Wale Adebanwi 
Nation as Grand Narrative [PDF ebook] 
The Nigerian Press and the Politics of Meaning

A methodical analysis of relations of domination and subordination through media narratives of nationhood in an African context.


Nation as Grand Narrative offers a methodical analysis of how relations of domination and subordination are conveyed through media narratives of nationhood. Using the typical postcolonial state of Nigeria as a template andengaging with disciplines ranging from media studies, political science, and social theory to historical sociology and hermeneutics, Wale Adebanwi examines how the nation as grand narrative provides a critical interpretive lens through which competition among ethnic, ethnoregional, and ethnoreligious groups can be analyzed. Adebanwi illustrates how meaning is connected to power through ideology in the struggles enacted on the pages of the print media overdiverse issues including federalism, democracy and democratization, religion, majority-minority ethnic relations, space and territoriality, self-determination, and threat of secession.
Nation as Grand Narrative will triggerfurther critical reflections on the articulation of relations of domination in the context of postcolonial grand narratives.


Wale Adebanwi is associate professor of African American and African studies, University of California-Davis, and a visiting professor at the Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER), Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa.

Tabela de Conteúdo

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Nation as Grand Narrataive

Interpretive Theory, Narrative, and the Politics of Meaning

In Search of a Grand Narrative: The Press and the Ethno-Regional Struggle for Political Independence

Hegemony and Ethno-Spatial Politics: ‘Nationalizing’ the Capital City in the Late-Colonial Era

Paper Soldiers: Narratives of Nationhood and Federalism in Pre-Civil War Nigeria

Representing the Nation: Electoral Crisis and the Collapse of the Third Republic

The ‘Fought’ Republic: The Press, Ethno-Religious Conflicts, and Democratic Ethos

Narratives, Territoriality, and Majority-Minority Ethnic Violence

Narratives, Oil, and the Spatial Politics of Marginal Identities

Conclusion: Beyond Grand Narratives

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Sobre o autor

Wale Adebanwi is Presidential Penn Compact Professor of Africana Studies, University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of Nation as Grand Narrative: The Nigerian Press and the Politics of Meaning (2016) and editor of The Political Economy of Everyday Life in Africa (2017).