African Ecomedia: Network Forms, Planetary Politics

by Cajetan Iheka

Overview

In African Ecomedia, Cajetan Iheka examines the ecological footprint of media in Africa alongside the representation of environmental issues in visual culture. Iheka shows how, through visual media such as film, photography, and sculpture, African artists deliver a unique perspective on the socioecological costs of media production, from mineral and oil extraction to the politics of animal conservation. Among other works, he examines Pieter Hugo's photography of electronic waste recycling in Ghana and Idrissou Mora-Kpai's documentary on the deleterious consequences of uranium mining in Niger. These works highlight not only the exploitation of African workers and the vast scope of environmental degradation but also the resourcefulness and creativity of African media makers. They point to the unsustainability of current practices while acknowledging our planet's finite natural resources. In foregrounding Africa's centrality to the production and disposal of media technology, Iheka shows the important place visual media has in raising awareness of and documenting ecological disaster even as it remains complicit in it.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781478022046
Publisher:	Duke University Press
Publication date:	08/23/2021
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	336
File size:	135 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Cajetan Iheka is Associate Professor of English at Yale University, author of Naturalizing Africa: Ecological Violence, Agency, and Postcolonial Resistance in African Literature, editor of Teaching Postcolonial Environmental Literature and Media, and coeditor of African Migration Narratives: Politics, Race, and Space.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations  ix
Acknowledgments  xi
Introduction  1
1. Waste Reconsidered: Afrofuturism, Technologies of the Past, and the History of the Future  25
2. Spatial Networks, Toxic Ecoscapes, and (In)visible Labor  64
3. Ecologies of Oil and Uranium: Extractive Energy and the Trauma of the Future  108
4. Human Meets Animal, Africa Meets Diaspora: The Conjunctions of Cecil the Lion and Black Lives Matter  152
5. African Urban Ecologies: Transcriptions of Precarity, Creativity, and Futurity  186
Epilogue. Toward Imperfect Media  221
Notes  231
Bibliography  273
Index  305

Editorial Reviews

Cajetan Iheka writes of the most pressing and complicated issues with clear-sightedness. This major contribution will undoubtedly reach beyond the academy to become a stirring call to anyone interested in the interconnectedness engendered by globalization and the attendant toxicity and suffering that have been unleashed on various populations across Africa and elsewhere. This is truly a joy to read.”—Ato Quayson, author of, Tragedy and Postcolonial Literature

“This outstanding book powerfully reorients ecocritical studies. Cajetan Iheka has taken on three of the most pressing issues of our times: the aftermath of colonialism and globalization; the social intensification of communications media; and the environmental impact of human societies. His scholarship is impressive in its scope and depth, his thinking original and significant. African Ecomedia will reverberate with students and researchers in media and communications, environmental humanities, ecocritical studies, anthropology, and social sciences.”—Sean Cubitt, author of, Finite Media: Environmental Implications of Digital Technologies

"A provocative account of how contemporary works of African visual culture embody the 'infinite resourcefulness' needed to survive an anthropogenic planet defined by the 'limitedness of resources.'"—Michael Dango, ASAP/Journal

“Iheka provides piercing analyses of the ecological footprints of media technologies in Africa and the representation in media of ecological issues affecting Africa. [He] challenges all media forms to remind humanity of the environmental crisis and climate change, African lessons on sustainable ways of consuming energy, and the opportunities to improve quality of life. Recommended. All readers.”

—Z. N. Nchinda, Choice

“[Iheka] makes a resounding case for the centrality of African ecomedia in confronting the most critical issues of our time, which makes this book equally as indispensable.”—Dustin Crowley, ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment

"Iheka’s work demonstrates the centrality of pollution to media infrastructure, foregrounding the toxicity that is produced both at the point of extraction of resources and at the end point of disposal, following the planned obsolescence of media devices. . . . African Ecomedia’s analysis of diverse African contexts carries out vital work to counteract the dynamics of invisibility that they depend upon."—Rebecca Macklin, Year's Work in Ecocriticism

“The arguments in Cajetan Iheka’s [African Ecomedia] are clever and exciting, and the book as artefact is a thing of great beauty.”—Carli Coetzee, Journal of the African Literature Association

“Iheka offers a meticulous historical contextualization of Africa’s present economic demise while beautifully answering the question, ‘Why can’t we be seen?’ . . . A recuperative postcolonial project, African Ecomedia centralizes Africa ‘as the ground zero of the energy humanities.’”—Gugu Hlongwane, Cambridge Journal of Postcolonial Literary Inquiry

“Cajetan Iheka’s outstanding book on environmental issues in African visual culture and screen media paves the way for scholarship in African ecocritical studies. . . . The main strength of African Ecomedia lies in how Iheka builds on previous Anthropocene scholarship by focusing on the Global South, specifically the dependence and complicity in the ecological footprint of visual media in Africa. The volume essentially advocates for media practices arising from the African continent that are innovatively and ecologically framed.”—Sheila Petty, Journal of Cinema and Media Studies

"Part of what makes African Ecomedia truly ambitious is that the book brings together a range of often siloed fields, from African studies, environmental humanities, and energy humanities, to literary studies and media studies. Iheka makes the case for why Africa needs to be seen as more than a place of environmental crisis."—Jacob Dlamini, H-Environment, H-Net Reviews

From the Publisher

Iheka offers a meticulous historical contextualization of Africa’s present economic demise while beautifully answering the question, ‘Why can’t we be seen?’ . . . A recuperative postcolonial project, African Ecomedia centralizes Africa ‘as the ground zero of the energy humanities.’

Cambridge Journal of Postcolonial Literary Inquiry - Gugu Hlongwane

"A provocative account of how contemporary works of African visual culture embody the 'infinite resourcefulness' needed to survive an anthropogenic planet defined by the 'limitedness of resources.'"

ASAP/Journal - Michael Dango

"Iheka’s work demonstrates the centrality of pollution to media infrastructure, foregrounding the toxicity that is produced both at the point of extraction of resources and at the end point of disposal, following the planned obsolescence of media devices. . . . African Ecomedia’s analysis of diverse African contexts carries out vital work to counteract the dynamics of invisibility that they depend upon."

Year's Work in Ecocriticism - Rebecca Macklin

Iheka provides piercing analyses of the ecological footprints of media technologies in Africa and the representation in media of ecological issues affecting Africa. [He] challenges all media forms to remind humanity of the environmental crisis and climate change, African lessons on sustainable ways of consuming energy, and the opportunities to improve quality of life. Recommended. All readers.”

Choice - Z. N. Nchinda

This outstanding book powerfully reorients ecocritical studies. Cajetan Iheka has taken on three of the most pressing issues of our times: the aftermath of colonialism and globalization; the social intensification of communications media; and the environmental impact of human societies. His scholarship is impressive in its scope and depth, his thinking original and significant. African Ecomedia will reverberate with students and researchers in media and communications, environmental humanities, ecocritical studies, anthropology, and social sciences.

Finite Media: Environmental Implications of Digital Technologies - Sean Cubitt

Cajetan Iheka writes of the most pressing and complicated issues with clear-sightedness. This major contribution will undoubtedly reach beyond the academy to become a stirring call to anyone interested in the interconnectedness engendered by globalization and the attendant toxicity and suffering that have been unleashed on various populations across Africa and elsewhere. This is truly a joy to read.

Tragedy and Postcolonial Literature - Ato Quayson

The arguments in Cajetan Iheka’s [African Ecomedia] are clever and exciting, and the book as artefact is a thing of great beauty.

Journal of the African Literature Association - Carli Coetzee

[Iheka] makes a resounding case for the centrality of African ecomedia in confronting the most critical issues of our time, which makes this book equally as indispensable.

ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment - Dustin Crowley

"Part of what makes African Ecomedia truly ambitious is that the book brings together a range of often siloed fields, from African studies, environmental humanities, and energy humanities, to literary studies and media studies. Iheka makes the case for why Africa needs to be seen as more than a place of environmental crisis."

H-Environment, H-Net Reviews - Jacob Dlamini

Cajetan Iheka’s outstanding book on environmental issues in African visual culture and screen media paves the way for scholarship in African ecocritical studies. . . . The main strength of African Ecomedia lies in how Iheka builds on previous Anthropocene scholarship by focusing on the Global South, specifically the dependence and complicity in the ecological footprint of visual media in Africa. The volume essentially advocates for media practices arising from the African continent that are innovatively and ecologically framed.

Journal of Cinema and Media Studies - Sheila Petty

The arguments in Cajetan Iheka’s [African Ecomedia] are clever and exciting, and the book as artefact is a thing of great beauty.

Journal of the African Literature Association - Matthew Omelsky