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Gustavo Capela

Grant Type

Dissertation Fieldwork Grant

Institutional Affiliation

California, Berkeley, U. of

Grant number

Gr. 10289

Approve Date

April 13, 2022

Project Title

Capela, Gustavo (Berkeley, U of California) "Sonic Futures: an ethnographic investigation of the aesthetic politics of the Chicoco collective in Port Harcourt, Nigeria."

This project investigates the aesthetic-political practices of the Chicoco collective in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. Port Harcourt is Nigeria’s oil capital and while it is home to all of the major oil companies in the world, over 400 thousand of its citizens live in precarious conditions on the waterfront. Living on the border of the city, they are continuously encroached by local government forces and the environmental effects of extractivism: floods, black soot and fires. These waterfront communities have been galvanized by a community radio station animated by the Chicoco collective: a local, community-based, media and advocacy group. Focusing on this collective and the work they do with radio and other media, I investigate the senses of collectivity and futurity that are afforded by technologically-enabled sounds. I am fundamentally interested in the aesthetic processes that enable different forms of political imagination.