“Pure Fabrication”: Information Policy, Media Rights, and the Postcolonial Public

Hultin, Niklas

doi:10.1525/pol.2007.30.1.1

Cited by 13 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…Arguably, the strict grip on state media in many African countries has made this site of media production off-limits for most anthropologists. The deregulation of mass media in many African countries has changed this only to a small extent, and sustained ethnographic enquiry of state media production and control is expanding (Adunbi 2017;Hasty 2005Hasty , 2006Hultin 2007Hultin , 2013Pype 2009Pype , 2011b. As African regimes adapt their surveillance strategies and practices of disciplining and rule to novel technologies, political actors are re-imagining visions of community, responsibility and information flow.…”

Section: Activating Political Communitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Anthropological Approaches to Media in Africa

Jedlowski¹,

Pype²

2019

A Companion to the Anthropology of Africa

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Anthropologists began to study media relatively late in the history of the discipline. Research on media -in particular, mass media -tended to be associated "with the societies most anthropologists came from, and thus with the self rather than the other" (Krings 2015, p. 5), and except for a few rare exceptions, "it was not until the late 1980s that anthropologists began to turn systematic attention to media as a social practice" (Ginsburg, Abu-Lughod, and Larkin 2002, p. 3, also Spitulnik 1993). This was true even for older media, such as songs, dance and theater, since those topics were associated with the other late research focus of urban anthropology. A similar situation can be observed in the context of African studies, where scholars began to concentrate consistently on the analysis of media only during the 1990s, in response not only to processes of "deterritorialization of culture" (Gupta and Ferguson 1992) -the challenge to the reified boundaries that characterized functionalist approaches -and to the ongoing disciplinary shift toward an anthropology of "the present" (Fox 1991), but also as a reaction to changing conditions in the field. As Tilo Grätz underscores, during the 1990s "the proliferation of new media institutions such as independent newspapers, radio and TV stations … brought about a new media landscape in many African countries" (2011, p. 152) and researchers were compelled to account for the transformations that were taking place in front of their eyes.

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Section: Activating Political Communitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Anthropological Approaches to Media in Africa

Jedlowski¹,

Pype²

2019

A Companion to the Anthropology of Africa

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“…In the terminology proposed earlier, the opacity of information was temporarily suspended or cleared away. When I first published an analysis of my meeting with the e-government civil servant (see Hultin 2007), I adopted an approach heavily indebted to the work of Andrew Barry (2001) and others who focus on how information connotes a moral imperative that is wielded by governments. Accordingly, I emphasized the idea of an informed, moral subject rather than the fact that a transaction had taken place and that it had done so in a context of opacity.…”

Section: Sharing (Melanesian) Informationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…When viewed in the politico-legal context of The Gambia, however, this episode takes on greater analytical significance. At the time, the Gambian government was-as it still is-roundly critiqued by domestic civil society groups and international human rights groups for unaccountable security forces and a hostile attitude toward the media (Hughes 2000;Hultin 2007;Saine 2002). In addition, there were persistent rumors of multiple constitutions existing in The Gambia.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Law, Opacity, and Information in Urban Gambia

Hultin¹

2013

Social Analysis

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This article examines the discourse surrounding the circulation of legal information in urban Gambia. It argues that ideas of information sharing suggest that Gambian law is fundamentally opaque, not simply in that it is not transparent but that it is only partially known. Drawing on the insights of Marilyn Strathern and other 'Melanesianists', the article further proposes that information sharing is a kind of relation and that opacity is a way of cutting relations. This in turn presents a way of apprehending African law that differs from the current emphasis on illegality and sovereignty in Africanist legal anthropology and focuses instead on emendation as a modality of engaging the law.

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“…Jammeh's opposition argues that his military background has inclined him towards autocratic rule: heavy media control and low tolerance for dissent, possible polling irregularities, and outright intimidation of his opposition (Jallow ; Saine ; Saine ; cf. Hultin ) . On the other hand, Jammeh's political campaigns are consistently built around his ability to ‘deliver the goods’ of development.…”

Section: From Developmentalism To Decentralisation By Default: the Gamentioning

confidence: 99%

Developing a Multiethnic Ethos: How Colonial Legacies, National Policies, and Local Histories Converged in a Gambian Village Charter

Thomson

2012

Studies Ethnicity & National

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This examination of local government reform in The Gambia asserts that -contra Mamdani's (1996) generalisations that colonial policies of indirect rule in Africa universally determined that ethnicity is the master code through which ordinary people interact with local manifestations of the state -in some cases colonial administration contributed to more pluralist local politics. Further, I argue that the logics of developmentalism have joined with local models of political legitimacy to generate communities that actively choose to define themselves explicitly as multiethnic entities. My case study focuses on the process conducted in one village of drafting a constitution for its Village Development Committee in anticipation of the Local Government Act of 2000. That a local community took advantage of such a critical juncture to reassert its own moral order is not surprising; however, that this local moral order explicitly recognises and protects ethnic diversity runs counter to dominant narratives about Africa that equate ethnic diversity with conflict.

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“Pure Fabrication”: Information Policy, Media Rights, and the Postcolonial Public

Cited by 13 publications

References 18 publications

Anthropological Approaches to Media in Africa

Anthropological Approaches to Media in Africa

Law, Opacity, and Information in Urban Gambia

Developing a Multiethnic Ethos: How Colonial Legacies, National Policies, and Local Histories Converged in a Gambian Village Charter

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