Paul Ugor is a Professor in the Department of English Language and Literature at the University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. My research and teaching interests in general are concerned with new social processes—in global politics, economy, information and communication technologies, cultural/textual representations, and everyday life—and the new social responses which these social changes elicit, especially from amongst marginal groups like youth and women in Postcolonial settings.
The Oxford Handbook of Global South Youth Studies. , 2021
This essay comprises reflections of scholars in and originating from the Global South, plus some ... more This essay comprises reflections of scholars in and originating from the Global South, plus some comments from Northern scholars, forming an integrated dialogue. It focuses on the development of youth studies in Africa, Latin America, parts of Asia, and the Caribbean, illuminating how youth studies in, from, and for the South emerge as a result of struggle-to get recognition, to theorize beyond dominant Northern frameworks, and state-led developments, and to be heard. Paradoxically, youth studies from the South are strongly influenced by the work of Northern scholars. Despite these influences, Northern ideas struggle to grasp local contexts and conditions and consequently there is a need for more localized knowledge and theorizing to make sense of young people's lives outside the Global North. The reflections provide a reminder that struggles over the meaning and situation of youth, within particular contexts, are highly political.
All over the world, there is growing concern about the ramifications of globalization, latemodern... more All over the world, there is growing concern about the ramifications of globalization, latemodernity and general global social and economic restructuring on the lives and futures of young people. Bringing together a wide body of research to reflect on youth responses to social change in Africa, this volume shows that while young people in the region face extraordinary social challenges in their everyday lives, they also continue to devise unique ways to reinvent their difficult circumstances and prosper in the midst of seismic global and local social changes. Contributors from Africa and around the world cover a wide range of topics on African youth cultures, exploring the lives of young people not necessarily as victims, but as active social players in the face of a shifting, late-modernist civilization. With empirical cases and varied theoretical approaches, the book offers a timely scholarly contribution to debates around globalization and its implications and impacts for Africa’s youth.
This paper investigates how the spread of new media technology – such as digital audio and video ... more This paper investigates how the spread of new media technology – such as digital audio and video recorders, computers, I-phones, and the Internet – has led to the proliferation of alternative social histories, by taking into consideration the particular case of the Nigerian video film industry (Nollywood). We highlight how in Nigeria and its diaspora Nollywood has become a cultural platform for constructing new narratives and identities, especially amongst marginal groups and individuals outside the spheres of state and corporate influence. Thanks to low-cost and easy-to-use digital technologies, ordinary people can now shoot their own stories, making their daily experience count for something. This seems to be particularly valuable for immigrants who can now self-document their experiences, usually denied by both the host and the home country. Although directors operating in the informal sector, outside systems of distribution that legitimize cultural trends and mediators, are unlikely to emerge as credible commentators of contemporary Nigeria, those who have recently accessed cinema theatres and film festival distribution, thanks to the enhanced quality of their work, can give full visibility and authority to the Nigerian stories told by Nollywood artists.
Page 1. Postcolonial Text, Vol 3, No 1 (2007) Censorship and the Content of Nigerian Home Video F... more Page 1. Postcolonial Text, Vol 3, No 1 (2007) Censorship and the Content of Nigerian Home Video Films1 Paul Ugor University of Alberta I. Introduction This paper examines film censorship in Nigeria and problematizes how ...
ABSTRACTFocusing on Gbekebor, a small rural community in Burutu Local Government Area in Delta St... more ABSTRACTFocusing on Gbekebor, a small rural community in Burutu Local Government Area in Delta State, this article examines the rise of small-scale artisanal oil refineries in the oil-rich Niger Delta area in south-eastern Nigeria. Mostly owned and run by unemployed youth in the Delta region, this informal underground oil economy is a classic example of the ways in which the mass of disgruntled youth in Nigeria have now evolved their own new survival strategies in the face of inauspicious social and economic conditions in everyday life. In the article, therefore, I argue that the growth of illegal refineries in the Niger Delta region represents ordinary people's desperate search for economic and social justice for themselves and their communities when the state and superordinate economic regimes (oil corporations) operating in the Delta area have connived to deny ordinary people their social and economic rights as citizens.
The Oxford Handbook of Global South Youth Studies. , 2021
This essay comprises reflections of scholars in and originating from the Global South, plus some ... more This essay comprises reflections of scholars in and originating from the Global South, plus some comments from Northern scholars, forming an integrated dialogue. It focuses on the development of youth studies in Africa, Latin America, parts of Asia, and the Caribbean, illuminating how youth studies in, from, and for the South emerge as a result of struggle-to get recognition, to theorize beyond dominant Northern frameworks, and state-led developments, and to be heard. Paradoxically, youth studies from the South are strongly influenced by the work of Northern scholars. Despite these influences, Northern ideas struggle to grasp local contexts and conditions and consequently there is a need for more localized knowledge and theorizing to make sense of young people's lives outside the Global North. The reflections provide a reminder that struggles over the meaning and situation of youth, within particular contexts, are highly political.
All over the world, there is growing concern about the ramifications of globalization, latemodern... more All over the world, there is growing concern about the ramifications of globalization, latemodernity and general global social and economic restructuring on the lives and futures of young people. Bringing together a wide body of research to reflect on youth responses to social change in Africa, this volume shows that while young people in the region face extraordinary social challenges in their everyday lives, they also continue to devise unique ways to reinvent their difficult circumstances and prosper in the midst of seismic global and local social changes. Contributors from Africa and around the world cover a wide range of topics on African youth cultures, exploring the lives of young people not necessarily as victims, but as active social players in the face of a shifting, late-modernist civilization. With empirical cases and varied theoretical approaches, the book offers a timely scholarly contribution to debates around globalization and its implications and impacts for Africa’s youth.
This paper investigates how the spread of new media technology – such as digital audio and video ... more This paper investigates how the spread of new media technology – such as digital audio and video recorders, computers, I-phones, and the Internet – has led to the proliferation of alternative social histories, by taking into consideration the particular case of the Nigerian video film industry (Nollywood). We highlight how in Nigeria and its diaspora Nollywood has become a cultural platform for constructing new narratives and identities, especially amongst marginal groups and individuals outside the spheres of state and corporate influence. Thanks to low-cost and easy-to-use digital technologies, ordinary people can now shoot their own stories, making their daily experience count for something. This seems to be particularly valuable for immigrants who can now self-document their experiences, usually denied by both the host and the home country. Although directors operating in the informal sector, outside systems of distribution that legitimize cultural trends and mediators, are unlikely to emerge as credible commentators of contemporary Nigeria, those who have recently accessed cinema theatres and film festival distribution, thanks to the enhanced quality of their work, can give full visibility and authority to the Nigerian stories told by Nollywood artists.
Page 1. Postcolonial Text, Vol 3, No 1 (2007) Censorship and the Content of Nigerian Home Video F... more Page 1. Postcolonial Text, Vol 3, No 1 (2007) Censorship and the Content of Nigerian Home Video Films1 Paul Ugor University of Alberta I. Introduction This paper examines film censorship in Nigeria and problematizes how ...
ABSTRACTFocusing on Gbekebor, a small rural community in Burutu Local Government Area in Delta St... more ABSTRACTFocusing on Gbekebor, a small rural community in Burutu Local Government Area in Delta State, this article examines the rise of small-scale artisanal oil refineries in the oil-rich Niger Delta area in south-eastern Nigeria. Mostly owned and run by unemployed youth in the Delta region, this informal underground oil economy is a classic example of the ways in which the mass of disgruntled youth in Nigeria have now evolved their own new survival strategies in the face of inauspicious social and economic conditions in everyday life. In the article, therefore, I argue that the growth of illegal refineries in the Niger Delta region represents ordinary people's desperate search for economic and social justice for themselves and their communities when the state and superordinate economic regimes (oil corporations) operating in the Delta area have connived to deny ordinary people their social and economic rights as citizens.
This paper investigates how the spread of new media technology – such as digital audio and video ... more This paper investigates how the spread of new media technology – such as digital audio and video recorders, computers, I-phones, and the Internet – has led to the proliferation of alternative social histories, by taking into consideration the particular case of the Nigerian video film industry (Nollywood). We highlight how in Nigeria and its diaspora Nollywood has become a cultural platform for constructing new narratives and identities, especially amongst marginal groups and individuals outside the spheres of state and corporate influence. Thanks to low-cost and easy-to-use digital technologies, ordinary people can now shoot their own stories, making their daily experience count for something. This seems to be particularly valuable for immigrants who can now self-document their experiences, usually denied by both the host and the home country. Although directors operating in the informal sector, outside systems of distribution that legitimize cultural trends and mediators, are unlikely to emerge as credible commentators of contemporary Nigeria, those who have recently accessed cinema theatres and film festival distribution, thanks to the enhanced quality of their work, can give full visibility and authority to the Nigerian stories told by Nollywood artists.
All over the world, there is growing concern about the ramifications of globalization, latemodern... more All over the world, there is growing concern about the ramifications of globalization, latemodernity and general global social and economic restructuring on the lives and futures of young people. Bringing together a wide body of research to reflect on youth responses to social change in Africa, this volume shows that while young people in the region face extraordinary social challenges in their everyday lives, they also continue to devise unique ways to reinvent their difficult circumstances and prosper in the midst of seismic global and local social changes. Contributors from Africa and around the world cover a wide range of topics on African youth cultures, exploring the lives of young people not necessarily as victims, but as active social players in the face of a shifting, late-modernist civilization. With empirical cases and varied theoretical approaches, the book offers a timely scholarly contribution to debates around globalization and its implications and impacts for Africa’s youth.
Although it has been acknowledged repeatedly that Nollywood began as a desperate move by young ar... more Although it has been acknowledged repeatedly that Nollywood began as a desperate move by young artists in the city to tell stories of their struggles and the quotidian battles to eke out a living in the strained and charged socio-economic urban spaces in postcolonial West Africa, very little intellectual investment has gone into thinking about what this now thriving video film industry tells us about the lives of its young creators and the lives of other young people in the stifling environment that gave birth to it. It is this gap in the fairly established field of Nollywood studies that this book fills. The work addresses this gap by reflecting on the theme of youth in Nollywood films, and what those films tell us about what it means to be a young person in postcolonial Africa today.
Youth and Popular Culture in Africa Media, Music, and Politics
This edited collection focuses on the links between youth and African popular culture. Contributi... more This edited collection focuses on the links between youth and African popular culture. Contributions by a distinguished group of scholars explore popular culture produced and consumed by young people in contemporary Africa. Essays cover a variety of cultural representations-visual, oral, written, performative, fictional, social, and virtual-created by African youth, mostly about their lives and their immediate societies, and for themselves, but also consumed by the larger public and shared locally and globally. The volume examines the range of music, art, and media African youth produce, under what conditions or contexts they produce such work, and the aesthetic dimensions of these texts as cultural artifacts. Essays further explore why these textual practices matter as social facts, as interpretive acts, and as symbols of the cultural activism of young people in a rapidly changing world-a world where the global cultural economy is the prime terrain for the relentless struggles over the meanings that come to shape political-economic and social systems. "Understanding African youth as creative producers and consumers is key to understanding African futures. On this youngest of continents, the personal and the political are invariably navigated through music, film, fashion, and literature. Youth and Popular Culture in Africa traces these intersections from a place of impressive fluency and engagement. It is a treasure trove for any student of Africa, today and tomorrow."-DANNY HOFFMAN, professor of anthropology, University of Washington
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Papers by Paul Ugor
Contributors from Africa and around the world cover a wide range of topics on African youth cultures, exploring the lives of young people not necessarily as victims, but as active social players in the face of a shifting, late-modernist civilization. With empirical cases and varied theoretical approaches, the book offers a timely scholarly contribution to debates around globalization and its implications and impacts for Africa’s youth.