Imagined Sovereignties in African Cultural Industries

Abstract

Imagined Sovereignties in African Cultural Industries explores the evolving dynamics of imagined communities through the lens of cultural production in music and audio-visual media in Nigeria, Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Morocco, and the DRC. Positioned at the intersection of politics, international relations, and anthropology, this edited volume adopts an interdisciplinary, ethnographic, and comparative approach to examine how cultural industries contribute to reconfiguring notions of belonging and sovereignty. Drawing on Anderson’s concept of imagined communities, the book argues that technological innovation has destabilized traditional national boundaries, enabling the sentiment of belonging to expand transnationally or contract into localized, niche formations. These emergent configurations—resembling networks, silos, or bubbles—challenge the geographically bounded model of the nation state, in terms both of how the nation is imagined and how state sovereignty is envisaged over the media sector. The volume foregrounds the perspectives of cultural producers, whose practices are shaped by the interplay of artistic, political, and economic imperatives. It demonstrates that the communities these artists help to imagine are not solely the product of cultural expression, but also of market dynamics influenced by neoliberal globalization and resurgent nationalist discourses. By analysing the tensions between localist, national, and pan-African orientations in cultural content, the book reveals how cultural industries mediate between competing forces of fragmentation and integration. Expanding on existing scholarship, Imagined Sovereignties contends that imagined communities are co-constituted by cultural, political, economic, and material processes. This nuanced understanding underscores the necessity of redefining sovereignty and belonging in Africa’s rapidly transforming media landscapes.