Afropolitan Masculinity: Forgeries of Wife-Owning Husbands in West Africa, 1850s–1950s

IF 1.9 2区社会学 Q1 AREA STUDIES

Africa Spectrum Pub Date : 2023-11-14 DOI:10.1177/00020397231206133

Ndubueze L. Mbah

引用次数: 0

Abstract

Between the 1850s and 1950s, when abolitionism masked neoslavery and engendered displacement and forced labour migration in West Africa, Africans used forgery as a survival mechanism. They forged legal documents, claimed multiple forms of citizenship and belonging as Afropolitans, and manipulated kinship and imperial bureaucracy in the quest for freedom. One arena of forgery examined in this article entailed the invention of “husband” as “wife-owner,” within a context of gendered aspirations for social reproduction in the age of abolition. Southeastern Nigerian male migrants mobilised freedom papers, labour contracts, marriage certificates, and the medium of petition-writing to fashion themselves into Afropolitan wife-owners in a bid to survive transimperial displacement, marginalisation, and subordination that arose from abolition forgery. Afropolitan masculinity illuminates how abolition forgery generated enduring structures of hierarchical gender relations in West Africa.

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非洲都市男性气质：19 世纪 50 年代--1950 年代西非的 "妻管严 "赝品

十九世纪五十年代至二十世纪五十年代，废奴主义掩盖了新奴隶制，在西非造成了流离失所和强迫劳动力迁移，非洲人将伪造作为一种生存机制。他们伪造法律文件，以非洲人的身份要求多种形式的公民身份和归属感，并操纵亲属关系和帝国官僚机构以寻求自由。本文研究的一个伪造领域是在废奴时代社会再生产的性别愿望背景下，将 "丈夫 "发明为 "妻子的所有者"。尼日利亚东南部的男性移民利用自由文件、劳动合同、结婚证书和请愿书写作媒介，将自己塑造成非洲大都会的 "妻子所有者"，以求在因废奴伪造而产生的跨帝国流离失所、边缘化和从属地位中生存下来。非洲大都会男性气质揭示了废奴伪造如何在西非产生了持久的等级性别关系结构。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Africa Spectrum AREA STUDIES-

CiteScore

4.50

自引率

10.00%

发文量

审稿时长

6 weeks

期刊介绍： Africa Spectrum is a peer-reviewed, Open Access journal published since 1966 by the GIGA Institute of African Affairs (IAA) in Hamburg. It is a multidisciplinary journal dedicated to scientific exchange between the continents. It focuses on socially relevant issues related to political, economic, and sociocultural problems and events in Africa, as well as on Africa''s role within the international system. There are no article processing charges payable to publish in Africa Spectrum. For more than five decades, Africa Spectrum has provided in-depth analyses of current issues in political, social, and economic life; culture; and development in sub-Saharan Africa, including historical studies that illuminate current events on the continent. Africa Spectrum is the leading German academic journal exclusively devoted to this continent and is part of the GIGA Journal Family. The journal accepts Research Articles, Analyses and Reports as well as Book Reviews. It also publishes special issues devoted to particular subjects.