Ylva Ekström PhD candidate / lecturer Media & Communication Studies

Ylva Ekström PhD candidate / lecturer

• Media & Communication Studies

• Department of Information Science

• Uppsala University

Today

• My PhD

• My emerging plans for a future study

“We Are Like Chameleons”

• Popular Culture, Media and Different Modes of Femininity in Early 21st Century Dar es Salaam

Fred Halla’s cartoon summarizes overarching themes of my thesis

• how popular media culture (in a very broad sense) is intertwined into contemporary urban culture in Tanzania,

• (2) that ‘modern’ female identities are articulated at the intersection of mediated and lived experience,

• (3) and at the intersection of such power dimensions as gender, generation, class, ethnicity and sexuality,

• (4) changing ideals and attitudes in society concerning the performance of femininity,

• (5) the continuous discursive reproduction of different binary oppositions, such as male – female, modern – traditional, urban – rural, global – local, Western – African, in popular (political) discourse.

Analysis of…

• interviews, focus groups, informal discussions, observations, essays, diaries, photos of a particular group of female upper secondary school students in Dar es Salaam

• a broad variety of media ’texts’ / narratives (news articles, music videos, song lyrics, ads, magazines, tv shows, and ’media events’ such as beauty contests)

• interviews with different media professionals

The ‘modern’ woman subject positions herself, above all, in relation to those Other(s) that:

• - “live under the law of tradition”

• - “lived back in the years (miaka ya nyuma)”

• - “are uneducated”

• - “look like Miss Bantu” (namba nane body)

• - “just want to be house-mothers (mama wa nyumbani)”

• - is separated from bys through gendered space, place and duties

For a ’modern’ woman…

• - ”education is a way to escape tradition” (school uniform as a symbol)

• - independence is the goal (husband not necessary)

• - the city is the place to live (as a dada wa mjini)

• - kanga in the streets is unthinkable

• - Miss Tanzania is a role-model (demu ya kimobitel, privileged femininities)

• - a mobile phone is a necessity (at least in fantasy)

• - mobility and connecting to the world is the dream

• - needs to know certain modern female duties

• - wants to become a mother, but not mama wa nyumbani

Wanawake na Maendeleo

• W-I-D and G-A-D discourses reproduced and contested in popular political discourse

Different perspectives on ’modern’ women…

• ’positive’ influenced by G-A-D perspective and popular discourses around globalisation etc

• ’negative’ influenced by cultural imperialist fear, religious morality discourse, heritage from colonial gender segregation politics, and TANU’s disciplining of ‘the African woman’ (Operation Kijana)

Bongo Flava Culture

• … and the ‘glocal’ formation of contemporary Tanzanian (youth) identities

• … that is (truly) ‘globally’ influenced but ‘promoting’ the local (Tanzanian and African music, Kiswahili, Tanzanian celebrities, and politics)

• … but still very urban focused/produced and consumers’ oriented

Faraway So Close

• The clash between dream and reality

• The weaving of mediated dreams

• Imagination as a social practice (Appadurai 1996)

• Knowledge of media discourse as cultural capital

Mobile phones and Internet

• as symbols of status and mobility
• and means of connecting and belonging to the global economy

… to Ulaya and Nyu Yoku

to Hongkong, Isidingo or Bongo

Internet and the Tanzanian diaspora

• the "glocal" formation of Bongo identities

Based on…

• … experiences from PhD research, and continuous contacts with the young women

• … my experience / observations of the Tanzanian (EA) community in Sweden, and their Internet practices

• … inspiration from recent diaspora studies (for instance Mano & Willems 2008)

Online ethnography on…

• JamiiForums

• DarHotWire

• BongoCelebrity

• EastAfricanTube

• Youtube

• Facebook

• Hi5