Masking and Money in a Nigerian Metropolis: The Economics of Performance in Calabar

Abstract

African masquerades have been defined as cultural systems, relating to heritage, and as religious, transformational, defiant, and liminal acts. This article turns attention towards the economic dimension of West African masquerade culture. The article demonstrates that masquerade arts and performance in urban Calabar, the capital of Cross River State, Nigeria, have become mechanisms for marketing and making money as members find new ways to financially sustain themselves in a postcolonial Nigerian metropolis. Three aspects of the economics of masquerade are presented and analyzed: 1) the money in masquerade spectacle, 2) the business of cultural clubs, and 3) the business of renting masquerade costumes and ritual paraphernalia. Long-standing as well as more recent youth masquerade secret societies are contextualized and historicized to examine the ways in which masquerades and their performances and economics in Calabar are indeed inseparable.

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