En zouglou, ça réussit toujours ! Anthropologie politique d'un mouvement culturel en Côte d'Ivoire

Drawing on five years of ethnographic research conducted at the heart of the Ivorian music scene, Léo Montaz explores the political implications of a cultural movement by tracing the life stories of its key figures, examining the social representations they convey, analyzing the impact of zouglou on society as a whole, and investigating how it is embraced by a community of listeners.Through this work, a segment of Ivorian society is revealed: that of the cultural, political, and economic elites who revolve around this music scene. Examining zouglou thus means delving into some of the mechanisms by which the state is formed.

Beyond the example of zouglou, this book offers a political anthropology of African cultural movements and their role in the formation of elites and the state.

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Léo Montaz holds a PhD in anthropology from the University of Paris. He is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Ethnology at the University of Neuchâtel and holds a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship. A former FNRS fellow (2022–2025) at the Laboratory of Anthropology of Contemporary Worlds at the Université libre de Bruxelles, he has been conducting ethnographic research in Côte d’Ivoire for over ten years on youth, political crises, cultural industries and contemporary forms of social and political recognition. He is the author of Retour au village. Jeunesse et pouvoirs en Côte d’Ivoire, published by Karthala in 2020, and numerous articles.