Faculty of Humanities

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Browsing Faculty of Humanities by Author "Adebayo, Abidemi Olufemi"

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    An Avant-Garde Re-Conceptualization of African (Yoruba) Culture in the Age Of Corona-Virus, Western Consciousness, and Globalization
    (Seventh Element Publishers, 2022) Adebayo, Abidemi Olufemi
    The paper examines the new social and cultural orientations in Africa with specific emphasis on the Yoruba society in Southwest Nigeria. Such new orientations constitute the new components of Yoruba culture as occasioned by the unprecedented negative effects of Covid-19 in Southwest Nigeria. Such novel cultural constituents are strange to the traditional African culture and social life. These novel cultural constituents include demystification of African (Yoruba) mysticism and apothecary, defeatist attack on African communalism, restriction on the showy O wambe (social gathering or fun party) philosophy, as well as cautious resentment of migration to the West or to the East which brings along with it the de-internationalization of the sensory taste. These novel cultural constituents tend to be in tandem with the contemporary global cultural and social realities. As such, the traditional African (Yoruba) cultural practices and beliefs (such as communalism) in their pristine nature are lackluster, and consequently do expose the people to the ravaging effects of Covid-19 pandemic. More evident dangers could be noted in the futility of the African cultural assumptions such as the perceptions of the traditional Yoruba people about the gods and prophets who are seen as their saviors whereas the custodians of the gods and those who claim to be of God interceding for the people possess manipulated identities. The new cultural philosophy has resulted in the progressive alliance with the Western values and a re-evaluation of globalization as a result of its both negative and positive effects. This could be deduced, respectively, from the global spread of Covid-19 and new found austerity among the Yoruba people as a novel cultural tenet. Key words: African culture, Covid-19, Globalization, Communalism, Southwest Nigeria