The Nordic Africa Institute – Publications

All over the world, there has been a massive resurgence in the politics of identity, including especially those forms of identity which, for a long time, were considered as negative and inimical to national unity. Today, ethnicity and religion have become major rallying points for political agitation, resulting in violent intra- and inter-state conflicts and posing direct challenges to national and regional stability as well as the post-1945 nation-state project across the world.

This volume is dedicated to a discussion of various dimensions of the resurgence of identity politics in contemporary Nigeria. It is the product of a field-based research effort undertaken by a national working group which was keen to explore the origins, dimensions, and consequences of the increased spate of intra- and inter-communal conflicts within Nigeria in the context of a deep-seated national economic crisis, attempts at structural adjustment implementation, and a prolonged programme of transition from military to elected civilian rule. Such platforms of political mobilisation as ethnicity and religion, and the ways in which they combine with each other and with other variables like regional identities, are discussed along side the increase in the political significance of various aspects of youth and gender identities. In this sense, the contributions in this volume represent the first comprehensive effort to understand the dissolution and recom-position of popular political identities in contemporary Nigeria.