Sayling, stories from the mothership: narrating political geographies of Nigerian campus cultism

Weaver, Kristina N. (2010) Sayling, stories from the mothership: narrating political geographies of Nigerian campus cultism. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow.

Abstract

"Sayling, Stories from the Mothership" is a collection of ethnographic fictions – short stories – adapted from notes, archival materials, and interviews compiled over a year of geographic fieldwork in southwestern Nigeria. Touching on a wide range of themes, from domesticity to internet fraud, the stories explore the interface of occult violence and youth politics in the contemporary period. They are connected through overlapping characters and through their relationships to a central geography: the University of Ibadan (UI), Nigeria’s oldest and most prestigious institute of higher education and the site of origin for the nation’s first campus ‘cult’: the Pyrates Confraternity. The collection is, in essence, a character study of Nigerian campus cultism, itself. The stories are organized into three sections that can be mapped onto a ritual landscape: the stages of initiation, participation, and renunciation serve to link diverse voices and life stories. The dissertation is framed by a Preface and Epilogue that explore issues of race, representation, and reflexivity, themes that are important to a project engaging with living memories of contemporary violence. A critical prologue and footnotes throughout serve to connect the creative core of this work to larger academic, literary, and ethnographic contexts. An appendix features maps that highlight spaces and dates important to the stories as well as four original interview ‘transcripts’, semi-fictionalised records that provide both additional ethnographic detail and evidence of methodology.

• Item Type: Thesis (PhD)
• Qualification Level: Doctoral
• Keywords: Nigeria, campus cultism, student politics, postcolonialism, ethnography, oral history, fiction, radical geography
• Subjects: G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GF Human ecology. Anthropogeography; D History General and Old World > DT Africa; P Language and Literature > PR English literature
• Colleges/Schools: College of Arts & Humanities > School of Critical Studies > English Literature
• Supervisor's Name: Maley, Professor Willy
• Date of Award: 2010
• Depositing User: Kristina N. Weaver
• Unique ID: glathesis:2010-1512
• Copyright: Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
• Date Deposited: 28 Feb 2011
• Last Modified: 08 Mar 2021 08:44
• Thesis DOI: 10.5525/gla.thesis.1512
• URI: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/1512