Modernization as Spectacle in Africa

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Rhetoric and reality of the modernizing project

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For postcolonial Africa, modernization was seen as a necessary outcome of the struggle for independence and as crucial to the success of its newly established states. Since then, the rhetoric of modernization has pervaded policy, culture, and development, lending a kind of political theatricality to nationalist framings of modernization and Africans' perceptions of their place in the global economy. These 15 essays address governance, production, and social life; the role of media; and the discourse surrounding large-scale development projects, revealing modernization's deep effects on the expressive culture of Africa.

Introduction: Modernization as Spectacle in Africa
Stephan F. Miescher, Peter J. Bloom, and Takyiwaa Manuh

Part I. Modernization and the Origins of the Package
1. After Modernization: Globalization and the African Dilemma
Percy C. Hintzen
2. Modernization Theory and the Figure of Blindness: Filial Reflections
Andrew Apter

Part II. Media, Modernity, and Modernization
3. Film as Instrument of Modernization and Social Change in Africa: The Long View
Rosaleen Smyth
4. Mass Education, Cooperation, and the "African Mind"
Aaron Windel
5. Is Propaganda Modernity? Press and Radio for "Africans" in Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Malawi during World War II and its Aftermath
Mhoze Chikowero
6. Elocution, Englishness, and Empire: Film and Radio in Late Colonial Ghana
Peter J. Bloom

Part III. Infrastructure and Effects
7. Negotiating Modernization: The Kariba Dam Project in the Central African Federation, c. 1954-1960
Julia Tischler
8. "No One Should Be Worse Off": The Akosombo Dam, Modernization, and the Experience of Resettlement in Ghana
Stephan F. Miescher
9. Radioactive Excess: Modernization as Spectacle and Betrayal in Postcolonial Gabon
Gabrielle Hecht

Part IV. Institutional Training in Nkrumah's Ghana
10. Modeling Modernity: The Brief Story of Kwame Nkrumah, a Nazi Pilot Named Hanna, and the Wonders of Motorless Flight
Jean Allman
11. The African Personality Dances Highlife: Popular Music, Urban Youth, and Cultural Modernization in Nkrumah's Ghana, 1957-1965
Nate Plageman
12. Building Institutions for the New Africa: The Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana
Takyiwaa Manuh

Part V. Modernization and the Literary Imagination
13. Theatre and the Politics of Display: The Tragedy of King Christophe at Senegal's First World Festival of Negro Arts
Christina S. McMahon
14. Re-Engaging Narratives of Modernization in Contemporary African Literature
Nana Wilson-Tagoe
15. Between Nationalism and Pan-Africanism: Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o's Theater and the Art and Politics of Modernizing African Culture
Aida Mbowa

Contributors
Index

Sujets

• African Studies
• HISTORY
• Histoire
• África
• Ethnic studies
• History of Africa
• West
• Africa

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 09 mai 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9780253012333
• Langue: English

Extrait

MODERNIZATION AS SPECTACLE IN AFRICA
MODERNIZATION AS SPECTACLE IN AFRICA
EDITED BY Peter J. Bloom, Stephan F. Miescher, and Takyiwaa Manuh
Indiana University Press
Bloomington and Indianapolis
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Modernization as spectacle in Africa / edited by Peter J. Bloom, Stephan F. Miescher, and Takyiwaa Manuh.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-253-01229-6 (pbk. : alk. paper) - ISBN 978-0-253-01225-8 (cloth : alk. paper) - ISBN 978-0-253-01233-3 (ebook) 1. Economic development-Social aspects-Africa. 2. Social change-Africa. 3. Africa-Economic conditions-1960-4. Africa-Social conditions-1960-5. Africa-Economic policy. I. Bloom, Peter J., editor of compilation. II. Miescher, Stephan F., editor of compilation. III. Manuh, Takyiwaa, editor of compilation. IV. Hintzen, Percy C. After modernization.
HC800.M625 2014
960.32-dc23
2013042002
12 3 4 5 19 18 17 16 15 14
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction \ Stephan F. Miescher, Peter J. Bloom, and Takyiwaa Manuh
Part One: Modernization and the Origins of the Package
1 After Modernization: Globalization and the African Dilemma \ Percy C. Hintzen
2 Modernization Theory and the Figure of Blindness: Filial Reflections \ Andrew Apter
Part Two: Media, Modernity, and Modernization
3 Film as Instrument of Modernization and Social Change in Africa: The Long View \ Rosaleen Smyth
4 Mass Education, Cooperation, and the African Mind \Aaron Windel
5 Is Propaganda Modernity? Press and Radio for Africans in Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Malawi during World War II and Its Aftermath \ Mhoze Chikowero
6 Elocution, Englishness, and Empire: Film and Radio in Late Colonial Ghana \ Peter J. Bloom
Part Three: Infrastructure and Effects
7 Negotiating Modernization: The Kariba Dam Project in the Central African Federation, ca. 1954-1960 \ Julia Tischler
8 No One Should Be Worse Off : The Akosombo Dam, Modernization, and the Experience of Resettlement in Ghana \Stephan F. Miescher
9 Radioactive Excess: Modernization as Spectacle and Betrayal in Postcolonial Gabon \ Gabrielle Hecht
Part Four: Institutional Training in Nkrumah s Ghana
10 Modeling Modernity: The Brief Story of Kwame Nkrumah, a Nazi Pilot Named Hanna, and the Wonders of Motorless Flight \ Jean Allman
11 The African Personality Dances Highlife: Popular Music, Urban Youth, and Cultural Modernization in Nkrumah s Ghana, 1957-1965 \ Nate Plageman
12 Building Institutions for the New Africa: The Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana \ Takyiwaa Manuh
Part Five: Modernization and the Literary Imagination
13 Theater and the Politics of Display: The Tragedy of King Christophe at Senegal s First World Festival of Negro Arts \Christina S. McMahon
14 Reengaging Narratives of Modernization in Contemporary African Literature \ Nana Wilson-Tagoe
15 Between Nationalism and Pan-Africanism: Ng g wa Thiong o s Theater and the Art and Politics of Modernizing African Culture \ Aida Mbowa
Contributors
Index
Acknowledgments
The initial impetus for this volume began with the University of California African Studies Multicampus Research Group, which Peter J. Bloom and Stephan F. Miescher launched in 2007 with faculty from seven UC campuses. In 2008, Takyiwaa Manuh, as director of the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, Legon, agreed to host a conference on the theme of Revisiting Modernization, which was held in July 2009. Many of the conference presentations were published in a special issue of Ghana Studies 15/16 (2009-2010). The current volume was inspired by this initiative, and consists of original contributions by a wide array of contributors.
We are grateful to several institutions in support of the broader context for this project at the University of California, including the Office of the President and the Humanities Research Institute, as well as the UCLA African Studies Center, the UC Berkeley Center for African Studies, and the UCSB Interdisciplinary Humanities Center. At the University of Ghana, the staff of the Institute of African Studies (IAS), the office of the pro-vice-chancellor, and the chair of the then Research and Conferences Fund provided necessary support and advice.
At UCSB, we would like to acknowledge the encouragement and guidance of David Marshall, Michael Douglas Dean of Humanities and Fine Arts, and Ann Bermingham, former director of the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center. Further, a circle of colleagues in the UC system have supported the project from the beginning. They include Andrew Apter and Edmond Keller (UCLA), Percy Hintzen and Catherine M. Cole (UC Berkeley), Victoria Bernal, Ketu Katrak, and Cecelia Lynch (UC Irvine), Elisabeth Cameron (UC Santa Cruz), Bennetta Jules-Rosette and Ivan Evans (UC San Diego), and Moradewun Adejunmobi (UC Davis).
At the University of Ghana, we would like to acknowledge Professor Kwabena Nketia, emeritus professor of African Studies, and Professor Kwesi Yankah, former pro-vice-chancellor, as well as Brigid Sackey, Esi Sutherland-Addy, Akosua Adomako Ampofo, Kwame Amoah Labi, and Dzodzi Tsikata. In Accra, Auntie Emily Asiedu provided hospitality.
Finally, Dee Mortensen, senior editor at Indiana University Press, took an interest in this project and provided extensive feedback and guidance for which we are grateful. We would also like to thank Donald Donham and an anonymous reviewer for their comments, which have greatly improved the manuscript. Lastly, during the production process we have appreciated the contributions of Eric Levy, who served as copyeditor, Angela Burton, who coordinated the publication, and Alex Trotter, who compiled the index.
MODERNIZATION AS SPECTACLE IN AFRICA
Introduction
Stephan F. Miescher, Peter J. Bloom, and Takyiwaa Manuh
In the early years of independence, the discourse of modernization played a central role in imagining a postcolonial African future. Independence as event and spectacle, however, has often overshadowed its emerging context within the paradigm of modernization. It was couched within a preexisting rhetoric of African development proclaiming a new urgency of nation building already set in motion during the 1950s and 1960s. Foregrounding the age of modernization, in contrast to the moment of independence, allows us to propose a more subtle and nuanced understanding of the immediate postwar and early independence period. As less indebted to the quality of independence as historical rupture with the colonial era, an emphasis on the discourse and practices of modernization emphasizes continuities, or an aggregate of events and experiences, on the African continent.
We contend that recent celebrations marking fifty years of independence too easily shift attention away from the colonial legacy. Instead, revisiting modernization as spectacle foregrounds programs of development and citizenship-making claims that have a longer historical trajectory. The notion of modernization as spectacle refers to performance, ideology, and public enactment. Spectacle as a process of layering and instances of intersection specifies state-led modernization programs and their effects. 1 By extension, emerging independence-era leaders across the African continent rearticulated the significance and objectives of infrastructure and cultural projects. They re-coded them in the name of nation building and frequently deployed a Pan-Africanist form of expression. In fact, colonial empire was a founding agent of modernization. Since World War I, networks of empire increasingly facilitated contact and movement of bodies and ideas between Africa and its Diaspora in Asia, Europe, and the Americas. This created a powerful dynamic, variously associated with N gritude, Pan-Africanism, and new linguistic communities.
Mass human movements, instantiated by modern forms of air, rail, and road transport, as well as theaters of conflict and educational opportunities, allowed for an emerging context of interaction. The effects of these modern forms of mobility have often been allied with conceptions of modernity. Be it on the battlefield, in the boxing ring, at literary salons, or within the improvisational context of jazz clubs, appropriations of the Other in urban centers, such as Berlin, Paris, and New York, asserted cultural and political prerogative. The discourse of modernity was allied with artistic movements and described by figures allied with the German language critical sociological tradition loosely amalgamated by the Frankfurt School (Jay 1996). It specified how new technologies allied with the urban experience in these world capitals became part of a political and cultural consciousness. Africa was a representative concept rather than a lived reality in this initial conception of modernity, which implied a dialectical artistic and political aesthetic. By contrast, African intellectuals adopted modernization as the means of transforming material conditions in order to address historic inequities. We contend that the space of specta