Youth Cultures & the Fetishization of Violence in Nigeria

Abstract

In this paper I develop a conceptual framework for analysing youth cultures of resistance and violence in the context of customary and world religions in which old and new gods are important sources of ideological resistance. Condensing around points of intersection between capital and non-capitalist kin-based economies, I argue that militant youth cultures develop through a ‘double’ articulation between ‘parent’ cultures largely producing use values, and capitalist cultures pervaded by world religions (Christianity, Islam). The former construe social relations between groups struggling to establish rights over strategic natural resources (land, oil, water) in terms of spirit beings and their protective powers against attack; the latter preside today over production for sale and profit according to impersonal market forces that dissolve the social into relationships between ‘things’, the products of labour exchanged in the market place.

Thanks to the British Academy (2001-03) and Leverhulme Trust (2003-5) whose grants supported field work and writing up time. Also to Bill Knight (Pro-Natura International) for opportunities to work in the Niger Delta, Iliasu Nyako for continuing assistance in agro-pastoral conflict zones, and Jackson Okwa for inducting me into the mysteries of Anyang forest cosmologies. Janet Bujra, Roy Love, and an anonymous referee offered constructive criticism and valuable editorial comments. None of the above, however, are responsible for the data, interpretation and analysis offered.

Notes

1. Since the mid-1990s I have carried out a mix of anthropological field research and community ‘development’ activities with NGOs in the Niger Delta (Bayelsa and Akwa Ibom states) and inland, mainly with farmers (Boki, Busi, Besenge-Utanga), pastoralists (Fulani), and hunter-gatherers (Anyang, Becheve) of Cross River state (Nigeria) and the Takamanda Forest Reserve (South West Cameroon on the international Nigeria-Cameroon border). I have drawn on this ongoing experience of life lived with rural subalterns of Christian, animist and Muslim faiths in writing this paper. Some of the field material is indicated in the bibliography.

2. I define ‘youth’ here in the usual Nigerian mode – it refers almost wholly to men, aged between fourteen and about forty years.