This is How We Roll: The Status Economy of Bus Portraiture in the Black Urban Periphery

The absence of formal employment opportunities in African cities leaves many men unable to achieve an idealized, modern wage-earning masculinity, such that socially they remain boys. They may contest their denigrated status by investing in practices that supplant this dominant narrative of masculinity. Specifically, images of iconic black men invoke an experience of modernity-as-alterity, shared across the global black diaspora. As men assert their common blackness through visual expression, they fuel lucrative economies. In this transatlantic interplay, the urban periphery transforms supralocal cultural references into material practices that buttress local identities. This article introduces the concept of status economies to examine the politics of representation and to track the dollars and dreams on Africa’s urban periphery. The author discusses the practice of gbaka (bus) portrait art as an example of a status economy in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire. She explores the nexus between gbaka art, changing work regimes, and masculinity to understand how peripheral men’s search for status generates a cultural movement and an associated economy. In English, extended summary in Russian

This is How We Roll: The Status Economy of Bus Portraiture in the Black Urban Periphery

The absence of formal employment opportunities in African cities leaves many men unable to achieve an idealized, modern wage-earning masculinity, such that socially they remain boys. They may contest their denigrated status by investing in practices that supplant this dominant narrative of masculinity. Specifically, images of iconic black men invoke an experience of modernity-as-alterity, shared across the global black diaspora. As men assert their common blackness through visual expression, they fuel lucrative economies. In this transatlantic interplay, the urban periphery transforms supralocal cultural references into material practices that buttress local identities. This article introduces the concept of status economies to examine the politics of representation and to track the dollars and dreams on Africa’s urban periphery. The author discusses the practice of gbaka (bus) portrait art as an example of a status economy in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire. She explores the nexus between gbaka art, changing work regimes, and masculinity to understand how peripheral men’s search for status generates a cultural movement and an associated economy. In English, extended summary in Russian

Figuring the Plural

This report is an examination of ethnocultural, or ethnically/culturally specific, arts organizations in Canada and the United States.As our societies rapidly diversify and we seek to negotiate our increasingly complex national identities, these organizations possess enormous potential to assist in this process for they serve as cultural advocates, cultural interpreters, facilitators of cross-cultural understanding and communication keepers of ethnic tradition, and/or sites where prejudice is exposed and challenged

Local varieties, planting strategies and early season farming activities in two villages of Central Upper Volta

This is the second in a series of periodic reports presenting preliminary findings of ICRISAT/West Africa socioeconomics village research.1 The objective of these reports is to make available on a timely basis highlights of results emerging from ongoing village studies, thereby stimulating diecussion and early feedback from other scientists..

Technology Evaluation: five case studies from West Africa

On-farm tests of technology are usually distinguished in the literature as either on-farm trials or farmers' tests. In on-farm trials, the researcher manages the trial in an effort to control variation. Examples include multilocational testing of advanced varieties or tests of new and promising intercropping combinations. In farmers' tests, tlie farmers manage all (or most) test operations. Even management may be a test factor, with the researcher simply monitoring how the test is executed by the farmer

The West African Semiarid Tropics

Farming systems in the West African semiarid tropics (WASAT) reflect a long process of adaptation to low and variable rainfall, generally poor and fragile soils, and readily available land. The extensive land-use systems, which have evolved under these conditions, are marked by low productivity per unit area and high yield variability. Soil quality has traditionally been maintained by long bush-fallow rotations, requiring at least a 5:1 ratio of fallow to cultivated land. In rapidly expanding areas of the WASAT, however, growing populations are upsetting this ecological balance by cultivating more marginal soils and by continuous cultivation. Increased cash needs are also inducing farmers in some areas to put greater resources into cash crop production, often employing technologies that accelerate a decline in soil quality. The major areas of possible technological change are considered in turn: irrigation, other forms of land and water management, mechanization, genetic improvement, and the use of chemical inputs. One of the biggest problems is the gap between experimental farm results and farm yields, and this can only be rectified by continued investment in agricultural research, together with important changes in conception and approac

Increasing Food Production in Sub-Saharan Africa: Environmental Problems and Inadequate Technological Solutions

Evaluates the technical and social conditions of agriculture and the technological innovations to increase food production in Sub-Saharan Africa. Environmental constraints to agriculture; Farming system and its technical needs; Problems of irrigation projects; Reason for the limited use of mulches in sorghum and millet production

Coming full circle : farmers' participation in the development of technology

Meeting: Workshop on Farmers' Participation in the Development and Evaluation of Agricultural Technology, 20-25 Sept. 1983, Ouagadougou, BFFrench version available in IDRC Digital Library: Recherche à la ferme : participation des paysans au développement de la technologie agricol

Coming full circle : farmers' participation in the development of technology

Meeting: Workshop on Farmers' Participation in the Development and Evaluation of Agricultural Technology, 20-25 Sept. 1983, Ouagadougou, BFFrench version available in IDRC Digital Library: Recherche à la ferme : participation des paysans au développement de la technologie agricol

On the role of information in decision making: the case of sorghum yield in Burkina Faso

This paper investigates the role of temporal uncertainty and information issues in economic decisions. It shows that the nature of the economic environment (e.g., the production technology) can influence the valuation of information, which in turn affects the choice functions. This is illustrated by an empirical application to sorghum yield response analysis in Burkina Faso. The paper stresses the importance of technology and information valuation in risk behaviou