David Pratten's British Academy Summer Showcase: Understanding the Niger Delta’s agaba masquerade tradition

(The ID Boys in Calabar, August 2015)

On 22-23 June 2018, Associate Professor David Pratten took part in the British Academy Summer Showcase to present his research is about the story of a masquerade called agaba.

Masquerades are often seen as repositories of tradition. But this is a story of a thoroughly modern, militant mask – a story that encounters Nobel laureates, James Bond, the Oscars, Tupac and Delta warlords…

Sometimes agaba is known as mgbedike: time of the brave or strong. These names are in the Igbo language, and the mask originates from Igbo-speaking communities in the South-East of Nigeria.

You can read more about the masquerade and the masks here.