From ‘animation’ to encounter: Community radio, sociability and urban life in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire

Abstract

Drawing upon ethnographic research on community radio in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, this article argues that tracking production practices outside of the studio allows researchers to better capture radio’s entanglements with everyday urban life. This spatial reconsideration mirrors a conceptual move beyond community media labels and normative criteria, towards a privileging of context. To illustrate both points, the article centres around ‘animation,’ the practice of enlivening social situations. Animation is central to community radio in Abidjan, but ‘ animateurs’ also practise their trade in a multitude of venues and events around the city. Following animation’s movements between on- and off-air provides an understanding of how community radio is assembled as a porous ‘micro-public’, and insight into the particular kind of sociability that it produces. The article shows that while this sociability is tinged with the quest for status and social capital, it is mostly characterized by indeterminacy, and valued for the unforeseen encounters it can foster.