The American Anthropological Association Meeting – November 19, 2011

The American Anthropological Association Meeting, 2011
Saturday, November 19, 2011: 16:15

Montreal Convention Center 514A (Palais des congrès de Montréal)
Sabine Jell-Bahlsen (Ogbuide Films)

Okoroshi 2009—a critical incident and cultural conditioning in the art of masquerade.

This paper was inspired when a Nigerian-born colleague asked me for an example of a “critical incident” as an example in an advisory paper aimed at Germans working in Nigeria. I am recalling and reflecting on my encounter with masked men on a SE Nigerian highway and an Okoroshi masquerade at Izombe in 2009, a critical incident and a paradox at the same time. While local dignitaries’ apologized for holding a “pagan masquerade,” I am examining a prolific spiritually motivated African art form that is also a cultural mechanism aimed at social integration; masquerades are demonized and attacked by post-colonial proselytizers, yet, they also represent and appropriate modernity. While it is critical for foreigners to learn about Nigerian cultures, the Igbo people can also learn from their own and their history. In view of Nigeria’s increasingly precarious safety situation and the misappropriation of masks by criminals, this paper calls for a more in-depth study, unravelling and rediscovery of the dynamics and goals of a significant masquerade.

See more of: RELIGION, DOGMA AND SPIRITUALITY ACROSS AFRICA: CONSERVATISM AND CHANGE
See more of: Association for Africanist Anthropology