| Summary: | The study explores the intricate relationship between Acoli song performance,
gender identity construction and gender power relations. The investigation is
guided by the understanding that gender identity construction does not only
influence gender power relations but it is also part and parcel of the contextual
performance of power relations. The study involves a contextual socio-cultural
discussion of the gender situation in Acoli society, and with it the role of the
performing arts in the gender identity construction and power relations. Gender
performativity theory is revisited in light of the genre-based performance of one’s
gender, as manifested in the Acoli song performances. The analysis is guided by
the argument that to understand gender one needs to pay attention to the genres
through which it is expressed.
Despite over a century of gender theorisation, gender theorists are still not agreed
on what constitutes power, neither has any offered an irreproachable and
convincing conception of power. Given current debates in gender theorisation, the
study attempts to make fresh empirical investigation to make valid and concrete
entry into gender debates by deriving a situated gender concept of “power” based
on field research evidence. By analysing Acoli song performances, the major sites
of power in the society are elucidated and the positions of the two genders vis-àvis
these sites of power are examined to determine the nature of the gender power
relations matrix. Song performance does not only act as a catalyst in gender
performativity but it is an integral part of it, as the study reveals; and through song
performance the Acoli females have particularly invested in the differential
gender notions to make themselves visible and achieve their aspirations as ‘women’.
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