Academic literature on the topic 'Indigenous peoples Nigeria'

The aim of the article is to examine the theories that underpin the ownership and management of oil rights in Nigeria and the need for a new ownership model. The economy of Nigeria is majorly supported by revenues from natural resources, especially crude oil. With the downturn in the country’s economy, the Nigerian Federal Government recently embarked on a series of crude oil discoveries to increase revenue despite the unresolved violations of human rights of the indigenous peoples and environmental abuses committed during oil exploration in the Niger Delta region of the country. The Nigerian government finds justification for this uncontrolled exploration of natural resources in the doctrine of discovery and the rule of capture. The author argues that basing the right of the Nigerian Federal Government to explore natural resources on the two doctrines has negative implications on the rights of indigenous peoples in Nigeria and environmental protection, and is a continuation of the philosophies behind colonialism. Therefore, the article examines the doctrine of discovery, the rule of capture, the colonial philosophies of property rights, and the legal regime regarding ownership of natural resources in Nigeria. It suggests a hybrid ownership model where ownership is shared between indigenous groups and the government.

There is no agreed definition of indigenous peoples (IPs) as the international community has not agreed to any. However, an examination of international instruments and literature on the subject presents a picture. This article examines the definition of IPs and its relevance to Africa. The case study of Abuja, Nigeria is used as a vehicle to challenge the existing descriptions of IPs. It argues that international law should expand its definition of IPs to include collectives of peoples with diverse cultures in Africa. Analogical insights are drawn from international child rights law to advance the argument that international law on IPs’ rights can learn from the evolution of international children’s rights law.

The many States are engulfed in crises over natural resources in the form of claims and counterclaims over who should exercise legal authority over the resources located within the state territory. In Nigeria, the agitation over control of natural resources has led to militancy and rebellion against the federal government and multinational oil companies. The debate on who should control and manage natural oil resources in Nigeria exists at the local community level, the federating states level, and the federal government level. This paper x-rayed the varying contentions of these agitations from an international law perspective. It adopted the doctrinal method to explore international human rights instruments and other legal and non-legal sources to realize the result and arrive at persuasive conclusions. The paper concluded that although international law guarantees states’ exercise of sovereign rights over their natural resources, it safeguards the right of indigenous peoples and communities to manage the natural resources found within their ancestral lands to deepen their economic and social development. It also concluded that the Niger Delta indigenous peoples and oil-producing communities are entitled to exercise some measure of control and management of the processes of exploitation of the natural resources found within their lands. The paper calls on the Nigerian government to fast-track legal and policy reforms to resource rights to indigenous host communities of natural resources in Nigeria.

Like elsewhere in Nigeria and Africa, the imposition of colonial rule on Batombuland and the incursion of western ideas produced profound socio-cultural, economic and political changes in the Batombu society. However, unlike several Nigerian and African peoples whose histories have received extensive scholarly attention, the history of the Batombu has attracted very little scholarly attention. Thus virtually neglected, the Batombu occupies a mere footnote position in the extant historiography of Nigeria. This is the gap this article seeks to fill. It examines the impact of colonialism and western civilisation on Batombu’s political, social, economic and cultural institutions and concludes that as profound and far-reaching as these changes were some important aspects of the indigenous institutions and traditional practices of the people survived.

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples provides a reasonable template for remedying the perceived injustices indigenous groups assert that they face in post-colonial states. In certain cases, indigenous peoples have claimed that they entered into 'treaty relations' with European colonizing powers like the United Kingdom. Those 'treaties' or agreements gave them specific rights as a condition for the surrender of indigenous sovereignties to imperialists. The further argument is that the post-colonial state ought to recognize and preserve the rights encapsulated in those treaties. This article highlights some of these rights as enunciated by UNDRIP, especially the right of internal self-determination. It looks at the significance of 'historic treaties' especially highlighted in the case of Cameroon v Nigeria etc., a dispute decided by the International Court of Justice at The Hague. It looks at treaties made by traditional authorities in Southern Nigeria and cross-references those made by Native Americans of Canada. The British imperial Crown was at the centre of the jurisprudence of these historical treaties. The implication of those indigenous treaties and their current significance. It contends that the concept of indigenousness has been determined by European colonialism. The concept does not easily fit in with the African continent, especially south of the Sahara, where Africans see themselves as indigenous. To be Indigenous in the end will depend on degrees of indigeneity, identity, self-identification, and other factors. The indigenous rights people have received through UNDRIP presents a substantive case for their legitimation in the post-colonial state. To give effect to the right of internal self-determination of indigenous peoples, the Belgian Thesis and the repatriation proffered the measure of sovereign powers back to indigenous peoples and their traditional authorities – The Kings, Chiefs, and Elders that initially surrendered their sovereignties to the British imperial Crown. This is suggested as a way forward in such countries as Nigeria, where there are ongoing clamours for the constitutional restructuring of the country by non–state actors. Abstrak: Deklarasi PBB tentang Hak-Hak Masyarakat Adat (The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples-UNDRIP) menyediakan kerangka yang masuk akal untuk memperbaiki ketidakadilan yang dirasakan oleh kelompok-kelompok adat di negara-negara pasca-kolonial. Dalam kasus tertentu, masyarakat adat mengklaim bahwa mereka melakukan 'perjanjian hubungan' dengan penjajah Eropa seperti Inggris. 'Perjanjian-perjanjian' atau kesepakatan-kesepakatan tersebut memberikan hak-hak khusus kepada masyarakat adat sebagai syarat penyerahan kedaulatan pribumi kepada kaum imperialis. Argumen lainnya adalah bahwa negara pasca-kolonial harus mengakui dan melestarikan hak-hak yang dirangkum dalam perjanjian-perjanjian tersebut. Artikel ini membahas beberapa hak-hak ini sebagaimana dinyatakan oleh UNDRIP, terutama hak penentuan nasib sendiri secara internal. Artikel ini melihat pentingnya 'perjanjian bersejarah' yang secara khusus dikaji dalam kasus Kamerun v Nigeria dll., perselisihan yang diputuskan oleh Mahkamah Internasional di Den Haag. Kasus ini terlihat pada perjanjian yang dibuat oleh otoritas tradisional di Nigeria Selatan dan referensi silang yang dibuat oleh penduduk asli Amerika di Kanada. Kekaisaran Inggris berada di pusat yurisprudensi dari perjanjian-perjanjian bersejarah ini. Implikasi dari perjanjian-perjanjian adat tersebut dan signifikansinya saat ini menyatakan bahwa konsep pribumi telah ditentukan oleh kolonialisme Eropa. Sulit untuk konsep tersebut cocok dengan benua Afrika, terutama Sahara Selatan, di mana orang Afrika melihat diri mereka sebagai pribumi. Menjadi Pribumi, pada akhirnya, akan tergantung pada derajat kepribumian, identitas, identifikasi diri, dan faktor-faktor lainnya. Hak-hak masyarakat adat yang diterima melalui UNDRIP menyajikan kasus substantif untuk legitimasi mereka di negara pasca-kolonial. Untuk melaksanakan hak penentuan nasib sendiri internal masyarakat adat, Tesis Belgia dan repatriasi mengajukan kekuasaan berdaulat kembali ke masyarakat adat dan otoritas tradisional mereka, para raja, kepala, dan sesepuh yang awalnya menyerahkan kedaulatan mereka kepada kekaisaran Inggris. Hal ini direkomendasikan sebagai solusi di negara-negara seperti Nigeria, dimana sedang berlangsung tuntutan untuk restrukturisasi konstitusional negara oleh aktor non-negara. Kata Kunci: UNRIP, Perjanjian Bersejarah, Melegitimasi Hak Asasi Manusia, Masyarakat Adat, Penentuan Nasib Sendiri

The need for protecting indigenous peoples’ lands as human rights in domestic legislation dealing with climate change response measures, that is, initiatives meant to address adverse effects of climate change, has been emphasised in a range of resolutions and decisions made under the auspices of the United Nations Human Rights Council (unhrc) and the United Nations Framework on Climate Change Convention (unfccc). Where domestic legislation on climate change response measures fails to protect adequately indigenous peoples’ lands, what potentials exist within the African human rights system? Using Nigeria, Zambia and Tanzania as illustration, this article demonstrates how key legislation dealing with climate change response measures fails to protect indigenous peoples’ lands in Africa. It then explores potentials within the African regional human rights system for addressing the inadequate gap existing within domestic legislation on the protection of indigenous peoples’ lands in the context of climate change response measures in Africa.

This article looks at the connection between a political movement and the evolution of Christian consciousness. It seeks to answer a series of questions not often asked, in hopes of demonstrating that these questions deserve more attention than they have generated in the past. Historians and mission scholars rightly expend a good deal of effort studying the transition in mission-established churches from European to indigenous control. Missions did more than establish churches, however. They established local Christian cultures. Yet while there is some understanding of what indigenous peoples sought to do when they assumed direction of churches founded by missionaries, there is very little idea of what indigenous peoples have sought to do when they take over local Christian cultures. But, if it is the case that, as Lamin Sanneh has argued, Christianity “stimulated the vernacular,” then the local Christian cultures built upon the vernacular, perhaps more so than the churches missions founded, are the true legacy of the missionary enterprise.

This article examines literary works of bilingual authors in Nigeria, who create their own national cultural worldviews through the language in which they write, thereby explaining why English in Nigeria is influenced by Nigerian culture. Nigeria is a country that has witnessed a cross-flow of linguistic change due to its inherent multilingualism combined with colonial experiences under British rule, a country where ethnic minorities were referred to as “oil minorities”. Although only two languages are recognized as official languages in Nigeria — Yoruba and English –the problem of multilingualism in Nigeria today remains unexplored, and where there is language contact, there must be a language conflict. Indeed, contiguous languages are often competitive languages and there is no language contact without language conflict. Moreover, the problem of linguistic contact and linguistic conflict exists at three different but interrelated levels: social, psychological and linguistic. The social aspect is related to such issues as the choice of language and its use, the psychological — to the attitude towards language, ethnicity, while the linguistic aspects are focused on the code switching, the donor language intervention, which the English language is. The language conflict has influenced the literary work of Nigerian writers writing in English, which has become an exoglossic language, superimposed on the indigenous languages of the Nigerian peoples. Thus, bilingualism in Nigeria can be considered semi-exoglossic, including English coupled with language mixing.

This study was conducted in response to perceived ethnic rivalries in Nigeria. The government of President Muhammadu Buhari is bedeviled with ethnic strife and disgruntled voices against federalism due to the perceived superiority of one ethnic group over another in a plural federal state like Nigeria. Against this backdrop, the study evaluates perceptions of equity among indigenous peoples in southern Nigeria. The peoples of the south-east and south-south dominated the call for restructuring due to the skewered arrangement of the nation. This paper's theoretical framework is based on the foundation of John Lock's social contract, especially his treatise on the extent and end of civil government. The sample size was 1352 using a quantitative and qualitative survey. Data were collected quantitatively and qualitatively. The instruments of data collection consisted of a structured questionnaire and an unstructured interview. The data were analysed quantitatively and qualitatively. It was found that 992 participants, which represented more than three-quarters of the sample, disagreed that ethnic groups are treated fairly; 735 also held that unfair treatment is a recipe for disunity. The Chi Square estimate, x2 81.5; p<0.005, tested for ethnic treatment and national unity, was significant, and treatment determines national unity. The study also indicates that indigenous peoples expressed concerns about a failed state that undermined the current federal state. The study therefore recommends that the National Assembly's legislative role be strengthened in making federal appointments to strategic positions. This could possibly alleviate mistrust about treatment by the federal government.

Abstract: The effects of the Second World War on food insecurity in Africa have gained scholarly attention over the past few years; however, there have been no comprehensive attempts to provide historical evidence and analyze the experience of food insecurity in the colonial territories that later transformed into Southern Nigeria. This article fills this gap in research and argues that the demands of the British colonial government for food supplies, along with other policies geared toward agricultural regulation such as the Pullen Scheme, led to such inflation of food prices in urban centers that rural producers could not meet the demand for foodstuffs. The resulting food shortage triggered reactions from indigenous peoples, particularly market women in the southern and eastern provinces of colonial Nigeria. The article supports its arguments using a combination of sources from the Nigerian National Archives, newspaper reports, and peer-reviewed journals.

Indigenous people (IP) and minorities (IM)have similar problems of political, economic, and social marginalisation. The Nigerian government (hiding behind the veil of the African Union) does not recognise the indigenous status of deserving ethnic groups. This has left indigenous minorieties unprotected. Considering the situation in Africa generally, and in Nigeria specifically, this research work is aimed at answering the following questions: (1) Will the protection and promotion of the rights of IP in Africa not be effective if they are considered as IM; thereby giving the dominant majority a place in the ‘indigeneity’ of the country? (2) How can the IP of the minority tribes in the Niger Delta be entitled to legal protection from non-recognition of their status by the government? (3) Assuming, but not conceding, that everyone in Nigeria is indigenous to the country and to every region of the country, does this deprive IM in an age-long marginalised region a special attention by means of affirmative action? (4) What legal protection is accorded to minorities among IP? (5) Are there negative implications for ethnic minorities in the different regions of a country by the blanket recognition of all natives of that country as IP? (6) How can the available legal framework under the United Nations and the African Union for the protection of IP and minorities be effectively utilised to the advantage of IP despite the current position of the African Union on IP?
Thesis (LLM (Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa)) -- University of Pretoria, 2008.
A Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Law University of Pretoria, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Masters of Law (LLM in Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa). Prepared under the supervision of Mr. Angelo Matusse, of the faculty of law, Universidade Eduardo Mondlane, Mozambique
http://www.chr.up.ac.za/
Centre for Human Rights
LLM

In many former British colonies independence from colonial rule has produced a myriad of post-colonial tensions. Increasingly, writers from the indigenous race in these former colonies have felt moved to respond to these tensions in their imaginative fiction. This study has undertaken a comparative cross-cultural analysis of the works of two writers from such societies whose indigenous cultures share common assumptions, to explore the underlying impetus of these tensions, and the writers� proposals for resolving them. Chapter One assesses Witi Ihimaera as a writer, and explores his concept of biculturalism, with particular emphasis on the distinctly Maori point of view which informs his analysis of contemporary social problems. Chapter Two assays Ihimaera�s pastoral writings, Pounamu Pounamu, Tangi, and Whanau, tracing in them the development of his concept of biculturalism, and also the changes in Ihimaera�s writing that culminated in The new Net Goes Fishing, with the hardening of attitude that it expresses. Chapter Three looks at the revisionism of Ihimaera�s view of New Zealand history from a Maori viewpoint. It uses Ihimaera�s The Matriarch not only as a means of exploring this revisionist Maori perspective, but also as evidence of the radicalisation of Ihimaera�s views, and the broadening of the concept of biculturalism to embrace not only cultural, but social and political matters. Chapter Four considers Ihimaera�s The Whale Rider as a feminist restatement of earlier views and highlights the growing dilemma he faces concerning the concept of biculturalism. Chapter Five focuses on Achebe, the writer, and his view of the role of the African writer in contemporary society. It argues that Achebe views himself as a seer, a visionary writer who has the answer that could regenerate his society. Chapter Six analyses Achebe�s Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God, and argues that contrary to accepted views of Okonkwo, this character is not actually representative of his society but a deviant. It further argues that the post-colonial African societies� affictions with irresponsible leaders were already manifest in the colonial period, through characters such as Okonkwo and Ezeulu, whom Achebe sees as guilty of gross abuses of power and privilege. Chapter Seven looks at both No Longer at Ease and A Man of the People, and argues that the failure of the first indigenous administrative class stems both from their having an incomplete apprehension of all the aspects of their heritage and the responsibility which power imposes on those who exercise it, and also from lack of restraint in wielding of power. It further argues that the unbridled scramble for materialism has resulted in the destruction of democratic principles. In the context of contemporary New Zealand society, Ihimaera sees the solution for Maori post-colonial tensions as bicultural integration, but he is having problems with the concept in the face of increasing radical activism from Maoris who see it as little better than assimilation. Achebe, however, has opted for re-formism, having discarded traditionalism because it is inadequate for people in the modern world.

This thesis examines the potential of the indigenous right to internal self-determination as a framework accommodating the demands of the Niger Delta Peoples for Self-determination within the sovereignty of Nigeria. The unsustainable exploitation of crude oil in the Niger Delta resulted in the ecological devastation of the region and adversely affected the Niger Delta People's subsistent traditional mode of using their lands. The response of the Niger Delta People was originally to seek redress by instituting legal actions in Nigerian courts. The failure of the majority of these actions, and the combined factors of the exclusion of the Niger Delta People from the process and proceeds of the oil industry and their marginalization in the political and administrative structure of Nigeria resulted in the demand by the Niger Delta People that Nigeria recognize their right to self-determination. They justified this demand for self-determination with the arguments that:  Their dispossession from their lands by the government in Nigeria was akin to the exploitation of indigenous peoples in the Americas by colonial settlers.  The unsustainable exploitation of resources in their territory placed them in the same position as colonized peoples experienced under foreign domination in the era of colonization. In a bid to protect her sovereignty, Nigeria does not recognize the rights of self-determination or 'peoplehood' or even minority status of any ethnic groups within Nigeria. This thesis argues that the indigenous right to internal self-determination is a framework that has the potential to bring lasting solution to the conflict between the Niger Delta people and the government of Nigeria for the following reasons:  Indigenous internal self-determination prescribes a category of self-determination that is consistent with the sovereignty of states because it recommends inter alia autonomy with the territories of states. Indigenous internal self-determination provides a regime for sustainable development of resources as it recommends inter alia that states recognize the right of indigenous peoples to participation, consultation and free prior informed consent in the exploitation of resources in indigenous peoples' territory.

Bibliography: leaves 651-699. "Through case studies of three emerging economies - Ecuador, Nigeria and Russia - this thesis analyses the factors present to a greater or lesser degree in emerging economies, such as severe foreign indebtedness and the absence of the rule of law, that undermine the effectiveness of the legal system in protecting indigenous peoples from oil exploitation. Having identified these factors, I propose that a dual approach to the protection of indigenous peoples' traditional lands and their environment be adopted, whereby international laws that set out the rights of indigenous peoples and place duties on states in this regard, are reinforced and translated into practice through the self-regulation of the international oil industry through a voluntary code of conduct for oil companies seeking to operate on indigenous peoples' traditional lands."

In 1976, the Nigerian Government compulsorily acquired the ancestral lands of Abuja peoples of Nigeria without payment of compensation or resettlement. This is legitimised under Nigerian State laws. Indigenous peoples (IPs) suffer from injustices in relation to land globally. The purpose of this thesis is to find answers to the research questions emanating from this case study. One avenue explored herein in addressing dispossession of IPs’ lands in Africa, is through considering the relevance of international law on their rights. However, there is no universally agreed definition of IPs. In the determination of whether international law provides solutions to the challenges of protecting land rights of Abuja peoples, the existing description of IPs is challenged. The second avenue explored herein, is through a comparative approach to understanding how Kenya has resolved these challenges and how Nigeria should respond to similar challenges. The case study is used to illustrate the need for a viable relationship between State law, IPs’ customary law and international law. The choice of Nigeria is because the case study is in Nigeria. The choice of Kenya as a comparator is because like Nigeria, Kenya is Anglophone with a plural legal system and has recently embarked on law reforms in relation to customary land rights and the place of international law within its legal system. Drawing from theories of legal pluralism and post-colonialism, this doctrinal, case study and comparative enquiry, makes the following original contributions to knowledge. Firstly, the case study is used to argue that international law should expand its description of IPs to include collective of peoples with different cultures. Secondly, it draws from international child rights law to advance the argument that international law on IPs should present them more positively. Finally, the comparative analysis between Nigeria and Kenya on the above subjects has not been made by any known literature at the time of writing.

Adult Education as a humanitarian discipline is critical for ensuring social justice, human capital development and social transformation in different walks of human life. The role of Adult Education in achieving the above objectives could only be visible in Africa with the institution building. The decolonisation process of adult education played a vital role in ensuring such institution building in Africa. The early inception of Adult Education in Africa has received enormous contributions of great scholars and educators, who established and strengthened institutions of indigenous education for proper entrenchment of Adult Education. One of such great scholars was Professor Lalage Bown of blessed memory, who contributed to Adult Education discourse across many African countries. This chapter uses primary and secondary sources of data to establish ways of enhancing Adult Education, while reflecting on the works and legacies of Bown. It discusses the legacies of Lalage in the light of personal reflection of the author, who was privileged to meet Bown at a conference as a student at the University of Glasgow. The chapter draws from the experience of the people who worked or had encounters with Professor Bown in Nigeria and beyond. It examines publications and activities of Bown in the promotion of indigenous knowledge. It offers policy directions arising from the discussions of Bown’s legacies in order to provide solutions to the current economic, social and political development challenges facing Africa.

AbstractThe severity of extreme weather and climate change impacts around the world has been a public health concern in the last few decades. Apart from greenhouse gas generation, poor waste management exacerbates consequences of global warming such as flooding, lower crop yields, and the epidemic of diseases which can escalate into disastrous situations. The general public in developing economies sees wastes as valueless materials and disposes them through open burning, stream dumping, or as conveniently as possible. Also, the cutting of trees for firewood leads to deforestation and desertification that increase people’s vulnerability to climate change impact. Against this backdrop, there is a need for a paradigm shift toward developing indigenous technologies that convert solid waste to cheap and clean energy. Various innovations use the “green technology approach” in putting trash back into the value chain. Furthermore, the green technology approach has a great potential to enhance adaptation and resilience among climate change-displaced populations where they can set up microenterprise on useful end products. In this chapter, unique features of these technologies at the Renewable Resources Centre of the University of Ibadan, practice-oriented researches, and a case study at Kube-Atenda community Ibadan, Nigeria, are presented. This chapter is therefore set out to showcase examples of waste management initiatives and strategies that have been successfully implemented elsewhere by the authors. It also focuses on how some countries in the continent, with developing economies, may foster their resilience and their capacity to adapt to climate change.

AbstractThe severity of extreme weather and climate change impacts around the world has been a public health concern in the last few decades. Apart from greenhouse gas generation, poor waste management exacerbates consequences of global warming such as flooding, lower crop yields, and the epidemic of diseases which can escalate into disastrous situations. The general public in developing economies sees wastes as valueless materials and disposes them through open burning, stream dumping, or as conveniently as possible. Also, the cutting of trees for firewood leads to deforestation and desertification that increase people’s vulnerability to climate change impact. Against this backdrop, there is a need for a paradigm shift toward developing indigenous technologies that convert solid waste to cheap and clean energy. Various innovations use the “green technology approach” in putting trash back into the value chain. Furthermore, the green technology approach has a great potential to enhance adaptation and resilience among climate change-displaced populations where they can set up microenterprise on useful end products. In this chapter, unique features of these technologies at the Renewable Resources Centre of the University of Ibadan, practice-oriented researches, and a case study at Kube-Atenda community Ibadan, Nigeria, are presented. This chapter is therefore set out to showcase examples of waste management initiatives and strategies that have been successfully implemented elsewhere by the authors. It also focuses on how some countries in the continent, with developing economies, may foster their resilience and their capacity to adapt to climate change.

AbstractMost of Eriksen’s research over the years has somehow or other dealt with the local implications of globalization. He has looked at ethnic dynamics, the challenges of forging national identities, creolization and cosmopolitanism, the legacies of plantation societies and, more recently, climate change in the era of ‘accelerated acceleration’. Here we want to talk not just about cultural diversity and not just look at biological diversity, but both, because he believes that there are some important pattern resemblances between biological and cultural diversity. And many of the same forces militate against that and threaten to create a flattened world with less diversity, less difference. And, obviously, there is a concern for the future. We need to have an open ended future with different options, maximum flexibility and the current situation with more homogenization. We live in a time when there are important events taking place, too, from climate change to environmental destruction, and we need to do something about that. In order to show options and possibilities for the future, we have to focus on diversity because complex problems need diverse answers.Martina: I would like to start with a passion of mine to get into one of your main research themes: diversity. I’m a Marvel fan and, what is emerging, is a reduction of what Marvel has always been about: diversity in comics. There seems to be a standardization that reduces the specificity of each superhero and so it seems that everyone is the same in a kind of indifference of difference. So in this hyper-diversity, I think there is also a reduction of diversity. Do you see something similar in your studies as well?Thomas: It’s a great example, and it could be useful to look briefly at the history of thought about diversity and the way in which it’s suddenly come onto the agenda in a huge way. If you take a look at the number of journal articles about diversity and related concepts, the result is stunning. Before 1990, the concept was not much used. In the last 30 years or so, it’s positively exploded. You now find massive research on biodiversity, cultural diversity, agro-biodiversity, biocultural diversity, indigenous diversity and so on. You’ll also notice that the growth curve has this ‘overheating shape’ indicating exponential growth in the use of the terms. And why is this? Well, I think this has something to do with what Hegel described when he said that ‘the owl of Minerva flies at dusk,’ which is to say that it is only when a phenomenon is being threatened or even gone that it catches widespread attention. Regarding diversity, we may be witnessing this mechanism. The extreme interest in diversity talk since around 1990 is largely a result of its loss which became increasingly noticeable since the beginning of the overheating years in the early 1990s. So many things happened at the same time, more or less. I was just reminded yesterday of the fact that Nelson Mandela was released almost exactly a year after the fall of the Berlin Wall. There were many major events taking place, seemingly independently of each other, in different parts of the world. This has something to do with what you’re talking about, because yes, I think you’re right, there has been a reduction of many kinds of diversity.So when we speak of superdiversity, which we do sometimes in migration studies (Vertovec, 2023), we’re really mainly talking about people who are diverse in the same ways, or rather people who are diverse in compatible ways. They all fit into the template of modernity. So the big paradox here of identity politics is that it expresses similarity more than difference. It’s not really about cultural difference because they rely on a shared language for talking about cultural difference. So in other words, in order to show how different you are from everybody else, you first have to become quite similar. Otherwise, there is a real risk that we’d end up like Ludwig Wittgenstein’s lion. In Philosophical Investigations (Wittgenstein, 1983), he remarks that if a lion could talk, we wouldn’t understand what it was saying. Lévi-Strauss actually says something similar in Tristes Tropiques (Lévi-Strauss, 1976) where he describes meeting an Amazonian people, I think it was the Nambikwara, who are so close that he could touch them, and yet it is as though there were a glass wall between them. That’s real diversity. It’s different in a way that makes translation difficult. And it’s another world. It’s a different ontology.These days, I’m reading a book by Leslie Bank and Nellie Sharpley about the Coronavirus pandemic in South Africa (Bank & Sharpley, 2022), and there are rural communities in the Eastern Cape which don’t trust biomedicine, so many refuse vaccinations. They resist it. They don’t trust it. Perhaps they trust traditional remedies slightly more. This was and is the situation with HIV-AIDS as well. This is a kind of diversity which is understandable and translateable, yet fundamental. You know, there are really different ways in which we see the Cosmos and the universe. So if you take the Marvel films, they’ve really sort of renovated and renewed the superhero phenomenon, which was almost dead when they began to revive it. As a kid around 1970, I was an avid reader of Superman and Batman. I also read a lot of Donald Duck and incidentally, a passion for i paperi and the Donald/Paperino universe is one curious commonality between Italy and Norway. Anyway, with the superheroes, everybody was very white. They represented a the white, conservative version of America. In the renewed Marvel universe, there are lots of literally very strong women, who are independent agents and not just pretty appendages to the men as they had often been in the past. You also had people with different cultural and racial identities. The Black Panther of Wakanda and all the mythology which went with it are very popular in many African countries. It’s huge in Nigeria, for example, and seems to add to the existing diversity. But then again, as we were saying and as you observed, these characters are diverse in comparable within a uniform framework, a pretty rigid cultural grammar which presupposes individualism: there are no very deep cultural differences in the way they see the world. So that’s the new kind of diversity, which really consists more of talking about diversity than being diverse. I should add that the superdiversity perspective is very useful, and I have often drawn on it myself in research on cultural complexity. But it remains framed within the language of modernity.Martina: What you just said makes me think of contradictory dimensions that are, however, held together by the same gaze. How is it that your approach helps hold together processes that nevertheless tell us the same thing about the concept of diversity?Thomas: When we talk about diversity, it may be fruitful to look at it from a different angle. We could look at traditional knowledge and bodily skills among indigenous peoples, for example, and ideas about nature and the afterlife. Typically, some would immediately object that this is wrong and we are right and they should learn science and should go to school, period. But that’s not the point when we approach them as scholars, because then we try to understand their worlds from within and you realize that this world is experienced and perceived in ways which are quite different from ours. One of the big debates in anthropology for a number of years now has concerned the relationship between culture and nature after Lévi-Strauss, the greatest anthropological theorist of the last century. His view was that all cultures have a clear distinction between culture and nature, which is allegedly a universal way of creating order. This view has been challenged by people who have done serious ethnographic work on the issue, from my Oslo colleague Signe Howell’s work in Malaysia to studies in Melanesia, but perhaps mainly in the Amazon, where anthropologists argue that there are many ways of conceptualising the relationship between humans and everything else. Many of these world-views are quite ecological in character. They see us as participants in the same universe as other animals, plants and even rocks and rivers, and might point out that ‘the land does not belong to us – we belong to the land’. That makes for a very different relationship to nature than the predatory, exploitative form typical of capitalist modernity. In other words, in these cultural worlds, there is no clear boundary between us humans and non-humans. If you go in that direction, you will discover that in fact, cultural diversity is about much more than giving rights to minorities and celebrating National Day in different ethnic costumes, or even establishing religious tolerance. That way of talking about diversity is useful, but it should not detract attention from deeper and older forms of diversity.

Abstract The objective of this study is to investigate the extent to which corporate social responsibility programme of oil and gas companies contribute to the social economic development in Niger Delta region that host oil and gas operations. Several stakeholders, namely Government leaders, community leaders and other members of oil and gas operating communities in Niger Delta are clamouring for a bigger share of revenue deriving from oil and gas operations in their areas in an effort to achieve a level of socio-economic development that is commensurate with the level of petroleum extraction in their areas of operations to reduce resource curse or the paradox of poverty that host oil and gas companies. Meanwhile, the oil companies believe that through their Corporate Social Responsibility programmes CSR, they are significantly contributing to sustainable socio-economic development of the rural communities that host their oil and gas operations. This scenario presents a gap and a conflict which necessitated an investigation into the study. The methodological framework employed in the study is that of literature review and multiple case study of some corporate social responsibility programe of some oil and gas companies. The study finding indicates that there are CSR programme like road construction, borehole water infrastructure, building of school and health facilities and award of scholarships. This entrench the believe in the oil and gas companies that their corporate social investment programme is more than adequate, however, the indigenous people in the host communities feel that these social investments are inadequate. To solve this problem, foster unity and harmony between key stakeholders in the oil and gas communities, the study concluded that a minimum corporate social investment threshold based on percentage of revenue be set and applied uniformly across the petroleum industry in Nigeria. In addition, each oil and gas company should make an annual CSR report to show the attainment of minimum annual corporate social investment. This will remove opacity and enhance transparency, uniformity and predictability in the CSR programme of oil and gas companies in Niger Delta, with the level of socio-economic development reflecting the level of oil and gas endowment and extraction in the petroleum bearing communities.