-
Reading the Diary of Akinpelu Obisesan in Colonial Africa
- African Studies Review
- African Studies Association
- Volume 51, Number 2, September 2008
- pp. 75-97
- 10.1353/arw.0.0074
- Article
- Additional Information
This article considers the private diary not just as a historical source or literary text, but mainly as a symbolic cultural creation with sociological and psychological dimensions. The multiple identities of Akinpelu Obisesan, a member of the colonial intelligentsia in Ibadan, are analyzed, giving us insight into the transformations in Yoruba masculinity in the colonial period and his own attempts at self-invention. The article also emphasizes the overlap between the personal and the general: between the private and the public domains and how the diarist straddles, and is in turn affected by, sociocultural currents reverberating from these two sites.