The idea of African Otherness has occupied a central role in discourses on cultural production in Africa, whether film, literature, music or the arts. These claims, articulated both by 'Western' and 'African' critics and consumers, means that particular criteria and standards are adopted in relation to cultural production in Africa. The claim to African Otherness is gaining new strength in the wake of globalisation, but it is also increasingly challenged by a number of contemporary artists. This book deals with the question of relevance and meaning of the signifier in various fields of contemporary cultural production in Africa: literature, film, sculpture, music, popular drama.
This document is an analysis of how African culture is conveyed by Nordic non-govermnental organisations, based on a survey conducted by the Nordic Africa Institute.
Sverige har initierat ett nytt kapitel i sina relationer med Afrika under benämningen "partnerskap". Mot den bakgrunden har författaren till denna studie granskat hur Afrika framställs i 62 aktuella högstadieböcker i SO-ämnen. Skolböckerna har en stor betydelse som formare av vår världsbild och som återspeglare av tidsandan, men undgår vanligtvis all kritisk granskning. Denna bok ger både ris och ros. Den varnar för generaliseringar och föreslår kompletterande material som kan ge en mer intressant och levande Afrikabild.
In 1995 the Nordic Africa Institute initiated a research project on cultural aspects of development and Nordic-African relations. One of the aims was to contribute to providing other images of Africa than the negative images of misery, war and catastrophes often conveyed by the mass media. Another was to encourage cultural aspects of change in Africa, and the dynamics of cultural production itself. It is indisputable that negative images of Africa increasingly dominate everyday reporting and therefore public opinion too. The generalised pessimistic pictures are in stark contrast to what those of us have experienced who have had the opportunity to visit Africa and work there. It was important not only to encourage alternatives to stereotypes and generalisations, which portrayed Africans as helpless victims, but also to try to understand how and why, and to what extent these images had developed. This was the theme of the first conference organised within the new project on culture, coordinated by Mai Palmberg. This research project was called "Cultural Images in and of Africa", and the seminar dealt primarily with the images of Africa developed in Europe. A selection of edited papers from this seminar is presented here.
What’s culture got to do with it? was the name of an international conference on June 15-18, 2009 in Uppsala, organisedby the 'Cultural Images in and of Africa' research programmeat the Nordic Africa Institute, and funded by the Riksbankens jubileumsfond and Statens kulturråd in Sweden. Scholars participated from 15 countries and 36 universities or research institutes, with 10 African countries represented. This report reproduces the keynote speeches of Karin Barber, Elleke Boehmer, Stefan Jonsson, and Signe Arnfred. The rapporteurs summarise the presentation and discussion of the 27 papers selected for the conference. The report also contain pictorial memories from the conference, and poetry by the three Nordic Africa Institute guest writers present.
Ett annorlunda möte med Afrika genom dess samtida konst och kultur. Här hörs afrikanska röster från de senaste årtiondens litteratur, teater, musik, dans, film och bildkonst. Det handlar om drömmar, kärlek och svek, Afrikas kulturarv, mångdubbla identiteter, maktfullkomliga härskare, världens tillstånd och frågor om tradition och modernitet. Redaktörerna har valt material från möten med utövande konstnärer och inbjudit forskare till översikter och analyser. Tips på böcker, internetsidor, tidskrifter och kulturfestivaler för nya vandringar i Afrikas kultur finns i slutet av boken.
The musics of Africa play a particularly important role in expressing and forming identities. This book brings together African and Nordic scholars from both musicology and other disciplines in an attempt to analyse various aspects of the complex playing with volatile identities in music in Africa today. Taken together the papers put new light on the assumed or real dichotomies between countryside and city, collective and individual, tradition and modernity, authentic and alien.
The papers are based on contributions for a conference organised by the research project "Cultural Images in and of Africa" of the Nordic Africa Institute together with the Sibelius Museum/Department of Musicology and the Centre for Continuing Education at Åbo Akademi University in Åbo (Turku), Finland in Oct. 2000.
The book includes a keynote speech by Christopher Waterman (UCLA), and an introduction by Annemette Kirkegaard, Copenhagen University. Both Southern, West and East Africa are represented in the studies, which cover a great variety of musics.
SKINNING THE SKUNK refers to a saying in Shona, kuvhiya kadembo. The Zimbabwean writer Stanley Nyamfukudza uses it here to illustrate how important problems, like the legacy of violence, are avoided in Zimbabwean public discussion. Terence Ranger writes on the new policy of rewriting the history of Zimbabwe, in the name of patriotic history, through which the Zanu-PF government tries to assert hegemony and achieve a total change of the mindset. To talk about Zimbabwe today also means to talk of the large diaspora. Beacon Mbiba presents a study on what is colloquially called Harare North, that is London (and the rest of the UK).