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| Title: | Stories of 'militant theatre' in the Guinean forest: 'demystifying' the motives and moralities of a revolutionary nation-State |
| Author: | Straker, Jay |
| Year: | 2007 |
| Periodical: | Journal of African Cultural Studies |
| Volume: | 19 |
| Issue: | 2 |
| Pages: | 207-233 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic term: | Guinea |
| Subjects: | theatre cultural policy nationalism |
| External link: | https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13696810701760484 |
| Abstract: | The cultural dynamics of anticolonial and postcolonial nationalisms have inspired impassioned research and writing for several decades. Stark contrasts have emerged within this still growing body of work. Many analysts have stressed nationalism's powers to reconfigure popular experiences of politics, culture, and the movement of history. Conversely, many others, particularly current anthropologists, have underscored nationalism's incapacities to enfold peripheral localities within its hegemonic visions of ideal citizenship, modernity, and progress. Within African Studies, this latter emphasis on nationalism's weaknesses has become dominant. Depictions of nationalist cultural emphases and initiatives deployed by postcolonial regimes have become increasingly critical. Recent ethnographies of attempted politicizations of cultural performance around the continent have largely condemned official conceptualizations and promulgations of 'national culture,' as well as the long-term impacts of cultural policies adopted by specific States. Drawing on research conducted in Conakry and the remote southeastern forest region of Guinea, and foregrounding Guineans' reflections on the role of 'militant theatre' in local life during the revolutionary dictatorship of Sékou Touré, this article generates a very different account of the meanings and ramifications of African nationalist cultural initiatives. In doing so, it seeks to expand and enrich the interpretive frameworks within which cultural studies of African nationalism are currently conducted. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract] |
