AEGIS ECAS 2007 - View abstract

Panel	20. Popular culture and politics - alternative channels of expression
Paper ID	622
Author(s)	Ludl, Christine
Paper	No paper submitted
Abstract	To address the question to what extent popular culture has the potential to influence political change implies a second, more fundamental question: How can culture actually become effective in politics? While studies have shown how (popular) culture can be used to express political views or to promote political ideas, it is less clear how culture actually can achieve this effect. Implicitly, most of the research on popular culture and politics gives an important place to “representations” and directly connects them to practices. In this paper I argue that social and political representations, as a clearly defined concept, play indeed an important role for the relations between culture and politics. The critical question then is: What provides for the effectiveness of culture as a link between social representations and political practices? I’ll address the question of the effectiveness of culture by examining the representations of success, linked to mobility, among Senegalese youth. In fact, representations of migration are particularly appropriate to reveal representations of society, of political legitimacy and accountability and of the ways one can expect to realize his or her projects in the given societal and political context. Thus, they imply a clear political impact. During the Senegalese presidential elections in 2000, popular culture, especially rap music and sports contributed partly to political change. Meanwhile, the high expectancies raised by this “alternance” have been followed by deception. I’ll firstly show how popular culture and the underlying representations of success, and the ways to achieve it influenced on Senegalese politics during the 2000 presidential elections. Secondly, I’ll also address the question of the impact of political change on representations and popular culture: The deep deception following the election of Abdoulaye Wade significantly altered representations of Senegalese youth of how to realize their projects of emancipation and individualization. To be more precise, these representations not only differ from representations of prestige linked to knowledge and education as they have been noticed in Senegalese society since independence. They also differ from the idea of hard work and personal effort as expressed for example in the bul faale movement (“don’t worry” in wolof) since the 1990s which has become particularly important during the 2000 presidential elections. Yet, as actual representations of migration and mobility show, Senegalese youth considers that their society no longer offers the possibilities to realise their projects in the ways that match with these new representations of success, and, what is most important, with the relations to time they imply. I’ll draw on cultural productions (theater, music, film) and on narrative interviews with artists who express their vision of the phenomenon of rapidly growing migration. On the other hand, my empirical material also includes cultural productions and narrative interviews with the young Senegalese themselves whose wish to leave their country has become an “obsession”. Hence, this paper provides important insight in the relations between culture and politics and the role representations play within these relations. The empirical results will be considered with respect to theoretical and methodological questions.

Popular culture and political change: Representations of success and mobility in Senegalese society.