Grow and Glow
Recently, my PoP spoke about when a "collage of brightness and brilliance" converges within a person, space, or book. I read a book that embodies this. A collision of rare insights, sources, analysis, and foresight. Saheed Aderinto (2022) Animality and Colonial Subjecthood in Africa: The Human and Nonhuman Creatures in Nigeria. Ohio University Press Pp.322. To my mind, the book offers numerous potentialities for advancing the frontiers of knowledge. Chapter one connects to the past, present, and future of Nigerian politics with regard to the debate on the best approach to animal husbandry in 21st Nigeria, the herders-farmers conflict, and the politics of insecurity. Also, it speaks to the politics of hunger and nutrition as a core aspect of development. The author's detailed chronicle of animal subjectivity call to mind Fela's idea of the zombification of Nigerians under military dictatorship and opens the possibility of rethinking the argument that the arbitrariness of colonial rule laid the groundwork for military dictatorship and even militarized democracy as we have seen. Specifically, how animals were sorted, indexed, and controlled indicates biopolitics can be extended to animal regulation and control. I reflect on the various decrees during Nigerian military rule.
Similarly, the gendered use and symbolic representation of hetero-patriarchal power in animal deployment affirm colonialism as a male edifice and project. More so, racing was not the only representation of power; it was also a site for racial and class differentiation from the choice of the audience (opened to only European and a few African elites), sitting arrangement in the pavilion (everyone sat in the order of their power within the colonial hierarchy at the racing event) to the exploitation of the 4500 unpaid laborers of prisoners who cleared the racecourse ahead of the racing event in 1932 . Added to this, the racialization of animals and, in this case, dogs give credence to the hesitancy and resistance of scholars to link Black studies and animal studies in commensality. Also, Chapter 4 opens up possibilities for researching cartoons and animations in postcolonial Nigeria both as a tool of counter-visuality and an avenue for imagining everyday realities in Africa. Chapter 5 contributes to and expands the history of medicine in Africa and situates the constant tussle between indigenous and western medicine in historical perspectives.
This book has cross-cutting influence and significance to expand the field of science, social science, and humanities. For instance, in the study of African politics, it would be useful to understand the appropriation of animal identities and symbols in the display of power identities and expression of dominance to activism or counter-visuality practices of deriding animal symbols authority adopts. For instance, Uganda's 34-year ruler, President Museveni, declared himself a leopard, and academic and activist Dr. Stella Nyanzi opined that her activism is a way of poking the anus of the leopard. In the humanities, it could be useful in analyzing animal theme aesthetics and lyrical contents of popular music, such as the tendency to trope opposition in animalizing descriptions. Nigerian fast-rising female artist Oyinkansola Sarah Aderibigbe, known as Ayara Starr, in her recent diss song "Rush," called her detractor "animal in human form". Also, the book could be useful in the analysis of how the non-human world's hierarchy is used to reinforce human hierarchy and symbols of power. In addition, it could be useful to situate the politics of environmental movements and development in Africa. In all, the book offered an interesting, unique, and exceptional perspective on writing the history of nonhuman creatures.
To read more, use the link below; the first 50 downloads here is free: https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/WVNECW4HBFNHCW7E4XPV/full?target=10.1080/14725843.2022.2164252
For those who know that my "prophetic anointing" does not only function when I have asun, peppered snail, and juice (pronounced as Juycee) in front of me, I pray that this year you will grow and glow!
You will grow and not groan!
Grow and glow intellectually, mentally, and relationship-wise, and in every area, you desire growth, productivity, and fruitfulness, you will glow.
Your song for the year will be one of these verses from Asake.
My face dey show, my shoe dey shine
Omo ope gara gan
My face dey show, my shoe dey shine
Omo ope gara gan
Bi mo shey nlo, bi mo shey nbo
Mowa l'owo Baba God
Happy New Year!
Posted on Facebook on January 3, 2023
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