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1
Nnebedum, Chigozie. "Empirical Identity as Dimension of Development in Africa: With Special Reference to the Igbo Society of South-east of Nigeria." Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences 9, no. 2 (March 1, 2018): 195–204. http://dx.doi.org/10.2478/mjss-2018-0039.
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Abstract Identity, as discussed in this paper, is seen as a phenomenon which is constantly changing under certain circumstances. From empirical point of view, the identity of man is influenced by the environment through experience and unconscious socialization; it is continually modified by the individual’s encounter with the world. The aim of this work is to analyse the intricacies involved in understanding the situation and mentality of the Igbos as far as identity is concerned and to determine how this hampers or helps in the development of the Igbo/African society. In this work ‘identity’ as a means of development with regard to the Igbo people of South-East Nigeria is treated. The work is methodically qualitative. It analyses literatures and different views on identity and tailors the discussion of development along the lines of hermeneutical approach to subjective experiences. The Igbos and Africans find themselves sometimes in the danger of a mixture of identity. This is the case with most of the Igbo people who are scattered all over the world and who are becoming more foreign in their trends and ways of life. Being unable to maintain a definite identity, one is lost in the politics of development. Those who still hang on to pure imitation of the western life are jeopardizing their autonomy and by extension, frustrating development of the African society. Rediscovering the Igbo/African Identity and putting it to the service of development in the African continent is the task of the Africans themselves.
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Kanu, Ikechukwu Anthony. "The philosophical operative conditions of healing shrines in Igbo-African worldhood." Journal of Religion and Human Relations 14, no. 1 (November 16, 2022): 187–206. http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/jrhr.v14i1.10.
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This paper has studied the philosophical operative conditions of healing shrines in Igbo-African societies. The concept of philosophical operative condition is introduced into the study of Igbo-African healing shrines with the purpose of pointing out the philosophical principles behind the activities in these shrines. This philosophical dimension of African healing shrines is possible because of the nature of the relationship between religion and philosophy. This work, therefore, studied healing and healers in traditional African societies and the place and nature of healing shrines in Igbo societies. Though so much has been written about healing shrines and sacred places in traditional African societies, there is a seeming insufficiency of documents or literature on the Igbo-African healing shrines and the roles they played in restoring well-being to the people. More so, there is hardly a literature that focuses on the philosophical spirit behind the activities in Igbo-African healing shrines. This is the gap in literature that this present work fills. For the purpose of this study, this piece adopted the phenomenological, hermeneutic and historical approaches. This study is a qualitative research that has used both primary and secondary sources of data. It discovered that there is an inescapable element of philosophy in every dimension of African religion.
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van den Bersselaar, Dmitri. "Creating ‘Union Ibo’: Missionaries and the Igbo language." Africa 67, no. 2 (April 1997): 273–95. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1161445.
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AbstractThe literature of ethnicity in Africa indicates a major role for Christian missionaries in the creation of languages in Africa. It has been argued that certain African ethnic groups owe their existence to the ‘invention’ of their language by missionaries who created a written dialect—based on one or more vernacular(s)—into which they translated the Bible. This language came to be used for education in mission schools and later also in government schools. The Bible dialect consequently became the accepted standard language of the ethnic group and acquired the function of one of the group's prime identity markers.In the case of the Igbo language, the history of the CMS missionaries' efforts at creating a written standard Igbo shows that the process was not always straightforward. The article describes the problematic process of creating a written language. The missionaries undertook continual attempts on the basis of several dialects, but it was half a century before they produced the first translation of the Bible. They complicated matters by working in different dialects, but eventually created a standard dialect which they named Union Ibo, a mixture based on several Igbo dialects.The missionaries were also confronted with resistance from at least part of the Igbo population, who contested their choice of dialect. However, it appears that the majority of the Igbo were simply not interested. The Igbo population were far more interested in education in English, and although the CMS missionaries forced some vernacular education upon the people, actual interest remained limited. It is thus not surprising that the Bible language did not become the accepted standard language of the Igbo ethnic group. The spoken Igbo language does nevertheless function as one of the prime identity markers of the group. The article argues that the importance of the Igbo language to Igbo identity is partly the result of the missionary activity.
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Tembo, Nick Mdika. "Ethnic Conflict and the Politics of Greed Rethinking Chimamanda Adichie's." Matatu 40, no. 1 (December 1, 2012): 173–89. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/18757421-040001011.
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The African continent today is laced with some of the most intractable conflicts, most of them based on ethnic nationalism. More often than not, this has led to poor governance, unequal distribution of resources, state collapse, high attrition of human resources, economic decline, and inter-ethnic clashes. This essay seeks to examine Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's through the lens of ethnic conflict. It begins by tracing the history and manifestations of ethnic stereotypes and ethnic cleavage in African imaginaries. The essay then argues that group loyalty in Nigeria led to the creation of 'biafranization' or 'fear of the Igbo factor' in the Hausa–Fulani and the various other ethnic groups that sympathized with them; a fear that crystallized into a thirty-month state-sponsored bulwark campaign aimed at finding a 'final solution' to a 'problem population'. Finally, the essay contends that Adichie's anatomizes the impact of ethnic cleavage on the civilian Igbo population during the Nigeria–Biafra civil war. Adichie, I argue, participates in an ongoing re-invention of how Africans can extinguish the psychology of fear that they are endangered species when they live side by side with people who do not belong to their 'tribe'.
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Salami, Ali, and Bamshad Hekmatshoar Tabari. "IGBO NAMING COSMOLOGY AND NAMESYMBOLIZATION IN CHINUA ACHEBE’S TETRALOGY." Folia linguistica et litteraria XI, no. 33 (2020): 39–61. http://dx.doi.org/10.31902/fll.33.2020.2.
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Things Fall Apart, No Longer at Ease, Arrow of God and A Man of the People, the first four novels by Chinua Achebe, the contemporary Nigerian novelist, are among the most outstanding works of African postcolonial literature. As a matter of fact, each of these four novels focuses on a different colonial or postcolonial phase of history in Nigeria and through them Achebe intends to provide an authentic record of the negative and positive impacts of ‘hybridity’ on different aspects of the life of native subjects. Briefly stated, Achebe is largely successful in taking advantages of variable discursive tools he structures based on the potentials of the hybrid, Igbo-English he adopts. Thus, it might be deduced that reading these four novels in line with each other, and as chains or sequels of Tetralogy, might result in providing a more vivid picture of the Nigerian (African) subjects and the identity crises emerging in them as a result of colonization. To provide an account of the matter, the present study seeks to focus on one of the discursive strategies Achebe relies on in those four novels: Igbo Naming Cosmology and Name-symbolization.
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Salami, Ali, and Bamshad Hekmatshoar Tabari. "IGBO NAMING COSMOLOGY AND NAMESYMBOLIZATION IN CHINUA ACHEBE’S TETRALOGY." Folia linguistica et litteraria XI, no. 33 (2020): 39–61. http://dx.doi.org/10.31902/fll.33.2020.2.
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Things Fall Apart, No Longer at Ease, Arrow of God and A Man of the People, the first four novels by Chinua Achebe, the contemporary Nigerian novelist, are among the most outstanding works of African postcolonial literature. As a matter of fact, each of these four novels focuses on a different colonial or postcolonial phase of history in Nigeria and through them Achebe intends to provide an authentic record of the negative and positive impacts of ‘hybridity’ on different aspects of the life of native subjects. Briefly stated, Achebe is largely successful in taking advantages of variable discursive tools he structures based on the potentials of the hybrid, Igbo-English he adopts. Thus, it might be deduced that reading these four novels in line with each other, and as chains or sequels of Tetralogy, might result in providing a more vivid picture of the Nigerian (African) subjects and the identity crises emerging in them as a result of colonization. To provide an account of the matter, the present study seeks to focus on one of the discursive strategies Achebe relies on in those four novels: Igbo Naming Cosmology and Name-symbolization.
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Unya, Ikenna Ukpabi. "The Historical Significance and Role of the Kola Nut among the Igbo of Southeastern Nigeria." Journal of Religion and Human Relations 13, no. 1 (July 22, 2021): 289–312. http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/jrhr.v13i1.13.
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There are many customs and traditions that have effectively given the Igbo of Southeastern Nigeria group identity and social cohesion. And the kola nut is one of those realities. However, it is not only the Igbo that cherish and reverence the kola nut. In fact, kola nut is a highly prized fruit among the people of West Africa where its importance is seen in the social and religious customs of the people. But the Igbo lay special claim to kola nut and view it as the king of all fruits on earth because of the roles it play; hence, the kola is seen among the Igbo as a symbol of acceptance, cooperation and solidarity. Thus, the objective of this study is to examine the historical origin of the kola nut based on the Igbo ancestral myths and the symbolic interpretations of the different lobes of the Cola acuminata. The study will also investigate the significance and functions of the kola nut and how the influence of modernization is eroding its traditional values. The study is basically qualitative. It utilized existing literature on kola nut with oral sources in order to enhance our knowledge on kola nut. The study’s findings reveal that kola nut consumption and functions are part of Africa’s indigenous traditions that survived colonial intrusion, although the influence of modernization is greatly threatening the ritual functions and the traditional values. The study, thus, concludes by recommending that the Igbo should restore the significance and values of the kola nut by planting more kola nut trees in order to increase its availability and affordability as a source of hospitality and acceptance. Again, the Igbo communities and leaders should create a platform where the origin, significance and values of the kola nut must be taught and passed from generation to generation.
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Ibrahim, Fausat Motunrayo, and Ayodele S. Jegede. "“She was neither unduly fat nor lanky”: Representation of body size and beauty in the novels of Daniel O. Fágúnwà." Nigerian Journal of Sociology and Anthropology 18, no. 1 (June 1, 2020): 131–47. http://dx.doi.org/10.36108/njsa/0202/81(0190).
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The climate of thought regarding beauty characterization among Africans and other people of colour portrays the large body as beautiful. This reflects that body size and beauty is racially and culturally expressive, making it apposite to be disparate in advancing related discourses. This is particularly important because such discourses can influence Africans’ evaluation of their self-worth. The concerns generated by the global rise in obesity further create interest in these issues. African literature offers a fine and disparate platform to understand social realities. Consequently, relevant contents of the five precedent Yorùbá novels of Daniel Fágúnwà including Igbó Olódùmarè, Ìrèké Oníbùdó,Ògbójú ọdẹ nínú Igbó Irúnmọlè, Ìrìnkèrindò nínú Igbó Elégbèje and Àdììtú Olódùmarè were extracted and analyzed to examine association of beauty with body sizes. Findings reflect more of bipolarity in the definition of beauty, such that the none-fat/none-thin structure is conveyed as beautiful. Concurrently, the fat and the thin is also portrayed as beautiful, making ‘body size’ definition of beauty to be elusive, and strongly suggesting neutrality to body size among the Yorùbá. This is strongly borne out of Fágúnwà’s and indeed, Yorùbá construction of beauty from a ‘character’ perspective. Character (ìwà) is staunchly expounded as constituting beauty. The beautiful body size is indeterminate in Fágúnwà’s narratives and indeed, in Yorùbá thought.
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Okoro, Justice Chukwudi, and Festus Goziem Okubor. "Abigbo’s Identity in Music Making and Repertory of Songs: The Mbaise People’s Heritage." UJAH: Unizik Journal of Arts and Humanities 21, no. 2 (March 30, 2021): 170–94. http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/ujah.v21i2.9.
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This paper directs attention to Abigbo, an outstanding traditional music of Mbaise people of Igbo south, east of the Niger. It gears to interrupt and challenge willful observations by western-oriented music lovers’ derogatory opinion, contrary to music in traditional setting such as ‘Abigbo’. To realize this objective and prove wrong the ill-informed critics, ‘Abigbo’s uniqueness in song rendition and peculiarity in music making is conspicuously examined here as a case study. The origin and development of Abigbo, its uses, and relationship with other aspects of Mbaise culture are discussed in this work. The musical challenges are highlighted with the dance formation, movements/steps and the ensembles costumed critically analyzed. All these are essentially adumbrated in association with music making trends in contemporary Mbaise. Equally reviewed where applicable are Abigbo’s relevance and inevitable roles in achieving the goal of societal well being. Song communication supported with body language and phonic emission via vocals are equally matters of great interest here. Methods employed in the data collection are library source of information obtained from associated printed materials documented in the library shelves. The researcher consulted relevant ones, read through them during desk work, and use their extracts as backup information to the subject of discourse which he initiated. Few of the procured print media materials are equally paraphrased as and when due. Datum is also secured through participant observation. At this juncture, the researcher’s sense of sight and aural perceptions are actively utilized along with retentive memory with the view to capturing the salient points needed for the paper. A few literature reviews that border round music making in rural culture are altogether, examined to guide and back up the thrust of this discourse. Abigbo has proved its worth beyond all reasonable doubt during its performance presentation in Mbaise social culture. The musicians’ close attention to the masses, particularly the zealous ones who are inclined to get at African tribes’ traditional music to subject them to western notation is a spring board to its fame. At this juncture, we resolve that for music making through song communication to logically reign supreme in Abigbo, its practice by interested artistes should be enhanced and encouraged even beyond the ensemble’s environmental origin. This done helps to secure indigenous interest akin to norms and values within the fabric of Mbaise society.
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Afolayan, Adeshina. "Fálétí’s Philosophical Sensibility." Yoruba Studies Review 3, no. 2 (December 21, 2021): 1–10. http://dx.doi.org/10.32473/ysr.v3i2.129978.
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Let us begin with an unfortunate fact: Adébáyọ̀ Fálétí is one major writer that is hardly anthologized. The problem could not have been that he wrote in Yorùbá because Fágúnwà is far more anthologized than he is. Simon Gikandi’s edited Encyclopedia of African Literature (2003) has an entry and other multiple references to Fágúnwà. There is only one reference to Fálétí which is found in the index without any accompanying instance in the work. In Irele and Gikandi’s edited volumes, The Cambridge History of African and Caribbean Literature (2004), Fálétí only managed an appearance in the bibliography that featured four of his works—Wọn Rò Pé Wèrè Ni ́ (1965), Ọmọ Olókùn Ẹṣin (1969), Baṣòrun Gáà (1972) and Ìdààmú Páàdì Mínkáílù (1974). In the preface, Irele and Gikandi write: The scholarly interest in African orality also drew attention to the considerable body of literature in the African languages that had come into existence as a consequence of the reduction of these languages to writing, one of the enduring effects of Christian evangelization. The ancient tradition of Ethiopian literature in Ge’ez, and modern works like Thomas Mofolo’s Shaka in the Sotho language, and the series of Yorùbá novels by D. O. Fágúnwà, were thus able finally to receive the consideration they deserved. African-language literatures came to be regarded as a distinct province of the general landscape of imaginative life and literary activity on the African continent (2004, xiii). Essays 60 Adeshina Afolayan In fact, the publication of Fágúnwà’s Ògbójù Ọdẹ Nínú Igbó Ìrúnmalẹ (The ̀ Intrepid Hunter in the Forest of Spirits, 1938) made the chronology of literary events in Africa, and it misses out Fálétí’s 1965 work. In her “Literature in Yorùbá: poetry and prose; traveling theater and modern drama,” in the same volume, Karin Barber seems to redress this imbalance when she gives a place to Fálétí in her discussion of post-Fágúnwà writers. According to her, In the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s there was an explosion of literary creativity, with many new authors emerging and pioneering new styles and themes. Among the most prominent were Adébáyọ Fálétí whose ̀ Ọmọ Olókùn Ẹṣin (1969) is a historical novel dealing with a revolt against the overlordship of Ọyọ, and Ọládèjọ Òkédìjí, author of two brilliantly innovative crime thrillers (Àjà ló lẹrù, 1969, and Àgbàlagbà Akàn, 1971), as well as a more somber tragic novel of the destruction of a young boy who is relentlessly drawn into a life of crime in the underworld of Ifẹ (Atótó Arére, 1981). Notable also are Akínwùnmí Ìsòlá, whose university campus novel Ó le kú (1974) broke new ground in social setting and ambience; Afọlábí Ọlábímtán, author of several novels, including Kékeré Ẹkùn (1967), which deals with the conflicts arising from early Christian conversion in a small village, and Baba Rere! (1978), a contemporary satire on a corrupt big man; and Kólá Akínlàdé, prolific author of well-crafted detective stories such as Ta ló pa Ọmọ Ọba? (Who Killed the Prince’s Child?). These authors were all verbal stylists of a high order; they transformed the literary language, moving away from Fágúnwà’s rolling cadences to a more demotic, supple prose that successfully caught the accents of everyday life (2004, 368). While it may be misplaced to draw a comparison between Fágúnwà and Fálétí, there is a sense in which Fálétí’s demonstrates a more robust literary sensibility that goes beyond the allegorical into a realistic assessment of human relationship and sociality within the context of the Yorùbá cultural template. While Fágúnwà could not resist the influence of Christianity, and especially the allegorical motif of the journey in which humans encounter spiritual challenges (which John Bunyan’s Pilgrim Progress made popular), Fálétí is fundamentally a cultural connoisseur; a writer with a most intimate and dynamic understanding of the Yorùbá condition, especially in its conjunction with the political and sociocultural contexts of contemporary Nigeria. And we have Ọlátúndé Ọlátúnjí to thank for the deep exploration and interrogation of the fundamental poetic and literary nuances that Fálétí has left for us. In this essay, I will attempt to unearth the philosophical sensibility that undergirds Fálétí’s literary prowess, especially as demonstrated by his poems. Fálétí’s Philosophical Sensibility 61 Both the poets and the philosophers have always had one thing in common— the exploration of the possibilities that ideas and visions yield: As theoretical disciplines concerned with raising social consciousness, philosophy and literature engage in similar speculation about the good society and what is good for humanity. They influence thoughts about political currents and conditions. They can, for instance, lead the reader to critical reflections on the type of leaders suitable for a given society and on the degree of civic consciousness exercised by the people in protecting their rights. Philosophy and literature, equally, offer critical evaluation of existing and possible forms of political arrangements, beliefs and practices. In addition, they provide insights into political concepts and justification for normative judgements about politics and society. They also create awareness of possibilities for change (Okolo 2007, 1). Compared to Ọlátúnjí’s exploratory unraveling of Fálétí’s poetry, my objective is to enlist Fálétí as a poet that has not been given his due as one who is sensitive to the requirements of political philosophy and its objective of ensuring the imagination of a society that is properly ordered according to the imperatives of justice.
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Dick, Angela Ngozi. "Adichie’s Commitment to Female Biological Experiences in African Literature." English Linguistics Research 11, no. 2 (August 3, 2022): 1. http://dx.doi.org/10.5430/elr.v11n2p1.
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Molara Ogundipe-Leslie (1987) challenged African women writers to be committed about women and their biological experiences in wife repudiation and widowhood in her article entitled “The Female Writer and Her Commitment”. In view of this challenge, this article examined Adichie’s portrayal of female biological experiences in Purple Hibiscus, Half of a Yellow Sun, Americanah, the short story entitled Imitation and The Visit. The theoretical framework used in this article is African Feminism. It is established that in Purple Hibiscus, adolescent sexuality is expressed within the ambience of Igbo socialization in which sexual matters are discrete and respected. The expression of female sexuality in Half of a Yellow Sun is audacious, portraying cohabitation which has no merit in Igbo culture in spite of the ravaging civil war setting. The representation of sexual expression in Americanah through the adolescent peering between Ifemelu and Obinze is too detailed for the emotional health of the Igbo adolescent because it disrupted a legal family. Imitation and The Visit negotiated the African family so that the husband and the wife will complement each other while female sexuality is not compromised. It could be concluded that through her prose fictions, Adichie has responded adequately to Molara Ogundipe- Leslie’s challenge to African female writers. Finally, this article recommends that woman’s biological experiences should be fundamental and respected in romantic and family love relationships.
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Ofoego, Obioma. "Toward the Decolonization of African Literature, « that now-classic manifesto of African cultural nationalism »." Études littéraires africaines, no. 29 (November 26, 2014): 28–34. http://dx.doi.org/10.7202/1027493ar.
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Ce texte se propose d’analyser la problématique de la construction d’un sujet collectif (noir, africain, pan-africain), qui est au centre du manifeste littéraire Toward the Decolonization of African Literature : African Fiction and Poetry and Their Critics (1980), de la troïka igbo Chinweizu, Onwuchekwa Jemie et Ihechukwu Madubuike. Il s’agira de réfléchir sur la compatibilité entre l’ambition de ce projet et les stratégies prescriptives du manifeste, dont découle une esthétique « africaine ».
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Islam, Momtajul. "The Role of Native Weaknesses and Cultural Conflicts in Escalating Colonial Supremacy in the Igbo Society, as Perceived in Arrow of God by Chinua Achebe." International Linguistics Research 4, no. 2 (April 27, 2021): p19. http://dx.doi.org/10.30560/ilr.v4n2p19.
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The colonial invaders and their repressive means of governance in Africa were not the only reasons that could be solely held accountable for the fall of indigenous African society during the colonial invasion. Native weaknesses, socio-cultural conflicts and hegemony were equally responsible for the falling apart of native social setups when confronted with colonial alternatives. Native people had had their own covert religious and cultural limitations long before the colonizers entered their soil. The colonial powers cleverly used such inherent societal flaws of African people as excuses to impose European religion and traditions on them. Chinua Achebe does not blindly idealize native African traditions in his writings. He frequently narrates his doubts on flawed socio-cultural practices and moral dualities in the native society, too. This paper is an attempt to explore how innate weaknesses of native Igbo people, socio-cultural conflicts and domination in the native society have also made it easier for the colonial administration to prolong their supremacy in the Igbo land, as depicted in Arrow of God by Chinua Achebe. It also elaborates how Ezeulu, the chief priest of god Ulu, falls from dominance in his society because of his intent to execute personal desires which jeopardize his societal role in the Igbo land.
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Nwauwa, A. O. "The Dating of the Aro Chiefdom: A Synthesis of Correlated Genealogies." History in Africa 17 (January 1990): 227–45. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3171814.
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Precolonial African historiography has been plagued by historical reconstructions which remain in the realm of legend because events are suspended in almost timeless relativity.Igbo history has not been adequately researched. Worse still, the little known about the people has not been dated. It might be suggested that the major reason which makes the study of the Igbo people unattractive to researchers has been the lack of a proper chronological structure. Igbo genealogies have not been collected. The often adduced reason has been that the Igbo did not evolve a centralized political system whereby authority revolved round an individual—king or chief—which would permit the collection of regnal lists. Regrettably, Nigerian historians appear to have ignored the methodology of dating kingless or chiefless societies developed and applied elsewhere such as in east Africa. In west African history generally, there has been an overdependence for dating on external sources in European languages or in Arabic, and combining these with the main regnal list of a kingdom. Even within kingdoms, genealogies of commoners and officials have rarely been collected or correlated with the regnal lists. Among the Igbo, the external sources are rare and the regnal lists few. Even the chiefdoms—Onitsha and Aboh, Oguta and Nri—were ignored for a long time after modern historiography had achieved major advances elsewhere. Arochukwu has been another neglected Igbo chiefdom. Most of these states with hereditary leadership were peripheral to the Igbo heartland. Nevertheless, they were important because of their interactions with the heartland and the possibility of dating interactive events from their genealogies.
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Majeed Kadhem, Suhaib. "Conflict between Tradition and Change in Chinua Achebe's postcolonial novel Things Fall Apart." Al-Adab Journal 1, no. 124 (September 15, 2018): 81–92. http://dx.doi.org/10.31973/aj.v1i124.115.
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In studying the history of Asian and African countries, the colonial period plays an important role in understanding their history, religion, tradition and culture. Things Fall Apart is an English novel by the Nigerian author Chinua Achebe, published in 1957, which shows the African culture, their religious and traditions through the Igbo society. This novel captures the colonial period and its effect on Igbo society. It is a response and a record of control of western colonialism on the traditional values of the African people. This paper treats the novel as a postcolonial text, by focusing on the clash between occupied and colonizers, the clash between tradition and change, and the clash between different cultures, The Europe Empire and the African natives
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Adesokan, Akin. "African Literature in the World: A Teacher's Report." PMLA/Publications of the Modern Language Association of America 131, no. 5 (October 2016): 1462–70. http://dx.doi.org/10.1632/pmla.2016.131.5.1462.
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IN Concluding the Editor's Foreword to the 1950 Edition of D. O. Fagunwa's First Novel, the Classic Ogboju Ode Ninu Igbo Irunmale, L. Murby spoke generally of the three novels the Yoruba author had published by then:[I]n their treatment of character and story, in their use of myth and legend and allegory, and in their proverbial and epigrammatic language [the novels] bear definite resemblances to the Odyssey and Beowulf and the early medieval romances on the one hand, and on the other hand to that great cornerstone of the English novel, Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress.
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Oboko, Uche, and Jennifer Umezinwa. "A Pragmemic Analysis of Igbo Postproverbials." Matatu 51, no. 2 (September 21, 2020): 360–78. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/18757421-05102010.
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Abstract Igbo proverbs (Ilu Igbo) are linguistic expressions which projects principles with the intent to address diverse social, political, economic and culturally contextual issues that bother on values, morals and the identity of the Igbo people of Eastern Nigeria. Proverbs are handed down to different generations by speech acts of storytelling, conversing, rebuking or admonishing. The researchers carried out a pragmatic analysis of Igbo proverbs as a social practice, to establish their meaning and how its social significance are internalized and continually recreated. Language is central to the process of producing meaning. Using the Theory of Pragmeme by Jacob Mey (2001), the paper evaluates the pragmatic acts, the extent to which some of these proverbs are reformed and doctored, yet, maintain qualities of the Igbo culture while accommodating the identity of the 21st century ideology of the Igbo people. Primary and secondary methods of data collection are adopted. Being a qualitative study, the research randomly selected 12 Igbo proverbs that cut across the five Igbo speaking states of eastern Nigeria. The findings are that Igbo proverbs are essentially custodians of the Igbo cultural identity and orientalism, most proverbs have been moderated to fit the emerging trends in the identity of the Igbo ancestry.
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van den Bersselaar, Dmitri. "Missionary Knowledge and the State in Colonial Nigeria: On How G. T. Basden became an Expert." History in Africa 33 (2006): 433–50. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/hia.2006.0006.
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Between 1931 and 1937, the Anglican missionary G. T. Basden represented the Igbo people on the Nigerian Legislative Council. The Igbo had not elected Basden as their representative; he had been appointed by the colonial government. Basden's appointment seems remarkable. In 1923 the Legislative Council had been expanded to include seats for Unofficial Members, representing a number of Nigerian areas, with the expressed aim of increasing African representation on the Council. In selecting Basden the government went against their original intention that the representative of the Igbo area would be a Nigerian. However, the government decided that there was no “suitable” African candidate available, and that the appointment of a recognized European expert on the Igbo was an acceptable alternative. This choice throws light on a number of features of the Nigerian colonial state in 1930s, including the limitations of African representation and the definition of what would make a “suitable” African candidate.In this paper I am concerned with the question of how Basden became recognized as an expert by the colonial government and also, more generally, with the linkages between colonial administrations' knowledge requirements and missionary knowledge production. Missionary-produced knowledge occupied a central, but also somewhat awkward position in colonial society. On the one hand, colonial governments and missions shared a number of common assumptions and expectations about African peoples. On the other hand, there also existed tensions between missions and government, partly reflecting differing missionary and administrative priorities, which means that the missionary expert was not often recognized as such.
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Nwachukwu–Agbada, J. O. J. "Ezenwa–Ohaeto: Poet of the Genre." Matatu 33, no. 1 (June 1, 2006): 153–77. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/18757421-033001027.
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Ezenwa–Ohaeto was a poet of immense artistic vision. He was a conscious member of the Nigerian and African polity and a perspicacious user of the African oral tradition, particularly the Igbo afflatus/affiliation of it. A poet of ideas and style, Ezenwa–Ohaeto was to adopt principally as his stylistic tool the Igbo traditional genre of satire called In this essay, effort has been made towards identifying his use of the mode in terms of what he took from it and what in turn he gave to African poetry. It is demonstrated that Ezenwa–Ohaeto utilized satire to draw attention to the ills in the land. While he did so, he used the humour in to smoothe his way through. Although he was regularly concerned with the fate of fellow nationals, he did so light-heartedly, combining the use of airy Igbo iconic figures with mediated English and pidgin variety. Ezenwa–Ohaeto thus left behind an original, captivating and enchanting poetic tradition
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Azuonye, Chukwuma. "African Poetry of the Living Dead: Igbo Masquerade Poetry (review)." Research in African Literatures 31, no. 1 (2000): 205–11. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/ral.2000.0003.
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Chuks, Madukasi, Francis. "Ozo Title: An Indigenous Institution In Traditional Religion That Upholds Patriarchy In Igbo Land South-Eastern Nigeria." International Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities Invention 5, no. 5 (May 3, 2018): 4640–52. http://dx.doi.org/10.18535/ijsshi/v5i5.02.
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In Igbo land, the institution of Ozo title has underpinnings of male chauvinism and often used by men to remind those who appear to be very forward of their subordinate place in the society. Among the Igbo people, the Ozo title is an indigenous institution that is regarded as a central aspect of African indigenous religious practice through which they engage questions about the meaning for life. Through an ethnographic study conducted in recent years, I propose to explore the origin of the Ozo title and the symbolic significance of this indigenous sacred institution with specific reference to its religious, cultural, political, ethical and social significance, a method by which the indigenous communities keeps in constant religious communication with their deities and ancestors. However, I propose to not only examine the various ways in which Ozo title as a sacred institution has been used by their initiates to mediate religious beliefs and practices in African religion, but to specifically focus on its members as agents or ambassadors of different communities. Through an evaluation of significant Igbo religious practices involving Ozo title as a sacred institution performed by initiated men only which upholds patriarchy, I wish to suggest that the Ozo title as a sacred institution has two significant and related functions. The first one is that it enables the initiates to bridge the gap between the visible and unseen world of the ancestors and thus making possible an Igbo understanding of those forces that are believed to control the destinies of man. Secondly, Ozo title as a sacred institution of the Igbo is believed to uphold and sustain the Igbo religious system, and a complex of traditional religious rituals which uphold the privileges of those men who have been initiated into the ancestral cult. This paper point to particular understandings of Ozo title as integral to African religion, and proposes to illustrate this through an examination of Traditional Igbo Religion through the mediation of Ozo title as a sacred institution as part of the broader socio-sacral order.
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Casimir, Komenan. "Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart: A Seminal Novel in African Literature." Studies in Linguistics and Literature 4, no. 3 (June 27, 2020): p55. http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/sll.v4n3p55.
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Achebe’s Things Fall Apart is an influential novel in African literature for three reasons. First, it is a novel meant to promote African culture; second, it is a narrative about where things went wrong with Africans; and third, it is a prose text which contributed to Achebe’s worldwide recognition. It contains Achebe’s rejection of the degrading representation of Africans by European writers, and fosters Africa’s traditional values and humanism. The excesses of Igbo customs led the protagonist to flagrant misuse of power. The novel’s scriptural innovations bring fame to Achebe who is considered as the “Asiwaju” (Leader) of African literature, the “founding father of African fiction”, or again the “Eagle on Iroko”.
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Zahid, Sazzad Hossain. "Cultural Diversity in Igbo Life: A Postcolonial Response to Chinua Achebe’s Arrow of God." International Journal of Social Sciences 5, no. 23 (June 20, 2021): 69–89. http://dx.doi.org/10.52096/usbd.5.23.5.5.
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In his book Chinua Achebe, David Caroll (1980) describes the novel Arrow of God as a fight for dominance both on the theological and political level, as well as in the framework of Igbo philosophy. In Critical Perspectives on Chinua Achebe (1990), famous Achebe critics C. L. Innes and Berth Lindforts consider Arrow of God as a novel with conflicting ideas and voices inside each community with the tensions and rivalries that make it alive and vital. Another profound scholar on Achebe Chinwe Christiana Okechukwu (2001) in Achebe the Orator: The Art of Persuasion in Chinua Achebe's Novels assesses Arrow of God, which depicts a community under imminent danger of cultural genocide unleashed by agents of Western imperialism who have recently arrived in the indigenous society. However, the author in this study attempts to see Arrow of God as a postcolonial response to cultural diversity that upholds its uniting and cohesive force in Nigerian Igbo life. The goal is to look at how Achebe, in response to misleading western discourses, develops a simplistic image and appreciation that persists in Igbo life and culture even as colonization takes hold. This paper also exhibits how the Igbo people share their hardships, uphold their age-old ideals, celebrate festivals, and even battle on disagreements. This study employs postcolonial theory to reconsider aspects of cultural diversity among the African Igbo people, which are threatened by the intervention of European colonialism in the name of religion, progress, and civilization.
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Hodapp, James. "“Ndom heaved”: Imagining Igbo women in the Ogu Umunwanyi (1929 Women’s War) in Echewa’s I Saw the Sky Catch Fire." Journal of Commonwealth Literature 55, no. 2 (April 9, 2018): 246–58. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0021989418763710.
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The power of women to carry out explicit acts of resistance against colonialism has traditionally been of great interest within African literary studies. It is surprising therefore that within the field representations of Ogu Umunwanyi (1929 Women’s War) in Nigeria, patronizingly referred to as “riots” in British colonial reports, have received scant attention. This article, in part, compensates for this oversight and asserts the value of one representation of the Ogu Umunwanyi: T. Obinkaram Echewa’s 1992 novel I Saw the Sky Catch Fire. This article argues that the novel mobilizes a particularly Igbo women’s solidarity, Ndom, to fill out traditional histories and ethnographies of the Ogu. Echewa “Igbofies” the war story at various textual levels to alienate Anglophone readers with seemingly untranslatable words, sayings, and concepts with the ultimate goal of communicating an Igbo women’s way of being in the world. Ndom in the novel problematizes conventional Western understandings of time, space, and gender to at once endear non-Igbo readers to a foreign culture while foregrounding the novel’s unwillingness to offer the concept as a totalizing project.
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Ezenwa-Ohaeto, N. "The present state of Children's Literature in Indigenous African Languages: The Igbo Example." AFRREV IJAH: An International Journal of Arts and Humanities 3, no. 3 (September 10, 2014): 162. http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/ijah.v3i3.12.
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Nwafor, Matthew Ikechukwu. "The living-dead (ancestors) among the Igbo-African people: An interpretation of Catholic sainthood." International Journal of Sociology and Anthropology 9, no. 4 (April 30, 2017): 35–42. http://dx.doi.org/10.5897/ijsa2017.0719.
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Pingping, SHI. "Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Views on Literature and Her Creative Practice." Asia-Pacific Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences 2, no. 4 (December 30, 2022): 028–35. http://dx.doi.org/10.53789/j.1653-0465.2022.0204.005.p.
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Famous Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie believes that the role of literature is to instruct and delight. Her realist literary creation focuses on Nigeria’s post-colonial cultural and political reconstruction, as well as race, gender and class in a cross-cultural context, which reflects her Igbo, Nigerian and African “sensibility” and a certain cosmopolitan stance. The present article comprehensively investigates Adichie’s views on literature, creative practice and the dissemination and acceptance of her works to achieve an in-depth understanding of the writer.
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Chiaka, Nnadi, Catherine. "Integrative Values of Folktales: Igbo Folktale Example." Volume 5 - 2020, Issue 9 - September 5, no. 9 (September 20, 2020): 317–23. http://dx.doi.org/10.38124/ijisrt20sep073.
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The indigenous language of a people is the most accepted medium of communication. It enshrines and translates the peoples’ life (culture) as domesticated in their norms, values and morals. Adopting the functional perspective to sociological studies, this paper aims at x-raying the values of folktales (Igbo Folktale), for the formation of well behaved, self- reliable, accommodating, responsible and responsive individuals for progress and harmonious communal existence. These virtues which form the bases for training in the society are encapsulated in the people’s folktales shared commonly at family and communal leisure times. Folktale as a genre of oral literature is built into written literature courses in schools. However, modernity, development and quest for greener pasture deny people of the opportunity to enjoy the leisure for cultural learning / training avenues. Schools are no longer performing the expected role. Hence, these cultural virtues are left hanging in the balance. This study therefore tends to illustrate the rich availability of the virtues necessary for national integration with the analysis of three Igbo folktales. Deductions from these folktales confirm the richness of societal values. It concludes by underlining the need for the reintroduction of indigenous language study and folktale in schools
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Wosu, Kalu, and Jane Nnamdi. "Rescuing the woman from the Achebean Periphery: The discourse of gender and power in Chinua Achebe’s Things fall apart and Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo’s The last of the strong ones." Journal of Gender and Power 12, no. 2 (December 1, 2019): 137–55. http://dx.doi.org/10.14746/jgp.2019.12.008.
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A great majority of African cultures are patriarchal, which is to say that the male members of such societies are responsible for the perpetuation of family/blood lines. Cultural practices such as succession rites, female genital mutilation, hereditary, widowhood rites, polygamy, kinship, etc., aggregate to marginalize African women, thus conferring absolute power on men. The perpetuation of the ruses of patriarchy is also enabled through writing. Since literature is ideologically determined, it is created by/through discourse; writing becomes an avenue through which male writers sustain the status quo. One author whose works have sustained patriarchal values among the Igbo is Chinua Achebe. In Things fall apart (1958), Achebe presents a coherent Igbo society whose internal dynamics revolve around an established hierarchical social structure which excludes the woman from the phallic games of power. Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo’s The Last of the Strong Ones (1996) subverts the patriarchal structures which undermine Igbo women. This paper discusses the cultural constructs which confer ultimate power on the men in Achebe’s Umuofia. Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo’s response to Achebe’s male chauvinism is realized through a counter discourse which seeks to reconstruct the battered image of the Igbo woman. Female Self-determination, re-appropriation of the female body, and breaking of silences are all discursive strategies adopted by Adimora-Ezeigbo in her attempt to rescue the woman from the Achebean margins. Textual analysis informs the methodology of this work, while relying on deconstruction and discourse analysis as theoretical frameworks.
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Afigbo, A. E. "The Spell of Oral History: A Case Study from Northern Igboland." History in Africa 33 (2006): 39–52. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/hia.2006.0003.
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My case study is taken from the northern Igbo of Nigeria and focuses on the village-group of Ihuwe, which name is today rendered as Ihube— thanks to its Anglicization during the period of colonial rule. This not-withstanding, the people still call themselves “Ihuwe,” the form I use in this paper. The Northern Igbo area, especially the area around Awka, Orlu, and Okigwe, is commonly regarded as the heartland of Igbo culture and civilization. Ihuwe, in that portion of old Okigwe Division known today as Okigwe Local Government Area (LGA), lies in a region of southern Nigeria that has been identified as having witnessed human activity from very early times, at least from the period of Acheulean culture. It also lies on the geographically and historically prominent Nsukka-Udi-Okigwe cuesta, which archeology tells us entered the Iron Age quite early in African history, no later than about the eighth century BCE. We are thus dealing with one of the areas of ancient human occupation, as well as an area known for its dense demographic profile. It is these features–early human settlement and occupation with its attendant consequence of severely attenuated oral history, dense demographic profile, and being the cradle land of Igbo culture—that help to define the Northern Igbo and mark them out from the Western, Eastern, Southern, and North-Eastern Igbo, believed to be relatively more recent descendants from them.Perhaps another feature that calls for mention here is their political culture. Although, like their other Igbo kinsmen, they could boast of having evolved only micro-, and therefore weak, states (what social anthropologists of the colonial period refused to refer to as states), they had their own special model of these micro-states.
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Densu, Kwasi. "Omenala: Toward an African-Centered Ecophilosophy and Political Ecology." Journal of Black Studies 49, no. 1 (September 7, 2017): 29–52. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0021934717729503.
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This article seeks to contribute to the reconstruction of an African-centered ecophilosophy and political ecology. Employing Cheikh Anta Diop’s theory of African cultural unity, it considers the Ndi Igbo philosophy Omenala, its paradigmatic implications for Africana studies, and its capacity to demonstrate the continuity of indigenous African socioecological praxis cross culturally. In addition, it explores the relevance of Omenala to the development of an authentic social history of African people and as a theory to analyze contemporary problems in the African world. Three key issues are addressed. First, the article accounts for the absence of ecological theory within Africana studies. Second, it explicates the cultural and philosophical basis for an African-centered ecophilosophy and political ecology. Third, it envisions new approaches and areas of inquiry within Africana studies.
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Nnaemeka Onwuatuegwu PhD, Ignatius. "AN OVERVIEW OF THE IGBO COSMOLOGIC-ONTOLOGICAL CONCEPTION AND THE STRUCTURE OF THE WORLD: A PHILOSOPHICAL REFLECTION." International Journal of Advanced Research 9, no. 5 (May 30, 2021): 25–30. http://dx.doi.org/10.21474/ijar01/12803.
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Practically speaking, the way people understand reality (ontology) cuts across the nexus of their thought pattern, belief system and consequently their general attitude to life. Hence, ontology and cosmology are at the basis of Igbo conception of reality and also the spiritual and physical operations of the human world. It is an established fact that a traditional Igbo would like to hold tenaciously to the already established concepts by the Igbo forebears. Hence, any attempt at a critical analysis of these accepted concepts are quickly waved off with such statements as: it has been so and has to remain so. For the Igbo, it is morally wrong to question the wisdom of the ancestors. The wisdom of the ancestors is to be cherished, preserved and propagated to the future generations and not to be questioned or criticized. But materiality is part of reality. As such, neither the created beings nor the universe in general are static but rather dynamic. Dynamism is the natural condition of existence in the world of the moving and sensible reality. Hence, peoples concepts of reality should be necessarily subjected to constant evaluation and re-evaluation in order to ascertain their validity. Thus, the main purpose of this research is to challenge and encourage Igbo-African scholars to delve into many traditional concepts as to critically evaluate them either to discover the truth hidden in them or to make possible the attainment of certainty. However, the research adopts primarily the method of philosophical appraisal to reach to the goal of the research.
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U.E., Ndukwe, Ihechu I.P., and Ralph-Nwachukwu O. "Modernity and Burial Rituals in Igbo Land: A Paranormal Communication Approach." British Journal of Mass Communication and Media Research 1, no. 1 (November 14, 2021): 28–38. http://dx.doi.org/10.52589/bjmcmr-oxv49eqi.
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The Igbo people believe that a well done burial ritual would determine the well-being of the deceased in the land of the “living-dead”. It is therefore expected that their loved ones perform proper burial rituals to ensure the peaceful rest of the deceased and to avert the wrath of the dead. This study examined modernity and burial rituals in Igbo land from a paranormal communication perspective. The Functionalism approach as propounded by Smith, Burner and White in 1956 was used as the theoretical underpinning for this study. This study adopted textual analysis of historical and oral literature. The findings of this study revealed that modernity has affected the Igbo culture, and also showed that there are socio-religious consequences of not meeting up with the burial ritual demands. As a result, the researchers recommend amongst others that stakeholders in the community and the society at large come together to revive the Igbo culture. They also recommend that families do the needful to ensure that their 'dead' is properly buried to avoid certain misfortunes.
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BERSSELAAR, DMITRI VAN DEN. "RELIGIáƒO COMO PATRIMá”NIO NA NIGÉRIA: Cristãos Igbos e Religião Tradicional africana." Outros Tempos: Pesquisa em Foco - História 15, no. 25 (June 28, 2018): 51–72. http://dx.doi.org/10.18817/ot.v15i25.635.
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Partindo de uma perspectiva histórica, considerando a chegada dos primeiros missionários anglicanos, em meados do século XIX, entre os Igbos, na Nigéria, abordarei o impacto do cristianismo (incluindo missionários e convertidos) sobre o debate local acerca da identidade Igbo. Argumentarei que a cultura Igbo tradicional e não cristã foi definida por e em resposta aos debates da missão cristã sobre a conversão e o comportamento dos cristãos Igbos. Depois disso, vou relatar como a identidade Igbo veio a coincidir com o cristianismo e como isso resultou em uma apreciação renovada da religião "tradicional" local como herança e não como "paganismo". Além da literatura mencionada na bibliografia, esta interpretação é baseada em entrevistas que realizei na Nigéria, jornais nigerianos locais, revistas missionárias e correspondência original dos missionários da Church Missionary Society (CMS).Palavras-chave: Religião. Patrimônio. NigériaRELIGION AS HERITAGE IN NIGERIA: Igbo Christians and African traditional religion Abstract: Starting from a historical perspective, considering the arrival of the first Anglican missionaries in the mid-nineteenth century among the Igbo in Nigeria, I will address the impact of mission Christianity (including missionaries, converts, and prospective converts) upon the local debate about Igbo identity. I will argue that traditional, non-Christian Igbo culture was defined by, and in response to, the mission Christianity”™s debates on conversion and the preferred behavior of Igbo Christians. Finally, I will relate how Igbo identity came to coincide with Christianity and how this resulted in a renewed appreciation of local, ”˜traditional”™ religion as heritage rather than as ”˜paganism”™. Apart from the literature mentioned in the bibliography, this interpretation is based on interviews I held in Nigeria, local Nigerian newspapers, missionary journals, and original correspondence from the missionaries of the Church Missionary Society (CMS).Keywords: Religion. Heritage. Nigeria. RELIGIÓN COMO HERENCIA EN NIGERIA: Cristianos Igbos y Religión Tradicional africanaResumen: A partir de una perspectiva histórica, considerando la llegada de los primeros misioneros anglicanos, a mediados del siglo XIX, entre los Igbos, en Nigeria, enfocaré el impacto del cristianismo (incluyendo misioneros y convertidos) sobre el debate local acerca de la identidad Igbo. Argumentaré que la cultura Igbo tradicional y no cristiana fue definida por y en respuesta a los debates de la misión cristiana sobre la conversión y el comportamiento de los cristianos Igbos. Después de eso, voy a relatar cómo la identidad Igbo vino a coincidir con el cristianismo y cómo resultó en una apreciación renovada de la religión "tradicional" local como herencia y no como "paganismo". Además de la literatura mencionada en la bibliografáa, esta interpretación se basa en entrevistas que realicé en Nigeria, periódicos nigerianos locales, revistas misioneras y correspondencia original de los misioneros de la Church Missionary Society (CMS). Palabras clave: Religión. Herencia. Nigeria.
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Ibeh, Kevin, Joseph Ebot Eyong, and Kenneth Amaeshi. "Towards advancing African management scholarship." Journal of Management History 28, no. 2 (January 11, 2022): 187–98. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/jmh-11-2021-0061.
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Purpose This paper aims to address the main arguments put forward in Grietjie Verhoef’s article and contribute to a wider debate among management scholars on the role of indigenous theories. It challenges the view of African management as illusory and points to the rising support for indigenous theories as indicative of the weakening of the unquestioned dominance of universal theories. Design/methodology/approach This paper takes a conceptual and critically reflective approach, underpinned by a 360-degree evaluation of pertinent literature and theoretical arguments. Findings This paper reveals an underlying symmetry and interconnectedness, anchored on a shared communal ethos, among Afrocentric management concepts, specifically Ubuntu, Ekpe and Igbo apprenticeship systems. This symmetry points to an underlying indigenous management theory that begs to be further conceptualised, evidenced and advanced. Research limitations/implications This paper affirms Verhoef’s demand for Ubuntu, Ekpe, Igbo apprenticeship system to be more rigorously developed and theoretically coherent and urges scholars to intensify effort towards advancing the conceptual and empirical foundations of African management. Echoing Mahatma Gandhi’s timeless counsel, this paper calls on critics of African management to join the effort to bring about the change they wish to see in African management theorising. Social implications This paper disavows the alleged effort to impose a single “African management” model or perpetuate the “colonial/indigenous” binary divide but equally cautions against an effort to veto scholarly striving for a common identity, to learn from history or not embrace collective amnesia. As examples from the USA and Europe show, diversity, even heterogeneity, needs not to preclude the forging of a commonly shared identity complemented with appropriate sub-identities. Originality/value This paper links the African management-centred themes addressed by Verhoef to the wider debate among management scholars about lessening the dominance of universal theories and allowing space for context-resonant indigenous theories. It calls on African management scholars to invest the premium and intensified effort towards building a more robust and coherent body of indigenous theory that will have the capacity and efficacy to inform, explain and advance organisational practice and outcomes across Africa.
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Newell, Stephanie. "Remembering J. M. Stuart-Young of Onitsha, Colonial Nigeria: Memoirs, Obituaries and Names." Africa 73, no. 4 (November 2003): 505–30. http://dx.doi.org/10.3366/afr.2003.73.4.505.
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AbstractColonial Onitsha provided the stage for John Moray Stuart-Young (1881–1939), a Manchester trader and poet, to perform the role of an educated gentleman. In his autobiographical writing, Stuart-Young created a host of famous metropolitan friends and constructed for himself a past through which he invited African readers to remember him. The extent to which Onitsha citizens accepted his version of his life is explored in this article, for during the period of Stuart-Young's residence in town, from approximately 1909 until his death in 1939, different sectors of Igbo society observed him closely, read his publications, worked with him and witnessed his patronage of young men. Local people, including the children, studied his behaviour over time and produced a range of African names and watchwords by which they remembered his life.
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VanZanten Gallagher, Susan. "“Through other People”: Confession in South African Literature." Christianity & Literature 45, no. 1 (December 1995): 95–110. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/014833319504500109.
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Kanu, Ikechukwu Anthony. "Igwebuike theology of Omenani and the missionary bifurcation of horizons." OGIRISI: a New Journal of African Studies 16 (October 2, 2020): 127–44. http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/og.v16i1.8.
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African theology points to the fact that every particular situation or context calls for a particular theological reflection, that is, if the theological reflection is to make meaning within that unique circumstance. It is within this context that Igwebuike theology of Omenani emerges in relation to the understanding of culture as the Seed of the Word of God, which already pre-existed in Africa even before the emergence of the Western missionaries. The purpose of adopting this idea of culture as the Seed of the Word of God is to enhance the reconciliation between the African and Christian/Western ’worldhoods’. This piece presented the African culture as an important element in evangelization in Africa, as it is the spirit that animates the African people. It, therefore, located the Seed of the Word of God in the Omenani (the law of the land) of the African people through which they were able to achieve holiness even before the advent of the gospel. It observed that the failures of the missionary enterprise were majorly because of their lack of openness to the African religion and culture. The purpose of this study is to bridge the bifurcation created by the missionaries between the Christian and African ‘worldhoods’. The theoretical framework employed in this research is the Igwebuike sympathetic and non-derogatory framework, which emphasizes evangelization with a sense of understanding.
Keywords: Omenani, Logos Spermatikos, Culture, African, Igbo, Evangelization, Igwebuike
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Adebayo, Akanmu G. "Currency Devaluation and Rank: The Yoruba and Akan Experiences." African Studies Review 50, no. 2 (September 2007): 87–109. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/arw.2007.0077.
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Abstract:Jane Guyer has clearly demonstrated in Marginal Gains (2004) that the ranking of people historically was linked to quantitative scales of money. Guyer's study focuses on the Igbo and Ibibio, two societies in which ranking was by achievement rather than ascription. How do ranking and money interface in other African societies with strong monarchical or centralized social systems? What impact does currency instability have on rank in such societies? This paper examines these questions. Focusing on the Yoruba of Nigeria and the Akan of Ghana, it evaluates the degree to which ranking has been affected by currency devaluation and economic instability since the mid-1980s.
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Johnson, Sylvester A. "Colonialism, Biblical World-Making, and Temporalities in Olaudah Equiano's Interesting Narrative." Church History 77, no. 4 (December 2008): 1003–24. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0009640708001601.
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The autobiography of Olaudah Equiano (1745–1797) offers an unusual portrait of the dynamic relationship between scripture and colonialism. In 1789 Equiano, who also went by the name Gustavus Vassa, related his experience of slavery to support abolitionism in Britain in the form of a best-selling, two-volume autobiography titled The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written by Himself. Equiano's autobiography comprises a striking description of religion and culture among the Igbo of West Africa, the nation with which he identified by birth. According to Equiano, the Igbo were descended from ancient Jews, and their religion was a modern survival of ancient biblical religion. This claim, seemingly casual at first, is actually a complicated maneuver that reveals how deeply he had mined a trove of biblical commentary to shape his interesting narrative for a skeptical readership. The early modern genre of biblical commentary, which was deeply influenced by the exigencies of European colonialism, constitutes in its own right an authoritative literature that proved quite useful for Equiano.
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Agbo, Benedict Nwabugwu. "Decolonising the concept of solemnity in the Roman Catholic Liturgy of Igbo Land: A compositional study." IKENGA International Journal of Institute of African Studies 22, no. 3 (September 1, 2021): 1–24. http://dx.doi.org/10.53836/ijia/2021/22/3/009.
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Liturgical art music in Nigeria has been beleaguered by the confusion about what is truly African or traditional and what is foreign. This confusion is exacerbated by the Western traditional notion of the solemnity of the liturgy as opposed to the African notion of the concept. This paper investigates the theoretical constructs for authentic indigenization of liturgical music compositions in Nigeria many years after the colonialists have left and addresses issues pertaining to the unicity of style and peculiarity of form in African music. It problematizes the concept of solemnity in the liturgical music of Igbo land, arguing against the colonial concept of ‘sanctity of immobility’ insisting on the reflection of the African rhythmic and tonal sensibilities in the church’s notion of authentic worship. The paper relies on ethnographic data for its findings, using the research composition method to arrive at its major contentions and recommendations. It also provides a unique compositional sample as a kind of pastiche for further study of indigenization in the context of solemnity in liturgical music
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LAW, ROBIN. "Ali-Ogba: A History of Ogba People. By FRANCIS J. ELLAH. Enugu: Fourth Dimension Publishing Co., 1995. Pp. xiv + 226. $18.00; £9.95 (ISBN 978-156-400-8). (Distributed by African Books Collective, The Jam Factory, 27 Park End Street, Oxford OX1 1HU.)." Journal of African History 38, no. 1 (March 1997): 123–77. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0021853796496906.
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The Ogba are an Igbo-speaking group, situated in the extreme south-west of the Igbo area, in the modern Rivers State of Nigeria (though the maps in this book, which depict only the Ogba country itself, do not convey a very clear sense of its location). This history of the community, written by its current Eze (king), sets out to cover the entire sweep of its history, from ‘the origin of the Ogbas’ (attributed to the fourteenth century) to the colonial period (post-independence history being treated only cursorily). It is based mainly on local oral traditions, taken partly from colonial Intelligence Reports, but also including extensive new material collected by the author; some use is also made, for the colonial period, of contemporary documents from British and Nigerian archives, and for prehistory, of archaeological evidence.
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Saratovskaya, Larisa. "South African literature in Russia." African Research & Documentation 58 (1992): 11–15. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0305862x00012577.
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The African continent and South Africa in particular have always interested Russians. It may be interesting to note that as early as the 18th century the Russian tzar and reformist Peter 1st, ordered the compilation of a description of Africa, which was made in 1710 in Moscow. In the 18th and especially in the 19th centuries there were many Russian sailors and explorers who went as far as the Cape of Good Hope. Among them was a famous Russian writer and sailor Ivan Goncharov who spent two months in South Africa in 1853 and devoted more than 150 pages of his travelling book “Frigate Pallada” to the description of the lives of different racial groups there. This progressive Russian writer paid special attention to the fight of African people against the European colonisers. Another Russian explorer and art-critic A. Visheslavzev was also in South Africa in the 1850s and in his diary expressed his sympathy with the African chiefs, who led the black tribes against the conquerors.
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Uduji, Joseph Ikechukwu, and Elda Nduka Okolo-Obasi. "Youth empowerment in non-timber forest products (NTFPs) of sub-Saharan Africa: the role of corporate social responsibility in Niger Delta, Nigeria." Journal of Enterprising Communities: People and Places in the Global Economy 14, no. 5 (November 29, 2019): 729–52. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/jec-08-2017-0066.
Full textAbstract:
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to critically examine the multinational oil companies’ (MOCs’) corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives in Nigeria. Its special focus is to investigate the impact of Global Memorandum of Understandings (GMOUs) on rural young people involved in non-timber forest products (NTFPs) for sustainable livelihood in Niger Delta, Nigeria. Design/methodology/approach Data for this study were collected from primary sources, using participatory rural appraisal technique of semi-structured interview questionnaire. The use of participatory research techniques in collecting CSR impact data especially as it concerns the rural young people is because it involves the people being studied, and their views on all the issues are paramount. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyse the data. Inferential statistical tool – estimation of logit model was used to test the two research hypothesis. Findings The results indicate that GMoUs have not given adequate attention to young people as a special target sub-group who live in rural areas and depend mostly on NTFPs. Results also show that a number of factors hindering rural young people from the use and development of NTFPs include a policy vacuum, non-destructive harvesting, and destruction of natural habitats, bushfires, population growths and high demands. Research limitations/implications The semi-structured interview questionnaire was directly administered by the researchers with the help of research assistants. The use of local research assistants was because of the inability of the researchers to speak the different local languages and dialects of the many ethnic groups of Ijaws, Ogonis, Ikweres, Etches, Ekpeyes, Ogbas, Engennes, Obolos, Isokos, Nembes, Okirikas, Kalabaris, Urhobos, Iteskiris, Igbos, Ika-Igbos, Ndonis, Orons, Ibenos, Yorubas, Ibibios, Anangs, Efiks, Bekwarras, Binis, Eshans, Etsakos, Owans, Itigidis, Epies, Akokoedos, Yakkurs, etc., in the sampled rural communities. Practical implications An appropriate GMoU-intervention framework for sustainable promotion of NTFPs, domestication of NFTPs, improving harvesting and processing techniques are necessary to facilitate good security, reduction of poverty and improved livelihoods, particularly for the economically-marginalized and forest-dependent rural young people is imperative. Social implications Sustainable livelihoods of the forest-dependent rural young people in sub-Saharan Africa would require some focussed CSR interventions on the NTFPs for sustainable livelihood. Facilities pertaining to storage, grading, processing and value addition through the convergence of existing schemes and programmes should be promoted and created. MOCs are in a position to empower the rural young people with information about the market, policy and products to enable the rural people strategizing and accessing returns from NTFPs in sub-Saharan Africa. Originality/value This research adds to the literature on multinational enterprises’ CSR initiatives in developing countries and rationale for demands for social projects by host communities. It concludes that business has an obligation to help in solving problems of sustainable livelihood.
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Owusu, Edward, Asuamah Adade-Yeboah, Kweku Rockson, Solomon Ali Dansieh, and Samuel Kyei Adoma. "Language Use in the Multilingual Classroom Settings of West Africa: A Review of Selected Literature." World Journal of English Language 12, no. 1 (March 24, 2022): 399. http://dx.doi.org/10.5430/wjel.v12n1p399.
Full textAbstract:
Linguistically, most Africans are multilingual entities. Extremely, the seventeen (17) West African states display this feature. Thus, in a typical L2 classroom in Africa, the learner is likely to come into contact with several languages. These languages are mostly the official languages(s), the second or third language(s), the international language, and the indigenous languages spoken by both the learners and the teachers. Sometimes, the official language(s) is/are selected indigenous languages (for example, Igbo, Yoruba, and Hausa, in the case of Nigeria). In some cases, the second language is the international language used for official engagements and international discourse. In Western Africa, Ghana is one such country that uses English as both the official and international language. When learners from diverse sociocultural backgrounds are exposed to several languages in a particular classroom setting, a lot of processes emerge. One of such processes is nativisation or indigenisation or localisation of the formal classroom language. This is the process where language learners use the formal classroom language in a manner that suits their communicative needs. This paper is a review of selected empirical studies on the use of language in the multilingual classrooms of selected African countries. The cases and papers were purposively sampled from five West African states of Cameroon, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Niger, and Nigeria. This paper argues that language contact processes such as localisation, pidginization, and creolization are not aberrant forms per se; and since they serve the informal linguistic needs of multilingual second language learners, they should be given a place in language use.
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Dhakal, Lekha Nath. "Presence of Africa in African-American Literature." KMC Research Journal 1, no. 1 (June 29, 2017): 19–26. http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/kmcrj.v1i1.28241.
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African traditions and rituals survived the antagonistic forces which transported them from their ancestral lands to other continents is an established fact in world history. However, how they have been employed in varied artistic forms still requires further investigation. The traditions and rituals still practiced by the people of African diaspora in various parts of the globe are connected to Africa. These primitive traditions stored both orally and in written form are abundantly found in African-American literature.
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Urama, Evelyn N. "The sky entities as represented in African literature." Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union 5, S260 (January 2009): 294–300. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1743921311002420.
Full textAbstract:
AbstractAstronomical observations used by the ancient people of Africa were developed out of the people's desire to have concrete manifestations of their gods and religious beliefs as well as for time-keeping – day, night and calendar for agricultural and festive seasons. The sky entities (the solar and stellar systems) observed become part of the lives and events here on Earth and so are also part of the context of African literature. This paper examines the ways in which different African peoples have reflected on the role of the sky entities in their literature.
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Okafor, Eddie E. "Francophone Catholic Achievements in Igboland, 1883-–1905." History in Africa 32 (2005): 307–19. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/hia.2005.0020.
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When the leading European powers were scrambling for political dominion in Africa, the greatest rival of France was Britain. The French Catholics were working side by side with their government to ensure that they would triumph in Africa beyond the boundaries of the territories already annexed by their country. Thus, even when the British sovereignty claim on Nigeria was endorsed by Europe during the Berlin Conference of 1884-85, the French Catholics did not concede defeat. They still hoped that in Nigeria they could supplant their religious rivals: the British Church Missionary Society (CMS) and the other Protestant missionary groups. While they allowed the British to exercise political power there, they took immediate actions to curtail the spread and dominion of Protestantism in the country. Thus some of their missionaries stationed in the key French territories of Africa—Senegal, Dahomey, and Gabon—were urgently dispatched to Nigeria to compete with their Protestant counterparts and to establish Catholicism in the country.Two different French Catholic missions operated in Nigeria between 1860s and 1900s. The first was the Society of the African Missions (Société des Missions Africaines or SMA), whose members worked mainly among the Yoruba people of western Nigeria and the Igbos of western Igboland. The second were the Holy Ghost Fathers (Pères du Saint Esprit), also called Spiritans, who ministered specifically to the Igbo people of southeastern Nigeria. The French Catholics, the SMA priests, and the Holy Ghost Fathers competed vehemently with the British Protestants, the CMS, for the conversion of African souls. Just as in the political sphere, the French and British governments competed ardently for annexation and colonization of African territories.
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Owomoyela, Oyekan. "Proverbs and African Modernity: Defining an Ethics of Becoming." Yoruba Studies Review 2, no. 2 (December 21, 2021): 1–15. http://dx.doi.org/10.32473/ysr.v2i2.130132.
Full textAbstract:
African proverbs have, for good reason, attracted considerable attention from scholars, both African and non-African. One notable testimony to such attention is the international conference in South Africa from which came a monumental collection of scholarly articles now available on CD and in print. Another evidence of the interest the subject has enjoyed among African scholars is the wealth of publications they have produced in recent years, for example, Adeleke Adeeko’s monograph Proverbs, Textuality, and Nativism in African Literature; Ambrose Adikamkwu Monye’s Proverbs in African Orature: The Aniocha-Igbo Experience; Kwesi Yankah’s The Proverb in the Context of Akan Rhetoric: A Theory of Proverb Praxis; and my Yoruba Proverbs. In addition, there have been influential articles by Ayo Bamgbose, Lawrence. A. Boadi, Romanus N. Egudu, Kwame Gyekye, Yisa Yusuf, and a host of others whose omission from this rather abbreviated list is not meant as a slight. In a recent conversation, the preeminent paremiologist, Wolfgang Mieder, called my attention to the lineup of articles in the most recent issue of Proverbium [23: 2006], in which four of the five lead articles are by Nigerian scholars (Abimbola Adesoji, Bode Agbaje, George Olusola Ajibade, and Akinola Akintunde Asinyanbola) and on African proverbs, an indication, he said of the present effervescence of, and future potential for, proverb studies and publications on them on African soil. Because of these efforts we now know a good deal about proverbs as a cultural resource, their functionality and the protocols for their usage, but also their artistry-structure, wordplay, imagery, and so forth, especially after calls such as Isidore Okpewho’s (1992) that scholars pay due attention to the aesthetic dimensions of traditional oral forms.
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Mugeere, Anthony, Anna Barford, and Paul Magimbi. "Climate Change and Young People in Uganda: A Literature Review." Journal of Environment & Development 30, no. 4 (October 3, 2021): 344–68. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/10704965211047159.
Full textAbstract:
The disruptions of anthropogenic climate change are increasingly severe. People living in sub-Saharan Africa are especially exposed to these risks, and amongst them young people. It is well established that climate disruptions have the potential to halt education, displace populations, and wreck infrastructure. This rigorous literature review focuses on climate change in the landlocked East African country of Uganda, demographically the world’s third youngest country, where young people struggle to get by due to insufficient work opportunities. Extended to other countries in the Eastern and Central African region, the review considers what is known about the intersection of youth livelihoods and climate change; young people’s susceptibility to climate disruption due to limited resources and livelihood options; and the constraints around their responses. The review findings suggest the need for substantial youth informed interventions to bolster young people’s economic resilience and adaptive capacity given the worsening climate change and prolonged population growth.