The itineraries of agency and resistance in the petrofiction of the Niger Delta: Okpewho’s Tides and Ojaide’s The Activist

Abstract

The impact from natural resource extraction finds expression in the petrofiction of the Niger Delta through the nature and role of characters that function in agency. A study of the major characters in Isidore Okpewho’s Tides and Tanure Ojaide’s The Activist reveals itineraries of human agency in their responses to the effect of oil extraction. While a group of characters shows that environmental action can become a counterpane for self-seeking and self-motivated intellectuals at the detriment of solidarity with all including human, nonhuman and the general economy, this study also reveals that there is still a set of intellectuals that remain consistent to the genuine need for a safe and clean environment. Our overall goal in this contribution is achieved through a renegotiation of the value of agency in both the work of Cajetan Iheka as well as that of Graham Huggan and Helen Tiffin. Iheka privileges agency that is attuned to a shift from an emphasis on the human to the nonhuman. Huggan and Tiffin accommodate agency that underpins both human and animals. While acknowledging the importance of both positions, this article calls for a return to a focus on human agency especially in relation to the factor of accountability which remains an unfinished business. The call for general action against resource extraction and its impact will remain elusive as long as there are divergences in human agency.

Keywords:

• Agency
• resistance
• petrofiction
• Niger Delta
• intellectuals and environmentalism of the poor

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

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Onyemaechi Udumukwu

Onyemaechi Udumukwu is Professor of English at the University of Port Harcourt where he specializes in Anglophone African and Postcolonial Literatures, Critical Theory and African Diaspora Literatures. He has published articles in Modern Fiction Studies, Research in African Literatures, Literature and Arts of the Niger Delta, Legacies of Departed African Women Writers: Matrixes of Creativity and Power, Tydskrif vir Letterkunde among others. He edited with an introduction the volume of essays, Nigerian Literature in English: Emerging Critical Perspectives. His ongoing research is on the extractive fictions and poetry of the Niger Delta.