English

Ndi Shang Gilbert

doi:10.5897/ijel2019.1289

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between visuality, knowledge and power in the postcolonial African novel. With examples from selected texts of Ngugi wa Thiong’o and Sony Labou Tansi, it argues that visual culture, usually employed in the analysis of cultural images and material iconographies in media studies, can aptly be employed in textual analysis given that postcolonial novels are primarily engaged with the undoing of dominant visual regimes. Against the background of hegemonic regimes based on instrumentalist and subjectifying surveillance of the subject, Ngugi wa Thiong’o and Labou Tansi build their texts on visual tactics and practices that subvert the capacity of the state apparatus to see, hence to know the subject. Bordering on humour, parody, graffiti, bricolage and surrealist representation, the two authors “play” with the state Panopticon, creating avenues for countervailing meanings that elude the dominant regimes of vision, knowledge and power. The subversive visual practices are inscribed within a conception of literary textualities that is based on plurivocality, heteroglossia, dialogism and the non-transparent text. Through the deconstruction of dominant visual architecture, both authors open up spaces for democratic conception of power that takes account of inter-subjectivity and non-hegemonic participation in the postcolonial public sphere.   Key words: Postcolony, visual culture, visuality, subversion, dictatorship.

Highlights

Visual culture is a well-established approach to arts and cultural studies
In the expression of Graciela Montaldo in “Mass and Multitude: Bastardised Iconographies of the Modern Order”, the masses, as they figure in political discourse of the governing class in the public sphere “are like flocks, they reproduce without control and the males are constantly sodomising each other; they have horribly ugly faces and they are sensual” (Montaldo, 2005: 235). With regard to such a lack of consideration for the genuine interests of the governed by the rulers, Ngugi wa Thiong’o (2006), makes recourse to a de-individualizing aesthetics that is based on fusion of spaces, discourses and subjectivities
Visuality forms a vital component of knowledge formation strategies connected with the construction of hegemonic power

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Visual culture is a well-established approach to arts and cultural studies. It examines the intricacies and implications of visuality in media identities, popular culture, virtual perceptions, socio-political iconography etc. It presents itself as the enhancement of the natural eye, as the “instrument of evidence” which is at once undeniable and irrevocable In his analysis of the power implications of photography, Allen Feldman establishes the contiguity between the acts of seeing and killing in some contexts. Through Arigaigai’s rumours, the incontestable divining powers of “Wizard of the crow” become a popular saga within the power cycles of Aburiria’s capital city This space turns into a “secret and sacred public space”, with ambitious and high-ranking state officials visiting to consult the “seer” so that he can use his magical powers to enable them get promoted or appointed to higher posts in the Rulers government. The shrine of the Wizard of the Crow stands as a very creative trope in the text Through this theatrical space, Ngugi engages in a discursive reversal of visuality as a key element in the dynamics of hegemonic power.

In Afriques Indociles

A notion popularised by Foucault in his Discipline and Punish

CONCLUSION