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Women and the Nigeria-Biafra War

Reframing Gender and Conflict in Africa

Edited by Gloria Chuku and Sussie U. Aham-Okoro - Contributions by Bright Alozie; Christine Nwakego Ohale; S Elizabeth Bird; Comfort Olajumoke Verissimo; Mary Rose-Claret Ogbuehi; Nathaniel B. Gimba Luka; Chukwuemeka Nwigwe; Sussie U. Aham-Okoro; Gloria Chuku; Zara E. Kwaghe; Aisha Balarabe Bawa; Chinyere Eze-Nliam; Blessing Diala-Ogamba; Ngozi Kris-Ogbodo and Marinus Samoh Yong

This first comprehensive study of the Nigeria-Biafra War (1967-1970) through the lens of gender explores the valiant and gallant ways women carried out old and new responsibilities in wartime and immediate postwar Nigeria. The book presents women as embodiments of vulnerability and agency, who demonstrated remarkable resilience and initiative, waging war on all fronts in the face of precarious conditions and scarcities, and maximizing opportunities occasioned by the hostilities. Women’s experiences are highlighted through critical analyses of oral interviews, memoirs, life histories, fashion and material culture, international legal conventions, music, as well as governmental and non-governmental sources. The book fills the gap in the war scholarship that has minimized women’s complex experiences fifty years after the hostilities ended. It highlights the cost of the conflict on Nigerian women, their participation in the hostilities, and their contributions to the survival of families, communities and the country. The chapters present counter-narratives to fictional and nonfictional accounts of the war, especially those written by men, which often peripheralize or stereotypically represent women as passive spectators or helpless victims of the conflict; and also highlight and exaggerate women’s moral laxity and sensationalize their marital infidelities.

Lexington Books

Pages: 372 • Trim: 6⅜ x 9

978-1-7936-1784-2 • Hardback • October 2020 • $140.00 • (£108.00)

978-1-7936-1785-9 • eBook • October 2020 • $45.00 • (£35.00)

Series: Gender and Sexuality in Africa and the Diaspora

Subjects: Political Science / World / African, Social Science / Feminism & Feminist Theory, History / Africa / West

Women and the Nigeria-Biafra War

Reframing Gender and Conflict in Africa

Hardback

eBook

Summary

This first comprehensive study of the Nigeria-Biafra War (1967-1970) through the lens of gender explores the valiant and gallant ways women carried out old and new responsibilities in wartime and immediate postwar Nigeria. The book presents women as embodiments of vulnerability and agency, who demonstrated remarkable resilience and initiative, waging war on all fronts in the face of precarious conditions and scarcities, and maximizing opportunities occasioned by the hostilities. Women’s experiences are highlighted through critical analyses of oral interviews, memoirs, life histories, fashion and material culture, international legal conventions, music, as well as governmental and non-governmental sources. The book fills the gap in the war scholarship that has minimized women’s complex experiences fifty years after the hostilities ended. It highlights the cost of the conflict on Nigerian women, their participation in the hostilities, and their contributions to the survival of families, communities and the country. The chapters present counter-narratives to fictional and nonfictional accounts of the war, especially those written by men, which often peripheralize or stereotypically represent women as passive spectators or helpless victims of the conflict; and also highlight and exaggerate women’s moral laxity and sensationalize their marital infidelities.

Details

Lexington Books

Pages: 372 • Trim: 6⅜ x 9

978-1-7936-1784-2 • Hardback • October 2020 • $140.00 • (£108.00)

978-1-7936-1785-9 • eBook • October 2020 • $45.00 • (£35.00)

Series: Gender and Sexuality in Africa and the Diaspora

Subjects: Political Science / World / African, Social Science / Feminism & Feminist Theory, History / Africa / West

Author

Gloria Chuku is professor and chair of the Department of Africana Studies at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

Sussie U. Aham-Okoro is adjunct lecturer in the Department of Africana Studies at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

Table of Contents

Part I: Writing about Warring Women in Prewar, Wartime and Postwar Nigeria

Chapter 1: Introduction: Writing about Women and the Nigeria-Biafra War

Gloria Chuku

Chapter 2: Undressing to Redress: The Sexual Politics of Protests in Colonial and Post-Colonial Southeastern Nigeria

Bright Alozie

Part II: Women’s War Life Stories and Memoirs

Chapter 3: Becoming Biafran: The Civil War Writing of Rosina Umelo

S. Elizabeth Bird

Chapter 4: Nwanyi B’uno: Reflections on Angelina Ihejirika’s Memoir on the Nigeria-Biafra War

Christine N. Ohale

Chapter5: Invisible Loss: Rose Njoku’s Narration of Familial Loss in the Nigeria-Biafra War

Comfort Olajumoke Verissimo

Chapter 6: Women, War Memories and Counter Memories: Stories of Survival, Resilience and Empowerment

Sussie U. Aham Okoro

Part III: War Conditions and Women’s Coping Strategies

Chapter 7: Rape as a Moral Attack against Women in the Nigeria-Biafra War

Mary Rose-Claret Ogbuehi

Chapter 8: Igbo Maidens and the Nigeria-Biafra War, 1967-1970: Interethnic Marriage or Forced Migration?

Nathaniel B. Gimba Luka

Chapter 9: Igbo Women's Fashion and the Nigeria-Biafra War

Chukwuemeka Nwigwe

Part IV: Women, Consequences and Postwar Rehabilitation

Chapter 10: Igbo Women and Postwar Reconstruction, Reconciliation and Reintegration Efforts in Nigeria, 1968-1975

Gloria Chuku

Chapter 11: Impact of the Nigeria-Biafra War on the Education of Girls in Eastern Nigeria: 1967-1970

Zara E. Kwaghe

Chapter 12: Igbo Women’s Experience in Northern Nigeria during the Nigeria-Biafra War, 1967-1970: A Study in Lessons of Trauma and Backlash

Aisha Balarabe Bawa

Chapter 13: Women and War Crimes: Highlighting Progress on Gender-Based Legislation in International Criminal Justice since the Nigeria-Biafra War

Chinyere Eze-Nliam

Part V: The War and Literary Representations of Women

Chapter 14: Narratives of Trauma and Struggle in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun

Blessing Diala-Ogamba

Chapter 15: The Wrath of War and the Ruin of the Woman: A Socio-critical Analysis of Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Ngozi Kris-Ogbodo & Marinus Samoh Yong

Reviews

In this impressive volume, Gloria Chuku and her colleagues have provided us with an authoritative book on the gendered dimensions of the Nigeria-Biafra War— a critical subject in modern Nigerian history. Drawing on authoritative chapters across the humanities and the social sciences, this exceptional book effectively encapsulates the torturous foundation of Nigeria’s problematic post-colonial state.
— Olufemi Vaughan, Amherst College

Women and the Nigeria-Biafra War is a welcome addition to the scholarly literature on women, gender, and war in African and global history.

— Journal of African Military History

Women and the Nigeria-Biafra War

Reframing Gender and Conflict in Africa

Women and the Nigeria-Biafra War

Reframing Gender and Conflict in Africa

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