Africa Every Day

Fun, Leisure, and Expressive Culture on the Continent

Edited by Oluwakemi M. Balogun, Lisa Gilman, Melissa Graboyes and Habib Iddrisu

Series: Research in International Studies, Africa Series

Web PDF
9780896805064
Published: November 2019

Description
Contents
Authors
Praise
Awards

Africa Every Day presents an exuberant, thoughtful, and necessary counterpoint to the prevailing emphasis in introductory African studies classes on war, poverty, corruption, disease, and human rights violations on the continent. These challenges are real and deserve sustained attention, but this volume shows that adverse conditions do not prevent people from making music, falling in love, playing sports, participating in festivals, writing blogs, telling jokes, making videos, playing games, eating delicious food, and finding pleasure in their daily lives.
Across seven sections—Celebrations and Rites of Passage; Socializing and Friendship; Love, Sex, and Marriage; Sports and Recreation; Performance, Language, and Creativity; Technology and Media; and Labor and Livelihoods—the accessible, multidisciplinary essays in Africa Every Day address these creative and dynamic elements of daily life, without romanticizing them. Ultimately, the book shows that forms of leisure and popular culture in Africa are best discussed in terms of indigenization, adaptation, and appropriation rather than the static binary of European/foreign/global and African. Most of all, it invites readers to reflect on the crucial similarities, rather than the differences, between their lives and those of their African counterparts.
Contributors: Hadeer Aboelnagah, Issahaku Adam, Joseph Osuolale Ayodokun, Victoria Abiola Ayodokun, Omotoyosi Babalola, Martha Bannikov, Mokaya Bosire, Emily Callaci, Deborah Durham, Birgit Englert, Laura Fair, John Fenn, Lara Rosenoff Gauvin, Michael Gennaro, Lisa Gilman, Charlotte Grabli, Joshua Grace, Dorothy L. Hodgson, Akwasi Kumi-Kyereme, Prince F. M. Lamba, Cheikh Tidiane Lo, Bill McCoy, Nginjai Paul Moreto, Jacqueline-Bethel Tchouta Mougoué, James Nindi, Erin Nourse, Eric Debrah Otchere, Alex Perullo, Daniel Jordan Smith, Maya Smith, Steven Van Wolputte, and Scott M. Youngstedt.

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction: Everyday Life in Africa: The Importance of Leisure and Fun

.Oluwakemi M. Balogun and Melissa Graboyes 1

Part 1: Celebrations and Rites of Passage

1. Hosting a First Haircutting in Diégo Suarez, Madagascar

.Erin Nourse 21

2. Ekún-Ìyàwó: An African Bridal Shower in Yorubaland

.Abiola Victoria Ayodokun and Osuolale Joseph Ayodokun 31

3. Funeral Swag: A Celebration of Death in Urban Zambia

.Prince F. M. Lamba 39

4. Beyond Religion: Food, Decoration, and Songs of Egyptian Feasts

.Hadeer Aboelnagah 49

5. New Year’s Eve in Niamey, Niger

.Scott M. Youngstedt 61

Part 2: Socializing and Friendship

6. Tank Park’s Children: Recreational Activities of Namibian Children in Oranjemund during the 1980s

.Martha Ndakalako-Bannikov 73

7. “Have You Been to All the Malls?” The New Mall Scene in Botswana

.Deborah Durham 83

8. Sociality, Money, and the Making of Masculine Privilege in Nigerian Sports Clubs

.Daniel Jordan Smith 93

vi / Contents

9. “Let’s Turn it Up”: Effervescent Night Life in Nigeria

.Omotoyosi Babalola 103

Part 3: Love, Sex, and Marriage

10. Young Love: Dancing by the Light of the Moon in Tanzania

.Dorothy L. Hodgson 113

11. Love, Play, and Sex: Polyamory and the Hidden Pleasures of Everyday Life in Kaoko, Northwest Namibia

.Steven Van Wolputte 123

12. Love in and after War: Courtship (Cuna) in Rural Acoliland, Northern Uganda

.Lara Rosenoff Gauvin 133

Part 4: Sports and Leisure

13. “Where Are All the Women Who Used to Be Good Athletes in Their School Days?”: Sports, Gender, and Leisure in English-Speaking Cameroon, 1960s–1970s

.Jacqueline-Bethel Tchouta Mougoué 145

14. “We Are Building the New Nigeria”: Lagos, Boys’ Clubs, and Leisure, 1945–60

.Michael Gennaro 155

15. Leisure, Resistance, and Identity Formation among People with Disabilities in Ghana

.Issahaku Adam and Akwasi Kumi-Kyereme 165

16. Bits and Beats from Senegalese Wrestling

.Cheikh Tidiane Lo 175

Part 5: Performance, Language, and Creativity

17. Sheng: Expressivity, Creativity, and Rebellion in Nairobi

.Mokaya Bosire 189

18. The Journal Rappé: “Edutaining” the Youth through Senegalese Hip-Hop

.Maya Angela Smith 201

19. Teeth Appear Themselves: Laughter and Humor in East Africa

.Alex Perullo and James Nindi 211

20. Chilimika: Dancing In the New Year in the Nkhata Bay District of Malawi

.Lisa Gilman 219

Contents / vii

21. Portrait of a Playful Man: Mustafa, Master of Mapiko

.Paolo Israel 229

Part 6: Technology and Media

22. Mobile Malawi and Everyday Handsets

.John Fenn 243

23. Meeting Up at the Movies in Tanzania

.Laura Fair 253

24. Retelling the World in Swahili: Revisiting the Practice of Film Translation in Tanzania

.Birgit Englert with Nginjai Paul Moreto 265

25. The Listeners’ City: Radio, Congolese Rumba, and the Appropriation of Urban Space in the Belgian Congo in the 1950s

.Charlotte Grabli 275

Part 7: Labor and Livelihoods

26. Mechanical Expression in a Broken World: Repair, Fun, and Everyday Life in Tanzanian Garages Joshua Grace

27. Male Friendship and the Writing Life in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania Emily Callaci

28. Work and Happiness: Songs of Indigenous Ghanaian Fishermen Eric Debrah Otchere

29. Leisure at the Edge of Legality: Cannabis in Twentieth-Century Swaziland and South Africa Bill McCoy

Bibliography

Contributors

Index