Managing Globalisation and its impact on the African performing Arts and culture industry

Abstract

Globalisation has been a trending word in the 21st Century global socio-economic space. It has come to represent universally acceptable norms, values, traditions and culture. It seems however, that a phenomenon is only regarded as globally acceptable to the extent that the imperialists and other developed countries of the world have accepted such to be so qualified. This is a controversy that Africans at home and in the diaspora, have had to contend with over the years particularly in the manner that globalisation affects various aspects of the African lives, disciplines and development. By extension, the African performing arts and culture industry, and scholarship, have also had their large share of the long-drawn controversy on the issue of whether there is anything called African theatre arts and culture, with its unique historical origin and peculiarities, and globally accepted as such, and without been necessary subjected to western metrics to be so, or otherwise regarded. This paper interrogates the indigenised peculiarities of the African performing arts and culture and how best to harness, sustain and manage those indigenised peculiarities against the background of the challenges of the impacts of globalisation, for the common socio-economic health of the African continent. Focused group discussions and library research methods are largely employed, and data collected subjected to content analysis. Indeed the African performing arts and culture industry is endowed with immense latent and dynamic indigenised and globalised socio-cultural and economic development potentials that the African Continent and the rest of the world can profit withal.