Mobilizing Home: Diasporic Agitations and the Global Remakings of Postwar Southeastern Nigeria

Abstract

In the context of shifting global geographies of labor and political volatility, Nigerian migrant associations play a significant role in organizing diasporic life. Yet, far from being a culturally static feature, Igbo Nigerian associations emerge through diasporic agitations, or dynamic mobilizations around particular events, crises, and projects that deliberately engage the postcolonial state. Lu first reconsiders the significance of 1970s post-civil war reconstruction in southeastern Nigeria before tracing subsequent transformations in flexible diasporic organizations within Global South locations such as China and Dubai. These agile and multi-scalar diasporic mobilizations enable their members to negotiate the nexus of postcolonial politics and transnational capitalism.

Returns from the South: Effects of return migration of Ghanaian migrants from China on livelihoods and wealth inequalities in Ghana

“…This approach is consistent with other contemporary analysis of how, for instance, married Nigerian migrants in China factor in social networks both in Nigeria and in China in their return migration decision‐making (Adebayo, 2020). Or Lu (2022) work where she traces transformations in Nigerian flexible diasporic organizations within global southern locations such as China and Dubai and argues that these agile and multi‐scalar diasporic mobilizations enable their members to negotiate the nexus of postcolonial politics and transnational capitalism.…”

Long-distance nationalism, diaspora mobilisation, and the struggle for Biafran self-determination in Nigeria

“…That the Igbo diaspora could be considered a ‘victim diaspora’ does not necessarily mean that Igbos do not voluntarily migrate to geographic spaces for purposes of trade, commerce, or work. Being a ‘victim diaspora’, as Cohen (2008: 4, emphasis in original) explains, might also mean that ‘their victim origin is either self-affirmed or accepted by outside observers as determining their predominant character.’ Indeed, as Lu (2022b) has demonstrated in her ethnography conducted amongst Igbo diasporic merchants, there are Igbo trade and labour migrants in various parts of Asia and the Middle East. To say the Igbo diaspora is a ‘victim diaspora’ is not so much to undermine Igbos’ voluntary migration but to posit that Igbos’ dispersal since the late 1960s is largely the legacy of a traumatic experience during the Nigeria-Biafra war (1967-1970) whose memories remain alive and breed collective resentment against the post-war Nigerian state.…”

Liberalization in the Context of Democratization: Assessment of the January 2012 Fuel Subsidy Removal Protests in Nigeria

“…A week of nationwide mass actions led to the virtual shutdown of the Nigerian economy as citizens, under the guidance of civil society and labor unions, embarked on the most coordinated mass action that has ever resulted from the hike in fuel prices (Social Action, 2012). It is important to note that protests and mass actions of the nature witnessed in January 2012 were a demonstration of the spirit of citizens' political activism, an important hallmark of State-Society relations in post-colonial Nigeria (Lu, 2022). The continuation of civic engagements with the state utilizing the instruments of protest and mass social action was demonstrated through a digital campaign calling for the proscription of the dreadful Special Anti-Robbery Squad, SARS, of the Nigerian Police Force that started in late 2017 and the resurrection of the protest movement dubbed *EndSars, *EndSwat, *ReformPoliceNG, and *EndBadGovernance in October 2020 (Soyemi, 2020;Sule,2020).…”