Adopting a transnational approach that places Africa at the center of inquiry, this study traces a trajectory of peacebuilding discourse through the music of popular artists African China in Nigeria and Brenda Fassie in South Africa. It adopts a nonlinear, weblike structure that links different national spaces in the discussion of different stages in the peace trajectory. The essay identifies three stages of peacebuilding in the artists' interventions. These stages begin with a prelude of violent conflict (early warning); they continue with the call by the artists to all stakeholders to take any measures necessary to make peace (even negotiation); and end in a final, celebratory stage that usually leads toward restoration of peace for freedom and development. In reading the lyrics, performances, and popular artists' use of their celebrity through the prism of the three-stage trajectory toward peace, this study contends that the inclusive, multiform mode of communication provided through popular culture is key to both freedom and development.
This article is an ecocritical reading of Remi Raji’s Sea of My Mind (2013). We argue that the collection is a fine illustration of the animist turn in ecocriticism. By engaging with the import of the natural elements that incarnate with the imagination of the sea, we discuss the various ways in which Raji’s poetic oeuvres address the environmental exigencies of the times. We also show how the centrality of natural elements in the work pinpoints the limits of human agency. We further argue that the concern of the collection serves to amplify, from the Nigerian perspective, the necessity of maintaining the delicate balance of relations between humans and the nonhuman others, while not losing sight of the imperative of mitigation to forestall catastrophes of the apocalyptic scale.
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