Memorializing Violence: Identity, Temporality, and the “Vulnerability” of a Mythical Figure in State Graffiti

Abstract

This essay analyzes the grammar of military graffiti in Nigeria to uncover the mindless posture with which the military deploys it to assert their power, identity, and temporal orientations in ways that not only subvert and shame a minority group and its belief systems, but also expose the brutal and liminal conditions of the state agents. This analysis extends studies of state graffiti by framing the multifold grammatical components as rhetorical acts of domination.

Notes

1 I thank RR reviewers Omedi Ochieng and Andrew King whose feedback helped me to better refocus my argument. I also thank Michael Bernard-Donals, Deborah Brandt, and Susan Jarratt, who helped me to frame graffiti as a rhetorical artifact.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Adedoyin Ogunfeyimi

Adedoyin Ogunfeyimi is a Senior Lecturer in Dartmouth’s Institute for Writing and Rhetoric where he teaches courses in writing and rhetoric and carries out research in knowledge transfer, cultural rhetoric, social movement, and ethics. Presently, he is working on his monograph tentatively titled “Hybrid Ethos” in which he explores the rhetorical tactics with which two minority groups in Africa repurpose their cultural artifacts to write themselves out of an oppressive governing ethos. Readers can contact him at [email protected] or [email protected].