A prequel to Nollywood: South African photo novels and their pan-African consumption in the late 1960s

This article interrogates the history of the photo novel in Africa with particular reference to African Film, a magazine of almost pan-African circulation, published between 1968 and 1972 in South Africa. Featuring the adventures of Lance Spearman, an African crime fighter, the magazine was read widely across Anglophone Africa, from Nigeria and Ghana to South Africa, Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda. After a brief introduction to the history of the photo novel, the author discusses the production, content, reception, and legacy of the Lance Spearman photo novels. It is argued that Lance Spearman may be understood as a crossover of James Bond and Philip Marlowe, and several influences from…

‘Disability Gain’ and the Limits of Representing Alternative Beauty

In this conversation, Ann Fox, Matthias Krings and Ulf Vierke debate the concept of ‘disability gain’ and the limits of representing alternative beauty. The concept demands that we regard disability inclusion as a resource gain, instead of a resource drain. While this approach complicates and questions the societal definition and devaluation of ‘disability,’ it also raises a number of debatable issues. For example, what happens when ‘disabled’ bodies are commodified in an attempt to represent so-called alternative beauty? The conversation shows that, while the stakes for the fashion-beauty industry in extending aesthetic norms, pluralizing beauty and mainstreaming diversity are high, it man…

Extraordinarily White: The De/Spectacularization of the Albinotic Body and the Normalization of Its Audience

This chapter discusses three cultural institutions–freak show, art photography and fashion modelling–and the respective figures they produced by presenting albinotic bodies. How are bodily deviance and norm negotiated in these cases of structured seeing? Spectacularizing the ‘albino freak’ as a categorical in-between phenomenon, the freak show drew a sharp distinction between the extraordinary figure on stage and its audience while bestowing the latter with normality. On the other hand, Rick Guidotti’s photographic activism invoking ‘positive exposure’ personalizes albinotic subjects and thus partly breaks down the differentiation between deviant other and normal spectator. Finally, in the …

Turning Rice into Pilau: the Art of Video Narration in Tanzania

This essay investigates the remediation of foreign films as it is currently practised in Tanzanian video parlours, by video narrators interpreting these films into Kiswahili. Video narration is a means to appropriate and domesticate foreign audiovisual material in terms of primary orality. Video narration reverses the hierarchy of original and copy insofar as the moving images of the original become mere illustrations of governing local narratives. Whether performed live or mediatized as voice-over on DVD or VHS cassette, video narration exposes the reality of film as mediated, heightens awareness of the viewing situation and fosters the critical inquiry of the audience.

Mapping out an anthropology of defrauding and faking

Muslim Martyrs and Pagan Vampires

In December 2000 the government of Kano State in Muslim northern Nigeria reintroduced shari’a and established a new board for film and video censorship charged with the responsibility to “sanitize” the video industry and enforce the compliance of video films with moral standards of Islam. Stakeholders of the industry took up the challenge and responded by inserting religious issues into their narratives, and by adding a new feature genre focusing on conversion to Islam. This genre is characterized by violent Muslim/pagan encounters, usually set in a mythical past, culminating in the conversion of the pagans. This article will first outline northern Nigerian video culture and then go on to e…

World Anthropology with an Accent: The Discipline in Germany since the 1970s