Open AccessON CYNICISM: Activist and Artistic Responses to Corruption in Ghana
Author(s) -
DASWANI GIRISH
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
cultural anthropology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.669
H-Index - 75
eISSN - 1548-1360
pISSN - 0886-7356
DOI - 10.14506/ca35.1.09
Subject(s) - cynicism , politics , contradiction , sociology , argument (complex analysis) , skepticism , language change , media studies , comedy , aesthetics , law , political science , epistemology , art , visual arts , literature , philosophy , biochemistry , chemistry
By considering how Ghanaian activists and artists engage with different forms of cynicism in their attempts to fight corruption, this article reflects on two kinds of activist orientations: one located in future‐oriented projects of political change, and another embracing contradiction by poking fun at the duplicity of politics. I argue that while the cynicism of other middle‐class Ghanaians served as an important catalyst for activist action, it is important to look at cynicism and its politics from the perspective of Ghanaians who become disappointed and skeptical about change and artists who are concerned with embracing contradictions and making fun of the present through satire. By attending to the social actions and experiences that characterize these two groups, I ask what it means to take cynicism, and activism against and despite cynicism, as one's ethnographic object.