Animality and Colonial Subjecthood in Africa: The Human and Nonhuman Creatures of Nigeria (Ohio University Press, 2022)
With this multispecies study of animals as instrumentalities of the colonial state in Nigeria, Saheed Aderinto argues that animals, like humans, were colonial subjects in Africa.
Animality and Colonial Subjecthood in Africa broadens the historiography of animal studies by putting a diverse array of species (dogs, horses, livestock, and wildlife) into a single analytical framework for understanding colonialism in Nigeria and Africa as a whole.
From his study of animals with unequal political, economic, social, and intellectual capabilities, Aderinto establishes that the core dichotomies of human colonial subjecthood—indispensable yet disposable, good and bad, violent but peaceful, saintly and lawless—were also embedded in the identities of Nigeria’s animal inhabitants. If class, religion, ethnicity, location, and attitude toward imperialism determined the pattern of relations between human Nigerians and the colonial government, then species, habitat, material value, threat, and biological and psychological characteristics (among other traits) shaped imperial perspectives on animal Nigerians.
Conceptually sophisticated and intellectually engaging, Aderinto’s thesis challenges readers to rethink what constitutes history and to recognize that human agency and narrative are not the only makers of the past.
Guns and Society in Colonial Nigeria: Firearms, Culture, and Public Order (Indiana University Press, 2018)
Guns are an enduring symbol of imperialism, whether they are used to impose social order, create ceremonial spectacle, incite panic, or to inspire confidence. In Guns and Society, Saheed Aderinto considers the social, political, and economic history of these weapons in colonial Nigeria. As he transcends traditional notions of warfare and militarization, Aderinto reveals surprising insights into how colonialism changed access to firearms after the 19th century. In doing so, he explores the unusual ways in which guns were used in response to changes in the Nigerian cultural landscape. More Nigerians used firearms for pastime and professional hunting in the colonial period than at any other time. The boom and smoke of gunfire even became necessary elements in ceremonies and political events. Aderinto argues that firearms in the Nigerian context are not simply commodities but are also objects of material culture. Considering guns in this larger context provides a clearer understanding of the ways in which they transformed a colonized society.
When Sex Threatened the State: Illicit Sexuality, Nationalism, and Politics in Colonial Nigeria, 1900-1958 (University of Illinois Press, 2015)
British colonizers saw prostitution as a distinctively African form of sexual primitivity and as a problem to be solved as part of the "civilizing mission" they used to morally justify imperialism. Saheed Aderinto details the Nigerian response to imported sexuality laws and the contradictory ways both British and African reformers advocated for prohibition or regulation of prostitution. Tracing the tensions within diverse groups of colonizers and the colonized to highlight their concerns, he reveals how wrangling over prostitution camouflaged the negotiating of separate issues that threatened the social, political, and sexual ideologies of Africans and Europeans alike.
The first book-length project on sexuality in early twentieth century Nigeria, When Sex Threatened the State combines the study of a colonial demimonde with an urban history of Lagos and a look at government policy to provide a cutting-edge reappraisal of the history of Nigerian public life.
Children and Childhood in Colonial Nigerian Histories (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015)
This book brings together the newest and the most innovative scholarship on Nigerian children—one of the least researched groups in African colonial history. It engages the changing conceptions of childhood, relating it to the broader themes about modernity, power, agency, and social transformation under imperial rule.
Sports in African History, Politics, and Identity Formation (Routledge, 2019)
Sports in African History, Politics, and Identity Formation explores how sports can render a key to unlocking complex social, political, economic, and gendered relations across Africa and the Diaspora.
Sports hold significant value and have an intricate relationship with many components of African societies throughout history. For many Africans, sports are a way of life, a site of cultural heroes, a way out of poverty and social mobility, and a site for leisurely play. This book focuses on the many ways in which sports uniquely reflect changing cultural trends at diverse levels of African societies. The contributors detail various sports, such as football, cricket, ping pong, and rugby, across the continent to show how sports lay at the heart of the discourse of nationalism, self-fashioning, gender and masculinity, leisure and play, challenges of underdevelopment, and ideas of progress.
Bringing together the newest and most innovative scholarship on African sports, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of contemporary Africa, African history, culture and society, and sports history and politics.
The Third Wave of Historical Scholarship on Nigeria: Essays in Honor of Ayodeji Olukoju (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012)
This festschrift in honor of Professor Ayodeji Olukoju, one of Nigeria’s brightest historians, brings together scholarship representative of the third wave of historical scholarship on Nigeria. Olukoju, a pioneering historian of Nigerian maritime history, also produced significant revisionist scholarship in the areas of economic, urban, and infrastructure history. The contributions in this volume epitomize the groundbreaking directions of his career; they are marked by a search for new explanations and venture into uncharted terrain in Nigerian history. Aside from its critical engagement of Olukoju’s impressive scholarship, this volume presents chapters on such underresearched aspects of Nigerian history as sexuality, children and youth, crime, memory, and HIV/AIDS. It offers historical explanations of a host of development challenges confronting Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, and resilient reinterpretations of the place of history in nation building. The contributors, pioneering experts in their various subfields, bring their research and teaching experience to the fore and deploy neglected data as they unfold topics that shed light on Nigeria, its peoples, and cultures. They show that history, both as a daily practice and as an academic endeavor, remains vital as Africans seek solutions to the continent’s critical development challenges.
African Kingdoms: An Encyclopedia of Empires and Civilizations (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2017)
This history-rich volume details the sociopolitical, economic, and artistic aspects of African kingdoms from the earliest times to the second half of the 19th century.
Africa has a long and fascinating history and is a place of growing importance in the world history curriculum. This detailed encyclopedia covers the history of African kingdoms from antiquity through the mid-19th century, tracing the dynasties' ties to modern globalization and influences on world culture before, during, and after the demise of the slave trade. Along with an exploration of African heritage, this reference is rich with firsthand accounts of Africa through the oral traditions of its people and the written journals of European explorers, missionaries, and travelers who visited Africa from the 15th century and onward.
Alphabetically arranged entries cover a particular kingdom and feature information on the economic, cultural, religious, political, social, and environmental history of the regime. The content references popular culture, movies, and art that present contemporary reenactments of kingdoms, emphasizing the importance of history in shaping modern ideas. Other features include primary source documents, a selected bibliography of print and electronic resources, and dozens of sidebars containing key facts and interesting trivia.
Nigeria, Nationalism, and Writing History (Rochester University Press, 2010)
The book traces the history of writing about Nigeria since the nineteenth century, with an emphasis on the rise of nationalist historiography and the leading themes.
The second half of the twentieth century saw the publication of massive amounts of literature on Nigeria by Nigerian and non-Nigerian historians. This volume reflects on that literature, focusing on those works by Nigerians in the context of the rise and decline of African nationalist historiography. Given the diminishing share in the global output of literature on Africa by African historians, it has become crucial to reintroduce Africans into historical writing about Africa. As the authors attempt here to rescue older voices, they also rehabilitate a stale historiography by revisiting the issues, ideas, and moments that produced it. This revivalism also challenges Nigerian historians of the twenty-first century to study the nation in new ways, to comprehend its modernity, and to frame a new set of questions on Nigeria's future and globalization.
In spite of current problems in Nigeria and its universities, that historical scholarship on Nigeria (and by extension, Africa) has come of age is indisputable. From a country that struggled for Western academic recognition in the 1950s to one that by the 1980s had emerged as one of the most studied countries in Africa, Nigeria is not only one of the early birthplaces of modern African history, but has also produced members of the first generation of African historians whose contributions to the development and expansion of modern African history is undeniable. Like their counterparts working on other parts of the world, these scholars have been sensitive to the need to explore virtually all aspects of Nigerian history. The book highlights the careers of some of Nigeria's notable historians of the first and second generation.