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Papers by Arthur Anyaduba
SUNY Press eBooks, Dec 1, 2022
Genocide studies and prevention, Nov 1, 2023
Politics of citizenship and migration, Dec 31, 2022
Oxford University Press eBooks, Sep 17, 2023
Research in African Literatures, 2019
American Review of Canadian Studies, 2018
View Crossmark data from a photographer to his city: "In Herzog's work it is late afternoon or ev... more View Crossmark data from a photographer to his city: "In Herzog's work it is late afternoon or evening when he releases the shutter. He photographs perforce in the evening hours, when the light is also milder, warmer, but without the play of shadows" (Koetzle, 27). In this sense, Herzog's Vancouver is at once empirical, ritualistic, and wholly unique.
Critical Arts, 2016
Abstract This article examines the patterns of diasporic formations occurring within Africa. This... more Abstract This article examines the patterns of diasporic formations occurring within Africa. This is with a view to broadening conceptualisations of the African diaspora in recent criticism of the subject. While noting that recent critical discussions of African diasporas have been significant for their focus on diasporic formations within Africa, this article observes that this scholarship has looked exclusively at diasporas formed through dispersion, especially through the European-occasioned dispersal of peoples. This focus on dispersion-induced diasporisation does not only fail to account for a more general diasporic situation on the African continent, but it also excludes from the diaspora discourse considerations of groups not formed through specific notions of dispersion. Therefore, this study highlights the instance of non-migrant diasporic conditions in Nigeria and by so doing problematises conceptions of African diasporas that insist basically on the conditions of dispersion, migration and vulnerability of populations. I further argue that the imposition of colonial borders and the loss of indigenous sovereignties account for the more pervasive diasporic situation in Africa. Broadening the concept of diaspora to include conditions and populations not generally considered in the discourse offers more nuanced results and helps us to revise the largely ethnic essentialisms on which diasporic formations in Africa have been constructed.
Peace and Conflict Studies, 2018
This article reexamines the British colonial policy of indirect rule in Nigeria. Moving away from... more This article reexamines the British colonial policy of indirect rule in Nigeria. Moving away from extant scholarly attention on this colonial policy that focuses on governance through local or native authorities, we focus rather on British colonial rule through imperial companies. We argue that the British colonist did not conceive of or organize "Nigeria" as a "nation", rather it was administered as a business enterprise in which the Crown depended on companies to "govern" its Nigerian colonies. Accordingly, the idea of the nation as a business enterprise defined its subjects and resources in ways that produced problematic notions of nationhood imagined in corporate terms. The net effect of this dimension of indirect rule through imperial companies is that "Nigeria" has remained imagined and governed not as a nation-state but as a corporation. We suggest that the challenges of postcolonial nationhood in Nigeria derive impetus largely from this conception and management of colonial Nigeria as a corporation. Our aim is to conceptualize the colonial corporatization of Nigeria, and describe the ensuing patterns of violent relations in its postcolony.
The Black Scholar, 2021
considers the crime novels of Jean-Claude Izzo and their counter-cartographies of postcolonial Ma... more considers the crime novels of Jean-Claude Izzo and their counter-cartographies of postcolonial Marseille. Experiments with Empire is well worth considering if you are looking for a way to think about empire and its aftermath without falling into an often deadended and retrenched mode of negative political critique. The work straddles a line between a metacommentary on the field of anthropology and the more traditional tool of close reading. Izzo does not agonize over the obvious colonial roots of the modern discipline of anthropology nor does he explore the ethical problems attached to ethnography as a tool of knowledge production. While some readers may find this to be a theoretical shortcoming, it demonstrates that Izzo’s project is more invested in the uses of anthropology to influence both literary and social forms. Experiments with Empire ultimately provides a roadmap in French studies for interdisciplinary scholarship that theorizes alternative possibilities for the study of postcolonial life.
Social Dynamics, 2020
ABSTRACT This article examines recent scholarship proposing the use of memory practice to remedy ... more ABSTRACT This article examines recent scholarship proposing the use of memory practice to remedy the traumatic aftermaths of Nigeria-Biafra War past. The assumption sustained in this scholarship is that through certain cultural memory practices such as truth commissions and commemorative rituals some form of appeasement might be reached regarding the extent of subsistence of that traumatic past. We fault these scholarly claims proposing memory as panacea to mass injustices and tragedies. In addition to the problematic proposals for using memory to remedy past atrocities in Nigeria, we observe that the question of justice is either absent or construed sometimes vaguely as one and the same with memorialisation. Accordingly, this paper further explores the place of justice in (and its implications for) this recent scholarship on Nigeria-Biafra War past. By inserting and centralising questions of justice in the discourse of that war, we seek to rethink the assumptions of memory practice as a remedy to past atrocities in Nigeria. The underlying argument of our discussion is that not only does the emphasis on memory diminish the political nature of the conflict but also that resort to memory indicates a continued reluctance to address the fundamental questions of political in/justice in Nigeria.
The Cambridge Journal of Postcolonial Literary Inquiry, 2019
This essay provides a critical review of the field of postcolonial African genocide writing. The ... more This essay provides a critical review of the field of postcolonial African genocide writing. The review makes a case for scholarly recognition of the discourse of African genocide literature. The essay advances some broad claims, among which include the following: that genocidal atrocities in Africa have provoked a body of imaginative literature, which, among other things, has attempted to imagine the conditions giving rise to African genocides, and that this body of literature underlines a confluence of sensibilities shaping atrocity writings and their critical receptions in Africa since the mid-twentieth century. The review provides a critical overview of fictional narratives as well as their scholarly receptions bordering on genocidal atrocities in the Nigerian and Rwandan contexts.
Peace Review, 2017
In discourses of violence, Africa—whether as a geography, a concept, or a racialized entity—is a ... more In discourses of violence, Africa—whether as a geography, a concept, or a racialized entity—is a familiar context. The long histories and legacies of slaveries and colonialisms have ensured that the subject of violence and conflict readily suggests itself whenever the idea of Africa is invoked. The continent’s familiarity with the subject of violence is also the result of a legacy of Western misrepresentations of realities on the continent and a result of manufactured conditions of violence discussed subsequently in this essay. To ask about violent conflicts in Africa has become a kind of anachronism for describing what philosopher Achille Mbembe describes in his book, On the Postcolony, as “a never-ending process of brutalization” constituting a singular force of history on the continent. The subjects and realities of violence in Africa are, so to speak, not new. To speak of “new” conflicts or patterns of contemporaneous violence taking place across the continent cannot amount to theorizing the “new” in African conflicts. What is at stake in such a query is the question of the changing epistemologies of (or how) we perceive violence, rather than questions of an emergence of a never-before-seen violence.
SUNY Press eBooks, Dec 1, 2022
Genocide studies and prevention, Nov 1, 2023
Politics of citizenship and migration, Dec 31, 2022
Oxford University Press eBooks, Sep 17, 2023
Research in African Literatures, 2019
American Review of Canadian Studies, 2018
View Crossmark data from a photographer to his city: "In Herzog's work it is late afternoon or ev... more View Crossmark data from a photographer to his city: "In Herzog's work it is late afternoon or evening when he releases the shutter. He photographs perforce in the evening hours, when the light is also milder, warmer, but without the play of shadows" (Koetzle, 27). In this sense, Herzog's Vancouver is at once empirical, ritualistic, and wholly unique.
Critical Arts, 2016
Abstract This article examines the patterns of diasporic formations occurring within Africa. This... more Abstract This article examines the patterns of diasporic formations occurring within Africa. This is with a view to broadening conceptualisations of the African diaspora in recent criticism of the subject. While noting that recent critical discussions of African diasporas have been significant for their focus on diasporic formations within Africa, this article observes that this scholarship has looked exclusively at diasporas formed through dispersion, especially through the European-occasioned dispersal of peoples. This focus on dispersion-induced diasporisation does not only fail to account for a more general diasporic situation on the African continent, but it also excludes from the diaspora discourse considerations of groups not formed through specific notions of dispersion. Therefore, this study highlights the instance of non-migrant diasporic conditions in Nigeria and by so doing problematises conceptions of African diasporas that insist basically on the conditions of dispersion, migration and vulnerability of populations. I further argue that the imposition of colonial borders and the loss of indigenous sovereignties account for the more pervasive diasporic situation in Africa. Broadening the concept of diaspora to include conditions and populations not generally considered in the discourse offers more nuanced results and helps us to revise the largely ethnic essentialisms on which diasporic formations in Africa have been constructed.
Peace and Conflict Studies, 2018
This article reexamines the British colonial policy of indirect rule in Nigeria. Moving away from... more This article reexamines the British colonial policy of indirect rule in Nigeria. Moving away from extant scholarly attention on this colonial policy that focuses on governance through local or native authorities, we focus rather on British colonial rule through imperial companies. We argue that the British colonist did not conceive of or organize "Nigeria" as a "nation", rather it was administered as a business enterprise in which the Crown depended on companies to "govern" its Nigerian colonies. Accordingly, the idea of the nation as a business enterprise defined its subjects and resources in ways that produced problematic notions of nationhood imagined in corporate terms. The net effect of this dimension of indirect rule through imperial companies is that "Nigeria" has remained imagined and governed not as a nation-state but as a corporation. We suggest that the challenges of postcolonial nationhood in Nigeria derive impetus largely from this conception and management of colonial Nigeria as a corporation. Our aim is to conceptualize the colonial corporatization of Nigeria, and describe the ensuing patterns of violent relations in its postcolony.
The Black Scholar, 2021
considers the crime novels of Jean-Claude Izzo and their counter-cartographies of postcolonial Ma... more considers the crime novels of Jean-Claude Izzo and their counter-cartographies of postcolonial Marseille. Experiments with Empire is well worth considering if you are looking for a way to think about empire and its aftermath without falling into an often deadended and retrenched mode of negative political critique. The work straddles a line between a metacommentary on the field of anthropology and the more traditional tool of close reading. Izzo does not agonize over the obvious colonial roots of the modern discipline of anthropology nor does he explore the ethical problems attached to ethnography as a tool of knowledge production. While some readers may find this to be a theoretical shortcoming, it demonstrates that Izzo’s project is more invested in the uses of anthropology to influence both literary and social forms. Experiments with Empire ultimately provides a roadmap in French studies for interdisciplinary scholarship that theorizes alternative possibilities for the study of postcolonial life.
Social Dynamics, 2020
ABSTRACT This article examines recent scholarship proposing the use of memory practice to remedy ... more ABSTRACT This article examines recent scholarship proposing the use of memory practice to remedy the traumatic aftermaths of Nigeria-Biafra War past. The assumption sustained in this scholarship is that through certain cultural memory practices such as truth commissions and commemorative rituals some form of appeasement might be reached regarding the extent of subsistence of that traumatic past. We fault these scholarly claims proposing memory as panacea to mass injustices and tragedies. In addition to the problematic proposals for using memory to remedy past atrocities in Nigeria, we observe that the question of justice is either absent or construed sometimes vaguely as one and the same with memorialisation. Accordingly, this paper further explores the place of justice in (and its implications for) this recent scholarship on Nigeria-Biafra War past. By inserting and centralising questions of justice in the discourse of that war, we seek to rethink the assumptions of memory practice as a remedy to past atrocities in Nigeria. The underlying argument of our discussion is that not only does the emphasis on memory diminish the political nature of the conflict but also that resort to memory indicates a continued reluctance to address the fundamental questions of political in/justice in Nigeria.
The Cambridge Journal of Postcolonial Literary Inquiry, 2019
This essay provides a critical review of the field of postcolonial African genocide writing. The ... more This essay provides a critical review of the field of postcolonial African genocide writing. The review makes a case for scholarly recognition of the discourse of African genocide literature. The essay advances some broad claims, among which include the following: that genocidal atrocities in Africa have provoked a body of imaginative literature, which, among other things, has attempted to imagine the conditions giving rise to African genocides, and that this body of literature underlines a confluence of sensibilities shaping atrocity writings and their critical receptions in Africa since the mid-twentieth century. The review provides a critical overview of fictional narratives as well as their scholarly receptions bordering on genocidal atrocities in the Nigerian and Rwandan contexts.
Peace Review, 2017
In discourses of violence, Africa—whether as a geography, a concept, or a racialized entity—is a ... more In discourses of violence, Africa—whether as a geography, a concept, or a racialized entity—is a familiar context. The long histories and legacies of slaveries and colonialisms have ensured that the subject of violence and conflict readily suggests itself whenever the idea of Africa is invoked. The continent’s familiarity with the subject of violence is also the result of a legacy of Western misrepresentations of realities on the continent and a result of manufactured conditions of violence discussed subsequently in this essay. To ask about violent conflicts in Africa has become a kind of anachronism for describing what philosopher Achille Mbembe describes in his book, On the Postcolony, as “a never-ending process of brutalization” constituting a singular force of history on the continent. The subjects and realities of violence in Africa are, so to speak, not new. To speak of “new” conflicts or patterns of contemporaneous violence taking place across the continent cannot amount to theorizing the “new” in African conflicts. What is at stake in such a query is the question of the changing epistemologies of (or how) we perceive violence, rather than questions of an emergence of a never-before-seen violence.