Kindred Concerns: the Vernacular and Contemporary Media in Africa

摘要: he literature on early modern Europe has long provided historians of Africa with a fertile space for thinking about worlds not wholly encompassed by enlightenment thinking, industrialization, the nation-state, and so on. Friendly suggestive conversations have persisted decades across these seemingly incongruent fields because they regularly produce in- teresting insights, raise problems, provide helpful contrasts. One an odd sense familiar that is off-center enough to provoke new thought. Mary Fissell's Vernacular Bodies: Politics Reproduction in Early Modern England just kind study nourishes kinds conversations—as it happens unexpected sympathy strain work politics reproduction twentieth-century Africa. 1 Among elements strike note probably most im- portant one me power relations all she describes were understood be analogous relation between man as head household his family; central governance was wife, materially manifested moment procreation. It striking how important metaphors marriage are political discourse region I (the west African Sahel); ordinary language freighted calls forth ages farmers, families, mothers tending needs agrarian household. Women insignificant metaphors—indeed primary expression Hausa providing significant support evokes image woman carrying baby her back. observation profound interweaving understandings gender relations, turned upside down Reformation Civil War, family necessity profoundly unsettled well. Her reflections help make deep anxiety over finds contemporary independent states struggle sovereignty real global context consistently undermines it. The extraordinary body vernacular texts available trace shifting female fun- damental treasure trove few Africanists could ever hope draw upon. advent print culture