Clothing as semiotic resistance: An appraisal of the Yoruba “Àmò̩té̩kùn” uniform.

Abstract

As a result of incessant kidnapping, insecurity and killings by herdsmen presently in Nigeria, the Yoruba people constituted a security group Àmò̩té̩kùn; whose outfit signifies a visual and performative language of nonviolent resistance against the menace. This work investigates how clothing is used as resistive semiotics to redefine the insecurity challenges in the Southwest region. It examines how the Àmò̩té̩kùn clothing has the performative and semiotic power to suggest the social positioning within society and the fundamental shift associated with the positioning. This study explores clothing as semiotic resistance within the Àmò̩té̩kùn movement, using a multimethod approach. It aims to understand the cultural meanings, resistance narratives, and identity expressions embedded in the attire of the Àmò̩té̩kùn security outfit. The paper provides a framework with which the communicative power of clothing and how it transcends the limitations of language in multilingual Nigeria may be explored and discussed. Finally, it concludes that the potentiality for the use of clothing as a non-violence performative weapon in engaging social problems contributes to the dynamics of social transformations in Yoruba security and beyond.