Constructions of Belonging: Igbo Communities and the Nigerian State in the Twentieth Century

Applies new approaches to the study of a small, densely populated region of West Africa, integrating them into a regional history that analyzes interactions between localities and the modern state.

Constructions of Belonging provides a history of local communities living in Southeastern Nigeria since the late nineteenth century, examining the processes that have defined, changed, and re-produced these communities. Harneit-Sievers explores both the meanings and the uses that the community members have given to their particular areas, while also looking at the processes that have shaped local communities, and have made them work and continue tobe relevant, in a world dominated by the modern territorial state and by worldwide flows of people, goods, and ideas.

Axel Harneit-Sievers is a Research Fellow at the Center for Modern Oriental Studies, and Director ofthe Nigeria Office of the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Lagos.