The City, Hegemony and Ethno-Spatial Politics

The Press and the Struggle for Lagos in Colonial Nigeria

Bibliographic Data

ID9340043
AuthorsWale Adebanwi (0000-0001-9791-3436, University of Cambridge, corresponding author)
Year2004
Volume9
Issue4
Pages25-51
Publication date2004-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueNationalism and Ethnic Politics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1353-7113 • E-ISSN: 1557-2986
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/13537110390444087
OpenAlexW2090202901
LanguageEN
Citations received13

The centrality and assumed primacy of Lagos, Nigeria, explained why it was important in the (ethnic) hegemonic and counter-hegemonic politics of colonial Nigeria, particularly in the context of how this politics was geared toward the appropriation of space—within that particular socio-political formation, over-determined by ethnicity—as explicated in the newspaper press of the period. Two rival newspapers—West African Pilot and Daily Service—are used in this article, as they represent rival claims to 'ownership' and 'primacy' in spatial politics between the Yoruba and the Igbo ethnic nationalities, to explicate a theoretical position that captures these struggles within the framework of 'the political forging...and the institutionalization of a pattern of group activity' in which idealized forms that cohere with the interests of the (ethnic) group are leveraged into 'commonsensical' ideas in the pursuit of group's political, economic and social interests

Appropriation · Colonialism · Context (archaeology · Epistemology · Ethnic group · Geopolitics · Hegemony · Igbo · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Yoruba · African history and culture studies · Anthropology · Gender Studies · History · Law