This study analyzes the complexity and flexibility of gender relations in Igbo society, with emphasis on such major cultural zones as the Anioma, the Ngwa, the Onitsha, the Nsukka, and the Aro.

This study will analyze the complexity and flexibility of gender relations in Igbo society with emphasis on such major cultural zones as the Anioma, the Ngwa, the Onitsha, the Nsukka, and the Aro.

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.

A tapestry of innovation, ideas, and commerce, Africa and its entrepreneurial hubs are deeply connected to those of the past. Moses E. Ochonu and an international group of contributors explores the lived experiences of African innovators who have created value for themselves and their communities. Profiles of vendors, farmers, craftspeople, healers, spiritual consultants, warriors, musicians, technological innovators, political mobilizers, and laborers featured in this volume show African models of entrepreneurship in action. As a whole, the essays consider the history of entrepreneurship in Africa, illustrating its multiple origins and showing how it differs from the Western capitalist experience. As they establish historical patterns of business creativity, these explorations open new avenues for understanding indigenous enterprise and homegrown commerce and their relationship to social, economic, and political debates in Africa today.

The Igbo are one of the most populous ethnic groups in Nigeria and are perhaps best known and celebrated in the work of Chinua Achebe. In this landmark collection on Igbo society and arts, Toyin Falola and Raphael Chijioke Njoku have compiled a detailed and innovative examination of the Igbo experience in Africa and in the diaspora. Focusing on institutions and cultural practices, the volume covers the enslavement, middle passage, and American experience of the Igbo as well as their return to Africa and aspects of Igbo language, society, and cultural arts. By employing a variety of disciplinary perspectives, this volume presents a comprehensive view of how the Igbo were integrated into the Atlantic world through the slave trade and slavery, the transformations of Igbo identities and culture, and the strategies for resistance employed by the Igbo in the New World. Moving beyond descriptions of generic African experiences, this collection includes 21 essays by prominent scholars throughout the world.

A tapestry of innovation, ideas, and commerce, Africa and its entrepreneurial hubs are deeply connected to those of the past. Moses E. Ochonu and an international group of contributors explores the lived experiences of African innovators who have created value for themselves and their communities. Profiles of vendors, farmers, craftspeople, healers, spiritual consultants, warriors, musicians, technological innovators, political mobilizers, and laborers featured in this volume show African models of entrepreneurship in action. As a whole, the essays consider the history of entrepreneurship in Africa, illustrating its multiple origins and showing how it differs from the Western capitalist experience. As they establish historical patterns of business creativity, these explorations open new avenues for understanding indigenous enterprise and homegrown commerce and their relationship to social, economic, and political debates in Africa today.