Politics and Performative Agency in Nigerian Social Media
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Politics and Performative Agency in Nigerian Social Media A Dissertation Submitted to the College of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English in the Department of English University of Saskatchewan Saskatoon By James Tunde Yeku Copyright James Tunde Yeku, August 2018. All Rights Reserved. PERMISSION TO USE In presenting this thesis/dissertation in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a Postgraduate degree from the University of Saskatchewan, I agree that the Libraries of this University may make it freely available for inspection. I further agree that permission for copying of this thesis/dissertation in any manner, in whole or in part, for scholarly purposes may be granted by the professor or professors who supervised my thesis/dissertation work or, in their absence, by the Head of the Department or the Dean of the College in which my thesis work was done. It is understood that any copying or publication or use of this thesis/dissertation or parts thereof for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. It is also understood that due recognition shall be given to me and to the University of Saskatchewan in any scholarly use which may be made of any material in my thesis/dissertation. DISCLAIMER The [name of company/corporation/brand name and website] were exclusively created to meet the thesis and/or exhibition requirements for the degree of [title of degree] at the University of Saskatchewan. Reference in this thesis/dissertation to any specific commercial products, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, does not constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the University of Saskatchewan. The views and opinions of the author expressed herein do not state or reflect those of the University of Saskatchewan, and shall not be used for advertising or product endorsement purposes. Requests for permission to copy or to make other uses of materials in this thesis/dissertation in whole or part should be addressed to: Head of the Department of English University of Saskatchewan Saskatoon, Saskatchewan S7N 5A5 Canada OR Dean College of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies University of Saskatchewan Room 116 Thorvaldson Building, 110 Science Place Saskatoon, SK S7N 5C9, Canada i ABSTRACT In this dissertation, I examine the ways in which social media in Nigeria functions through online signifying practices as a strategy of demarginalization and subaltern resistance. I engage with this perspective by framing Web 2.0 platforms as enablers of citizens’ right to public and performative speech. Interested in the ways in which netizens imagine the nation and perform political selves and identities through viral and popular images on social media, my dissertation underpins a reading of social media that is grounded in an expanded conception of speech, visual and/or verbal. This approach enables me to take cognizance of the voices and perspectives secured by the decentralized capacity of digital media for everyday citizens with access to the Internet. Engaging with how social media re-centers alternative perspectives to prevailing orthodoxies, I explore the ways in which marginal groups, mostly relegated to the periphery of governmental power, emerge in performative spaces of public discourses through digital cultural signifiers such as the selfie, viral Internet memes, and humorous political cartoons posted online. I show that despite the limitations of cyberspace and the uneven access to internet technologies in some parts of Nigeria, social media is a discursive, if not contested, space of cultural production from which postcolonial subjects ‘author’ media narratives that revise, resist, and challenge exclusion and marginality. By analyzing the significations of user-generated cultural forms, mostly fictional images (Internet memes) and actual performative representations (the selfie) produced as vectors of digital activism and resistance, the dissertation highlights the varied ways in which social media functions as a rearticulating mechanism for a more inclusive appearance of young people and women in Nigeria’s public sphere. I analyze the production and circulation of these images within a framework that positions them as supplemental performative strategies to digital ii activism. Extrapolating the economy of meanings inherent in these images begins, for me, by unsettling the postmodern assumption that mediatized culture is futile for resistance. The refutation of such arguments is necessary to consolidate the claim that the capacity for agency and representation, which social media affords excluded or oppressed populations is more pertinent than the positivist and teleological expectations some scholars have of digital articulations of dissent. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I want to thank my wife Kemi for indulging me over the last five years. Fiddling with a mobile open to Facebook and chasing tweets and hashtags on many occasions, I was away from her on many a wintry night. Thank you for the stories we have told and the many ceaseless laughter from teary eyes we have shared all through this doctoral journey. Thanks to our daughter Iwalewa for giggles that goaded me when things became dull; for the tenderness from which we mine beautiful memories. Also, my deepest gratitude to my esteemed supervisor Dr. Allison Muri for a bird’s-eye attention to details matched only by her kindness. Indeed, a sentence or an entire paragraph would fall short in describing all you have done for this work. Thank you, Dr. Len Findlay, for helping to clarify my thoughts at different stages. For their insightful feedback at different points, thanks to other members of my committee: Dr. Pamela Downe, Dr. Peter Robinson, and my external examiner, Dr. Pius Adesanmi, whose commitment to this dissertation is greatly valued. I would like to thank the English Department of the University of Saskatchewan for awarding me a graduate teaching fellowship as well as other funding and teaching opportunities. Special thanks to Lisa Vargo, Ron Cooley, Lindsey Banco, Peter Hynes, and Ann Martin—for her excellent teaching mentorship and generous kindness. For constant encouragement, thanks too to Carli Coetzee, my family back in Nigeria, and my church family in Saskatoon—for providing friendship and community. iv DEDICATION I dedicate Politics and Performative Agency in Nigerian Social Media to Kemi, Iwalewa, and God— whose grace gives me wings to fly. v TABLE OF CONTENTS PERMISSION TO USE ....................................................................................................... i ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................................ ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................... iv DEDICATION .................................................................................................................... v TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................................... vi TABLE OF FIGURES ...................................................................................................... vii CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION: THE LIBERTY OF APPEARING ........................ 1 1.1 Web 2.0, and Postmodern Performativity ............................................................. 17 1.2 Nigeria’s Facebook President ................................................................................ 35 CHAPTER TWO: SOCIAL MEDIA AND THE RE/TURN TO AGENCY IN NIGERIA ............................................................................................. 43 2.1 From Nollywood to Facebook ............................................................................... 50 2.2 Social Media and Agency ...................................................................................... 70 CHAPTER THREE: PERFORMATIVE CITIZENSHIP AND POLITICAL IDENTITIES IN NIGERIAN SOCIAL MEDIA .......................................................................................... 93 3.1 Self-spectatoriality and Rituals of Performance on Social Media ....................... 102 3.2 Performativity and Identity in Nigerian Social Media Culture ........................... 122 CHAPTER FOUR: CARNIVALESQUE AND THE CULTURAL POLITICS OF HUMOUR IN NIGERIAN SOCIAL MEDIA ........................................................................................ 151 4.1 Shifts and Continuities in Nigerian Humour ....................................................... 155 4.2 The Will to Share ................................................................................................. 165 4.3 Social Media, Resistance, and the Carnivalesque ............................................... 182 4.4 Conclusion ........................................................................................................... 202 CHAPTER FIVE: THE HASHTAG AS ARCHIVE: INTERNET MEMES IN NIGERIA’S SOCIAL MEDIA ELECTION ....................................................................................... 204 5.1 Internet Memes as Popular Culture Genre .......................................................... 210 5.2 Internet Memes and Electoral Politics in Nigeria ................................................ 215 5.3 Pre-Election Memes ............................................................................................ 216 5.4 The #IstandwithJega