Aesthetic intelligence as governance infrastructure: access, protocol and sovereignty in Anaañ practice

Abstract

This article argues that aesthetic practices among the Anaañ constitute governance infrastructure. Through analysis of three protocols — the movement of awieagwo¹, the colour of nnom, and the objects of Ekpo — the paper demonstrates that aesthetic elements function as systems of access control, rights allocation and sovereignty. Drawing on the CARE Principles for Indigenous Data Governance, Nicholas Mirzoeff’s theory of visuality (2011), Édouard Glissant’s theory of opacity (1997), Arnold Udoka’s ethnography of Anaañ colour (1984), and archival ethnography including Messenger (1960), the study shows that performance, material and chromatic protocols encode law and regulate circulation through strategic visibility and deliberate opacity. The right to withhold is central to these systems. The article concludes that recognising aesthetic intelligence as governance has implications for museums, archives and AI development, and calls for protocols of consent and authority to be centred in the management of Indigenous aesthetic data.