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Mobile bodies of meaning: city life and the horizons of possibility*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 August 2017

Daniel E. Agbiboa
Daniel E. Agbiboa*
Affiliation:
School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, George Mason University, 3351 N. Fairfax Drive, MSN 4D3, Arlington, VA 22201, USA
*
Email: danielagbiboa@gmail.com
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Abstract

Despite their centrality to the rhythm and practice of everyday urban life, there are, surprisingly, few studies on commercial minibus-taxis as a microcosm of city life in Africa, especially its precarious materiality. Using the trademark yellow minibus-taxis (danfos) in Lagos as a frame of reference, this paper explores what an interpretative analysis of the slogans that danfo workers paint on their vehicles can tell us about the city in which they weave their routine existence, especially the hopes, fears and actual material circumstances which informed their unique choice of slogans. Foregrounding the danfos as mobile bodies of meaning, the article finds that slogans not only reflect the lived realities of danfo workers, but are themselves vital means through which these workers get by, define their identity and expand their horizons of possibility.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 55 , Issue 3 , September 2017 , pp. 371 - 393
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

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Footnotes

*

I am grateful to Professor Abdul Raufu Mustapha of the Oxford Department of International Development, University of Oxford and three anonymous reviewers for their very helpful comments.

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