This dissertation examines the interaction between music, politics and the
Cameroonian media in the production and role of the popular music called
bikutsi. In the context of Cameroonian music, bikutsi had long been associated
solely with the Beti region surrounding the capital of Yaoundé, and as such
considered a marginal music patronized by the “villageois.” Nevertheless, after
Paul Biya assumed the presidency of Cameroon in 1982, and his subsequent
inauguration of the Office de Télévision Nationale du Cameroun (Cameroon
Radio and Television-CRTV) in 1985, bikutsi acquired the importance of a
national music, and indeed a minor global phenomenon.
Using the politico-economic backdrop of capital at the millennium, I show
how the ethos of neoliberalism has helped turn African nation-states such as
Cameroon into what has been called “regimes of unreality,” divorced from
economic control, dependent on a multitude of development projects in the manner of contemporary cargo cults, and left with only the semblance of
fetishism with which to connect to its people. In recent years, however, the
process of media liberalization has taken away the state media’s ability to enact
that message, and thus the regime’s power of persuasion. Instead the populace is
left with a new type of cargo, in the form of sounds and imagery to go along with
the narrative of global consumer culture.
This has left an opportunity for those with the skill and imagination to
make use of the new information, allowing artists, musicians and writers to be the
next members of a new civil society. This is what I refer to as the emancipatory
promise of the new cargo cult, where instead of capital accumulation there is only
ephemera—signs, sounds and images that multiply and intensify in unpredictable
and sometimes dangerous ways. I use the national lens of bikutsi to analyze these
dynamics on a local and global level, in the city, the quartier and the village.
Ultimately, understanding the media process and cargo has the ability to allow
individuals to overcome the narrow vision of political machinery, and act as
another potential cog in the civil society of meaningful relationships. / text
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UTEXAS/oai:repositories.lib.utexas.edu:2152/7676 |
| Date | 03 June 2010 |
| Creators | Rathnaw, Dennis Michael |
| Source Sets | University of Texas |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Format | electronic |
| Rights | Copyright is held by the author. Presentation of this material on the Libraries' web site by University Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin was made possible under a limited license grant from the author who has retained all copyrights in the works. |
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