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Narratives of Modernity, Masculinity, and Citizenship Amid Crisis in Abidjan's Sorbonne
Author(s) -
Matlon Jordanna
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
antipode
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.177
H-Index - 98
eISSN - 1467-8330
pISSN - 0066-4812
DOI - 10.1111/anti.12069
Subject(s) - citizenship , modernity , narrative , gender studies , subjectivity , nationalism , ethnography , sociology , masculinity , ideology , subaltern , political science , anthropology , law , politics , art , literature , philosophy , epistemology
In this article I relate prominent depictions of the African urban crisis, particularly informality, and its implications for masculine subjectivity in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire. Drawing on five months of ethnographic fieldwork I conducted in 2008 and 2009, I consider the Sorbonne , a nationalist space in Abidjan, where partisans of former President Laurent Gbagbo contested the crisis narrative and their place in it. Literally and ideologically, Sorbonne orators and spectators moved themselves and their country from the periphery to the urban and global core.