Nigerian cityscapes: reading socio-ecological concerns in Anglophone novels since 1954

Mazza, Ana Victoria (2024) Nigerian cityscapes: reading socio-ecological concerns in Anglophone novels since 1954. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow.

Abstract

Some early Nigerian authors, such as Cyprian Ekwensi and Flora Nwapa, are well known for writing the city in the first decades after independence. Moreover, since the 1970s, Anglophone Nigerian urban literature has been experiencing an important growth (Griswold 2000). However, urban literature by Nigerian authors has not been sufficiently, nor consistently, studied; let alone in its ecological dimensions. The identified gap in ecocritical research on Nigerian urban fiction is consistent with a historical lack of attention to the city by both ecocritical and postcolonial studies, as well as with a marginalisation of postcolonial African cities within urban studies. Existing criticism is representative of the main trends in urban literary analysis conducted on Nigerian literature: studies that understand the city as opposed to nature and virtue; studies carried out from a political ecology and environmental justice framework; and those that focus on urban space, mobility, and identity in the city.

The present project thus constitutes an attempt to address this gap by proposing a sustained comparative urban ecocritical examination of Anglophone Nigerian novels. Grounded in the environmental humanities, the study draws mainly on insights from Marxist and postcolonial ecologies, in conversation with urban ecocriticism (Bennett and Teague 1999), or cultural urban ecologies (Schliephake 2014). Through the interrogation of an extensive set of novels, the main aim is to analyse how nature and the environment are construed in the city, and what links are established, if any, between the social and environmental predicaments portrayed in the fictional urban landscapes. Close comparative readings of the selected primary texts are here organised thematically, allowing for the establishment of dialogical relationships between the selected works.

This thesis contends that, as Nigerian cultural products, the selected novels represent, to varying degrees, the interpenetration of human and nonhuman nature in the city. Instead of constructing the urban as a Human product opposed to and distinct from Nature, the works both expose the very real consequences of this distinction for human and nonhuman nature, and blur the boundaries between them, as well as sometimes exploring alternative solutions and/or (re)imagining relations beyond the divide. The texts thus undermine the conceptual separation of Society and Nature, which has historically justified the commodification of nature and the development of (neo)colonial capitalism. A thorough examination of these works demonstrates the sustained presence of environmental issues in Nigerian urban literature. Crucially, such an analysis can also influence the way cities are conceived of and understood, offering new insights into and alternative solutions to longstanding urban socio-ecological issues.

• Item Type: Thesis (PhD)
• Qualification Level: Doctoral
• Subjects: P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) > PN0080 Criticism; 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 and Smith, Professor Andrew
• Date of Award: 2024
• Depositing User: Theses Team
• Unique ID: glathesis:2024-84600
• Copyright: Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
• Date Deposited: 08 Oct 2024 07:56
• Last Modified: 08 Oct 2024 07:58
• Thesis DOI: 10.5525/gla.thesis.84600
• URI: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/84600