Black British Postcolonial Feminist Ways of Seeing Human Rights - by Pamela Odih (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

This book traces the feminine soul of Afrobeat from tumultuous colonial (her)stories through to the vibrant heterotopias of the urban spaces and times of Black British youths of African racial heritage. Communicative action is a human right, as per the portents of the United Nations in its 1948 declaration, which recognises the human right to communication. Borne from the cultural political struggles against persistent coloniality in post-independence Nigeria, Afrobeat is communicative action. Afrobeat is the music of Nigerian dissent, that has become the music of an African diaspora. Unique in its way of seeing intergenerational decolonial diaspora studies through the refracted prism of Nigerian Afrobeat, this book's extensive empirical and theoretical basis is directed toward the question: How to be Black British born in a country that colonised our maternal ancestors? It will be of interest to scholars and students in gender studies, African studies, decolonial studies, sociology, and media studies.

From the Back Cover

"The book challenges post-colonial melancholia, read as white privilege or white supremacist thought and action, in novel and interesting ways from a NigerianUK perspective, through the lens of 'transgressive black bodies'. The fact that the author focuses on post-colonial feminist thought and how this can be used to understand an African diasporic presence, within the UK and beyond, is excellently captured in the inclusion of herstories. Similarly, the inclusion of Afrobeat sheds light on how black music is policed and weaponised, in ways that militate against UK black communities in overt and covert ways, within the wider public arena."
--Dr William 'Lez' Henry (PhD) Professor of Criminology and Sociology, University of West London.

This book traces the feminine soul of Afrobeat from tumultuous colonial (her)stories through to the vibrant heterotopias of the urban spaces and times of Black British youths of African racial heritage. Communicative action is a human right, as per the portents of the United Nations in its 1948 declaration, which recognises the human right to communication. Borne from the cultural political struggles against persistent coloniality in post-independence Nigeria, Afrobeat is communicative action. Afrobeat is the music of Nigerian dissent, that has become the music of an African diaspora. Unique in its way of seeing intergenerational decolonial diaspora studies through the refracted prism of Nigerian Afrobeat, this book's extensive empirical and theoretical basis is directed toward the question: How to be Black British born in a country that colonised our maternal ancestors? It will be of interest to scholars and students in gender studies, African studies, decolonial studies, sociology, and media studies.

Pamela Odih is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London, UK. Her research as focused on the regulation of subjects and the construction of gendered subjectivity, with specific regards to consumption, advertising, organisational analysis and educational policy. She has published in Gender, Work and Organization; Race, Ethnicity and Education; and Journal for Cultural Research.

About the Author

Pamela Odih is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London, UK. Her research as focused on the regulation of subjects and the construction of gendered subjectivity, with specific regards to consumption, advertising, organisational analysis and educational policy. She has published in Gender, Work and Organization; Race, Ethnicity and Education; and Journal for Cultural Research.