%20Argentinian%20philosopher%20Maria%20Lugones&f=false">Maria Lugones</a>; and South African feminist scholar <a href="http://www.jacana.co.za/mfbooks-joburg/rape-a-south-african-nightmare-detail">Pumla Dineo Gqola</a>. </p>
<p>They argue in different ways that the sexual exploitation and objectification of black women by colonial powers and the demonisation of black male sexuality as bestial were central to the colonial project. Read together, their work shows that these constructions of black sexuality where not merely a historical aberration or mistake. They were key to the workings of colonial power. And that logic persists in the postcolony.</p>
<h2>Sex and the colonial project</h2>
<p>The Western distinction between masculine and feminine, Lugones <a href="http://www.jstor.org.ez.sun.ac.za/stable/4640051">writes</a>, served as a mark of civilisation for colonisers. Becoming “civilised” meant internalising this distinction, its concomitant norms and values. </p>
<p>The gender configurations and societal structures of the colonised did not conform to western gender norms. In terms of colonial logic this served as “evidence” of the colonised people’s bestiality and inferiority. It meant they needed to be “saved” by western conquest. </p>
<p>In her book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Invention-Women-African-Western-Discourses/dp/0816624410"><em>The Invention of Women</em></a> Oyĕwùmí detailed how the British colonial administration in Yorùbáland, Nigeria, posited men’s superiority over woman. Administrators reduced and homogenised women into an identifiable, clearly demarcated and predetermined legal, social and biological category. This was defined by their anatomy and meant they were always subordinated to men. </p>
<p>The colonisers introduced the category “woman”. This undermined the fact that females in precolonial Yorùbá society had multiple identities that were neither gendered nor linked to their female anatomy. These could include farmer, hunter, mother, cook, warrior, ruler – “all in one body”. Oyĕwùmí writes that the creation of (Yorùbá) “woman” as a category was one of the colonial state’s very first “accomplishments” in Yorùbáland.</p>
<p>So Lugones’ and Oyĕwùmí’s work shows in different and complementary ways that the process of “civilising the native” was not only a racial one. It was also deeply gendered. The striking implication is that issues of sexuality in a post-colonial society like South Africa cannot be separated from race and culture, and vice versa.</p>
<h2>Lasting consequences</h2>
<p>In line with these arguments, <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com.ez.sun.ac.za/doi/full/10.1177/1350506817732589">I contend</a> that South Africa’s sexual violence problem can also be framed as a central part of the colonial legacy. Addressing this crisis, then, should be understood as a top priority for any serious decolonisation agenda.</p>
<p>One of Gqola’s arguments is particularly relevant here. She explains that black male sexuality is demonised through the colonial gaze as bestial and predatory. Black female sexuality is structured as its counterpart. Black women are always already raped and therefore paradoxically “unrapeable” both in law and in social understanding. </p>
<p>In other words, in the colony the sexuality of the colonised people was constructed so that nothing which was done to a black woman would be classified as rape. There were two reasons for this. Firstly, black women were portrayed as being so primitively sexual that no sexual advances were unwelcome. And, because black men were demonised as “natural rapists”, this meant black women were always <em>already</em> raped, by black men.</p>
<p>This legacy endures in South Africa. Today rape is normalised. It’s not taken seriously by society and it is left mostly <a href="http://www.heraldlive.co.za/news/2017/10/30/8-conviction-rate-disturbing-justice-system-fails-rape-victims/">unpunished by the criminal justice system</a>.</p>
<h2>Decolonisation and addressing sexual violence</h2>
<p>Scholars like Lugones, Oyĕwùmí and Gqola teach us that the colonial logic of sub-human sexual categorisation permeates and thoroughly infuses the ongoing colonial production of racial hierarchies. </p>
<p>The decolonisation of South African society requires sexual violence to be recognised and approached as a key aspect of the colony. It must be viewed as a problem that sits at the heart of colonial denigration, exploitation and abjection of the racialised body.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/88192/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Azille Coetzee receives funding from the SARChi Chair in Gender Politics, Stellenbosch University.</span></em></p>South Africa has tended to prioritise race relations over gender relations since formal apartheid ended.Azille Coetzee, Postdoctoral fellow, SARChi Chair in Gender politics, Stellenbosch UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/902362018-01-18T13:39:41Z2018-01-18T13:39:41ZThinking, researching and writing Africa: insights from Nigeria’s Tutuola<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202260/original/file-20180117-53328-poqb61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Amos Tutuola's work is enjoying renewed interest and support.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vanderworld/7591481962/in/photolist-cyQk73-gA4yFW/">Flickr/vanderfrog</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For many years, Amos Tutuola, the Nigerian author who was born in 1920 and died in 1997, was despised, ridiculed and made to appear exotic and primitive. He was dismissed by <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Ordeal-African-Writer-Charles-Larson/dp/1856499316">his critics</a> as a relic of a dying and forgotten past of a dark continent that was awakening and harkening to the call of Europe’s colonising civilisation.</p>
<p>But something has shifted in the two decades since his death. His work, including novels like <a href="http://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/culture-magazines/palm-wine-drinkard-and-his-dead-palm-wine-tapster-deads-town">The Palm-Wine Drinkard</a> (1952) and <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1169073.My_Life_in_the_Bush_of_Ghosts">My Life in the Bush of Ghosts</a> (1954), are increasingly influencing younger generations of storytellers and filmmakers. New editions of his works are surfacing. </p>
<p>I have given numerous talks about him at universities and research institutions across the continent. If these are anything to go by, scholars of different disciplinary backgrounds, students and intellectuals from other walks of life
are keen to locate and read his books. </p>
<p>In an introduction to the latest edition of The Palm-Wine Drinkard
Nigerian Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=1NrGAwAAQBAJ&pg=PT5&lpg=PT5&dq=%E2%80%9CIntroduction:+Sea+Never+Dry,+Wine+Never+Dry&source=bl&ots=iQiEcBhjGu&sig=c6PCZ5cpYaJqyIkrdQMAZMDKQ7E&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwji4YqWwN7YAhWkKsAKHa1iAe8Q6AEIPjAI#v=onepage&q&f=false">suggests</a> that Tutuola appears to be enjoying a “quiet but steady revival” both “within his immediate cultural environment, and across America and Europe”.</p>
<p>In my <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Drinking-Cosmic-Gourd-Tutuola-Change/dp/9956764655">latest book</a> I explore why this might be the case. I also examine why Tutuola’s work could inspire those at universities across Africa <a href="http://www.mistra.org.za/Media/Articles/Documents/Decolonisation%20Article_MISTRAy_20170615.pdf">who want</a> the decolonisation and transformation of higher education. </p>
<h2>Popular “homegrown” knowledge forms needed</h2>
<p>There is almost total discontinuity between the idea of knowledge in African universities and what constitutes knowledge outside universities and in African art and literature. The student-driven ferment wants popular “homegrown” forms of knowledge to be recognised and integrated into teaching and research. It agitates for ways of knowing informed by African experiences and predicaments, and especially by the continent’s frontier realities. These are realities, as Tutuola as a frontier author teachers us, that aren’t about zero-sum games of dominance and conquest. </p>
<p>This approach makes him best placed to point us in the direction of more truly inclusive, solidly Africanised systems of higher education on the continent.</p>
<p>A closer look at the universe depicted by Tutuola suggests it has a great deal to offer Africa and the rest of the world. His novels are not just works of fiction. They are founded on the lived realities of Yoruba society, which are shared with many other communities across the continent. They depict home grown knowledge systems that are very popular in Africa. The stories he recounts are commonplace across the continent. </p>
<h2>Tutuola’s universe</h2>
<p>Tutuola had only six years of frequently interrupted formal education. Elite Africans dismissed this as a modest and less than intellectual education. Yet Tutuola has contributed significantly to the resilience of ways of life and worldviews that could easily have disappeared under the weight of extractive colonialism, globalisation and the market economy. </p>
<p>Tutuola’s universe is one in which economies of intimacy go hand in hand with a market economy. Pleasure and work are expected to be carefully balanced. Balance is also expected between affluence and poverty, nature, culture and supernature. Tutuola draws on popular philosophies of life, personhood and agency in Africa. The principle of inclusive humanity is celebrated as a matter of course. The supremacy of reason and logic are not to be taken at face value. </p>
<p>Collective success is emphasised. Individuals cannot consider themselves to have succeeded unless they can demonstrate the extent to which they have actively included intimate – and even distant – others in that success.</p>
<p>It is not just his stories but his use of language that sets Tutuola apart. He writes in Yorubanised English. He forces the English language to accommodate Yoruba syntax. </p>
<p>As a lingua franca, English (domesticated and otherwise) gave Tutuola an opportunity to bridge ethnic divides. It’s an opportunity other Nigerian writers have grabbed too. Through it they are able to explore the possibilities and challenges of nationhood. They use it to seek recognition and relevance in an interconnected and dynamic world.</p>
<p>If Tutuola was an incidental writer, he was no less of an accidental intellectual – and an accidental postmodernist at that. We see this in his resolute refusal to live a lie by sacrificing the rich complexities of the Yoruba universe of which he was a part. He refused to let his culture be disqualified and defined out of circulation by a Eurocentric index of modernity.</p>
<p>Tutuola depicted the popular articulations of reality as honestly as he knew them. He revealed that the future was to be found in the impurities of blending and blended encounters with diversity. It involved reaching out, embracing and bridging difference, and facing up to the challenge that there is often much more – or much less – to things than meets the eye. </p>
<p>The lives of Tutuola’s nimble-footed, border crossing, adventurous guest-narrators show that transgression and contamination are experienced and indeed, welcome. He recognised and provided for the fact that the world and its inhabitants are both fathomable and unfathomable. Knowable and unknowable. Complete and incomplete. </p>
<h2>Towards convivial scholarship</h2>
<p>So how does this all apply to the frontier reality of many an ordinary African caught betwixt and between exclusionary and prescriptive regimes of being and belonging?</p>
<p>I argue that nothing short of convivial scholarship would do justice to the legitimate quest for a reconfiguration of African universities and disciplines of knowledge.</p>
<p>A truly convivial scholarship doesn’t seek to define and confine Africans into particular territories or geographies, racial and ethnic categories, classes, genders, generations, religions or whatever other identity marker is
in vogue. </p>
<p>Convivial scholarship confronts and humbles the challenge of over-prescription, over-standardisation and over-prediction. It is critical and evidence-based. It is a scholarship that sees the local in the global and the global in the local. It brings them into informed conversations, conscious of the hierarchies and power relations at play at both the micro and macro levels of being and becoming. </p>
<p>Like Tutuola’s universe, convivial scholarship challenges us – however grounded we may be in our disciplines and their logics of practice – to cultivate the disposition to be present everywhere at the same time. It’s a scholarship that cautions disciplines, their borders and gatekeepers to open up and embrace differences. </p>
<p>With convivial scholarship, there are no final answers. Only permanent questions and ever exciting new angles of questioning. Tutuola is precisely the sort of author to help generate those questions.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/90236/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Francis Nyamnjoh receives funding from the University of Cape and the NRF, as well as fellowships at STIAS, the University of Kyoto, the University of Ohio, and the Rockefeller Bellagio Center for facilitating the work that resulted in his book on Amos Tutuola.
</span></em></p>Amos Tutuola has contributed significantly to the resilience of ways of life and worldviews that could easily have disappeared under the weight of colonialism, globalisation and the market economy.Francis Nyamnjoh, Professor, Social Anthropology, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/627202016-07-29T05:58:31Z2016-07-29T05:58:31ZAfrican philosophy needs to blossom. Being exclusionary won’t help<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131437/original/image-20160721-32633-3kf87r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Devotees of the popular series “Game of Thrones” may recall Jaime Lannister’s fatal, but memorable, quip: “The things we do for love”. He said this just before hurling a ten-year-old boy down a high castle wall.</p>
<p>The boy’s “crime”? He’d caught Lannister in an incestuous embrace with his sister, Cersei. One can only truly fathom the enormity of Lannister’s wicked shove by becoming simultaneously acquainted with the intensity of his love for his sister. Love, or a certain way of loving, shows itself to be exclusive. It is always seeking to rid itself of the “outsider”. </p>
<p>Academic philosophy, too, is a love affair – with wisdom. But it’s one that, like the Lannisters’, comes with a distinctively dark side.</p>
<p>Much of academic philosophy is openly and unashamedly in love with the idea of the West as destiny. It loves the West’s culture, history and thinkers, to the exclusion of the other. And this other is everything African.</p>
<p>This is all happening right here in Africa. It is, to borrow American philosopher Paul Taylor’s <a href="http://philosophy.la.psu.edu/directory/pct2">phrase</a>, philosophy “corrupted”.</p>
<h2>Too much in common</h2>
<p>Some have seen the light and decided it’s time for “transformation” – a magical word that, in the mouths of a few, seems to promise more than it can deliver. These people have suggested a new state for academic philosophy in Africa; an alternate world to what currently exists at the continent’s universities.</p>
<p>The problem is that, for some, this “transformed” world of African philosophy has much in common with its Western counterpart. It comes with clearly defined geographical boundaries, strict rules of admittance and non-negotiable terms of legitimate citizenship. It has self-appointed gatekeepers. They bicker about who belongs and who doesn’t. They seem to think that politicking about identity and belonging is a necessary first step towards transformation. This, too, is becoming African philosophy’s dark side. </p>
<p>The seed for this sort of thinking was already sown in the early days of the formation of the canon of contemporary African philosophy. Benin’s <a href="http://hutchinscenter.fas.harvard.edu/paulin-hountondji">Paulin Hountondji</a> in his book, “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/221497?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">African Philosophy: Myth and Reality</a>”, sought to distinguish what is mythical and what is real about African philosophy and in the process suggested that African philosophy is philosophy done by Africans. </p>
<p>As would later become clear, Hountondji’s primary interest was in seeing the development of a discursive tradition of African philosophy rooted in scientific rigour. This was instead of merely proposing an African identity as prerequisite for doing African philosophy.</p>
<p>But definitions, especially uncomplicated ones, have a way of prevailing with philosophers. So “African philosophy” was immediately assumed by many to be a philosophy practised by Africans – in the geo-ethnic sense of the word. These people belong to ethnic groups situated in the geographical area called Africa. This definition excludes those who may be Africans but trace their ethnic identity elsewhere.</p>
<p>This laid down the condition of legitimate citizenship; the basis of differentiation between the African and non-African Africanist philosopher; a sense of belonging and exclusion.</p>
<p>It is worth thinking about how the politics of identity in African philosophy might inhibit the aims of transformation – of giving academic philosophy an African face. Let’s ask a plain question: is the vocation to teach, research and publish on African philosophy the preserve only of black Africans? </p>
<h2>Silencing of black voices</h2>
<p>It may be argued that a certain kind of evil is perpetrated where non-African – here I mean white – philosophers take up this vocation: the continued silencing of black philosopher’s voices. The muzzling of marginal and specifically black voices in academic philosophy is systematic. It figures within a historical pattern of white savagery. </p>
<p>But the cure for this sort of silencing is not to have non-African, white philosophers shut their mouths and retire their pens. Instead, systemic barriers must be repaired. Black philosophers will need to be trained and employed in philosophy departments across the continent. Journals that have traditionally blocked black voices from being heard must begin to publish these philosophers.</p>
<p>The transformation agenda will suffer if an African identity is a precondition for teaching, researching and publishing in African philosophy. This precondition would be a let off for non-African, white philosophers on the continent who aren’t yet disposed to avail themselves as agents of transformation. </p>
<p>Regrettably, this breed of philosophers populates and still colonises philosophy departments – certainly in South Africa, where I’m based. Ruling them out on account of their illegitimate status as citizens of the imagined African nation equips them with enough of a reason to be mere onlookers in the process of transformation. This perpetuates the “corruption” of philosophy I referred to earlier. </p>
<p>Non-African, white philosophers should, because of their epistemic location and current employment in South African philosophy departments, be agents of the transformation agenda. </p>
<h2>The responsibility of white philosophers</h2>
<p>This shouldn’t be optional. These people have a responsibility to teach, research and, where possible, publish on African philosophy: on <a href="http://www.scielo.org.za/pdf/ahrlj/v11n2/11.pdf"><em>ubuntu</em> morality</a>, Kwasi Wiredu’s <a href="http://www.iep.utm.edu/wiredu/">Akan notion of truth</a> and <a href="https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/yoruba-epistemology/v-1">Yoruba epistemology</a>. If they can’t, it may be a matter of incompetence rather than identity.</p>
<p>They should actively seek out and mentor promising black philosophy students to become faculty members who will replace them. Again, if they can’t, it has nothing to do with identity. It’s all about disposition. </p>
<p>After all, some non-African, white philosophers with an Africanist bent are already in the business of doing this. It is no use helping others evade the responsibility they have to this place. Nor should those who are already assuming that responsibility be scrutinised simply because they are not African. Transformation in philosophy is not about the politics of belonging and exclusion.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/62720/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Oritsegbubemi Oyowe does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Much of academic philosophy, even on the African continent, is openly and unashamedly in love with the idea of the West as destiny.Oritsegbubemi Oyowe, Lecturer of Philosophy, University of the Western CapeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/540312016-02-29T04:24:57Z2016-02-29T04:24:57ZHow traditional practices in Nigeria can put a stop to an increase in allergies<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113033/original/image-20160226-26669-1254rqw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Kim Kyung-Hoon </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Doctors in parts of Nigeria have reportedly seen an <a href="http://www.punchng.com/your-perfume-may-give-you-allergies/">increase</a> in patients treated for allergies.</p>
<p>This may be partly as a result of Nigerian societies adopting Westernised lifestyles and substituting traditional options for more modern choices. The allergy increase is due to their lifestyle choices preventing them from being exposed to the good micro-organisms that prevent allergies.</p>
<p>Nigeria is not unique. <a href="http://www.nature.com/nri/journal/v15/n5/full/nri3830.html">Research</a> shows that allergic diseases have been increasing in both developed and developing countries as a result of rising living standards and the adoption of western lifestyles. </p>
<p>The World Health Organisation suggests that <a href="http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs307/en/">more than 235 million</a> people worldwide suffer from atopic dermatitis, allergic rhinitis and allergic asthma. </p>
<p>Although not being exposed to good bacteria early in life is one possible cause of the increase in allergies, Western lifestyle factors such as exposure to pollution and tobacco smoke are also to blame. </p>
<p>Reducing the time mothers’ breastfeed and/or cutting it out completely could also contribute to the increased incidence of allergic diseases.</p>
<p>In Nigeria, some cultures recommend extended breastfeeding to help babies develop strong immune systems. But there are also several other indigenous child-rearing practices that have traditionally helped babies beef up their immune systems and ward off allergies. These are viable options that should be promoted locally. They include:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>natural delivery;</p></li>
<li><p>weaning babies off breast milk with pap and soya milk; and</p></li>
<li><p>surrounding the new mother with family members.</p></li>
</ul>
<h2>A balanced immune system</h2>
<p>A child’s immune system <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bdrb.20170/full#fig1">starts developing</a> in its mother’s womb and continues until it turns two. This is thought to be a critical developmental window as it can alter the risk for children developing allergic diseases.</p>
<p>To prevent allergies and other related immune mediated disorders, there is a need for a diverse microbial community and a balanced immune <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/enhanced/doi/10.1002/bdrb.21116/">system</a>. Microbial communities are groupings of “good” bacteria that live in different parts of the body, including the skin, gastrointestinal and genital tracts. This good bacteria helps in the efficient development of the immune system. </p>
<p>In the first two years of a baby’s life, there is a need to encounter and interact with as much of this good bacteria as possible. One of the most efficient ways for this bacteria to be transferred is through normal delivery. As the baby goes through the genital tract, it accesses this bacteria. </p>
<p>However, during a Cesarean section birthing process, there is limited transfer of this good bacteria to the child. </p>
<p>Another process of transferring these good bacteria to the baby is through breastfeeding. The child gets to interact with the bacteria on the mother’s skin. Therefore, as the baby develops and encounters different bacteria populations, the bacteria community becomes more diverse.</p>
<p>This helps the immune system develop and become tolerant of innocuous substances – and subsequently prevents the development of most allergic diseases. </p>
<p>There are several traditional practises in Nigerian societies that aid this process.</p>
<h2>Breastfeeding</h2>
<p>In some Nigerian societies, cultural and tradition practices are performed until a child turns two. Some of these practices have immunological basis as they contribute to the immune system developing efficiently. </p>
<p>For example, mothers from the Efik and Ibibio culture in southern Nigeria breastfeed their children until they are <a href="http://irmbrjournal.com/papers/1367572222.pdf">one year old</a>.</p>
<p>Coincidentally, this is similar to the World Health Organisation’s <a href="http://www.who.int/nutrition/topics/exclusive_breastfeeding/en/">recommendation</a> to breastfeed infants until they are two. Breast milk contains several immune modulating components which help in effectively developing a child’s immune system. </p>
<p>It also helps expose the child to preformed antibodies which helps to prevent diseases in the early stages of their immune system developing. By this stage, their immune systems have not yet developed the full capability of combating infectious diseases. </p>
<h2>A locally produced weaning meal</h2>
<p>Another immune boosting mechanism in some Nigerian cultures is weaning babies off breast milk with pap. The Yoruba people call it “ogi baba/koko” while the Igbo people call it “akamu” and Hausas call it “Kwunu zaaki”.</p>
<p>Pap is a semi-solid food made from fermentation of cereals and legumes – maize, guinea corn, millet and sorghum. Pap helps diversify the microbial community that the baby develops from the starter cultures it has got during the delivery process and breastfeeding. </p>
<p>Scientists have <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/107/33/14691.full">shown</a> that these locally produced meals help to calibrate the immune and metabolic functions which decrease the risk of immune-mediated diseases including allergies. As a result of the pap, the baby has a natural supply of probiotics that help develop a microbial community for the immune system. </p>
<p>In the Yoruba community, lactating mothers are also encouraged to take pap as it improves their production of breast milk. This cultural practice also has potential immune benefits. <a href="http://scialert.net/abstract/?doi=jm.2007.247.253">Studies</a> have shown that locally prepared pap contains naturally present probiotic supplements. This may lead to them having higher levels of anti-inflammatory molecules in their breast milk which offers their babies reduced risks against allergy and other diseases. </p>
<p>There is also a social practice in which the new mother is encouraged to keep the company of other family members immediately after birth. <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.12968/ajmw.2013.7.1.39">Research</a> suggests that this reduces the risk of postnatal depression in new mothers. But it also provides a window for the child to have early encounters with a wider range of microbial communities.</p>
<p>Promoting some indigenous cultural practices is important as it would aid the effective development of children’s immune systems and reduce susceptibility to allergic conditions.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/54031/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Oyebola Oyesola does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Several indigenous child-rearing practices have helped babies develop strong immune systems to ward off allergies. These should be actively promoted.Oyebola Oyesola, PhD candidate in Immunology and Infectious DIsease, Cornell UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.