Majczak, Ewa;
(2024)
Glamorous citizens: young women, state parades and the affective politics of belonging in Yaoundé, Cameroon.
Citizenship Studies
, 28
(1)
pp. 33-48.
10.1080/13621025.2024.2348866.
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Abstract
Focusing on young Bamileke women in Yaoundé, Cameroon, in this article I examine how they prepare and perform for the Women’s Day parade. I suggest that their preparations and performances are permeated by an aesthetic of glamour that is underpinned by affects of pleasure and joy. This aesthetics was incorporated into state parades at the independence of the Cameroonian state. Thus, when affects are evoked in young women’s performances on Women’s Day, the young women make Cameroon look good. I argue that, for young women, the everyday aesthetic acts involved in crafting an aesthetics of glamour in preparing for and performing at the parade become affective ways of self-constitution as Cameroonian citizens. Young women who are invited to participate and conjure up glamour can also claim certain benefits associated with the state, thereby revealing glamour as a gendered aspect of the affective politics of belonging in Cameroon.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Glamorous citizens: young women, state parades and the affective politics of belonging in Yaoundé, Cameroon |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1080/13621025.2024.2348866 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1080/13621025.2024.2348866 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent. |
| Keywords: | Young women, glamour, state parades, politics of belonging, Cameroon |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS > Dept of Anthropology |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10218159 |
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