Ufen nwet ketu mi Eka Iban, a Sculptural Discourse

Abstract

Aided by the reportage of photography, Ufen nwet ketu mi Eka Iban investigates the radical turn in the reality of motherhood and aggressive feminism in Nigeria. Grounded on Buchi Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood (2007); Mi Eka Iban is at the telos of a narration of the lives of real mothers of my country. Engaging the photographic image as the censure on which the passing memoriam of the discourse of the day to day lives of real women, this essay attempts to expose the temerity of neo-feminity in a new epoch of Nigerian history. Adopting Emecheta’s novel as the synchronic take off point for the discourse of feminist radicalism, the writer asserted that history and culture are not single narratives, instead together struggle to come to terms with the relations of power. Engaging Michel Foucault’s Power/Knowledge and Kobena Mercer’s cosmopolitanism hyped on the reality of a counter narrative of global contemporaneity the essay explicates the impact of media saturation and globalisation on society, particularly womanhood in post 1960s Nigeria. These influences reveal the reality of Mercer’s “dialogical principle” of cross-cultural interface (2016) that transformed perceptions of motherhood. A simulacrum of Foucauldian “capillary modes of power” narrates how the media saturation of postcolonial/post-independence climes inflects Mercer’s “dialogical principle” of cross-cultural interface. This transforms perception of motherhood and narrates that radical turn.

Key Words: sculptural discourse, reportage of photography; temerity of neo-feminity, simulacra; “capillary modes of power”