Hell was let loose on the country

The Social History of Military Technology in the Republic of Biafra

Bibliographic Data

ID2098344
AuthorsSamuel Fury Childs Daly (0000-0002-5475-1534, corresponding author)
Year2018
Volume61
Issue3
Pages99-118
Publication date2018-09-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAfrican Studies Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0002-0206 • E-ISSN: 1555-2462
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/asr.2018.41
OpenAlexW2809948802
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited35

The problem of armed crime in late twentieth-century Nigeria was closely connected to the events of the Nigerian Civil War (1967-1970). Legal records from the secessionist Republic of Biafra reveal how violent crime emerged as part of the military confrontation between Biafra and Nigeria. The wide availability of firearms, the Biafran state's diminishing ability to enforce the law, and the gradual collapse of Biafra's economy under the pressure of a Nigerian blockade made Biafran soldiers and civilians reliant on their weapons to obtain food and fuel, make claims to property, and settle disputes with one another. Criminal legal records illustrate how military technologies shape interactions and relationships in the places where they are deployed, and how those dynamics can endure after the war comes to an end. This speaks to larger theoretical questions about the symbolic and functional meanings of guns during and after wartime

Criminology · Economics · Economy · Military rule · Political economy · Political science · Property (philosophy · Sociology · Spanish Civil War · State (computer science · The Republic · Violent crime · Historical and Contemporary Political Dynamics · Law · Political Conflict and Governance · Race, History, and American Society

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