African Media in an Age of Extraction

Fueled by Nigeria’s momentary emergence as Africa’s largest economy, Nollywood’s increasingly global reach raises important questions about the industry’s relationship to resource extraction. This book looks at Nollywood’s literal and metaphorical access to the global while also examining Hollywood’s longstanding promotion and participation in extractivism on the African continent. The awesome power of Hollywood derives, in part, from the industry’s entwinement with “foreign” cultures and economies, including those of Nigeria. Yet if Hollywood has long mined African cultures and exploited African economies, Nollywood, arguably the continent’s leading media industry, has exhibited similar tendencies, creatively appropriating everything from Latin American telenovelas to American-style science fiction in order to furnish a distinct impression of cosmopolitan modernity. Nollywood’s far-flung geographies are both literal and conceptual, material and ideological. They contribute to, and comprise, “globalizing vernaculars” as much as they reflect and constitute national cultures. African Media in an Age of Extraction shows how a range of national cinemas intersect at various mining sites, shedding new light on political economies of oil, tin, lumber, telecommunications, and more.