Description

This first comprehensive study of the Nigeria-Biafra War (1967-1970) through the lens of gender explores the valiant and gallant ways women carried out old and new responsibilities in wartime and immediate postwar Nigeria. The book presents women as embodiments of vulnerability and agency, who demonstrated remarkable resilience and initiative, waging war on all fronts in the face of precarious conditions and scarcities, and maximizing opportunities occasioned by the hostilities. Women’s experiences are highlighted through critical analyses of oral interviews, memoirs, life histories, fashion and material culture, international legal conventions, music, as well as governmental and non-governmental sources. The book fills the gap in the war scholarship that has minimized women’s complex experiences fifty years after the hostilities ended. It highlights the cost of the conflict on Nigerian women, their participation in the hostilities, and their contributions to the survival of families, communities and the country. The chapters present counter-narratives to fictional and nonfictional accounts of the war, especially those written by men, which often peripheralize or stereotypically represent women as passive spectators or helpless victims of the conflict; and also highlight and exaggerate women’s moral laxity and sensationalize their marital infidelities.

Table of Contents

Part I: Writing about Warring Women in Prewar, Wartime and Postwar Nigeria

Chapter 1: Introduction: Writing about Women and the Nigeria-Biafra War

Gloria Chuku

Chapter 2: Undressing to Redress: The Sexual Politics of Protests in Colonial and Post-Colonial Southeastern Nigeria

Bright Alozie


Part II: Women's War Life Stories and Memoirs

Chapter 3: Becoming Biafran: The Civil War Writing of Rosina Umelo

S. Elizabeth Bird

Chapter 4: Nwanyi B'uno: Reflections on Angelina Ihejirika's Memoir on the Nigeria-Biafra War

Christine N. Ohale

Chapter5: Invisible Loss: Rose Njoku's Narration of Familial Loss in the Nigeria-Biafra War

Comfort Olajumoke Verissimo

Chapter 6: Women, War Memories and Counter Memories: Stories of Survival, Resilience and Empowerment

Sussie U. Aham Okoro



Part III: War Conditions and Women's Coping Strategies

Chapter 7: Rape as a Moral Attack against Women in the Nigeria-Biafra War

Mary Rose-Claret Ogbuehi

Chapter 8: Igbo Maidens and the N

Product details

Published Oct 07 2020
Format Hardback
Edition 1st
Extent 372
ISBN 9781793617842
Imprint Lexington Books
Illustrations 9 b/w photos;
Dimensions 230 x 160 mm
Series Gender and Sexuality in Africa and the Diaspora
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing
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Related Titles

Environment: Staging