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Résumé (abstract below): Depuis les années 1990, de nouvelles formes d’art visuel se manifestent progressivement dans le champ de l’art contemporain en Afrique. Dans ce contexte, la bande dessinée, l’art mural, et le street art ont progressivement émergé. Quel est leur potentiel comme véhicules de protestation sociale et politique ? Dans le débat sur le pouvoir esthétique et transformateur des formes d’art contemporain, nous cherchons à comprendre et à théoriser l’activisme artistique au niveau local, national et mondial, voire transnational. Sur la base d’un travail de terrain anthropologique mené dans le cadre du projet ERC ARTIVISM, nous présenterons trois cas ethnographiques issus de notre recherche sur la politique esthétique au Cameroun. Les artistes y expriment leur regard sur les crises socioculturelles, économiques et politiques actuelles, à des degrés de critique, de protestation et de confrontation divers. Comment les artistes se positionnent-ils sous contrainte et dans un climat politique, social et économique tendu ? Comment naviguent-ils, suivant James Scott, entre l’idéologie officielle de domination (public transcript) et les discours cachés des dominés (hidden transcript) dans l’art de la résistance afin d’exprimer leurs préoccupations ? Et quels espaces artistiques créent-ils ou rejettent-ils dans leur lutte pour la reconnaissance ? Abstract: Since the 1990s, new forms of visual art have been increasingly prospering in the field of contemporary art in Africa. In this context, comics, murals, performance art and street art have gradually emerged. What is their potential as vehicles of social and political protest? In the debate about the aesthetic and transformative power of contemporary art forms, we seek to understand and theorise artistic activism at the local, national, global and even transnational level. Based on anthropological fieldwork conducted within the framework of the ERC ARTIVISM project, we present three ethnographic cases from our research on aesthetic politics in Cameroon. The artists express their views on the current socio-cultural, economic and political crises with varying degrees of criticism, protest and confrontation. How do artists position themselves under pressure in a tense political, social and economic climate? How, in the terminology proposed by James Scott, do they navigate between the public transcript and the hidden transcript in the art of resistance in order to express their concerns? And what artistic spaces do they create or reject in their struggle for recognition?

La question des signatures individuelles fait régulièrement l’objet de controverses sous-jacentes ou ouvertes dans le cadre de créations artistiques engagées, qu’il s’agisse de l’art dans l’activisme ou de l’artivisme dans l’art (Salzbrunn 2019). Ces tensions renvoient également aux questions de pouvoir individuels et collectifs, aux possibilités de prendre possession d’espaces symboliques ou physiques et à la lutte pour la reconnaissance dans des mondes (de l’art et de la politique) très hiérarchisés. A partir de deux terrains menés dans le cadre du projet ERC « ARTIVISM. Art and Activism. Creativity and Performance as Subversive Forms of Political Expression in Super-Diverse Cities » (Salzbrunn 2015), nous analyserons les ambiguïtés et la complexité des rapports aux créations et au « partage du sensible » (Rancière 2000).

The self-regulation of conformity has received little attention in previous research. This is surprising because group majorities can exert social strong pressure on people, leading them to overlook the pursuit of their own goals. We investigated if self-regulation by mental contrasting with implementation intentions (MCII) can reduce people’s tendency to conform and facilitate their own goal-pursuit despite deviant majority influence. In a computer-based logical reasoning task, we exposed participants to a conformity manipulation, where we presented bogus diagrams showing the supposedly correct answers of a majority ingroup. Compared to participants who were not given a self-regulation strategy (Studies 1, 2, and 4) or who were in an active control group (Study 3), MCII helped participants to self-regulate conforming behavior in trying to solve the task and to independently solve the logical reasoning task, as indicated by increases in correct answers in the task. The findings suggest that MCII is an effective strategy to regulate people’s tendency to conform and supports them to attain their goal despite deviant majority influence.

The self-regulation of conformity has received little attention in previous research. This is surprising because group majorities can exert social strong pressure on people, leading them to overlook the pursuit of their own goals. We investigated if self-regulation by mental contrasting with implementation intentions (MCII) can reduce people’s tendency to conform and facilitate their own goal-pursuit despite deviant majority influence. In a computer-based logical reasoning task, we exposed participants to a conformity manipulation, where we presented bogus diagrams showing the supposedly correct answers of a majority ingroup. Compared to participants who were not given a self-regulation strategy (Studies 1, 2, and 4) or who were in an active control group (Study 3), MCII helped participants to self-regulate conforming behavior in trying to solve the task and to independently solve the logical reasoning task, as indicated by increases in correct answers in the task. The findings suggest that MCII is an effective strategy to regulate people’s tendency to conform and supports them to attain their goal despite deviant majority influence.

This chapter deals with naming as an act of incorporation and accommodation of a person into society and in particular with spirit praise names as names of affection for a person.Raphaela von Weichs has examined how Bunyoro people in Uganda facilitated the integration of strangers by bestowing empaako ‘spirit’ names on them until this practice succumbed to colonial and missionary interventions. Clan members gave such spirit ‘praise names’ to their children to let them share in the auspicious qualities of the clan ancestors. To bestow such a ‘praise name’ on a stranger likewise entailed attributing a Bunyoro ancestral identity in its cosmological, social and emotional dimensions. Traditionally, a naming ceremony was required as a welcoming ritual for the spirit and for the person to be incorporated into the clan. Whereas under the impact of colonization, Christianization and urbanization many Banyoro have disregarded the naming ceremony, the names of affection are still in use. In this chapter von Weichs relates how, lacking a clan spirit herself but being asked time and again for her empaako name, she adopted the praise name of a spirit whose social attributes particularly appealed to her. To identify herself as such without relinquishing her Christian name enabled her to smoothly navigate between the complex and conflicting political and religious interest groups making up contemporary Bunyoro society. This naming practice enabled her to get integrated as a stranger into the local society.

A new form of translocal martyrdom was (re)invented in the context of African migration to Switzerland a decade ago: The ‘Pelerinage aux Saintes et Saints d’Afrique’ at St. Maurice and the pilgrimage dedicated to the (Black) Virgin Mary in Einsiedeln. Under the patronage of the federal Catholic ‘Swiss Bishops Conference’ (SBC) several annual events are organised by clerics, missionaries and non-clerics to incorporate African residents in the institutional setting of the Catholic Church. These events are designed to attract Africans but also to revitalise Catholic faith and practice. In this context, African martyrdom is becoming a metaphor for suffering in crisis, escape and migration.