Out of the Shadows: The Women Countering Insurgency in Nigeria

Abstract

Moving beyond the focus on violence against women and violence committed by women, this article interrogates violence countered by women. The article sheds new light on the gendered practices of counterinsurgency in northeast Nigeria, with critical attention to why women joined the civilian resistance to the Boko Haram insurgency and their complex role and agency as local security providers. Using the voices and lifeworlds of women who joined the Civilian Joint Task Force (yan gora) in Borno State as well as the Vigilante Group Nigeria and Hunters Association (kungiya marhaba) in Adamawa State, the article underscores the layered and gender-bending role of women as frontline fighters, knowledge brokers, state informants, and producers of vigilante technologies. The article finds that women counterinsurgents mobilized after Boko Haram shifted its strategy toward using female insurgents, especially as suicide bombers. Women joined the war against Boko Haram for complex reasons, including personal loss, revenge, family ties, community attachment, patriotism, and a collective yearning for normalcy.

Preserving the Future through the Past: Unveiling the Role of Collective Memory in Conflict- Affected Communities.

“…Moreover, most immobility research has concentrated on cross-border movements rather than internal dynamics within Nigeria, particularly those residing within conflict-affected communities. In existing mobility studies within Nigeria, the emphasis has been on exploring the experiences of individuals displaced to IDP camps, those coexisting with hostile entities such as Boko Haram, and others aligning with security apparatus to sustain their immobility in their native villages (Kamta, Schilling and Scheffran, 2020;Olojo, 2020;Agbiboa, 2021Agbiboa, , 2022Higazi, 2022). This paper employs the concept of collective memory to fill a significant research gap by capturing key factors influencing household immobility within Nigeria's Middle Belt region.…”