Abstract

This article theorizes the artful life of power in Nigeria. Focusing on the short call-and-response chants, the extended narrative songs, the proverbial allusions, the bald invectives, and the poetic speeches that political parties deploy within the context of elections in Nigeria, it poses and engages with questions that lie at the intersection of poetry, politics, and performance. The article asks specifically: in what ways do the verbal arts of abuse and duelling emerge outside performative spaces within which they have been traditionally studied? In what contemporary forms do they appear that transcend the often-linear approach that conceives of them as the quotidian mechanisms of resistance for ‘the powerless’? This article suggests that to fully engage with these questions, we must be ready to shift our understanding of subjection and domination as well as of tradition and modernity.

摘要

本文将尼日利亚巧妙的权力生活理论化。专注于简短的呼唤和回应的颂歌、扩展的叙事歌曲、众所周知的典故、秃头的谩骂以及政党在尼日利亚选举背景下部署的诗意演讲，它提出并解决了存在于诗歌、政治和表演的交集。这篇文章特别提出了一个问题：在传统上研究它们的表演空间之外，虐待和决斗的语言艺术以什么方式出现？它们以何种当代形式出现，超越了将它们视为“无能为力”的日常抵抗机制的线性方法？这篇文章建议，要充分参与这些问题，