The infrapolitics of subordination in Patrice Nganang's Dog Days

Abstract

Patrice Nganang's award winning novel Dog Days illustrates a recent trend in African literature in French from the mid-1990s, namely a move away from narratives about rulers to narratives about the ruled, a move away from studying the socially dominant to analyzing the socially subordinate. This paper aims to foreground some of the thinking on social subordination in recent African literature by examining Patrice Nganang's Dog Days in the light of James Scott's work on power relations and resistance in his book, Domination and the Arts of Resistance, as well as Achille Mbembe's reflections on power relations in his book, On the Postcolony. Unlike earlier works of African literature that either underscore the process of victimisation of social subordinates and/or the place of resistance in their everyday acts, these more recent works exude pessimism about the willingness of subordinate subjects to engage in resistance, while affirming the necessity for, and efficacy of direct resistance as the primary antidote for social disorder. In the theory of social subordination elaborated upon in this novel which accords with, but also contradicts, Scott's analysis of the nature and process of resistance at particular points, acts of deference on the part of social subordinates do not necessarily conceal hidden transcripts. Furthermore, and to the extent that we occasionally encounter hidden transcripts, such transcripts are noteworthy mainly in so far as they instigate direct resistance against those who exercise power unjustly.