Explores the instrumentalization of various aspects of popular culture in Africa.This anthology provides insightful data on and discussions of a wide array of popular cultural manifestations and theoretical perspectives, covering such issues as kinship, religion, conflict resolution, music, cinema, drama, andliterary texts. The issues cohere around the understanding that culture is situational and political. Going beyond merely challenging popular stereotypes and representations of Africans and African-related practices in various outlets, the book reveals how popular cultural practices are instruments that have been manipulated for personal and collective survival. The book is distinctive in its codification and explication of aspects of popular practices that are based on data from countries in Africa, Europe, and the Americas that showcase cultural negotiations either with reference to how notions, values, norms, and images of Africans have been packaged and exploited over theyears or how popular cultures are used as tools of resistance and agitation by the various focal groups that are discussed. The topics are presented and illustrated in ways easily accessible to readers of all backgrounds.Toyin Falola is the Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities and University Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Texas at Austin. Augustine Agwuele is an Assistant Professor of Linguistics in the Department of Anthropology, Texas State University, San Marcos. Contributors: Arinpe Adejumo, Augustine Agwuele, Antoinette Tidjani Alou, Maurice N. Amutabi, Tokunbo A. Ayoola, Nicholas M. Creary, Toyin Falola, Celeste A. Fisher, Denise Amy-Rose Forbes-Erickson, Hetty ter Haar, Debra L. Klein, Emmanuel M. Mbah, Sarah Steinbock-Pratt, and Asonzeh Ukah

Introduction - Toyin Falola and Augustine AgwueleFrom Primitive to Popular Culture: Why Kant Never Made It to Africa - Hetty ter HaarPopular Culture of Yoruba Kinship Practices - Augustine AgwueleJustice from Below: Cultural Capital, Local/Global Identity Processes, and Social Change in Eastern Niger - Antoinette Tidjani AlouPopular Culture and the Resolution of Boundary Disputes in the Bamenda Grasslands of Cameroon - Emmanuel M. MbahReverse Mission or Asylum Christianity? A Nigerian Church in Europe - Asonzeh UkahPerforming Pop Tradition in Nigeria: From Yorùbá Bàtá to Bàtá Fújì - Debra L. KleinReclaiming the Past or Assimilationist Rebellion? Transforming the Self in Contemporary American Cinema - Celeste A. FisherNeither Bold nor Beautiful: Investigating the Impact of Western Soap Operas on Kenya - Maurice Nyamanga AmutabiThe Lions in the Jungle: Representations of Africa and Africans in American Cinema - Sarah Steinbock-PrattSexuality in Caribbean Performance: Homoeroticism and the African Body in Trinidad - Denise A. Forbes-EricksonFamily Health Awareness in Popular Yorùbá Arts - Arinpe Gbekelolu AdejumoLiterary Cultural Nationalists as Ambassadors across the Diaspora - Nicholas M. CrearyPopular Resistance Literature and the Nigerian Railway Corporation, 1955-60 - Tokunbo A. AyoolaList of ContributorsIndex