Making sense of ‘whiteman kontri’ using transnational soap operas

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article situates transnational soap operas as a popular site through which some Bamenda market women in Cameroon learn and imagine other forms of transnational modernity which contrasts with local lived patterns. The ways in which some of the Bamenda market women imagine ‘whiteman kontri’ instigates a desire to travel, arguably acting as screen adverts for the countries imagined, turning some of the women into screen tourists, and reveals some of the participants’ desire for migrancy. The argument within this article is that transnational texts provide a sense of modernity to its viewers, particularly to the Bamenda market women who use transnational soap operas to emulate modern practices and engineer local change. The process of dreaming about spaces never visited through the consumption of film texts and the women’s attempts to change local practices is referred to here as symbolic distancing. In this instance, symbolic distancing involves viewers’ creative and imaginative processes, which enable them to fearlessly relocate from their immediate locality to a distant realm without the constraints of immigration rules and regulations, allowing them the freedom of thoughts, which they use to map a paradise of the places they witness in soap operas. Qualitative research methods were employed to collect data on the different meanings some Bamenda market women make out of their consumption of transnational soap operas.