By Francis Nyamnjoh
(Copyedited & Copyrighted version published in Africa, Vol.75 (3) 2005, pp. 295-324)
Abstract
This discussion traces metaphors of consumerism, commoditized sex and sexified commodities that proliferate throughout urban Africa, signaling the intensified globalisation of images of desire and opportunity on the one hand, and chronic poverty and destitution on the other. Focusing on sexual economies in Dakar as a case in point, the paper attempts an analysis of how, in situations of increasing scarcity and transurban articulations, language, sex, possession, loss, self-construction, and self-corruption mutually shape each other. The paper seeks to represent the textures and intricacies that arise as the interdependencies among status, pleasure, appropriation, seduction, and livelihood are worked out.
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