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" Piety in Production: Video Filmmaking as Religious Encounter in Bénin "
Brian C. Smithson
Matory, James L.; Piot, Charles
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Latin Dissertation
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| Language of Document
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English
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| Record Number
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805045
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| Doc. No
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TL49886
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| Call number
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2040854492; 10750828
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| Main Entry
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Newlon, Brendan Peter
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| Title & Author
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Piety in Production: Video Filmmaking as Religious Encounter in Bénin\ Brian C. SmithsonMatory, James L.; Piot, Charles
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| College
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Duke University
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| Date
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2018
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| Degree
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Ph.D.
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| field of study
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Cultural Anthropology
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2018
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| Page No
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420
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| Note
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Committee members: Allison, Anne; Morgan, David
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Place of publication: United States, Ann Arbor; ISBN=978-0-355-92655-2
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| Abstract
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This dissertation considers the production of video films by Nàgó–Yorùbá creators along Bénin’s southeastern border with Nigeria. There they find themselves at the margins of three better-funded arts industries with contrasting attitudes toward Nàgó–Yorùbá culture and aesthetics. In Nigeria, much of the Nollywood video film industry supports belonging to global religious movements, such as Pentecostal Christianity and Reformist Islam, all the while portraying indigenous religion as diabolical. The art-film scene of Bénin often dismisses West African video films as amateurish. Finally, Bénin’s state arts programs promote the Vodun religion of the coast as a tourist attraction yet deny Nàgó–Yorùbá people compensation for the state’s appropriation of their religious arts into the category of “Vodun.” Against this backdrop, video filmmakers use movies to celebrate indigenous religion and culture, to promote religious ecumenism, and to seek new sources of material support. Nevertheless, Nigerian media saturates the marketplace in Bénin so that very few local video films can earn a profit. My study thus seeks to determine how Nàgó–Yorùbá media practitioners persist in the face of such precarious conditions. I ask how the production of media becomes a forum to debate and establish norms of community and religious practice, how national identity, religious affiliation, and professional prestige affect negotiations over religious attitudes and conceptions of community, and how the open style of production in Bénin allows a diverse group of people—media professionals and others—to participate in the debates and discussions that shape media projects.
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| Subject
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African Studies; Religion; Film studies
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| Descriptor
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Philosophy, religion and theology;Communication and the arts;Social sciences;Bénin;Media;Nigeria;Religious plurality;Visual culture;Yorùbá
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| Added Entry
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Matory, James L.; Piot, Charles
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Cultural AnthropologyDuke University
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