Aesthetic Intelligence as Governance Infrastructure: Movement, Colour and Objects in Anaañ Data Protocol

Abstract

Governance is commonly associated with written law, bureaucratic institutions, and archival records. This association privileges text and marginalises other modes through which societies regulate behaviour, allocate rights, and assert authority. Among the Anaañ of south-eastern Nigeria, governance is also enacted through aesthetics. Movement, colour, and objects operate as protocols that determine who may perform, who may witness, and who may know. This article proposes the concept of aesthetic intelligence to describe this phenomenon. Aesthetic intelligence refers to the use of sensory and material forms, including dance, chromatic application, and regalia, as systems of data governance. These systems encode law, mark jurisdiction, and enforce restrictions. They function without writing and persist across generations. Three Anaañ protocols illustrate this argument: the movement of awieagwo, the soldiers for defence of Anaañ sovereignty; the application of nnom, kaolin used in ritual access; and the regalia of Ekpo, the Anaañ mask protocol. Analysis of these cases demonstrates that aesthetics are not ornamental but infrastructural.