(Un)doing Gender: The Ethnographic Significance of Mbube Dirge

Abstract

ABSTRACT Although studies on death and dirge abound, there are fewer studies examining how gendered constructions are enabled in dirge rendition. This article examines how dirge performers in the Mbube communities of northern Cross River State, south-eastern Nigeria extend the dirge beyond mourning to do gender work. Data for this study were collected through a six-month’s qualitative ethnographic fieldwork. With insights drawn from Candace West and Don Zimmerman’s (1987) concept of doing gender, the study accounts for how gendered identities are scripted in dirge rendition. The study illuminates how Mbube women take advantage of the uncensored and spontaneous nature of dirge, extend it beyond mourning to (un)do gender, to question patriarchal norms and to reconstruct the way women are perceived and constructed in the Mbube patriarchal space. This study contributes to growing body of research on gender(ing) by advancing understanding of how women performers employ dirge to subvert patriarchal hegemony.