Small Magazines, Literary Networks and Self-Fashioning in Africa and its Diasporas

本项目主要关注黑人国际主义（c.f. Hayes Edwards）在通过研究小型杂志（包括印刷杂志和数字杂志）构建非洲和散居民族团结中的当代遗产。通过他们作为亲密和合作场所的角色，这些作品产生了跨越地方、地区、跨国和散居背景的联系网络和讲故事走廊的创造，在全球想象中作为黑人和非洲意识形态创造的积极参与者。小型杂志和文学网络在撒哈拉以南非洲（SSA）的日常社会和政治生活中发挥着至关重要的作用。从帝国晚期到今天，文化表达形式一直是国家、种族和公民归属概念发展的中心媒介，同时也为培养大规模的行动主义形式和传播新的主体性正统提供了一个出口。这个跨学科网络研究了SSA小型杂志的发行和制作，以探索这些出版物在21世纪初如何使自我塑造的横向形式成为可能，涵盖了公民身份、性和种族等领域，以便对今天SSA的隶属关系、身份和公民参与进行研究。从接受国家和非政府组织赞助的正式出版物到通过反文化网络传播的非正式“杂志”，并采取跨越印刷和数字媒体的形式，这些新出版物在其特定地区之外并不广为人知，也无法获得；然而，通过他们的白话和经常重叠的分布轨迹，这些出版物在培养日常实践中扮演着比他们更知名的“高级”文学同行更重要的角色。从包括Kwani？（肯尼亚）、Saraba（尼日利亚）和Chimurenga（南非），并扩展到不太知名的出版物，该网络将通过文学写作的非正式网络参与广泛的社会创作形式，汇集具有民族志方法、历史研究和文学批评专业知识的学者，以及在非洲及其散居者工作的作家、出版商和文学企业家。该网络解决的问题包括：在SSA激增的小型杂志中产生、争议和认证的身份形式是什么？由出版商、作家和读者产生的非正式网络如何在正式的政治和公民网络中发挥作用？在撒哈拉以南非洲，通过行动者和公众的纠缠，出现了什么样的自我塑造模式？这些问题将在开普敦和坎帕拉的两周研究期间进行探讨；该网络的研究结果将在布里斯托尔举行的一次国际会议上提出，这将成为展示网络研究结果的特刊的基础。其他活动将包括2018年非洲写作节（伦敦）的公众参与活动；建立和维护一个项目网站，为致力于SSA文学公民的非政府组织和文化组织提供博客、教学资源和工作文件；以及一系列非学术文章，将与《非洲词汇》一起出版。该网络将强调知识的共同生产，开发定制的研究方法，并利用跨越材料和美学方法之间差距的方言文学批评形式，而不是将其材料视为被动的。由于依赖于反映全球大国对SSA进行自上而下的社会政治干预的方法，SSA的研究受到了阻碍，该网络将采取多焦点方法，强调日常生活作为发展理论洞察力的基础。

This project focuses on the contemporary legacies of black internationalism (c.f. Hayes Edwards) in the construction of African and diasporic solidarity through the study of small magazines, both print and digital. Through their role as sites of intimacy and collaboration, these works give rise to the creation of networks of affiliation and corridors of storytelling which span localities, regions and transnational and diasporic contexts, functioning as active participants in the creation of black and African ideologies in the global imaginary. Small magazines and literary networks play a crucial role in everyday social and political life in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). From the late days of empire to the present day, cultural forms of expression have served as central media through which notions of national, ethnic and civic belonging have developed, while also offering an outlet for the fostering of large-scale forms of activism and for the transmission of new orthodoxies for subjectivity. This interdisciplinary network examines the circulation and production of small magazines in SSA in order to explore the ways in which these publications enable lateral forms of self-fashioning in the early twenty-first century, covering areas including citizenship, sexuality and ethnicity in order to produce an examination of affiliation, identity and civic participation in SSA today. Ranging from formal publications in receipt of state and NGO sponsorship to informal 'zines' circulated through counter-cultural networks and taking forms spanning print and digital media, these new publications are not widely known nor accessible outside of their specific localities; yet, through their vernacular and often-overlapping trajectories of distribution, these publications hold a far more central role in the fostering of everyday practices than their better-known 'high' literary counterparts. Beginning with better-distributed publications including Kwani? (Kenya), Saraba (Nigeria) and Chimurenga (South Africa) and expanding into lesser-known publications, the network will engage with a broad range of forms of social creation through informal networks of literary writing, bringing together scholars with expertise in ethnographic methods, historical study and literary criticism, along with writers, publishers and literary entrepreneurs working in Africa and its diasporas. The network addresses questions including: what forms of identification are produced, contested and authenticated in the small magazines which proliferate across SSA? How do the informal networks produced by publishers, writers and readers function with respect to formalised political and civic networks? What modes of self-fashioning emerge through the entanglements of actors and publics operating in sub-Saharan Africa? These questions will be explored during two research weeks in Cape Town and Kampala; the network's findings will be presented at an international conference to be held in Bristol which will form the basis for a special journal issue showcasing network findings. Additional activities will include public engagement events at the 2018 Africa Writes festival (London); the creation and maintenance of a project website hosting a blog, teaching resources and a working paper for NGOs and cultural organizations working on literary citizenship in SSA; and a range of non-academic articles to be published with Africa in Words.Rather than view its material as passive, the network will emphasise the coproduction of knowledge, developing bespoke research methods and leveraging vernacular forms of literary criticism which span the gap between material and aesthetic approaches. Where study of SSA has been hampered by a reliance on methods which mirror the top-down approach to socio-political intervention in SSA by global powers, this network will undertake a multifocal approach which places its emphasis on the everyday as the ground from which to develop theoretical insight.