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O C C A S I O N A L P A P E R S
Nigerian Identity Formations in the Usenet Newsgroup soc.culture.nigeria
Ben Moran
2000
C E N T R E O F A F R I C A N S T U D I E S
E d i n b u r g h U n i v e r s i t y
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Nigerian identity formations in the Usenet
newsg rou p soc. culture. nigeria.
BEN MORAN
Abstract
This study examines the expression and formation of identities in one Internet discussion group, soc.cu/ture.nigeria. It draws on the ideas of Benedict Anderson (1991) that new social forms of communication can lead to the transformation and creation of new kinds of identity, as print-capitalism brought about nationalism. These are placed into the Nigerian context with the work of Okwudiba Nnoli (1978), who charts the formation of ethnic identities In the contact engendered by colonial urbanisation. Work on ethnicity by writers such as Crawford Young (1994) is considered, as well as broader theories of postcolonial identity politics. Bakhtin's (1981) ideas of dialogism are used to draw together these approaches to identity constructed in situations of contact, which in this discussion group are entirely textual.
A combination of qualitative research methods are used in the study: an extended period of observation, modelled on ethnographic enquiry, and the use of discourse analytic techniques to investigate in detail selections from the archives of the discussion. An account is given of the rationale behind these strategies, and they are defended on both theoretical and ethical grounds. In the second part of the dissertation, the resultant analyses are presented in the form of commentaries on extracts from the group.
The study concludes that identity formations as the products of dialogue are shaped in many subtle ways by the conditions of communication in which such dialogues take place. The environment of soc.culture.nigeria is one marked by what Bakhtin terms "centrifugal" tendencies; but the embedding of the newsgroup in broader social and communicative networks, Nigerian and transnational, enables some forms of identity to be anchored more stably. The tendency of identity to fragmentation and multiplicity in the postcolonial setting is not total, but countered by identity's situation in concrete dialogues.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................... 2
TABLE OF CONTENTS ......................................................................................... 3
...................................................................................................... ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 4
INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................... 6
PART ONE .........................................................................................................."....................... 13
1 . NIGERIAN IDENTITIES ...................................................................................................... 13
2 . S0C.CULTURE.NIGERIA - MEDIA STRUCTURES AND CHARACTERISTICS ................. 22
3 . COMMUNICATIONS MEDIA AND SOCIAL THEORY ......................................................... 34 4 METHODOLOGICAL AND ETHICAL ISSUES IN USENET RESEARCH ............................ 43
PART TWO .................................................................................................................................. 56
EXTRACT A ..................... ... .............................................................................................. 55
Friendship Lecture ............................................................................................................... 55
................................. CASE STUDY 1 - FRIENDSHIP LECTURE
EXTRACT B ......................................................................................................................... 6!3
1 . E g h Omo Yoruba ........................................................................................................... 69
...................................................................................... 2 . Movement for a Greater Nigerie 71
................................................................................. CASE STUDY 2 - Two PRESS RELEASES 75
EXTRACT C ........................ .... ................................................................................................ 86
'Of 4 19ers and Superheroes" .............................................................................................. 86
CASE STUDY 3 - "OF 4lQERS AND SUPERHEROES. ................................................................... B l
CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................................... 102
BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................................ 112
BOOKS ............................................................................................................................... 112
ARTICLES .......................................................................................................................... 116
ONLINE RESOURCES ......................................................................................................... 120
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My very warmest thanks to those writers on the Internet who so kindly
gave me permission to use their work and their words for this study
and others, and without whom there is nothing to say: Sola Osofisan,
Maurice 0. Ene, o. kasirim nwuke, and Nowamagbe Omoigui. I am
very grateful to the the Centre for African Studies at the University of
Edinburgh for so much help and support, and making this research
possible. Thanks also to Misty Bastian at Franklin and Marshall
College for her encouragement and discussion; Chris Atton at Napier
University for his enthusiasm and help early on; Gabriel Otu-Nyiam
for his help, and patient explanation; and especially to Siobhdn Lyons
at SOAS.
Responsibility for any errors in this dissertation, and all the opinions
expressed, lies of course with me.
My related work may be found at www.35-lO.freeserve.co.uk, or I can
be contacted via email at [email protected]. Alternatively, I can be
located through the Centre for African Studies:
Centre for African Studies 7 Buccleuch Place Edinburgh EH8 9L W Tel: 01 3 1 650 3878 Fax: 01 31 650 6535
ISSN 1363-0342 Occasional Papers - The University of Edinburgh. Centre of African Studies
INTRODUCTION
This study examines the way identities are expressed and formed in
one lnternet discussion group, the newsgroup soc.culture.nigeria. I
begin from a position well-argued by many writers, including Benedict
Anderson (1991): that upheavals in the social environment
(colonialism, urbanisation, the printing press) have often had
profound effects on identity. What kinds of identity, then, might result
from new social formations in the novel environment of an lnternet
newsgroup? Steven Jones (19957) notes that "new social
formations may require new forms of inquiry". Consequently, this
dissertation takes a,transdisciplinary approach to the material in
question. Theories of identity have been drawn from work on
ethnicity and from postcolonial studies; understandings of
communication and media are informed by recent writings in the
sociology of computer-mediated communication, and by the ideas of
Mikhail Bakhtin (Bakhtin 1981; Morris 1994; Folch-Serra 1990;
Holquist 1990). The methodological approach is based both on the
adaptation of ethnographic participant obsetvation to the computer-
mediated setting, and on the techniques of discourse analysis.
Before explaining the roles played by these elements in the structure
of the study, however, this Introduction will consider why the Internet
is an appropriate subject for African studies at all.
"African studiesn is, of course, already an interdisciplinary tradition
within universities, defined by specialism within geographical area
rather than by disciplinary approach. Consequently, to expand the
field's reach to the global diaspora, and its focus to transnational
computer networks concentrated outside the African continent, may
appear to be a movement outside the remit of the subject. However,
engagement with the issues of Africa's connection to globalization is
crucial. To neglect both the significance of Africans in diaspora, and
Africa's use of global media networks, is to put an arbitrary border
around the continent, and that has implications for international
attitudes and policy towards Africa.
Despite current low telecommunications connectivity domestically,
Africa is not an occasional, passive recipient of media technologies
bestowed from outside to bridge a perceived "information gap"
(Wilson 1997). In the words of Olu Oguibe, a Nigerian artist educated
in Nigeria and London, and currently resident in the USA:
"Cyberdiasporas -- net presences established by individuals and
communities in expatriation - are proving an important route through
which territories on the outside of connectivity can find representation
in cyberspace." (Oguibe 1996b). To represent Nigeria as "on the
outside of connectivity" is not at face value unreasonable, given the
1999 figures of one telephone line per 200 people and one Internet
user per 25000 (Jensen 1999:Z). Yet Oguibe's point is that these
elite four to five thousand individuals within Nigeria, and the
thousands more Nigerians outside, play a significant role in mediating
between on-line and off-line networks of communication.
We should not neglect these important links between
communications networks, as well as those of the networks
themselves. A recurrent theme throughout this dissertation is the
way that separate media interact, so that the Usenet can contribute to
content in newspapers, or information can cross from e-mail into
radio broadcasts.' Communications networks can have social effects
far wider-ranging than the immediate circle of those who use them
directly. "Print and electronic media is seen as merely
complementary to the traditional means of communication in Nigeria.
However, foreign influence on the local media system has permeated
the whole structure of indigenous oral and mass communications,
resulting in an undeniably hybrid communication system." (Eribo
1997:67). Danmole's examination of Yoruba Muslim media use
(1999) provides specific illustration of this permeation, as
technologies such as video and television are brought firmly into
Nigerian practices of social, economic and cultural exchange. The
lnternet is not at present so established as the radio and television
networks which have been developing in Nigeria for 67 years
(Danmole 1999:2); but even now, it is playing its part in a media
system which is as fundamentally "hybrid" in Nigeria as it is
elsewhere.
To ignore the participation and involvement of Africans in the Internet
is not only bad for African studies, but bad for our understanding of
lnternet communication. The myth of being "global", which has been
' April 11th 1999 saw.Nigeria's General Abubakar (then the transitional Head of State)
engaged in a BBC Woad Service interview on the radio, answering questions sent by
email and telephone. The interview was then transcribed for the World-Wide Web.
fundamental to the development of cyberspace, is becoming
increasingly true. Only 57% of the Internet's users now speak English
as a first language, and English is expected to lose its majority status
as early as next year.2 Consequently, studies focused on American-
Anglophone Internet culture and society reveal only a partial view.
This very recent mushrooming of diversity across all social strata on
. the Internet - more women, more users outside the USA, younger
and older people - has profound implications for the form that
communication on the Net takes, and consequently for the role of the
Net in our wider social life. As I investigate here, the simple
proliferation of social diversity in the CMC arena does not inevitably
lead to the realisation of the liberal dream of "communicative utopia"
(Wilson 1997). Through language differences, undifferentiated
homogeneous 'cyberspace' acquires a 'landscape', with gradients,
obstacles and open spaces. I am here using "language differences"
in a broad sense, informed by Bakhtin's idea of "heteroglossia":
... language Is stratified not only into linguistic dialects in the strict sense of the
word (according to formal linguistic(na*ers, especially phonetic). but also ... into
languages that em sodo-ideologicel: languages of social groups, "professionel"
and 'generic' languages, languages of generations and so forth.
(Bakhtin 1981:272)
The study of communication in a radically heteroglossic setting, such
as that found in soc.culture.nigeria, is consequently both fascinating,
The marketing consultancy Global Reach gives August 1999 figures of 129 million
Internel users using English, against 95.6 million In all other languages. Projected
and a necessary counterpoint to monolingual studies of lnternet
communication that treat language as a transparent common
denominator. For a study of identities expressed in text, the centrality
of heteroglossia cannot be ignored.
It is not my intention to approach the study of the lnternet laden with
prior normative judgements, viewing it as necessarily a "good" or a
"bad" thing for Nigerians. An uncritical 'techno-evangelist' attitude - that technology equates with modernity, modernity equates with
development, and that therefore Internet connectivity must be
developed in Africa at all costs - has held great sway in much writing
about African lnternet issues. Although this view is in part a spin-off
from the wave of boosterism about the potential of "cyberspacen that
accompanied the Internet's expansion in the West, it very often
carries another narrative in its subtexts. This inscribes 'progress',
and its technological fruits, as belonging to 'the developed world':
Africa is by implication 'backward', and alienated from the
technologies in question, even when they can be 'imported' from
outside. The Nigerian webmaster Chuck Odili refutes this case
strongly, as he has this to say ".. . about Nigerians: we are pad of the
Internet and the Internet is a part of us. " (Odili 1 999).
figures for the year 2000 are 160 million and 167 million respefAvely. (Global Reach
1999)
Dissertation Layout
In the attempt to analyse the expression of identity by Nigerians in
soc.culture.nigeria, this dissertation is divided into two broad parts.
The first sets out the necessary background information and
theoretical basis of the study, whilst the second seeks to apply these
more abstract concepts to specific examples of texts drawn from the
newsgroup. Each part is subdivided into chapters, which will be
examined below.
Part I begins with an overview of ideas surrounding postcolonial
identities in general, and "Nigerian identitiesn in particular. Social
contact, and dialogue in Bakhtin's sense, are seen as prime forces in
the creation and employment of identity. The second chapter
provides a background to the specific features of soc.culture.nigeria
as an environment for communication. It examines both the salient
technical features . of Usenet newsgroups in general for
communication, contrasting them with other media forms; it also
outlines some of the historical and other relevant social aspects of
soc.cultum.nigeria. In Chapter 3, we examine two thinkers as the
basis for discussion on the broad social implications of changing
media forms: Walter Ong and Benedict Anderson. The specific
characteristics of the newsgroup described earlier will be put into the
context of these ideas, such as the loss of 'closure' engendered by
the shift from print media to computer-mediated textual
communication. The final chapter in this Part discusses
methodological issues in the present study. It justifies the selection of
the research methods adopted on both theoretical and ethical
grounds, with the emphasis on retaining for investigation the dialogic
and heteroglossic aspects of the group's discourse.
Part II consists of three readings of extracts taken from the
newsgroup, in the light of the ideas above. These three chapters are
designed to be read alongside the original texts themselves. Identity
is mobilised differently in each of the three extracts: ethnicity as
culture, ethnicity as nationalism, and Nigerian national identity are
foregrounded respectively. The discussions aim to direct the reader's
attention to the communicative features described in Part I, which
shape these uses of identity. In addition, by drawing on relevant
contextual material from elsewhere on the newsgroup, the Internet or
other sources, the commentaries should illuminate some of the less
apparent features of the texts, and the use of multiple forms of
identity within each of them.
Finally, the conclusion links up these disparate elements. It suggests
that identity, especially in a textual environment like
soc.culture.nigeria, can be seen in terms of dialogue. Taking up
Bakhtin's idea that the concrete expression of dialogue in language is
continually shaped by opposing centripetal and centrifugal forces, it
seeks to explain shifts in identity formation as shifts in the balance of
these forces on the conditions of dialogue. Nnoli's account of the rise
of contemporary Nigerian ethnicity through the social and economic
impact of celonial urbanisation is examined in these terms. This
analysis is then applied to the environment of soc.culture.nigeria, and
it is argued that its powerfully centrifugal tendencies are moderated
by the role of intertextuality. The actual expressions of identity in
soc.culture.nigeria are the results of local dialogues, with broader
formations given some measure of solidity by their embedding in
wider networks of social meaning.
1. NIGERIAN IDENTITIES
The story of ethnic difference in Africa threatens to oveMRlelm the longer debate
about postcolonial identity politics across the continent ... Yet ethnic identities
ere merely a small fraction of the many identities mobilized in the postcdonial
politics of everyday life.
(Werbner I-: 1 )
The postcolony is not made up of one coherent 'public space' ... it is Csther a
plurality of 'spheres' and arenas ... Faced with this ... the postcolonial 'subject'
mobilizes not just a single 'identity', but several fluid identities ... (Achille Mbembe, cited by Werbner) (ibid.)
These comments on the subject of "Postcolonial Identities in African
(Ranger and Werbner 1996) take on special significance in the light
of the present topic: the identities of Nigerians in lnternet discussions.
Three related issues arise when the views above are applied to this
particular case. Firstly, "postcolonial identity politics" here take place
not just "across the continent" of Africa, but far beyond its
geographical confines. Secondly, the relationship between ethnicity
and other forms of identity has perhaps a special salience for Nigeria.
Finally, the question of multiple, fluid identities, a currently
fashionable motif in post-colonial theory and lnternet social studies
alike, will be considered in a wider historical perspective.
Though the term "postcolonialn is highly problematic (e.g.
Frankenberg and Mani in Smadar and Lavie 1996:275-6), its
emphasis on the fundamentally transnational dynamics of social and
cultural interchange is useful to bring to this study. Hannerz reminds
us of the impact of the colonial past even in bringing about "Nigerian
itself. In Nigeria, 'the idea of the national ... was a conception
imported from the outside, making Nigeria itself in significant part an
organizational artifact of the integrative processes in the world."
(Hannerz 1996:5). For Hannerz, such forces demonstrate how
Nigerian culture is "shaped by an intense, continuous, comprehensive
interplay between the indigenous and the imported" (ibid.). Whilst
such an experience is hardly unique to Nigeria, it was this "global
interconnectedness" that Hannerz perceived in the small central
Nigerian town of Kafanchan that led him to pursue further an interest
in the process of globalization generally.
However, an account of Nigeria and globalization that looks only at
foreign "imports" to the domestic culture, portraying only one direction
of flow into a passive 'indigenousn reality seems lacking. A
contention of this dissertation is that Nigerians have themselves
shaped their country almost as often from locations "abroad" as from
those within it. Since the founding of Awolowo's Egbe Omo
Oduduwa, later to become the Action Group, by a group of students
in London in 1945 (Nnoli 1978:104), key political meetings and events
have occurred outside Nigeria's borders. Nor should we necessarily
limit the idea of "abroadness" or "diaspora" to Nigerians outside
Nigeria, given the ambiguous status of Nigeria as a nation. The
founding of the Ibo Union, in Lagos in 1936 (ibid.), could equally be
portrayed as the actions of an lgbo diaspora in Yorubaland.
An important characteristic of all these migrations is that all sorts of
links with "homen are often strongly maintained. Nnoli cites
Imoagene's description of the initial period of rural-urban migration
within Nigeria.
While in h e city [the migrant) keeps up all the channels of communication with
the home people through regular and frequent visits, letters, messages and gifts,
thereby keeping himself within the rural network of m ' a l relations.
(Nnoli 197853)
Such a description does not appear radically different from the way in
which many contemporary transnational migrants retain strong
contacts with Nigeria, economic as well as cultural and personal.
Nigerians in diaspora writing on soc.culture.nigeria describe regular
visits home, apply for jobs in Nigeria, telephone regularly and seek to
marry there.
Not only are the social networks and values of those at "home"
important to those "abroad"; influences operate in both directions.
Nnoli's portrayal of the colonial city as "cradle of contemporary
ethnicity" in Nigeria (1980:35) includes mention of the salience to that
process of "stories of the urban dwellers who returned occasionally to
their villages to visitn, and "letters written by the urban dweller to his
family, relatives or friends back homen (1980:39). A picture emerges
of a process of identity formation in Nigeria: migrants are confronted
with new situations of contact, which have consequences for identity.
Extensive social networks provide channels by which these changes
travel beyond their original "cradlen in the city, back to the migrants'
home communities.
The particular influence of soc.culture.nigeria's transnational migrants
may be amplified by their elite status within Nigeria. The very act of
travel to Europe or North America places the traveller into the social
category called "been-ton in Pidgin. Discussions on soc.culture.nigeria
between members of the diaspora often acknowledge their socially
and economically privileged status. Furthermore, just as those who
can travel are predominantly elite, those who are elite travel as a
matter of course. It is unremarkable that the political scientist Chudi
Uwazurike, quoting a speech by Alex Ekwueme to the World lgbo
Congress, sees no need to highlight the fact that the Congress took
place in Los Angeles (Uwazurike in Beckett and Young 1997:335).
London, Washington, and other world cities are important locales in
which Nigerian politics is transacted on a continuous basis, and
reported in Nigeria; it makes little sense to see Nigerians resident in
these places as outside the social sphere of "Nigeria proper".
Therefore, this study does nof proceed from the assumption that all
Nigerians in diaspora are resident in particularly turbulent
"[bJorderzones ... sites of creative cultural creolization, places where
crisscrossed identities are forged out of the debris of corroded,
formerly (would-be) homogeneous identitiesn (Lavie and Swedenburg
1996:15). Following the argument of Mbembe above, we may expect
to find such disjunctures within the Nigerian "postcolony" itself in any
case; and following both Hannerz' argument of "global
interconnectednessn, and the parallels with migrations within Nigerian
borders, there is little reason to see the diaspora as necessarily any
more cut off from events 'at home" than many other Nigerians.
Werbner's point that African studies has often emphasised ethnic
identity at the expense of examining the broader range of identities
and alliances in operation is also particularly salient for Nigeria.
Appadurai (1986:357) claims that anthropology in particular has
tended to associate places of study with theoretical "gatekeeping
conceptsn, ideational motifs around which the study of particular
locales has tended to be organised. Hannerz further notes that the
specific gatekeeping concept which has governed the study of
Nigerian society is that of ethnic diversity, "her three hundred tribes"
(Hannerz 1996:119). However, what WeFbner calls the "story of
ethnic difference" with respect to Nigeria cannot reasonably be
regarded as one told solely by outsiders, given the centrality of the
vocabulary of ethnic identity to Nigerian political and social life. Young
describes an approach in Leys' early work on Kenyan politics (Young
1994:72) where the analysis of "tribalism" is portrayed as morally
suspect, superfluous ideological baggage brought in entirely by neo-
colonialists. This attitude does not seem feasible given the
inescapability of ethnicity in the Nigerian context. In some instances,
ethnic identity takes the form of an emergent nationalism that effaces
the Nigerian nation altogether (e.g. the Yoruba Nation group
examined in Case Study 2).
Nevertheless, to restrict our attention solely to "ethnicity" is to deny
ourselves the perspective gained from taking a wider a viewpoint,
leaving us unable to explain the either the expression of non-ethnic
identities (such as the Nigerian nationalist stance taken in Case
Study 3); or even the use of ethnicity itself within a broader context.
The first case study provides an interesting example, where ethnicity
forms the bulk of the topic of conversation, yet in my reading at least,
other forms of identity are also at work in shaping.the dialogue and
are equally important.
Situational accounts of ethnicity (e.g. Salamone 1982), with the
emphasis on social context and interaction explaining the selection
and employment of various ethnic identities, have long been widely
accepted within the theory of ethnicity. I see little reason to limit such
situational accounts of identity to ethnicity per se. More successful
accounts of 'ethnicity' have long had to push the boundaries of this
narrow remit in order to describe the broad spectrum of social
positionalities needed to explain 'ethnic' identities.
One such account of communal identities in the Nigerian context is to
be found in a 1967 volume with the nowdated title *From Tribe to
Nation in Africa". The examination of society in the northern Nigerian
city of Kano by John Paden, however, is nuanced and sophisticated,
but it broadens "ethnicity" in Kano enormously by including under it
"at least eight categories: religion, place of birth, family origins, family
or clan, land, language, urban location, and race" (Paden in Cohen
and Middleton 1970: 268). Paden notes that in Kano's earlier history,
the dominant categories used in defining a named "ethnicity" were "a
sense of common origins (iama'a) andlor a place of origin (asali)".
Subsequent social upheavals in the twentieth century under
colonialism led to a greater emphasis being placed on "urban
(Kanawa), li~guistic (Hausa), and religious (Muslims) categories."
(ibid.)- Paden concludes by remarking tbat "interesting questions
remain as to how these categories overlap or adapt themselves to
pacticular circumstances."
Approaching the question of the identities of those writing on
soc.culture.nigeria today in a similar fashion to Paden in 1967, we are
confronted with at least the same diversity. Categories such as
religion, place of birth, place of current-residence, race, and language
can all be very important. Otber social collectivities are also
identified: political party ("You are an APP man"), race ('leadem of
the black race", "African brothers"), and geographical region within
Nigeria ("northerners", "Arewa", "South-Westerners", "the South-
South"). Class can play a role, in guises su@ as the Hausa category
"Talakawa", "commoners". Personal identities also have valency, and
may emphasise professional achievement ("Professor", "economist",
"writer",) or 'traditional' status ("Omo Oba", "Prince"), for instance. In
some of the various discussion groups seen within
so~.culture.nigena,~ collective identities 'local' to the Internet may
See Chapter 2 for a discussion of the group'p strudure.'sub-groups', etc.
even be mobilised: appeals are made to group solidarity as "Nettersn
or members of "this Village Square". '
This dissertation does not claim to reveal a system of "real" identities
at work behind discursive camouflage, like "modernityn as a mask
over "traditional" loyalties, or Nnoli's portrayal of ethnicity as a "mask
over the class strugglen (1980:277). Instead, it views identity in a
mode similar to that which Crawford Young terms "constructivist",
rather than through the earlier primordialist or instrumentalist lenses
(Young 1994:80-81). "The constructivist sees ethnicity as the product
of human agency, a creative social act through which such
commonalities as speech code, cultural practice, ecological
adaptation, and political organisation become woven into a
consciousness of shared identity" (Young 1994:79). This study
differs than Young's approach in several ways, however, which we
will recap here. It expands its swpe from "ethnicity" to identity in
general. It is concerned specifically with identity formation in the
computer-mediated setting of Usenet; a situation in which the whole
spectrum of social contact is mediated entirely through language.
Consequently, other factors such as "cultural practice, ecological
adaptation, and political organisationn can be addressed only as text
' Gender, too, has Important implications for identity, but will reluctantly be neglected in
this dissertation. Gender Identities interact in very complex ways with other categories.
as Matory (1994) has shown in his study of gender in Oyo-Yoruba religion; these
interactions require a great deal of space to do them justii. Furthermore, as a non-
Nigerian I am particularly hesitant to broach this a m of great controuersy. There is
enough to say, for the time being, about less controversial subjects.
and context. Above all, identity is here conceived in terms of dialogue.
2. SOC.CULTURE.NIGERIA - MEDIA STRUCTURES AND
CHARACTERlsnCs
This chapter seeks to put across some relevant technical description
of how the newsgroup soc.cultum.nigeria is structured, how it relates
to the rest of the Internet and how it compares with traditional media.
(The theoretical implications of these structures will be examined in
the following chapter). This structural description is included not for
its own sake, but because the focus of the study is the impact of the
new medium on social communication, and consequently on identity
formation and expression. To do this with clarity and substance
requires a precise understanding of the media involved, particularly
important when dealing with the muddied intertextual waters of
soc.cultum.nigerie. I take issue with Mitra's argument (in Jones
1997:77) that the "large number of terms ... used to describe various
aspects of [the Internet]" (e.g. Usenet, World-Wide Web, email)
"fundamentally ... all refer to various manifestations of the same
phenomenon - the ability to communicate with others using the
computer". Newspapers, telegrams and novels are all manifestations
of the ability to communicate using print, but play profoundly different
social roles and exert different influences over the content of any
communication. The distinction is an important one even where a
"telegramw is intertextually inserted into the novel, or a novel
serialised in a newspaper.
Firstly, though, the newsgroup's immediate appearance will be
sketched out. Soc.culture.nigeria was established in 1995 as a forum
for topical and cultural debate. It receives approximately thirty to
ninety postings daily, and has accumulated an archive of over 96,000
messages.' Its subject matter is enormously broad, ranging from
news stories direct from wire sources such as Reuters, to poetry, to
vitriolic inter-personal arguments. It is publically accessible, to
Nigerians and non-Nigerians alike. Anyone that can read it can also
post to it (Rheingold 1994:117), and consequently conversations
often develop between its users. However, it is an 'asynchronous'
medium: messages are not exchanged immediately, but over the
course of several hours. Each message thus tends to be many lines,
or even pages long. (In synchronous communication, conversational
turns are far shorter and more frequent.)
Structurally, soc.culture.nigeria is located on Usenet, which is in turn
part of the wider Internet. December (1996) defines the lnternet as
that global network which uses the TCPIIP protocol (Transfer-Control
Protocol-Internet Protocol) for data transmission, whilst noting that
many 'gateways' connect between this network and others (such as
AOL or Compuserve). He further notes that:
There are TCPllP networks (internets, with a small I) that are not connected to
the larger global Internet. These internet networks, therefore, although technically
using the TCPllP protocol suite, are not part of the global Internet based on this
definition.
(December 1996)
The archive is stored at Deja.com on the World-Wide Web.
This use of TCPIIP is worth mentioning here, because networks using
this protocol have certain characteristics. They are inherently
"robust", or "highly redundantn, as TCPIIP enables data to be split into
small packets, which are then routed independently around the
network via the best available route, until they are reassembled at
their destination. For this reason, the network is not dependent on
any particular node, with two consequences. It is resistant to the
destruction of any section: indeed, its military creators intended it to
survive a nuclear attack (Winston 1998:324-6). For the same
structural reasons, as the telecommunications pioneer John Gilmore
declared: "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes
around it" (cited in Rheingold 1994:7). Blocking data at one node will
not impede its transmission by other routes, a fact that has salience
not just for political "censorshipn, but for editorial control in a wide
sense.
All Internet communication, though by definition using the TCPIIP
protocol, is not of the same format. Transfers are further structured
by a range of mediating protocols. The World-Wide Web (WWV)
uses H7TP (Hyper-Text Transfer Protocol), larger files are distributed
via FTP (File Transfer Protocol) servers, and so on. The protocol
governing the Usenet, where soc.cultum.nigeria is located, is NNTP
(Network News Transfer Protocol). Each of these protocols governs
the relations between clients and servers in different ways, and has
consequences for the way in which information is distributed and
used - even though they are all aspects of the Internet, simply
transmitting data between computers via TCPIIP. December (1996)
lists a variety of schemes in which information can be distributed:
Point-to-point, e.g. an email from one user to another
Point-to-multipoint, e.g. an email from one user to many
Point-to-server broadcast or narrowcast. A user sends a message
to a server, which makes it available either to all its clients or a
defined selection.
Server broadcastlnarrowcast. Information is stored on a server,
which makes it available to all or some clients - e.g. a website.
Server-to-server.
A letter, telephone or fax are examples of point-to-point distribution.
Radio and television use server broadcast. Classified adverts in a
newspaper are examples of point-to-server broadcast.
Newsgroups on Usenet are distributed by a combination of point-to-
server and server-to-server broadcast, which distinguishes them from
simple point-to-multipoint distributions like email lists (Listservs).
Messages originate with single users, who pass them to a local
server. This server passes its messages on to adjacent servers in
the network, and receives theirs. Messages are retained for a period,
before being discarded. Because the network does not have a central
organising point, not all messages will arrive instantly across the
network in the same order: for this reason, Jacob Palme (1995)
describes the process of propagation around Usenet as being like
"pouring water on a flat surface; the water spreads out in all
directions". He provides the following illustration.
I , ( server) \
I --. t /' i m * - - - - - - - - - -
P+-' w a
Source: Jamb Palme 1995, "How the Usenet News Protocols Work"
A client wishing to read news messages does not receive them all
directly, as in email (the volume is far too great), but "browses" the
current messages available on their local server and downloads only
those of interest. To aid this process, messages are sorted into
"newsgroups" which are themselves sorted into hierarchies of related
topics: this is where the name "soc[ial].culture.nigerian originates.
Each local server can impose some sort of editorial control at this
point: not all servers carry all the newsgroups. However, the network
is an inherently open and public one, as many newsservers are
accessible for free to anyone on the Internet. A group barred from
one server can almost certainly be accessed via another.
These features mean Usenet has a very peculiar set of
characteristics as a medium. It can be "browsed" like the World-Wide
Web, rather than consisting of private, point-to-point information like
ernail or the telephone system. However, unlike other server-led
networks, its content comes solely from its participants, and anyone
who can read it can in principle write to it. Users are able to pose
questions, and respond to them: it is consequently quite different from
a one-way medium, such as television, and frequently takes on a
conversational, interactional ~haracter.~ Whilst some newsgroups
are "moderated" so messages must pass through a human or
automatic moderator's control, most are not (among them
soc.culture.nigeria).
Having set out the characteristics of Usenet as a distinct medium, the
issue is somewhat blurred by the existence of "gateways" between
this and other networks. "Mai12newsn gateways can be created
between email lists (Listsenrs) and the Usenet, enabling email users
to write directly to newsgroups (Dean 1999). In addition, companies
such as RemarQ.com and Deja.com provide gateways between
Usenet and the World-Wide Web. Deja.com is especially significant,
as it maintains a fully searchable archive of all the messages that
pass through it.' These date back several years, and thus
This said, estimates show that perhaps only 10% of Usenet readers actually make
postings themselves, and the remaining 90% am silent "lurkers', consequently invisible.
(Recount 1996)
' These can be removed at the originator's request, but Deja.Com discourage this
practice and it does not appear to be prevalent. Recalling messages, once sent to
Usenet, is extremely difficult precisely because of its decentralised. 'spreading watef
character.
encompass all of soc.cultum.nigeria's history since its inception in
1995.
Being aware of gateways such as these draws notice to the fact that
a great amount of the material posted to soc.culture.nigeria actually
originates elsewhere. What at first appears to be a conversation
between two or more participants on soc.cultum.nigeria may actually
actually taking place "elsewhere", and then being forwarded to the
newsgroup. (The route taken by a message to reach the newsgroup
may often be revealed only by careful attention to message headers,
automatically generated by each server a message passes through.)
Thus, soc.cultum.nigeria may take on the appearance of a
community discussion at times, but a someone who writes directly to
the newsgroup may not be "heardn if the other participants are
themselves following the debate elsewhere. At other times, similar
discussions do take place between writers posting to
soc.culture.nigeria itself, but are invisible to those reading only on
other networks.
The most significant of these other locales are email groups called
Listservs, especially the two called Naijanet and Igbo-net. These two
Listservs forward messages automatically to the newsgroup via
mail2news gateways unless the writer specifies otherwise, and the
volume from them is consequently considerable. Bastian (1996)
places these into useful historical context.
The first Nigerian Internet discussion group arose from private circles
of Nigerian students in the US sharing relevant news stories via
email, taking them from international news agencies such as Reuters
and AFP. Bastian (1996:4-5) relates how a discussion on the
newsgroup soc.culture.african led to the formalisation of this
arrangement, and the creation of the Listserv "Naijanet". This grew
rapidly, largely by word-of-mouth and personal contacts. Bastian
records the network's size in 1996 as 600-700 subscribers (1996:5);
and an apparent slowing of growth at that time was attributed to
Naijanet's many splits. Beginning with Oduduwa-net for Yoruba
speakers in 1992, Bastian charts the appearance of a network for
"the Association of Nigerian Activists", ANA-net in 1993 ';
Naijawomen-net in 1994, and also Igbo-net in 1994.
Soc.culture.nigeria was itself created by Naijanet users in 1995.
Because many of the email lists are closed groups, with no particular
point of entry other than word-of-mouth, it is impossible to be certain
how many there are at any given time. They also have a tendency to
rise and decline sporadically, especially with the rise of yet more
WWW gateway sites such as eGroups.com and 0neList.com that
permit the easy, free creation of Listservs by any WWW user. A
search of eGroups.com alone reveals 59 groups under the search
term "Nigeria", 13 under "Naija", 3 under "Igala", 3 "Yoruba" and 2
"lgbo". Not all of these groups are functioning, but many have a great
Hall (199952) refers to the ANA as the 'Association of Nigerians Abroad'.
29
deal of activity; details on some are shown in the table below.
(Naijanet and Igbo-net, the two lists most evident on
soc.culture.nigeria, do not operate via eGroups.)
eGroup name
Naiia Women (naiia-women)
Naiia News and Discussion (naiiacentral)
-1 Bendel leaaue (bendel leaaue)
Niaerian Professionals Abroad (naiia-~ro)
icoba class of '84 (icobaclassof84)
F. .G. . #)
EverythinaNiaeria fevervthinaniaerial
AlrForceMilitawSchool 30s
0) ubnlondon (nailahockev)
G r o u ~ For Iabo Proaress (~roaressives)
Ekwe-Nche (ekwe--nche)
JaalaNet (laala]
/GALA-UK NET (iaala-uk)
EGBE OM0 YORUBA
Members
153
25
89
17
108
9
37
42
42
37
8
11
3
18
3
1
Messages
1394
369
302
279
259
363
30 1
278
248
127
2
3
3
190
2
1
O It is very interesting that there is no evidence of anything like 'Hausa-net", 'Arewa-net",
or any similar forum for the discussion of Northern Nigerian issues, unlike the sluation
for Southern Nigeria. People from that region are certainly active online (see Case
Study 2), but for some reason have not apparently formed a discussion gmup of their
Own.
Soc.culture.nigeria thus does not constitute a single community of
lnternet using Nigerians, but a kind of public "information crossroads"
(rather than "highway"), reflecting debate in many different groups
and forums. Besides these discussion groups, it also regularly
receives material from email-based news services (such as Nigeria
Media Monitor), and Web-based Nigerian services. These Web-
based services, such as Nigeria.com, MotherlandNigeria.wm, and
Odili.net, are furthermore becoming centres of discussion in their own
right with the addition of ever more sophisticated Java bulletin boards
to allow reader responses. Soc.culture.nigeria frequently contains
links to such pages, and makes reference to documents stored
elsewhere on the lnternet (as we will see later Case Study 3).
Soc.culture.nigeria is only part of a broader international Nigerian
communicative network. It is one of the most publically accessible
parts, but the total network is highly complex, closed in many places,
and spread across different media. The backbone of this network as
far as the lnternet is concernced perhaps lies in the sort of
interactions that initiated the growth of Naijanet: private emails
between users. These certainly continue alongside the forums, all
with varying degrees of "publicn or "privaten-ness. They are, however,
inaccessible to the researcher or indeed to other parts of the network.
Furthermore, the most active participants across the Nigerian
communication networks do not limit themselves to CMC media, but
make use of the full range of communication possibilities available to
them. Discussions on the group refer to and help promote the
activities of the same participants across all media: television,
published books, post, newspapers, magazines, telephones, even
theatre. Information travels in both directions across all of these
media and the Internet. A writer might publish a book, and then
promote it, sell it and solicit reviews from other participants online (as
in the case of Cyril Orji's self-published novel Lamentations). Groups
of Nigerians on-line frequently organise petitions, formal letters or
other forms of collective political expression for distribution through
both CMC and conventional media channels (e.g. the press releases
in Case Study 2 below).
Soc.cultum.nigena, then, is fundamentally embedded within wider
communication networks. Such embedding distinguishes this sort of
computer-mediated social interaction from the recreational, escapist
use of CMC in networks such as role-playing MUDs ("Multi-User
Dungeons"), which have hitherto preoccupied many writers on CMC
sociality (e.g. Rheingold 1994; Bromberg in Shields 1996:143). Lyon
(Loader 1997:28) accuses the 'communities' found in CMC settings
such as MUDs of self-referentiality; he cites Reid's comment that
such social environments "are substitutes for and yet distinct from the
networks of meaning in the wider community", even as they provide a
"common culture whose specialised meanings allow the sharing of
imagined realities" (Reid in Jones 1995:183). It is difficult to see any
similar process occurring within the context of soc.cultum.nigeria.
There is no sense of the newsgroup in any real way "substitutingn for
Nigeria, despite Mitra's approach to studying soc.cultum.india as
"Looking for India on the Internet" (in Jones 1997:61). Whilst a
Nigerian WWW site may make the claim, for instance, that 'Naija.com
is Nigeria on the Internet*, the intrinsic focus of such sites on people,
places and events external to the Internet makes their relationship to
"the networks of meaning in the wider communityn very different to
those of role-playing fantasy games or environments found
elsewhere. As for "the sharing of imagined realities', we will consider
Anderson's arguments in relation to print media and nationalism
below.
3. COMMUNICATIONS MEDIA AND SOCIAL THEORY
Many thinkers have considered the profound impact of changing
technologies of communication on social formations, but in this
section we will focus on two. Walter Ong (1982) provides a bold
analysis of the characteristics of orality, literacy and print; this forms a
useful basis on which to speculate about the nature of the "written
speech" (Paccagnella 1997) which constitutes much of the substance
of soc.cultum.nigeria. Benedict Anderson's "Imagined Communities"
(1991) then locates the features of print in the broad social context of
the development of nationalism; surely a thesis with important
parallels for this study on Nigerian identities in the time of yet another
upheaval in communications.
Walter Ong's work on the effects of the process of "technologizing the
word" (1982) pays close attention to the shifts in "consciousness" that
result from the introduction of writing to entirely oral societies, and of
print to entirely "chirographic" societies. Ong touches briefly on
technologies of 'secondary orality" (Ong 1982:135) such as telephony
and television, and on the use of computers in the production of print,
but these ideas can be profitably developed further in the context of
1999 Internet communication.
Ong describes a very wide spectrum of changes in the "noetic
economy" (Ong 1982:130) as a result of the technologies in question.
Transformations wrought by the introduction of writing centre around
the shift from the word as sound to the word in visual space, which
need not concern us here. However, the development of print
transforms and furthers the process of writing in several ways,
leading to closum and objectification of the texts in question.
Typographic control typically impresses ... by its tidiness and inevitability: the
lines perfectly regular, all justified on the right side, everything coming out even
visually, and without the aid of the guidelines ... This is an insistent world of cold,
non-human facts. 'That's the way it is' ... (Ong 1982:122)
The authority and finality that print confers on a text is somehow
divorced from its human author to a degree greater than in an
imperfect, hand-written manuscript, and far more so than the direct,
humanly spoken word. Furthermore, "[plrint involves many persons
besides the author in the production of a work - publishers, literary
agents, publishers' readers, copy editors and others." (ibid.). All of
these aspects combined to "isolate thought on a written surface,
detached from any interlocutor . . . somehow self-contained,
complete." (Ong 1982:132). The filling of 'white space" evident in
print, even in daily newspapers, leaves no space for the reader's
additions in the margin as was common with scholarly manuscripts;
its production of thousands of identical copies even removes the
purpose of such marginalia, since copies are not shared in the same
manner.
Ong suggests that this "sequential processing and spatializing of the
word ... is further intensified by the computer, which maximizes the
commitment of the word to space" (Ong 1982:136), and perhaps for
1982 when the most common destination for computer-processed
text was the printed page, this holds. Yet with the advent of the
Internet, where words are written, transmitted and read without ever
leaving the flickering computer screen for the fixity of "hard copy", it is
my view that both the "commitment of the word to space" and the
closure of print are largely lost. Words may appear as regular and
justified as print, but they have become eminently manipulable: the
user controls their own web-browser, newsreader or email program
and can transform the font or size of text instantly. The authority and
perfection of print can disappear: emails and newsgroup postings are
hurriedly produced, by individual authors (not teams), and are full of
the mis-spellings, abbreviations and inaccuracies that conventional
print denies. Resistance to erasure and insertion, epitomised by the
printed word, is lost. An extremely common technique of argument
on newsgroups like soc.culture.nigeria, or the email Listservs, is to
take an interlocutor's original message, and in reply to intersperse it
with one's own comments. Originally devised as a means of tying
together conversational "threads", to avoid misunderstandings, such
practices transform the nature of debate by making one's opponent's
text manipulable in a way not seen with any other medium. Selective
quoting is necessary, and this power of selection alters the
relationship between opposing voices fundamentally.1° Lyon has also
lo A satiricel piece, 'How to Win Arguments on Usenet', sends this practise up very accurately:
'Selective editing is a good way to avoid engaging with your ownent's better arguments Simply
delete that intelligent, pointed question which ends paragraph three and reply instead to the
weaker arguments beneath. Should your opponent post something like "l'm sorry but you're
remarked on this feature of the shift away from print: Whereas in
print culture the author - literally - had authority, and the reader a
capacity to criticise, these fixed points are blurred in electronic
communication." (Lyon in Loader 1997:29).
Benedict Anderson's influential characterisation of nations as
"imagined communitiesu (1991) is extremely relevant for this study.
The centre of his argument is not merely the claim, previously made
by others, that nations as collectivities of many people who will never
meet are necessarily "imagined" or "invented" (Anderson 1991 :5).
Anderson seeks to show how such imaginings are possible, and why
they exert such powerful effects.
What, in a positive sense, made the new communities imaginable was ... interaction between a system of production and productive relations (capitalism),
a technology of communications (print) and the fatality of human linguistic
diversity.
(Anderson 1991 :4243).
The fusion of this social and communicative system is referred to as
"print-capitalism", and Anderson contrasts it with earlier political
systems. Transcontinental religious communities, such as
Christendom and Islam, were imagined on the basis of sacred texts in
(often unspoken) script languages like "Church Latin, Qur'anic Arabic
or Examination Chinesen (Anderson 1991:14). The consequent
talking crap", snip everything but the first two words then graciously accept his apology.' (Jones
1999)
spread of print, both as books and newspapers, had the most
profound implications for systems of belief and authority, as well as
directly for communication.
Anderson cites the diversity of spoken languages in pre-print Europe
as being far too immense for capitalism to feasibly exploit each
vernacular micro-market. Both Afigbo and Nnoli make similar
observations for the Nigerian case: "many Nigerians encounter a
different language just twenty miles outside their communal
homeland." (Nnoli 1978:128). Afigbo's account of the Christian
missionaries' difficulties in creating a printed lgbo Bible under these
conditions supports Anderson's case very strongly (Afigbo 1982:360-
4). But, Anderson notes, "these varied idiolects were capable of
being assembled, within definite limits, into print-languages far fewer
in number." (Anderson 1991:43). Such print-languages had three
principle implications for imagined nations, firstly in creating "unified
fields of exchange and communication below Latin and above the
spoken vernaculars". They fused marginally intelligible speeches into
definite language-fields, comprehensible as "French" or "English".
Nascent 'communities' of readers and writers were thus created, far
larger than the immediate speech communities of any local
vernacular. (Ong 1982:106-7 describes the same process.)
Secondly, "print-capitalism gave a new fixity to languagen (Anderson
1991:44), with printed texts capable of being reproduced very
accurately and indefinitely. Without scribes re-writing each
successive manuscript copy, unconsciously altering and updating text
and language therein, the pace of change of language slowed
dramatically. Anderson quotes Febvre and Martin: 'By the 17th
century languages in Europe had generally assumed their modem
forms" (ibid.). Finally, the crystallising of print-languages had political
implications for the relative power and status of various dialects.
Dialects closer to the print-language dominated those that were less
successful in attaining printed status, as Anderson puts it (1991:45).11
These influences of print (in association with capitalism) on the
development of national consciousness were profound; it is
interesting then to question what effects the rise of computer-
mediated communication might have. As noted above when
considering Ong, while computer-mediated texts such as are found
on Usenet retain and enhance all the reproducibility of print, they lack
the closure and fixity Anderson describes above. The low cost of
distribution means texts can be produced for an audience as small as
one, and consequently restrictions on the use of idiolect and "correctn
print-language are loose. Soc.culture.nigeria contains a great
diversity of languages, such as English, Yoruba, and Igbo, yet the
group's potential for heteroglossia is not limited to these more-or-less
settled print-languages. Nigerian Pidgin is widely employed in certain
contexts, as a language common to most Nigerians (at least the
Southerners who predominate on the Net) yet very hard for non-
Nigerians to comprehend. The use of printed Pidgin in various forms
l1 One might wonder whether the reverse dynamic also operated, and the dialects that
had most influence on print-languages were previously the most poliically dominant.
is not new (Saro-Wiwa's 1985 "novel in Rotten Englishn, Sozaboy, is
a related literary phenomenon), yet many of the texts found in
soc.cuEture.nigeria blend it in with Standard English, other Nigerian
languages, and even Internet-specific linguistic features in ways that
simply would not be found in other media. The computer-mediated
format of Usenet makes feasible the use of languages intelligible only
to a few specific addressees, in a manner akin to that of speech, yet
with the reproducibility and global reach of print or other electronic
media. Indeed, Paccagnella (1997) notes that CMC can be defined
as 'written speech", though he attributes this to a dubious
"ephemerality".'* He is closer to the mark when he notes that very
often such communication "is not intended for people uninvolved
directly in interaction, and it loses part of its sense and meaning when
re-read afterward by neutral observers". "Written speech" is situated
and personal, dependent on context in a way reminiscent of oral
utterances (Ong 1982:101) - although this can be problematic for
successful understanding.
The loss in large part of what Ong terms "closure", and Anderson
"fixityn, affects the sort of authority that computer-mediated
communication can exert compared to print. Incoherence, instability
and a lack of permanence are widely noted characteristics of online
social environments (Herring 1999). The asynchronous,
l2 'Ephememli seems the last property to attribute to a medium where every word is
archived indefinitely by third patties. We will consider these archives further in Chapter
4.
decentralised Usenet is particularly noted for these traits; Rheingold
characterises it as a "working anarchy" (1994:109). In addition, the
lack of closure renders 'facts' highly unreliable. The newsgroup has
seen several incidents of rumours being widely accepted, that later
turn out to be simply untrue. For instance in February 1999 the entire
print run of The News magazine was seized by the transitional
military regime because it contained reports of Nigerian casuality
figures in the Sierra Leonean conflict. An argument over the rights
and wrongs of this ran for several days on the newsgroup, but was
sharply curtailed: because the magazine had actually contained no
such article. Amidst conflicting reports, no-one could be sure whether
the police had thought it contained this article, or whether they were
acting over another story entirely. Consequently, writers in the
discussion group quickly learn to adopt sceptical attitudes,
questioning their sources in a manner seen far less frequently with
printed media. Even the existence and identity of one's interlocutor
cannot be taken for granted, with several apparent instances of
"fictitious" characters writing from free email services such as
Hotmail.com.
Soc.culture.nigeria, as part of Usenet, displays the paradoxical
tendencies inherent in the medium to both connectivity and
incoherence. At one level, the TCP/IP protocol creates a common
"language-field" of communicative potential, the largest the world has
ever seen: all points on the globe of connectivity are rendered equally
instantly accessible. Simultaneously, it makes possible once again
the use of specialised, constantly evolving idiolects. Any sort of
social identity, from the universal to the idiosyncratic can be evoked
or constructed: common humanity, the African race, the ltsekiri
people, members of the "Palm Wine Drinkard's club"; one writer signs
himself "of my own village onlyn, another is neither Muslim nor
Christian but "Christlem". Yet without support from other forms of
communication, indeed the rest of the social world, there is nothing to
sustain these identities, and they might just as quickly vanish. Some
identities, of course, are better supported than others. The
connections between identity, discourse and other forms of social
power are well expressed in the aphorism that "a language is a
dialect with an army".
4. METHODOLOGICAL AND ETHICAL ISSUES IN USENET
RESEARCH
This section of the dissertation provides an overview of some of the
particular issues affecting social research on Usenet. The peculiar
characteristics of this computer-mediated social setting necessarily
influence the choice of research methods used, as do the theoretical
positions behind a given research goal. Research in computer-
mediated communication also raises new ethical issues, compared to
those experienced in "conventional" anthropological or sociological
enquiry. Paccagnella (1997) provides a useful grounding in such
research from an ethnographic perspective, although as we will see,
ethnography is by no means the only possible disciplinary approach
to CMC in general, or Usenet in particular. In this chapter, the
decision between quantitative or qualitative methods will be
considered, based on consideration of approaches used by other
researchers in the study of Usenet. There follows an explanation of
the methods used here: an extended period of "silent" observation on
the newsgroup, followed by the use of discourse analytic techniques
to examine closely a small selection of the data (with the consent of
the authors). These decisions will be defended on both theoretical
and ethical grounds.
Decisions about social research projects immediately pose the
question of quantitative or qualitative techniques: whether to gather
quantitative numerical data, in order to apply statistical analysis, or to
use an interpretive approach to the raw material. Researchers
studying social activity on Usenet, and other similar Internet settings,
have made use of a range of such approaches. Although the raw
material is the same in all cases - vast amounts of machine-readable
text - fast computer systems are able to store and manipulate this
data in any way the researcher can devise. Stone notes that "in a
universe in which everything (and everybody) is produced and
mediated by text, the floppy disk is the ultimate field recorder.
Nothing escapes its panoptic gaze." (in Star 1995243). The linguist
Paolillo adopts a different disciplinary perspective to the same
phenomenon, noting that the "complete textual logs" found in CMC
enable "the researcher to utilize quantitative analytical methods that
would be unthinkable if the research were conducted on face-to-face
interaction." (Paolillo 1999).
Quantitative techniques have been applied to a wide range of
theoretical topics in Usenet research, such as biologists examining
the idea of memes and "cultural evolution", treating Usenet as a
"model cultural systemn (Pocklington and Best 1997:l); psychologists
examining correlations between language style and gender (Savicki,
Lingenfelter and Kelley 1996); and a communication studies analysis
of "reproaching incidents" (Smith, McLaughlin and Osborne 1997). At
the same time, qualitative approaches to newsgroups have been
used by Mitra for soc.cultum.india (in Jones 1997:79) and Baym for
rec.arts.television.soaps (in Jones 1995:138-163), amongst others.
Both of these latter writers are concerned with the nature of
"community", and whether it can exist in CMC settings.
Operationalising such a concept, as is necessary to render it
amenable to statistical investigation, would not only be difficult: these
writers are questioning the very nature of community itself. To define
it as a fixed mathematical expression, with which the data could be
tested, would require their conclusions to be reached before the
actual investigation. We cannot measure how much of something
there is before we know what it is we are looking for.
Similarly, the topic of identity expressed through language is not one
easily amenable to quantitative investigation. A quantitative
approach, that might be based around searches for particular word
usage ("Nigerian", "Naija" or "Igbo", perhaps) would be possible, yet
such an approach would be uninformative: without context, both
social and textual, the meanings and resonances of these terms are
lost. Furthermore, this study places emphasis on the study of
discourse in Usenet as implacably heteroglossic and polyphonic. A
word such as "Nigeriann or "Africann has different meanings in the
usage of different writers. This suggests that an aggregative
approach, attempting to extract a single set of meanings from this
diversity, would be doomed to failure.
This is not to say all quantitative techniques are insensitive to such
issues. One promising technique is the social network analysis
approach, adopted by writers such as J. Clyde Mitchell in the 1970s
to investigate African ethnicity in face-to-face social settings (8.g.
Boissevain and Mitchell 1973: 15-36; Mitchell in ASA 1974: 1-35).
This yields quantitative data which is relational: that is, it concerns the
interactions between a network of participants, rather than treating
the group as an aggregation of isolated individuals. Furthermore, the
mathematics of network analysis is in many ways well suited to
lnternet communication, which is itself a network. Thus a geographer
such as Paul Adams is able to apply similar techniques to investigate
concepts of 'virtual place" on the lnternet (Adams 1998); Paolillo
applies network analysis to investigate sociolinguistic features of
lnternet discussion groups (Paolillo 1999).
However, crucial problems remain with these approaches for the
present study - accessibility. operationalisation, and the theoretical
question of dialogue. The problem of gaining access to data about
the social networks in question is not one which merely requires effort
to solve: the fundamental interpenetration between the Usenet
network and other communications media, such as Listservs and
private e-mail, would make data collection for network analysis
inherently problematic. There would be no way of knowing if
complete data had been obtained about all relevant interactions
between the participants. Concerns have also been raised
periodically in discussions that some participants may be using more
than one identity, creating fictitious characters to support them in
arguments, and so on. "Ghostn participants such as these would
affect the validity of any conclusions.
Paolillo's network approach to sociolinguistics still requires key
theoretical concepts (in his case, "vernacularization") to be
operationalized before correlations can be sought, again stripping
actual usages of linguistic features of their context and thus their
meaning, from the speakers' viewpoint. The result is that the
explanatory power of his study is sharply limited: he can state which
of a set of "social groupsn in his CMC environment use certain
linguistic features most frequently, but not why, or when, they are
used. The impermanence of these social groups in the CMC
environment delimits the value of such results further. They may be
useful for Paolillo's concerns with behavioural features of language,
but do not address the concerns of this study: the connections of
language to identity and social meaning.
Mitchell's (1974) use of network analysis was not, of course, in a
CMC setting, but did address some of the same questions of ethnic
identity that concern us here. Attempting to tackle the question of
perceived social distances between ethnic identity groups in Zambia,
Mitchell's methodology was based on a survey of large numbers of
individuals who answered a questionnaire enquiring
whether the respondent would willingly admit a member from an arbitrarily
specified ethnic Qroup into close kinship by marriage, into a village, to the tribal
area, work with, share a meal with, or allow as a visitor to his home areas.
(Boissevain and Mitchell 19743)
Mitchell then applied fairly complex statistical analysis to this data, to
produce a set of results which he claimed gave "a general
representation" of the 'structure of the perceptions of social distance":
surely a structure that would reveal much about identity formations in
any setting, were it valid. However, this approach does not admit the
possibility of identities as dialogically formed. The dialogues taking
place here are between the researcher and each of his 239
respondents, artificially created interactions that have no bearing on
everyday social realities in the setting under study. The importance
to the expression of identity of the addressee (the silent but essential
partner in any act of dialogue) is something that emerges quite clearly
from the present dissertation.13
The most appropriate techniques for the current project, then, are
qualitative. I have adopted a combination of long-term observation,
and close readings of particular texts based on discourse analysis,
which will be discussed below.
The aim of participant observation, lengthy periods of immersion in
the target social setting, is to attain what Lofland describes as
"intimate familiarity" (Lofland 1976:8) with the situation, some level of
interpretive understanding. Similarly with on-line ethnography:
Paccagnella cites Webefs concept of Verstehen, and describes his
period of 18 months spent as a member of an Italian computer
conference as an attempt to achieve "an intimate understanding of
the culture and the symbolic system of the conference" (Paccagnella
1997). For the present topic, observation of soc.culture.nigeria was
carried on for a period of nine months, from December 1998 to
IS Consider the way the absence of a direct Yoruba audience affects the positioning of
the Yoruba in Case Study 1, or the absence of any ethnic identiy in the literally inter-
national encounter seen in Case Study 3.
August 1999. This extended period of observation was made
possible and given continuity by the selection of this one 'field site'
itself, soc.culture.nigeria. Having a single defined area under study in
CMC provides necessary limits to observation, enabling the
researcher to gain a more thorough insight into what is happening in
and around that 'place'. These insights, such as the way in which the
newsgroup and its e-mail "subgroups" interrelate, were still occurring
to me after several months - randomly scouring the overwhelming
amount of Nigeria-related information on the entire lnternet for the
same period would probably not have led to the same understanding.
In addition, a key property of soc.culture.nigeria - its fundamental
intertextuality, noted in Chapter 2 and throughout this dissertation - gave the newsgroup a particular advantage as a field site. It acts as
an easily accessibile, but still well-connected 'central node' in
Nigerian lnternet space (an 'information crossroads'). Concentrating
my attention on this one locale thus did not lead to neglect of other
lnternet activity.
This period of observation was not, however, particpant observation,
attempting to engage in discussions on the newsgroup: I made only
one posting to the newsgroup itself during this duration, in May. This
may appear uncomfortably like the ethically controversial practice of
covert observation, discussed extensively in Bulmer (1982), and
these important ethical concerns must be addressed. Firstly, Usenet
is a public network. Paccagnella cites the ProjectH research group
(an international team of scholars engaged in quantitative research
on electronic discussions):
We view public discourse on CMC as just that: public. Analysis of such content.
where individuals', Institutions' and lists' identities are shielded, is not subject to
'Human Subject' restraints. Such study is more akin to the study of tombstone
epitaphs, gramti, or letters to the editor. Personal? -yes. Private? - no.
(Rafaeli quoted in Paccagnella 1997).
This perception of material on the network as public is shared by at
least one of the writers I approached, who replied: "Feel free to use
[the materials]. After all, they are 'published'!". However, while such
an attitude to 'public' and 'private' communication may reflect legal
distinctions, the use of such "personal" discourse in the very different
context of social research still seems ethically problematic. For this
reason I have always asked for permission from the authors of
material I wish to analyse. The exceptions to this are where I have
made only a passing reference to a message, used anonymously
(where it is not an object of study in its own right); and the two press
releases in Case Study 2. 1 feel that these latter texts, collaboratively
written, and for wide distribution, are not "personal", but genuinely in
the public domain.
Secondly, one of the main ethical problems with conventional covert
research is that during the researcher's time in the setting, he is
"concealing the fact that he is a researcher and pretending to play
some other role." (Bulmer 1982:4). This is not the case on Usenet.
There is no such pretence, and simply reading messages without
posting is in fact the norm: probably over 90% of Usenet readers are
"lurking" in this way (Recount 1996).
Furthermore, although some newsgroups may operate as "virtual
communities" with clear insider-outsider demarcations, where a
"covert researcher" would represent a real intrusion (e.g. Baym's
example of rec.arts.television.soaps in Jones 1995: 138), this is not
exactly the case for soc.culture.nigeria, owing to the complex
intertextual structure described in Chapter 2. There are reflected
fragments of other virtual communities, like the Listservs; there are
occasional conversational exchanges; but "the group" itself does not
constitute one social entity. The single posting I made, announcing a
forthcoming conference paper in May 1999, received no replies.
However, contacting writers directly by e-mail always elicited
(positive!) responses. While this is not practical for every message
read during the nine months of observation, I feel it to be an ethical
requirement where lengthy extracts are to be reprinted, as in this
dissertation.
Bulmer's main pragmatic argument against conventional covert
observation is "simply that covert methods are often not necessary
and the same objectives can be achieved by overt or 'open'
observational studiesn (Bulmer 1982:120). 1 would argue that in this
case they cannot. Given an understanding of identity as socially
negotiated and situationally contingent, it is relevant that introducing
myself to the social situation as a European researcher changes the
situation radically. We see in the three case studies that different
identities are mobilised with different interlocutors: Igbo-net, the
Nigerian public, an American on Usenet. Rather than a contrived
setting like Mitchell's 1974 research mentioned earlier, in which
respondents discuss identity in a setting with an outsider-researcher,
the aim of this study is to examine uses of identity as they occur
between different participants.
At this point the "textual log" characteristic of CMC noted at the
beginning of the chapter provides another useful feature for the
researcher. It is possible to seek permission from writers after the
event, with the original utterance already recorded unaffected by the
existence of a researcher. The best of both worlds is thus obtainable
- both "the study of social interaction in [genuinely] natural settings"
(Lofland 1976), and the informed consent of those subjects whose
words are to be re-presented.
This same availability of textual logs facilitates not only large-scale
quantitative analysis, as noted by Paolillo above, but obviates the
need for transcription for discourse analysis, the other qualitative
approach employed for this study. This method is not a separate
approach, unrelated to the period of observation: it is the
understanding and familiarity with the research setting gained by the
months of observation that (hopefully) allows a measure of insight
into the dynamics of discourse within the group. Nine months of
complete field data (let alone the four years of archive material
available for soc.cultum.nigeria) cannot possibly be represented in
full, but this background can inform the analysis of any selected
extracts.
Discourse analysis is not itself a single, clearly defined
methodological technique (Schiffrin terms it "one of the most vast, but
also one of the least defined, areas in linguistics") (1994:5), but rather
describes a body of theoretical and analytical approaches to text that
crosses many disciplinary boundaries. Nevertheless, an approach
concerned with 'language in social action' seems ideal when the
material available for analysis is precisely that. The work of Dell
Hymes and J.J. Gumperz (Gumperz and Hymes 1972; Gumperz
1982), in the theories of ethnography of communication and
interactional sociolinguistics, have both proved helpful in developing a
sensitivity to language in use. An emphasis on cultural relativity in
communication practices, and in Gumperz on the special nature of
cross-cultural communication, are particularly useful perspectives to
bring to readings of soc.cultum.nigeria.
As this study is not focused primarily on language itself, however,
their methods are not implemented systematically. I refer to them
merely to help describe the technique employed in Part II. The aims
of the analyses to be presented there are closer in spirit to that
described by Bakhtin below:
Every utterance participates in the 'unitary language' (in its centripetal forces end
tendencies) and at the same time partakes of social and historical heteroglossia
(the centrifugal, stratifying forces).
Such is the fleeting language of a day, d an epoch, a social group, a genre, a
school and so forth. It is possible to give a wnaete and detailed analysis of any
utterance, once having exposed it as a contradiction-ridden, tension-filled unity of
two embattled tendencies in the life of language.
(Bakhtii 1981:272)
Though Bakhtin's tone is (typically) rather confrontational, and it
sounds somewhat hostile to set about exposing all language as
"contradiction-riddenn and "tension-filled", this passage nevertheless
provides my theoretical starting point for the investigation of identities
expressed and formed in the new communicative conditions of
soc. culture. nigeria.
On a final point, the three extracts from the newsgroup used here
have not been selected to be 'representative', and were not sampled
from from the newsgroup in any formal manner. The fragmentary
nature of the newsgroup does not easily permit the drawing of
'overall' conclusions; to claim representativeness or completeness
would be to force a false unity onto many disparate interactions, quite
at odds with the aims of the study. In addition, investigating any great
number of these very different texts would not permit the analysis of
anything more than their surface features. Rather than attempting
this, a more fruitful approach is to draw out some of the ways in which
multiple identities are employed and interact in "concrete and
detailed" analyses of a few specific "utterances". The selections have
been chosen as complementary to one another, and hopefully
interesting and informative in their own right (even without the
commentaries) to the reader concerned with the topic of Nigerian
identities.
PART TWO
The full text of each example precedes each discussion. Line
numbers are given in square brackets following quotations.
Extract A
Friendship Lecture
From: "Nowamagbe Omoigui M.D." <[email protected]>
Date: Thu, 6 May 1999 15:20:56 EST
Subject: Re: Friendship Lecture
Ogbuef i Meke,
Thanks for your compliments and the very good question.
"Ndi-Edo" (as you call us) have never "claimed" closer cultural ties
to "Ndi-Oyo" than "Ndi-Igbo'. It is carly Yoruba writcrs (who had
the first opportunity to go to the White man's schools) who changed
the relationship of Ndi-Edo to Ndi-Yoruba. "Ndi-Edo" have always (in
oral traditions) recognized our complex relationships with
neighboring nations, including many parts of modern "Igboland" as
deep as Oguta. Even our migration (a long time ago) from the area of
modcrn day Egypt and Sudan makcs us closcr to somc othcr "migrants"
in modern Nigeria than the Yoruba can ever claim. But there are four
valid Yoruba
conncctions to Edo:
Cross-over of the royal houses of Benin and Ife including the
exchange of royal art forms and techniques.
Influences on Benin Traditional religion (eg Yoruba deities like
Orunmila) amongst Edo communities bordering Yoruba land (c.g. Uscn).
Edo viceroys appointed (in the 16th and 17th centuries) to rule over
places like Lagos (called "Eko" in Edo language - meaning "prisoner of war
camp"
Small migrant Yoruba communities deep within Edo and Ika land.
[some still speak an ancient dialect of yoruba to this day]
Migrant Edo communities left behind (after wars and trading)
in places like Akure, Owo, Ado-Ekiti etc ... [You might want to know, for example, that "Ado-Ekiti" comes from "Edo". 'Ado-Akure'
refers to those Binis of mixed ancestry who returned to Benin to
settle. Those who did not return have practically been assimilated
into
modern Yoruba nation, preferring to hide under that label in order to
benefit from being a "majority tribe"]. My maternal
grandmother (a pure Edo woman), for example, was buried in Akure
circa 1936, where she was a leader of the Edo Marketwomen group for
many years.
According to Edo oral tradition, the royal cross-over "Yoruba"
~0nncction to "Edo" originally came from the escape of a Bcnin Prince
from infighting within the royal family in Benin. This Prince
wandered
with his party into the 'Ife' area where he came across some friendly
aborigines. He then decided to settle there calling it "Ilefe"
meaning
"I have escaped and survived" - which Ndi-Edo think is what was corrupted to Ile-Ife. This Prince (Ekaladerhan) told his hosts
"Izoduwaw meaning "I have chosen the path of prosperity for you"
which Ndi-Edo think was corrupted to "Oduduwa". Whcn Edo land
wanted a restoration of the old monarchy they sent for him; but being
too old he sent his son (born of a yoruba woman) whose name was
"Oranmiyann. Oranmiyan (re)established the modern dynasty.
His son was initially dumb. However, while playing a game of "Ayo"
he hit the jackpot and shouted (excitedly) "Owomika" in yoruba - meaning "My hand struck it". This was how the name "Eweka"
was derived. Oranmiyan returned to Ife after getting frustrated with
Edo politics labelling what we now call Benin-City, "Ile-Ibinu"
mcaning
"House Of Quarrel". However, his son (Eweka 1)
became Oba and is the index King of the modern dynasty.
This version never made to the books published by early Yoruba
intellectuals because (in Ndi-Edo's view) it would have meant
supremacy
of the Edo Traditional Institution in the old Western region. [Like
many Igbo communities, Edos were very resistant to the whiteman's
culture and resisted western education initially] As it turns out the
entire basis for the formation of "Egbe Omo Oduduwa" was the
prcsumption of originality and supcriority of Ifc in thc schcmc of
things in Yoruba land - even though the Oyo empire was the dominant yoruba force for much of the 18th and 19th centuries.
'Egbe Omo Oduduwa' became "Action Group". However, the Edos
always knew they had a different version and eventually, irritation
with Yoruba irredentism blossomed into the first calls for the
separation
of thc Midwcst from thc Wcst. Whcn Osadcbay was madc our first
Premier, he alluded to the "Benin ancestral-link" in announcing
Benin-City as the capital of the new region.
Ndi-Edo's relationships to Ndi-Igbo are expressed in many songs among
many communities strctching from Bcnin-City all thc way to thc Nigcr
banks (on both sides). In addition, many secret rituals in Edoland
use a language different from traditional common Edo language.
Depending on the ritual, these languages have many words from
surrounding nations, including Ika, Ukwani and Nri-Igbo. Similarly,
certain rituals in 'Igboland' contain obvious Edo words. I smile when
somc of my "Igbo" fricnds makc statcmcnts containing words that I can
57
identify. Who gave what to who? We will never know for sure. But
some of us are definitely related - even if we do not realize it - and we fight from time to time in modern Nigeria! This is one
reason why traditional contacts can be very important in keeping the
pcacc amongst our pcoplcs.
Until the British came and started establishing rigid borders,
settlement patterns were very flexible and mixed. Intermarriage was
common and names became mixed up in ways we cannot trace today. If
one drifted away from one's community for any reason (famine, crime,
polygamous
fighting, escape from slave raiders etc .... ) all one had to do was make peace with village elders who would then grant land for
scttlcmcnt and bcgin thc proccss of association and assimilation.
Even slaves were frequently assimilated into the owning families.
Thus, in addition to specific royal houses founded by conquering
princes or war generals, the commoners in many villages have mixed
ancestry.
In fact the age grade system I described for Edoland also applies to
certain
"Igbo-speaking" communities of today.
Since traditional african religion was the in-thing, our rituals were
vcry
similar - and up to this day, if you talk to those who are in the know, such rituals betray just how close we all used to be - before thc whitcman camc with his agcnda.
CASE STUDY 1 - Friendship Lecture
The first text from soc.culture.nigeria to be examined is directly
concerned with questions of dialogue between ethnic identities: it is a
conversation between ethnic groups, about ethnic groups. The
extract is only part of a lengthy discussion, between an Edo writer (Dr
Omoigui) and members of the Igbo-net discussion group. As it
originated on Igbo-net, it was written primarily for this audience and
not specifically for the open, public setting of soc.culture.nigeria.
However, the automatic links between Igbo-net and the newsgroup
mean such material forms a great part of the content on the Usenet
newsgroup. This chapter first briefly outlines the social 'occasion' or
setting from which the extract originates, before looking at the place
of identity within it. Close attention is paid to the ways the extract
sets out an understanding of Nigerian ethnicity and nation. Though
ethnicity is of central importance, it is further argued that other forms
of personal identity cross-cut it, playing a mediating role. Finally, we
consider the construction of ethnicity in terms of dialogue, and the
role of this particular text in relation to this process.
This "Friendship Lecture" (31 is presented as an annual occasion on
Igbo-net, with a 'talk' given to the discussion group by a non-lgbo
guest speaker. As was mentioned earlier, the structure of Igbo-net (a
email Listserv with a defined membership) is very different to the
open, public structure of soc.culture.nigeria (within Usenet). Though
soc.culture.nigeria could not meaningfully be called a 'community",
Igbo-net falls much closer to this category, especially for the most
active core of its members." This should not allow us to ignore its
intrinsic divisions, such as irreconcilable differences of opinion, the
distinctions between the most active members and minimally
participating "lurkers". However, given that all participants have
stated aims in common when subscribing, and all those involved in
the "Friendship Lecture" have implicitly accepted the event's
definition, there is considerably more closure in this instance than can
be seen in other online exchanges (e.g. Case Study 3). On the other
hand, the ambiguous position of online discourse, neither speech nor
print, is readily apparent here: the central text is a called a "lecture"
rather than an essay. This may seem incorrect at first, but since the
"lecturen takes a question-and-answer format, with "audience" input, it
is perhaps the more accurate analogy. There is also less formality
than might be found with a printed essay, especially as the discussion
continues. (The whole exchange was too lengthy to reprint here; the
extract given is a reply by the main speaker to a question about his
first lecture.)
As the setting in this instance is understood by the participants as a
lecturer and audience, rather than a group of writers of equal status
(for instance) Dr Omoigui is temporarily accorded a special position
as "guest lecturer". His contributions are privileged to a degree
above the others as speaking for "Ndi-Edon 161, his statements given
-- -
" Rheingold (1994) and Jones (1995) both provide extensive discussion on what exactly
may constiiute a 'virtual community'.
authority on matters which fall outside the scope of the year-round
lgbo members' usual discourse. Nevertheless, the group's ultimate
focus remains on lgbo cultural identity and politics. The lecture
constitutes only one event in a span of the discussion defined on the
group as "lgbo heritage month". Though Dr Omoigui is accorded a
great deal of respect, appropriate to his status as a guest, it is notable
that the responses from other members engage above all with the
sections of the lecture that have a direct interest for lgbo identity. His
allusion to one Edo group's former practice of teeth-filing, for
instance, was related by one writer to the travels of the early lgbo
writer Olaudah Equiano. This in turn provoked an animated debate
over Equiano's exact origins within Igboland, a perennially popular
topic amongst the group.
The central concerns of the extract itself, however, are Nigerian
ethnic identities in general. We will now consider the way in which
these identities are constructed in the text. The extract starts by
setting out relations of distance between three apparently bounded,
but interacting, ethnic groups.
"Ndi-Edo" (as you call us) have never 'claimed" closer cultural ties
to "Ndi-Oyo" than "Ndi-lgbo". 16-71
This situation, three distinct groups, is immediately qualified by the
fact that two of the groups are in direct dialogue, to the degree that
this Edo writer uses the lgbo "Ndi-" prefix.15 This is done consciously
''The noun Ndi means "people", in the plural. (Green and Igwe. 1963:231)
and is marked, however, so boundaries are maintained ("as you call
US") [6]. The third group, the Yoruba here referred to as "Ndi-Oyo",
are absent from the conversation: this text was originally located on
Igbo-net, not Naijanet or soc.culture.nigeria . This perhaps allows a
greater degree of latitude when speaking of the Yoruba, as an absent
third party, than of the Igbo. Immediately we hear that:
... It is early Yoruba writers (who had the first opportunity to go to the White man's
schools) who changed the relationsh~p of Ndi-Edo to Ndi-Yonrba.
[6-81
This mention of a fourth group, "the White man", stands apart from
the other groups (as marked by its lack of the lgbo "ndi-" prefix, for
instance). This shows the contours of another layer of identity, below
the EdollgboNoruba division: one in which those groups are
effectively united in contradistinction to the group variously described
as "the White man" [8,87], the "British" [92] (or in the original lecture
not reprinted here, as "Caucasians"). So far, the nature of this over-
arching grouping is not clear - Nigerian, Southern Nigerian, or
African, for example? - but this will be considered later on.
It must be emphasised that even so qualified, this depiction of the text
as simply positing three ethnic identities, 'nested' within a larger
African identity, is but a caricature. Firstly, the careful ethnographic
account offered here does not accept "Edo", "lgbo" and "Yoruba" as
naturalised, homogenous groups, but is aware both of differences
within them and interpenetration between them. Indeed, these are
the theme of the discussion in hand.
Secondly, attention not to the content of the communication, but to its
form and direction suggests other forms of collective identity. Igbo-
net as a specific community is one (the identity 'Netters', or 'those in
the village square' is often invoked in discussion). Another relies on
the importance of academic English discourse in uniting this social
group, largely composed of academics, students, and graduates.
This makes the discussion itself possible: it provides both a shared
frame of reference and language to tackle its concerns, and indeed
provides the model for the communication event (a lecture, by a
guest speaker). Moreover, the importance of academic discourse as
a means and stimulus to communication cross-cuts the other
boundaries previously set up, even to some extent the over-arching
distinction that sets apart "the white man".
The privileged status of English academic discourse on Igbo-net, on
many occasions, perhaps derives both from the high value placed on
education and achievement within "lgbo culture" in a broad sense,
and specifically from the circumstances of those individuals who write
on Igbo-net. These people are likely to be living outside Nigeria,
which means study is a likely occupation. The ubiquity of the Internet
in American and European universities also means that students and
academics are more likely than most professions to be using an on-
line forum such as this. The consequence of academia's discursive
dominance, however, is a paradox which causes tension within the
text. Whilst it was the whiteman's agenda [97], indeed specifically
"the White man's schools" (81 that led to the rigid separations
between Nigerian groups (821 in this narrative, the debates and
lectures here are carried out in English. Indeed, the lecturer cites two
early British ethnographers as historical sources (in the original
lecture, not this extract).16
The irresolvable dilemma of colonial language use is well known to
students of postcolonial issues, and has been thoroughly debated by
the first generation of African writers in English (e.g. Achebe 1975). It
is not my contention that it undermines the sophisticated argument
presented here, but that this reliance on a common set of values and
language with a different basis demonstrates that identities other than
those of ethnic collectivities are subtly deployed even when the topic
discussed is ethnicity itself. Likewise, personal remarks between
participants express other common identities (however lightly). One
respondent to the lecture added the comment: "While we are at it,
welcome to the twins club. I had my twins or should I say my wife
had our twin boys in 1990 ...". (At a conventional conference these
comments might be spoken asides not entered in the formal, written
record; in the CMC setting they are recorded in the same manner as
all other utterances. This is not to say, however, that such
'marginalia' are not telling: rather, readers must sort and prioritise
such material themselves).
l6 Bradbury's 1957 The Benin Kingdom, and Thomas' 1910 Anthropological Report on
the Edo-speaking peoples of Nigeria.
Returning to the extract's foreground themes, it is useful to consider
the way it constructs relationships between the various ethnic groups.
(This will permit comparisons with similar constructions in the other
case studies.) Some tension can be discerned between an emphasis
on the separateness of the groups, and their common ground within a
larger structure, more implied than stated outright. The Edo, Igbo,
and Yoruba are described, in common Nigerian terms, as "nations"
[11] and "peoples" [81]. However, the concept of nationhood
employed here is very different from either of those which will be
seen in the next case study. Rather than emphasising unique
cultures linked to bounded territories, which encompass single
communities of "peoples", the writer breaks all these categories
down. Even traditional Edo secret rituals contain "many words from
surrounding nations" [734], and vice versa. Territories are
questioned, with the writer's use of quotation marks around
"lgboland" [11,75] emphasising the importance of "Edo" people even
"deep" [12,23] within this region. Equally, though Omoigui's
grandmother was "a pure Edo woman" [32], she lived and even died
in Akure, in a "Yoruba" area. Finally, he uses the plural when
describing "Edo communities" [19,25,70], "Yoruba communities" [23],
and so on. Collective groups are distinguished at the village level
(mirrored in the political analysis of his original lecture), rather than as
integral "peoples". The Yoruba, for example, are not portrayed as a
politically cohesive collectivity, and attention is drawn to historical
rivalry between Oyo and lfe as political centres, in a way which
accounts in part for certain modern political formations [59-681.
Although the divisions between ethnic groups are questioned, the
nature of any superordinate identity is less clear in the extract,
however. A larger "us" is certainly employed: "some of us are
definitely related" [78]; "peace amongst our peoples" [81]; "just how
close we all used to be" [96], etc. "Nigeria" is mentioned only once:
"we fight from time to time in modern Nigeria!" [79]. It also recurs in a
comment by Dr Omoigui to a later reply: "I have always wondered
why 'Ethnography' is not taught in the Nigerian Educational System.
Our people will be surprised to see how close they are to one
another."
Mentioning such a collectivity ("our people") in this way invokes a
Nigerian nationalism based on an appeal to traditional common
grounds, which were destroyed by British imperialist borders and
education. Such a view is an unusual take on the ethnicity-
nationalism debates: it is quite different from Chief Awolowo's famous
view of Nigeria as a "mere geographical expression" (cited by
Afolayan in Beckett and Young 1997:48) a British construction that
artificially unites unrelated "tribes". Given such a narrative, any
Nigerian nation has to be based on an appeal to 'modernity' over
'traditional' ethnic values; a total inversion of the view put forward
here.
However, very light emphasis is placed on such a "Nigerian" identity,
and it is seldom made explicit in the text. Dr Omoigui makes no
suggestion that the pattern of social interactions and mutual cultural
influences he describes formed anything like a political unit
coterminous with modern Nigeria. On the one hand, the region in
question could be smaller - there is no mention of any group from
northern Nigeria at all, and no sense that they might be integrated
into this cultural geography. On the other, the closing paragraph
describes a commonality of "traditional african religion" 1941, setting
up a binary distinction with "the whiteman" which could be an appeal
to an African identity far larger than simply Nigerian.
In conclusion, this piece strongly articulates a sense of ethnic
identities formed, literally, through ongoing cultural dialogues. The
various groups are formed from and name each other, both in their
myths and through them. In addition, it is notable that Dr Omoigui's
articulation of this dialogic process is also itself an act of the same, an
Edo-lgbo dialogue. This particular utterance, however, occurred in
specific social conditions which implicate other forms of identity and
language - the personal, professional and collective identities noted
above. The importance of language to identity can be seen
throughout the text, where words from one language form names or
important cultural symbols for another group, [39,42-3, 48-52, 73-77].
Such a portrayal of Nigerian intercultural dialogue, in which Edo
words can name Yoruba towns, and lgbo words enter Edo rituals, is
not unique to this text alone." Neither does the 'actual' sequence of
events - "who gave what to who" [77] - fundamentally affect the
" An interesting parallel occurs in Hymes' passing remark: "The Anang (Nigeria)
received their name from neighbouring Ibo, the term meaning 'ability to speak wittily yet
meaningfully upon any occasion." (Gumperz and Hymes 1972: 42).
Although the divisions between ethnic groups are questioned, the
nature of any superordinate identity is less clear in the extract,
however. A larger "us" is certainly employed: "some of us are
definitely related" [78]; "peace amongst our peoples" 1811; "just how
close we all used to be" [96], etc. "Nigeria" is mentioned only once:
"we fight from time to time in modern Nigeria!" [79]. It also recurs in a
comment by Dr Omoigui to a later reply: "I have always wondered
why 'Ethnography' is not taught in the Nigerian Educational System.
Our people will be surprised to see how close they are to one
another."
Mentioning such a collectivity ("our people") in this way invokes a
Nigerian nationalism based on an appeal to traditional common
grounds, which were destroyed by British imperialist borders and
education. Such a view is an unusual take on the ethnicity-
nationalism debates: it is quite different from Chief Awolowo's famous
view of Nigeria as a "mere geographical expressionn (cited by
Afolayan in Beckett and Young 1997:48) a British construction that
artificially unites unrelated "tribes". Given such a narrative, any
Nigerian nation has to be based on an appeal to 'modernity' over
'traditional' ethnic values; a total inversion of the view put forward
here.
However, very light emphasis is placed on such a "Nigerian" identity,
and it is seldom made explicit in the text. Dr Omoigui makes no
suggestion that the pattern of social interactions and mutual cultural
influences he describes formed anything like a political unit
coterminous with modern Nigeria. On the one hand, the region in
question could be smaller - there is no mention of any group from
northern Nigeria at all, and no sense that they might be integrated
into this cultural geography. On the other, the closing paragraph
describes a commonality of "traditional african religion" [94], setting
up a binary distinction with "the whiteman" which could be an appeal
to an African identity far larger than simply Nigerian.
In conclusion, this piece strongly articulates a sense of ethnic
identities formed, literally, through ongoing cultural dialogues. The
various groups are formed from and name each other, both in their
myths and through them. In addition, it is notable that Dr Omoigui's
articulation of this dialogic process is also itself an act of the same, an
Edo-lgbo dialogue. This particular utterance, however, occurred in
specific social conditions which implicate other forms of identity and
language - the personal, professional and collective identities noted
above. The importance of language to identity can be seen
throughout the text, where words from one language form names or
important cultural symbols for another group, [39,42-3, 48-52, 73-77].
Such a portrayal of Nigerian intercultural dialogue, in which Edo
words can name Yoruba towns, and lgbo words enter Edo rituals, is
not unique to this text alone." Neither does the 'actual' sequence of
events - "who gave what to who" [77] - fundamentally affect the
" An interesting parallel occurs in Hymes' passing remark: 'The Anang (Nigeria)
received their name from neighbouring Ibo, the term meaning 'ability to speak wittily yet
meaningfully upon any occasion." (Gumperz and Hymes 1972: 42).
strong case being made for this sort of identity formation. However, a
conception of ethnic identities being forged in dialogue is by no
means universal in Nigeria or outside it, as the conceptions of
ethnicity and nation displayed in the next case study make clear.
Extract B
1. Egbe Omo Yoruba
I ----- Original Message----- 2 From: FREDERICK AKINSIKU <[email protected]> 3 To: < > 4 Date: 30. juli 1999 05:19 J Subject: Egbe Omo Yoruba Flays Ethnic Cleansing In Kano
7 EGBE OM0 YORUBA 8 NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF YORUBA DESCENDANTS IN NORTH AMERICA
9 PRESS RELEASE I0 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
11 CONTACTS: 12 Dip0 Akinsiku 13 Hakeem Fahm 14 (202) 291 9471
1s The Egbe Omo Yoruba (National Association of Yoruba Descendants in 16 North America) is disturbed by the ethnic cleansing of the Yoruba 17 people in the northern Nigerian City of Kano. 18 According to media reports, more than one hundred people have lost 19 their lives as a result of organized killings of Yoruba people. 20 While we are aware that the ethnic cleansing taking place in Kano has been 21 described by some people as a fall-out from the ethnic clash in 22 Shagamu, Ogun State, we consider the two incidents to be separate and ZJ incomparable. 24 The Shagamu clash began as a result of a flagrant disrespect for the 25 customs and religious beliefs of the good people of Shagamu by a 26 non-indigene living in the town. On the other hand, the Kano incident 27 was an organized and calculated systematic killings of Yoruba people 28 in Kano because of their ethnic origin. 29 WiLllvuL d JuuLL, Llle Slldyd~~~u cldsll wds a sponLalleuus redcLiull OK d 30 group of law abiding people who felt violated by a head strong 31 individual who insisted she must witness a religious service that was 32 closed to others including some natives. In contrast, the Kano incident 33 was a cowardly act by some intolerant ethnic and demagogues who 34 attacked their defenseless victims without provocation. 3s we would also like to point out that the outcome of the original 36 incident leading to the Shagamu clash would not have been different,
37 if indeed a sagamu native had decided to willfully disrespected the 38 religious beliefs of the people by insisting on attending a ceremony 39 as an uninvited guest. 40 Throughout Yorubaland, people are aware that certain religious rituals 41 are carried out by chosen leaders of towns. For a non- indigene or an 42 interloper to insist on witnessing such a ritual was tantamount to 43 risking the collective wellbeing of the citizens of the town. 44 People of other nationalities who must make their abode in Yoruba 45 land, must learn to respect its tradition and customs. The events 46 leading to the Shagamu incident was not the first in 47 the nation's history where all those who are contemptuous of &Q tradition were dealt with severely, regardless of their ethnic 49 background. 50 It is a generally accepted norm any where in the world, for aliens to j l show respect fur the wdys of liLe uf their IlusLs. Yuruhd rldtiurl would 52 demand nothing less from the those who chose to live within its 53 territory. All non-indigenous people in Yorubaland are warr~ed to desist 34 from any acts of provocation, and in particular, to desist from any 55 acts, that attempt to make a mockery of our esteemed culture. 56 As we continue to monitor the situation in the north, we call on the 57 federal government to talce imediate action to restore law and order, 58 and prosecute those involved in the cowardly act in Kano. 59 We must remind other nationalities within Nigeria that the Kano 60 incident is reminiscent of the ethnic cleansing of Igbo people in the North 61 in 1966. That incident led to the Nigerian civil war. If 62 the volatile situation in the north is not brought under control 63 immediately, Yoruba people would have no other choice but to defend 64 their interests by all means necessary. 65 -ends- 66 7600 Georgia Avenue NW Suite 405 67 Washington, DC 20012 68 Tel: 201 291-9471 69 Fax: ZUZ 291-94 13 70 E-mail: 71 internet:
2. Movement for a Greater Nigeria
1 July 30 1999
2 Sent to the Editors of:
3 The Guardian Newspaper,
r Abuja Elirrcr,
5 Today Newspaper,
6 Vanguard Media Group,
7 Africa EIcws Onlinc.
8 Weekly Trust,
9 Odili.Net,
1oAnd others to be decided soon
11 MGN Press Release on Shagamu and Kano Massacres
12 The Movement for a Greater Nigeria (MGN) is deeply saddened by the
13 unacccptablc and barbaric massacrcs of innoccnt Nigerians in both Shagamu
14 and Kano. We are disappointed that some Nigerians, instead of using the
15 great democratic atmosphere that is prevailing at the moment to work
16 togcthcr towards thc common good of a11 and sundry, havc (instcad) chosen
17to engage in thuggery, massacres and hooliganism.
18 We condemn, in unequivocal terms, the loss of many Nigerian lives as well
19 as thc wanton dcstruction of propcrty. It is cspccially tragic to losc s
20 single life. To lose several in such circumstance is simply a national
21 catastrophy. The emotional and financial implications inflicted on many
22 Nigerian families as a result of this carnage is too collosal to quantify.
23 We deeply condole the victims of these terrible disasters, and greatly
24 sympathize with those who have been maimed and deprived of their
25 belongings. Our prayer is that the souls of those who have departed this
26 earth find eternal rest and that the Almighty in His infinite love and
27mercy grants them comfort and heal the injured, their families and the
28 families of the departed.
29 We, at the MGN, do not wish to apportion blame, for we do not know all the
30 facts. We believe that, blame and name calling at this point will be an
31 exercise in futility, yielding more aggravation and heightening tension
32 among feuding groups. However, we must plead with all custodians of
33 various Nigcrian cthnic traditions to rcvicw cultural and customary
34 practices and rituals that justify the murder of human beings. This is
3s especially necessary for us (Nigerians) to remain a civilized,
36 pcacc-loving and tolcrant group of pcoplc that look forward to achieving
37 peace and prosperity as we enter the new millennium.
38 We urge president Olusegun Obasanjo to, as a matter of urgency, commission
39 a high-powcrcd indcpcndcnt psncl to cxsminc thc rcmotc and immcdiatc
40 causes of the violence in Shagamu and Kano, and offer immediate and long
41 term solutions. All those responsible for the mayhem must be brought to
u boolc. The President and all opinion-maltern should urge the media to avoid
43 reckless and prejudiced reporting as this can only exacerbate the crisis.
44 Furthermore, allegations of official apathy on the part of the concerned
u authorities must be fully investigated and guilty persons punished
46 accordingly. We are convinced that had the initial Shagamu mayhem been
47 handled properly and swiftly by the security and other relevant agencies,
w the massacre and destruction in Kano would have been greatly reduced if
49 not avoided.
so We commend the National Emergency Relief Agency for its commitment to
sf compensating those who have lost their property in this unfortunate
52 incidence. We urge that in addition, displaced persons should be resettled
5s with sufficient infrastructure to enable them regain their livelihood. We
54 arc particularly plcascd with thc kind and cxcmplary gcsturc of thc group,
5s Concerned Kano Citizens, not only for visiting victims sheltered at Army
56 Barracks in Kano, but also for donating goods worth half a million naira.
57 Such a humane gesture is truly consistent with the northern ideals of
ss being our brother's keeper, receptive, hospitable and all- embracing to
59 our guests irrespective of ethnic or religious affiliations.
60 We urge the Federal Government to enact the laws that are necessary to
61 reassure Nigerians that they have every right to live in any part of the
62 country that they so desire, without fear of being intimidated or
63 violated. The Government must do all that is required to gurantee the
6r safcty of thc livcs and prcpcrtics of Nigerians whcrcvcr thcy rcsidc in
65 the country.
66 We suggest that in order to avoid future occurrence of the Shagamu and
67Kano disasters, citizens and residents must be constantly reminded of the
68 sacred traditions that require special conduct in the part of the country
69 they reside, while law enforcement agents should remain vigilant by
70 patrolling all strategic locations to protect innocent citizcns.
71 If the mayhem in Shagamu and Kano is politically-motivated as is being
72 alleged in some quarters, then such instigators must be found, and no
73 matter who they are, be brought to justice. Murder cannot simply be
74 justified on any grounds, political or otherwise. The survival of our
75 hard-carncd dcmocracy as wcll as pcacc and frccdom for our citizcns arc
76 more important than the selfish political interests of any one person or
77 group. We urge all Nigerians to cooperate with the law enforcement agents
7s in finding and bringing thcsc culprits to justicc and in cnsuring that
79 such disasters never happen again in our country.
no Our country is looked upon by the international community, and Africa in
sf particular, as a bcacon of hopc for dcrnocracy, chartcring a progrcssivc
82 path towards peaceful coexistence. It is our belief that the mayhem in
a3 Shagamu and Kano diminishes this hope severely. Our role as Nigerians
8.r must be to safeguard this hope. Eschewing habits and practices that deny
85 basic freedoms and fundamental human rights becomes a must as we approach
86 the2lst century.
87 Long Live the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
88 Sincerely,
89 Signed:
[There follows a list of 133 names, with titles, cities of origin and
countries of residence, which has been excised.]
CASE STUDY 2 - Two Press Releases
This extract consists of two press releases originally published
independently by separate organisations, and distributed via many
media channels, of which soc.culture.nigeria is only one. The
statements, by the Egbe Omo Yoruba (EOY), and the Movement for
a Greater Nigeria (MGN) both concern the same recent events - communal clashes leading to killings in the town of Shagamu (Ogun
State), and Kano city. They are thus concerned with the most serious
consequences of Nigerian identity politics, but for this very reason
should not be neglected. In addition, the form they take is interesting
to compare with the previous example: they are far closer to
traditional print media than to spoken dialogue. Nevertheless,
considering the releases from a dialogic viewpoint is still helpful, for
two reasons. On the one hand, their shared concerns and differing
positions place them within the framework of an (inter)national
Nigerian debate, even if they do not directly refer to each other. The
added responses of other Nigerians around the Internet, touched on
in the following discussion, highlight this broader public discussion.
On the other hand, a sensitivity to dialogue can call attention to the
tensions within each text. Conflicting discourses of human rights and
ethnic pride, national unity and regional tradition are all mobilised,
and managed with varying degrees of success in both extracts.
Both releases were made on the same day (30th July), about the
same events, and although they were made independently of one
another, their shared concerns meant they were necessarily
addressed together once in the public realm. Indeed, one poster to
the newsgroup forwarded them both in a single message, as a pair.
For this reason they are considered together in this chapter.
It is legitimate to query the analysis, in this dissertation, of texts
written perhaps primarily for other media. However, the radically
intertextual nature of the newsgroup, where almost all the material
originates elsewhere (whether in a newspaper or email discussion)
means there is nothing unusual about texts like this. Rather, they
have formed the fundamental content of soc.culture.nigeria ever
since its inception. The importance of the texts within the
interconnected, decentralised context of the loose "Nigerian
communication network" can be gauged by the fact that the Egbe
Omo Yoruba release was actually posted to the group four times over
the course of a few days. The releases took various separate routes:
one copy was sent directly to the newsgroup, one via yoruba-net,
another through Naijanet and so on. This multi-media network is also
visible in the list of addresses in the MGN's release [3-101: both
conventional Nigerian newspapers and online news sources are
included.
Not only the distribution of these texts, but their production too relied
on the full gamut of these networks: newspaper, telephone, postal,
email, Usenet, World-Wide Web. Both releases originate with
diasporic groups for whom such media are fundamental. The Egbe
Omo Yoruba, based in Washington DC, is formally constituted as a
organisation covering the entire United States. By contrast, the
"Movement for a Greater Nigeria" who present the second release
appear to be a coalition created specifically for this purpose. They
append a list of 133 signatories, distributed around the world; only
eight give Nigeria as their country of residence.'' This geographic
spread suggests it would have been impossible to draft and garner
support for the text so quickly without the use of media like the
Internet.
In the Egbe Omo Yoruba's release (Extract Bl), despite the
translation of their name being given as "National Association of
Yoruba Descendants in North America" [8,16], "North America"
seems entirely absent from the text. Rather, the key identity
expressed here is that which appears in the email and WWW
addresses [3,70,71]: the "Yoruba Nation". This identity is constructed
in classically nationalist terms: as a single people of unique culture
and heritage who possess a given, defined territory with a common
history. The nation's culture and land are indissolubly linked, such
that "aliens" must "show respect for the ways of life of their hosts" [50-
11 when "within its territory" [52-31. Some attempt is even made to
explain these customs in non-ethnic terms [37, 48-91, though there
seems little possibility of outsiders gaining 'Yoruba citizenship' with
words such as "interloper" and "non-indigene" [42; 26,411 describing
people "of other nationalities" [44]. Such descriptions deny the multi-
Five list no country. Whilst the USA and UK are the two largest sources of signatories,
with 56 and 28 respectively, the remaining third are truly globally spread, around Europe,
ethnic situation asserted by some Nigerian critics of the text
elsewhere on the Internet: one writer to Odili.Netls bulletin board
notes that there have been Hausas in Shagamu for a hundred years.
This portrayal of Yoruba identity in exclusively nationalist terms is not
compatible with a Nigerian nationalism. Thus, emphasis is placed on
the federal nature of the government (571, and on Nigeria as
composed of multiple "nationalities" [59]. The text positions itself as
one nation speaking to the others with whom it (provisionally) shares
a political state, but the only other "nation" mentioned by the name
are the Igbo, this in the context of the Nigerian Civil War [60-11. The
Hausa are referred to only tangentially and geographically ("the
volatile situation in the north" [62]), despite their deep involvement in
the situation. Paradoxically, therefore, the main symbol drawn from
common Nigerian experience (the history of the Biafran conflict) is
one of division, as well as great violence.
Other historical symbolism is contained within the text, however, not
least the name of the group (Egbe Omo Yoruba) which strongly
recalls the Independence-era politics of Chief Awolowo, the most
famous Yoruba political leader. Matory (1994: 70-71) and Nnoli
(1980:104) refer to the creation in the late 1940s of the association
which would later become the Action Group: "Egbe Omo Odudua"
("The Association of Odudua's Children", in Matory's translation).
Asia, South America, Africa and especially the Islamic countries of Saudi Arabia and
Malaysia.
Both Matory and Dr Omoigui in the previous case study note that the
use of Oduduwa as a symbol of common Yoruba identity was
politically charged, forging a united Yorubaland from the pre-colonial
political fragmentation of Yoruba-speaking people. The EOY does not
invoke him directly, but the echoes in the association's name place
the organisation in a context of postcolonial Yoruba politics in Nigeria.
Another party, the Oodua People's Congress (OPC) has been very
active within Nigeria's South-Western region throughout the entire
transitional period, and has been associated with several outbreaks
of violence at demonstrations. In mainstream Nigerian politics, the
opposition party led by Bola Ige, Alliance for Democracy (AD), is also
connected to this tradition. The AD'S name echoes that of Awolowo's
Action Group (AG); and Bola Ige was guest of honour at the Egbe
Omo Yoruba's recent convention in the US.
Examining specifically Yoruba, or even Nigerian symbols and
language, however, is to overlook the extremely significant form of
the text: in Standard English, in the genre of an international press
release. This format carries its own discursive conventions and
demands: criteria such as "newsworthiness", and "impartialityn come
into play. It also places the text into the context of "world newsn, and
it is from this that the phrase "ethnic cleansing" [5,16,20] is drawn,
together with its grave connotations and resonances after events in
the Balkans. (Similar connotations apply to the final phrase "by all
means necessary" [64]). The authority and claim to international
status by the EOY are perhaps enhanced further by a prestigious
address in Washington DC, a locale of great political "centrality"
globally; however, this is area of tension within the text which will be
examined later.
The central identity expressed in the MGN's press release (Extract
82) is less unambiguous, but firstly the group's name "Movement for
a Greater Nigeria" foregrounds the Nigerian nation as a core theme.
This is borne out by the collective self-description of "us (Nigerians)"
[35] and the emphasis on Nigerian families, lives and citizenship
recurring throughout [18,22,61,75,77,83], as well as the concluding
"Long Live the Federal Republic of Nigeria" [87]. Rather than
describing a federation of distinct, ethnically based nations, the MGN
writes only of "feuding groups" [32] and the "various Nigerian ethnic
traditions" [33].
Secondly, this Nigerian nationalism is tempered with a strong
universalist, humanist (though non-secular) tendency: human lives
[34] and human rights [85] are invoked, as well as the situation of
Nigeria within "the international community" [80]. The prayer to "the
Almighty in His infinite love" [26], while explicitly monotheistic,
precludes neither Christian nor Muslim involvement. The
combination of Nigerian nationalism with humanitarianism in this text
is one which grants recognition and respect to the same "cultural and
customary practices" [33-41 which form the foundations of the Egbe's
Yoruba nationalism, yet in which they are subject to "review" [33],
thus adapting them to a united, humane and democratic Nigeria. The
same issues and practices are confronted in this text as in the Egbe's
(the custom of curfew on non-Yoruba and women during Shagamu's
Om festival). However, given different lines of identity and inclusion,
different priorities emerge. The discourse of the EOY would be
unlikely to admit the possibility of "reviewing" such traditions.
However, there is a final layer of identity invoked within the text,
beneath the nationalist and universalist appeals. The actions of the
"Concerned Kano Citizens" group are praised for their
humanitarianism,lg but for the reason that this is:
truly consistent with the northern ideals of being our brother's keeper, receptive,
hospitable, and all-embracing to our guests irrespective of ethnic or religious
affiliations. (57-91 (my emphasis)
This appeal to "our" "northern" ideals is given added salience
because of the 133 signatories, resident in thirteen countries, all
without exception are from northern Nigeria. This does not sit well
with the "Greater Nigeria" claims of the overwhelming majority of the
text, especially as it is not made explicit in the main text (though
almost all the signatories include their home towns alongside their
names). Again, this internal tension will be explored below.
Taking the releases together, then, we have two English texts of
identical genre (the press release), collaboratively produced by
Nigerians living in diaspora, describing the same events and
distributed on the same day. The events in question are violent
'' It is interesting to note the identiiy adopted by this group, as 'Kano Citizens", in the
light of Paden's (1967:268) assertion that the category Kanawa was itself an 'ethnic
identity", growing in importance.
attacks on Hausa people by some Yoruba citizens, and on Yoruba by
some Hausa people; one release is composed by a group who
identify with the Yoruba, the other exclusively by people who may be
expected to identify with the Hausa. However, the arguments are put
forward in very different terms, and very different categories used.
Though both are written in English and tap into international
discourses to support their arguments, one draws on the language of
war reporting and "ethnic cleansing", the other uses the rhetoric of
human rights and democracy. The two pieces are not mirror images
of one another: lines of identity between the groups are not clearly
drawn and generally accepted.
The reception of the texts by Nigerian readers are also widely
divergent, to judge by the critical responses produced by Nigerians
who posted their reactions in various locations on the Internet. I
located six of these rejoinders, all from Nigerians abroad, of various
ethnic backgrounds. The declared ethnicity of each writer does not
predetermine their stance: for instance, one lgbo writer on Odili.Net
takes a Nigerian nationalist, modernist viewpoint. Traditional
practices of many Nigerian groups, including the Igbo, are
condemned as "barbarous anachronism". The MGN is chastised for
its moderate lack of "balance", and the EOY's "jingoism" is
condemned outright. The Biafran conflict is alluded to obliquely, as
the painful "lesson" of history. By contrast, another lgbo respondent
challenges the EOY on different terms, directly attacking their allusion
to the pogroms and civil war. He recalls the betrayal felt by lgbo
separatists when the Yoruba South-West did not follow Biafra into
secession, but sided with "the ethnic cleansers of the North".
Other responses seized on the press releases' internal
contradictions, such as those outlined above. The MGN's lack of
"federal character" was widely remarked: this term describes its
overwhelmingly Northern makeup in terms of the Nigerian legal
principle that requires federal public institutions in Nigeria to
represent different regions and groups proportiona~ly.~~ Furthermore,
though the expatriate status of the MGN went largely unremarked,
the EOY's location in Washington was heavily emphasised. Two
reasons are given for this condemnation of their expatriation
(significantly, by other Nigerians who live abroad). Firstly, their
discursive strategy of distinguishing "interlopersn from citizens native
to a territory leaves them open to these same accusations. This is
dangerous ground for Nigerians resident in countries such as the
USA and Britain, where the politics of race and immigration are
perennially controversial. Perhaps more importantly however, the
vehemence of the EOY's rhetoric is seen as dangerous and out of
place, especially since this sort of inflammatory media reporting was
seen as playing a part in igniting the retaliation attacks in Kano. As
one writer put it: "Emotional publications easily provoke irrational
anger that aggravates bad situations". Such incitement is portrayed
ZQ See Nnoli (1980: 268ff) for a discussion of the origins of the "federal character'
concept, in the 1976 Contiiutional Draft Committee.
as particularly inappropriate given the EOY1s own relative safety in
the distant USA.
The examination of these texts has highlighted several points: firstly,
that the arena of Nigerian identity politics is a global one. Nigerians in
diaspora are directly aware of and engaged with communal contests
in Nigeria, and play a role in reporting and judging these contests
(though that role is different from the the roles of those at home).
This engagement is possible through a broad spectrum of
interconnected communications networks: press, telephone, and
international air travel, as well as Internet media. It also functions in
both directions, carrying news of Nigeria to the diaspora, and giving
the diaspora a voice in Nigerian newspapers. This intertextuality is
so intrinsic to the process that it is often not possible to see a given
text as 'belonging' to one or other medium. Secondly, the language
in operation through these intertextual channels is one that draws on
"international" discourses as much as specifically "Nigerian" ones;
indeed this may be a necessity given the use of international media
as a space for the debates.
Furthermore, the politics of identity transacted in these texts are far
more complex than simple assertions of affiliation to one ethnic group
or other. Tensions over the definitions and interrelation of identities
('Nigerian'; 'Yoruba'; 'traditional'; 'modern'; 'international'; 'Northern',
for instance) exist not only between texts but also within them.
Different layers of identity are not simply nested in some sort of
hierarchy ("Hausa", "Northerner", "Nigerian", "Muslim", "humann, for
example): they interact unpredictably and variously depending on the
exact context. This said, the category of "Nigerian" has a special
significance in some ways, given the existence of the Federal
government which lends contests at the national Nigerian level a
particular political and economic weight. The Federal state remains
the centre of gravity for the overlapping histories of many groups,
however they are defined; this is a point will be which will be touched
on again later in the dissertation.
Extract C
"Of 4 19ers and Superheroes"
From: Osofisan [email protected]>
Subject: Of 419ers and Superheroes
Datc: 07 August 1999 14:30
Your intentions are passable. It's okay to want to re-educate greedy
gullibles who desire to harvest a field they never sowed. These Few
Nigerians stain the rest of us and the great nation we're from.
I fear, however, that you are taking your battle beyond the front. Obasanjc
is not a saint (ncithcr arc you, if wc look bcyond thc mask you show thc
world). Nigeria has had democracy for only a few months. There are obvious1
issues more pressing than WHO ELSE WANTS TO FLEECE A PEOPLE AND NATION
ALREADY PAUPERIZED.
419 "victims" are no better than Abacha, Babangida and their cohorts who
vampircd my pcoplc. Thcy'rc also trying to steal from Nigcrians by colludil
with the notorious 419er.
Which brings me back to you. What exactly are you profiting from this
ncar-frcnzy to tcll thc world about 419crs from Nigcria? Arc you willing tc
balance your information with tales of Nigerians like 25yr old Rick Famuyil
whose movie, The Wood, is now playing in American theaters? How about the
thousands of Nigcrian doctors braV~cly saving Amcrican livcs around thc
clock? The lawyers, the IT professionals?
It isn't fair for folks like you to get on the rooftop, cloaked in the tog
of anothcr agcnda, hurling stoncs at a wholc pcoplc, your minds closcd tig
23 like the vaults of hell. Your so-called "FIVE RULES FOR DOING BUSINESS WITH
24 PIICERIA" shroud ALL Nigerians under the same pall. Have you been knighted
25 for your bravery, o hero of the western world? Your consultancy business,
26 what percentage of the monies you save comes to you?
27 We have enough problems in Nigeria without folks like you goading the wild
28 horscs of co~trovrsy into our markctplscc. Givc us a brcsk!
ARE YOU IN THE EOOK? www.niger ians inamer ica .com * * * * * * + t * * * * * + t * * * t * * + * * * * + * t * * * * * t * * t * * * + * * * t * + * * . * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
C. A. Pascale <[email protected]> wrote in message
ncws:37P,BAE7E.?E347CCO@ric~ .~:ct...
h t t p : / / h o m e . r i c a . n e t / a l p h a e / 4 1 9 c o a l / sorry, way past bedtime.
>
Most of the readers of scan already know anyway, though.
>
Good Night.
,
"C. A. Pascale" wrote:
> . Sorry about the typos, late, long week, and the > URL for those interested is:
> . http://home.rica.net./alphae/419coal/ >
> Apologies ,
> Pascale
> Coordinator
> 419 Coalition > * * + + * * * * * + t t + * t +
> . " C . A. Pascale" wrote:
55 >
56 > > Folks:
57 > >
58 ? > Apparently NOTHING is sacred : : See below.
59 > >
60 > > BTW we are still averaging over 60 hits on main page a day under
61 > > thc Obasanjo govcrnmcnt, just wc wc did undcr its prcdcccssors,
62 >>FYI.
63 > >
64 > > Pascale
65 > > Coordinator
66 > > 419 http://homc.rica.nct.a1phac/419cosl/
67 > >
68 > > Date: Fri, 6 Aug 1999 17:15:33 -0700 (PDT)
69 > > From: IDOWU USMAN <[email protected]>
70 > > Subject: RE: INVESTMENT
71 > > TO: @fl.net.au
72 > > MIME-Vcrsion: 1.0
73 > > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
74 > >
75 ? ? ? SUBJECT: INVESTMENTS
76 > >
77 ? . SIR, 78 > >
79 > > I AM BELL0 USMA, SECRETARY TO THE NIGERIAN FOOTBALL
80 > > ASSOCIATION,P.WENT BODY OF THE NIGERIA '99 LOCAL ORGANIZING COMMITTEE,
81 > > AN AFFILIATE OF FEDERATION OF INTERNATIONAL FOOTBALL ASSOCIATION
82 > > (FIFA).
83 > >
84 > > IN THE COURSE OF OUR PREPARATION TO HOST THE WORLD YOUTH SOCCER
85 > > CHAMPIONSHIP TAGGED NIG'99 EARLY THIS YEAR HUGE SUMS OF MONEY RUNNING
86 > > INTO MILLIONS OF UNITED STATES DOLLARS WAS BUDGETED BY THE THEN
87 > > MILITARY GOVERNMENT FOR THE SUCCESSFUL ORGANIZATION OF THIS
88 > > COMPETITION.
89 > >
> > IN THE SAME VEIN, FIFA VIA HIS PRESIDENT ,SEPP BLATTER
> ? MADE MILLIONS OF DOLLARS AVAILAELE FOR THE SAME PROJECT MOT TO TALK OF
> > CORPORATE ORGANIZATIONS AND FOOTBALL LOVING INDIVIDUALS WHO MADE HUGE
? > DONATIONS.
> > . 5 HOWEVER IN MY CAPACITY AS THE SECRETARY, TO BOTH THE LOCAL ORGANIZING
> > COMMITTEE (LOC) AND THE NIGERIAN FOOTBALL ASSOCIATION (NFA), I AND
SOME
? ? OF MY COLLEAGUES IN SENSITIVE POSITIONS WEP.E ABLE TO OVER-INVOICE MOST
> > CONTRACTS WHICH WERE AWARDED FOR THE CONSTRUCTION AND THE RENRBISHING
? ? OF THE 8 STAOIA USED FOF. THE COXPETITION. THE CONTPACTORS WHO HANDLED
> > THESE PROJECTS HAVE BEEN PAID-OFF.
> >
> > IT IS PERTINENT TO KNOW THAT A TOTAL OF THIRTY TWO MILLION UNITED
? ? STATES DOLLARS (US$ 10,520,000) WAS REALIZED AS OVER-IbNOICE AFTER THE
> > SUCCESSFUL COMPLETION OF ALL THE STADIA. THIS OVER-INVOICED SUM IS
> > LYING IN A SUSPENSE ACCOUNT IN LONDON READY FOR REMITTANCE INTO AN
? ? OVERSEAS ACCOUNT.
> > . . PUE TO THE RECENT DIRECTIVE BY THE PRESIDENT TO CLOSE ALL LOC FOREIGN > > ACCOUNTS WITHIN 17 DAYS FROM THE 29TH OF JULY I HAVE BEEN UNANIMOUSLY
> > MANDATED TO SEEK FOR A HONEST AND TRUSTWORTHY FOREIGNER WHO WILL
ASSIST
> > IN ENSURING THE SUCCESSFUL TRANSFER OF THE ABOVE SUM WHICH WE HAVE
BEEN
> > SAFEGUARDING INTO HIS PERSONAL/COMPANY ACCOUNT SINCE THE NIGERIAN CODE
? > OF CONDUCT DOES NOT ALLOW US TO OPERATE A FOREIGN ACCOUNT.
> >
> > ON SUCCESSFUL REMITTANCE OF FUND (US$ 40,520.000.00) IT IS AGREED THAT
> > 30% OF THE TOTAL FUND WILL EE FOR YOU, WHILE 5% WILL BE USED TO SETTLE
> > ANY EXPENSES THAT MIGHT BE INCURRED BY BOTH PARTIES AND THE REMAINING
> > 65% WILL BE FOR US (TO BE INVESTED FOR US INTO FOREIGN INVESTMENT BY
> > YOU IN YOUR COUNTRY).
> >
> > YOU MIGHT BE SURPRISED AND CURIOUS AT AN OFFER LIKE THIS, BE REST
> > ASSURED THAT THE MODALITIES AND LOGISTICS TOWARDS SUCCESSFUL TRANSFER
> > OF THIS FUND HAS BEEN WORKED OUT. ALL WE REQUIRE FROM YOU IS YOUR
> > CO-OPERATION. THE PROPOSI'SION THOUGH MAY NOT FALL WITHIN THE WIDE
> > SPECTRUM OF YOUR BUSINESS CONSULTING AND COMMERCIAL ACTIVITIES KNOW IT
> > STRICTLY THAT YOUR BUSINESS LINES DOES NOT MATTER, FATHER YOUR
> > WILLINGNESS TO TAKE PART TOWARDS THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THIS PROJECT IS
> > MOST PARAMOUNT.
> >
> > THIS TRANSACTION IS LEAK PROOF AND URGENT. WE KINDLY REQUEST THAT YOU
> > ACCORD IT THE HIGHEST LEVEL OF SECRECY IT DESERVES. YOUR SWIFT
RESPONSE
> > WILL BE HIGHLY APPRECIATED.PLEASE YOU CAN F.EACH ME BY E-MAIL
> > [email protected] OR THROUGH MY FAX NUMBER : 873-761-966-261.
> >
> > THANKS
> >
' ' BEST REGARDS > > . . BELL0 USMA >
CASE STUDY 3 - "Of 419ers and Superheroes"
The final text to be discussed does not touch on ethnicity at all, but is
concerned only with Nigerian national identity. This posting is highly
complex in structure: it contains passages written by three different
authors in widely differing styles. It is also an example of discourse
entirely produced in, and shaped by, the communicative environment
of soc.culture.nigeria itself. This chapter will first explain the structure
of the text, and clarify the sequence of events. Its apparent
coherence as conversation is then questioned, in terms of the nature
of the audiences addressed by the different writers. In this light,
attention is given to the various linguistic styles employed. Having
emphasised the disjunctions of the extract, the chapter then
considers the points where dialogic connections are made in the text,
and describes the place of Nigerian identity in this dialogue.
The text printed here is a single post to soc.cultum.nigeria in its
entirety, made by the Nigerian writer identified as Osofisan [l] in
response to a series of posts by C.A.Pascale [50], co-ordinator of the
419 coalition.'' It also reproduces an email sent by a "419" fraudster,
posing as "Bello Usma" [79]. These three writers all appear in the
21 "419" refers to an article in the Nigerian criminal code (Pascale 1999a). It is now used
to describe the specific form of fraud seen here, where the fraudster approaches a target
in the developed world by letter, fax or email offering them a portion of stolen money in
return for bank details. The term has also passed into wider use in Nigerian English to
describe deceit in everyday contexts.
single post because of the practice on Usenet and email of
appending previous messages to one's reply. This is necessary to
provide a measure of coherence, given the often confusing nature of
asynchronous communication in Usenet. The extract here is the
product of a cumulative series of such reproductions, after a chain of
events which originally ran as follows:
(0. The anonymous recipient of a '419' email forwards it to Pascale's 419 Coalition)
1. Pascale makes the first post to soc.culture.nigeria: he gives a website address or
"URL" [56-671 and forwards the email [68-1441
2. Pascale corrects his first post. [42-551
3. Pascale corrects his second post. [34-41)
4. Osofisan's post, taking issue with the content of the website. [I-331
The post shown here is number 4, and consequently includes the
entire 'thread'. Note that the chronological sequence of events, given
above, is reversed in the extract, since earlier messages are added
afler each reply.
Unlike the previous two case studies, the text in this extract (except
for the 419 letter itself) was written specifically for soc.culture.nigeria:
not for one of the email lists, such as Naijanet, nor for wider
distribution. This means that the encounter is in the entirely open,
public space of Usenet, a social setting quite in contrast with both the
closed space of lgbo-net, and the different constraints of print. Misty
Bastian (1996:8-9) notes that the open nature of Usenet means
Nigerians are not guaranteed a "majority space" in
soc.culture.nigeria, and that this may explain why discussion on the
Listservs remains more popular than using the newsgroup directly.
As we see here, Nigerians are far more likely to encounter
"outsiders", such as Americans, on the newsgroup. In Goffman's
terms (1959), soc.culture.nigeria is a "frontstage" area from a
Nigerian perspective."
The use of the second person in the extract ("Your intentions are
passable" [4], "folks like you" [27], etc.) positions Osofisan's text as a
turn in a conversation. However, the absence of any reply, and the
fact that the original writings did not seek his response, make this
exchange very different from a normal conversation. Conversation
analysis, a branch of discourse analysis concerned with dialogue in
talk, has theorized the rules that structure normal oral interactions in
terms of concepts like turn-taking and adjacency pairs. Schiffrin
notes that "the exchange of turns is ... critical to the emergent
architecture of intersubjectivity and accountability built through talk
(1994:238). Such structures are entirely absent from this "exchange",
even allowing for the fact that Usenet is an asynchronous medium
(participants are not reading each other's posts at the same moment
in time). There are no "sequentially ordered displays of
understandings to which actors are mutually accountable" (Schiffrin
Goffman's theatrical metaphors of "frontstage" and 'backstage" areas describe social
settings only in relation to a given collective identity, not absolutely. While we might
consider a group such as Naijanet to be 'backstage" from a Nigerian viewpoint,
compared to a frontstage area like soc.culture.nigeria, the same forum could be seen as
"frontstage" from an lgbo perspective, say. And in Case Study 2, lgbonet is frontstage
for Dr Omoigui, but remains backstage for the lgbo members.
1994:238-9); the text has a high degree of "incoherence" (Herring
1999). Neither print nor speech typically exhibit so little coherence:
the tight editorial control associated with the former, and immediate
social checks and balances of the latter, would regulate the flow of
dialogue in most situations. However, the asynchronous, decentered
Usenet is clearly displaying its lack of "closure" (discussed in Part I) in
this extract. Another fundamental component of this openness, or
looseness, is the fact that nothing on Usenet compels any participant
to reply if they do not feel it is in their interests: for example, Pascale
simply ignores Osofisan's challenge (at least publically), and refuses
to make any sort of connection. The only pressures acting on the
participants with any force stem from outside the immediate social
context.
This is not 'a conversation', then, lacking the sort of mutually
understood definitions of setting and scene that ethnographers of
communication might seek in order to investigate a "speech
communityn (Gumperz and Hymes 1972:60). In fact, these texts do
not seem to belong to a single speech community at all. This is
reflected in the heterogeneity of the three authors' language styles,
even though all three use "Standard English" (not Pidgin) throughout.
The features of each writers' language use will be examined in
chronological sequence, beginning with the 419er him or herself.
The successful execution of the 419 fraud requires the recipient of
the letter to accept its authenticity, as emanating from a corrupt but
institutionally well-connected source within ~ iger ia . *~ They must be
taken in sufficiently for the promise of almost incredible riches to be at
least possibly believable, which in turn should persuade them to part
with their bank details. Many media have been used in the execution
of this scam: headed letters, faxes, telephones, even advertisements
placed in Nigerian newspapers. Email promises the fraudster a
relatively cheap, anonymous and untraceable new medium, but its
other characteristics - the loss of closure and authority noted in
Chapter 3 - militate against its usefulness. Consequently, the 419er
here attempts to employ a language that will imbue computer-
mediated text with the authority of print. The creation of email
addresses in the names of "IdowuUsman" and "BelloUsma" [69,137]
and the provision of a fax number are the first step to this end - although locating the addresses at the free email service,
Yahoo.Com, may raise rather than allay the suspicions of a wary
recipient.
The use of upper-case lettering throughout the message could
possibly be intended to acquire an air of authority and facticity,
though this is only speculation. More interesting is the fact that the
message is letter-perfect throughout, without a single spelling or
typing error. This is distinctive enough in itself for computer-mediated
text: compare Pascale's section of the extract. It is particularly
This particular attempt at 419 was not, of Wurse, successful. The suspicious
mpient's fowarding of the mall to the 4 19 Coalifion led to the email's Bppearam on soc.culhms.nigeria in the first place.
95
remarkable given the contrast with the author's obvious grammatical
difficulties, e.g. "BE REST ASSURED THAT THE MODALITIES AND
LOGISTICS TOWARDS SUCCESSFUL TRANSFER OF THIS FUND
HAS BEEN WORKED OUT." [124-61 The overall impression is one
of thorough, deliberate effort with a dictionary, emphasising the need
to maintain authenticity by avoiding slips. This attempt at establishing
discursive authority by linguistic effort is reflected in the vocabulary,
which draws heavily on the language of business English. The sums
involved are described as "REALIZED AS OVER-INVOICE", and
"READY FOR REMITTANCE" [104, 1061; the 419er allays any fears
that "THE PROPOSITION THOUGH MAY NOT FALL WITHIN THE
WIDE SPECTRUM OF YOUR BUSINESS CONSULTING AND
COMMERCIAL ACTIVITIES" [127-81.
Finally, the main tactic employed to seek discursive authority lies with
the intertextual references to FlFA and Nigeria '99 [80-821, on which
the author bases the email's fictitious identity. The recipient, a non-
Nigerian, may well have come across the international media
attention attracted by the recent Nigeria '99 World Youth Cup. The
419 scam is based on the possibility that these sort of agreements
between the scam letter, and the wider press, may convince the
reader of the letter's authenticity. Paradoxically, it also helps if the
reader is aware of the international association of Nigeria with
corruption!
The second author (C.A.Pascale of the 419 Coalition) uses very
different language. With no need to fight for acceptance of its
authenticity, this style is far closer to the classic 'written speech' style
common with email and Usenet communication; it is informal in its
terms of address and syntax alike. Conventional abbreviations are
used, not only "URL" (Uniform Resource Locator) 1431, but also
"BTW" ('By The Way'), and "FYI" ('For Your Information') [60, 621.
The conventional typographic symbols called 'smileys' or 'emotiwns'
are also used: " :) :) " [58], to indicate good humour. There are a
few typographic mistakes, such as the slips in the Web address, to
which Pascale refers himself (45,661. "Most readers of scann [36]
probably means "Most readers of scn", an abbreviation of
'soc. culture. nigeria' .
The final author in this extract, the Nigerian Osofisan, adopts a
different style again. No abbreviations are used, and his typography
and spelling are flawless as for the first writer. The English here is
not an awkwardly attained business jargon, but a flowing, literary
prose style, however. This affective, image-rich rhetoric contrasts
sharply with Pascale's informal but functional tone. Though
ostensibly addressed to Pascale, such rhetorical flourishes as "Have
you been knighted for your bravery, o hero of the western world?"
[24-5) hint that the text is written with a larger audience in mind. The
use of the first person plural, rather than singular (e.g. "We have
enough problems in Nigeria ... Give us a break") [27-81 positions
Osofisan as speaking on behalf of Nigerians collectively, and again
implies the presence of a wider group.
The highly heteroglossic nature of the extract, and its lack of
conversational structural features, obscure the dialogic connections
between the separate parts of this text. However, these are linked in
some meaningful ways by their shared intertextual points of
reference, and consequently by their use of 'Nigerian' as a category
of identity. It is not immediately obvious from Osofisan's message,
for instance, that he is responding not primarily to Pascale's prior
postings in themselves, but to the 419 Coalition website which they
advertise. Osofisan quotes it verbatim in his critique ("FIVE RULES
FOR DOING BUSINESS WITH NIGERIA") [23-41; the whole tenor of
his argument ("have you been knighted for your bravery?") [24-51
makes more sense if read in the light of the ~ebsi te. '~
A significant common reference to media beyond the newsgroup can
also be seen to link Pascale's text and that of the 419er. Pascale's
ironic aside that "Apparently NOTHING is sacred :) :)" [58] refers to
importance of football to Nigerian national identity. He states on the
Coalition website: "Nigerians are justifiably proud of their World Cup
Contender Super Eagles football team, and of hosting the World
Youth Soccer Championships." (Pascale 1999b). The 419er is
relying on exactly this kind of association between Nigeria and
football being made by the international reader, to bait the scam
letter.
24 The site contains too much material to reproduce here. In my opinhon, Osofisan's reading of
its subtext - Pascale's personal crusade or "battle" r] against the 419ers and the Niger~an
government - is not unjust.
Shared points of intertextual reference make possible such dialogue
as there is between the writers. The area of dialogue of most
relevance to the present study is the use by both Osofisan and
Pascale of the Nigerian nation as a single Nigerian category.
Nowhere in either writer's texts, on the soc.culture.nigeria or on either
of their linked websites, is 'Nigeria' subdivided on ethnic, religious or
other communal lines; neither is it ever subsumed under a larger
African or Black identity. This agreement goes no further than the
validity of such an identity, however, for its content is a site of great
struggle in Osofisan's posting. This struggle is one fought over
moral, rather than cultural or geographical, territory.
Nigeria is constructed by Osofisan in patriotic terms as a single,
united "great nation" [6]; "a whole people" [22]. It is, however, a place
confronted with pressing issues [lo] and problems [27]; a place of
victimhood that has been "pauperizedn [ I l l and "vampiredn [13].
Despite this suffering, Nigeria is still a nation able to attain great
achievements. It has recently become democratic 191. It is the place
of origin (61 for a diaspora achieving great professional success in
America, as actors, doctors, lawyers and IT professionals [18-201;
they are even "bravely saving American lives" [19].
To undermine the 419 Coalition's portrayal of a Nigeria where fraud is
institutionalised, and even the government colludes with "the bad
guys" (Pascale 1999c), Osofisan first sidesteps Pascale's
accusations by drawing a distinction between the 419ers ("These
Few Nigerians" [5-61) and "the rest of us". Two strategies are then
used to argue against Pascale's attack on Nigeria's moral standing:
Osofisan firstly calls for balance and fairness [17,21], and then
accuses of Pascale of concealment himself. Images of covering recur
throughout the text ("maskn, "cloaked", "shroud" [8,21,24]).
To conclude, the openness of the Usenet environment in which
soc.culture.nigeria is located has had several important effects on the
development of the text examined here. Firstly, it has given rise to an
"exchange" far less structured and coherent than conventional
conversations, or indeed almost any other event of communication.
This is reflected both in the absence of turn-taking and in the
heterogeneity of language use. Secondly, the audience affects the
lines of identity which are drawn. The audience of Usenet is both
open, and largely invisible to the writers. The openness contributed
here to the consolidation of identity along national lines, since in this
instance it has brought Nigerians and Americans into contact, rather
than lgbo and Edo, or Christians and Muslims. The undefined nature
of the rest of the audience gives all the authors scope to redraw the
lines of identity for themselves. For Pascale, 'we' are the 419
Coalition, 'you' are the "folks" who read soc.culture.nigeria , and 'they'
are the evil 419ers. For Osofisan, 'we' are Nigerians (of whom 'I' am
a writer); 'you' are the misguided, though "passable" Pascale, and
'they' are the few thieves in Nigeria who include both the 419ers and
corrupt presidents like General Abacha. Identities are open to
contestation, precisely because of the exchange's loose structure.
Amidst this discursive chaos, dialogue is held together by intertextual
references by all the writers to media and texts lying outside the
newsgroup itself. Which references a writer employs depends on
their aims and strategies, in their particular dialogic context. These
connections to other discourses are, however, almost essential for a
newsgroup like soc.culture.nigeria to carry any coherence at all. In
the concluding section, we will investigate further the many
centrifugal pressures pulling at any dialogue in this setting, and place
these into an overall context.
CONCLUSION
The texts examined in Part Two of this dissertation are quite
disparate in the sorts of identities expressed: for instance, ethnic,
national, and professional claims all play their part. It is no
coincidence that the three examples also vary widely in the ways their
dialogues are structured: the first is modelled on a "lecture and
discussion" event, the second as a pair of formal print-based texts
which only later came to be regarded together, and the third example
is a fairly complex sequence of utterances linked together by varying
degrees of mutual reference. It is fairly uncontroversial to argue the
situationalist line that these different sorts of setting are likely to affect
the ways identity is deployed. For instance, I may have many
identities simultaneously: my nationality, gender and generation, to
name a few. Rather than competing at all times to displace each
other, they simply become more or less relevant depending on the
people and situations I encounter. Long-term trends, that change the
sorts of situations I find myself in most often, will then affect which of
these identities are most important to the way I view myself.
Such long-term trends lie at the centre of Nnoli's work, tracing the
formation and transformation of ethnic identity within Nigeria by
placing the emphasis squarely on "the contact situation" (Nnoli
1978:39). For the period he studies, this is the Nigerian colonial
urban centre which gave rise to new encounters, and new contests.
The consequences of these shifts then travelled along urban-rural
networks to produce changes even in rural communities far from the
metropolitan centres themselves. This emphasis on contact as the
heart of identity shifts the viewpoint away from individual actors
surrounded by external social forces, and forces consideration onto
the kinds of contact that occur. Understood in these terms, the
changing contact situations brought about by the use of new media
like email and Usenet by globally dispersed Nigerian social networks,
may, then, have effects not dissimilar to those Nnoli describes. None
of the exchanges examined in the previous chapters, divergent as
they are, could have taken place in their present forms without the
use of these media. However, oversimplifying the parallel between
urbanisation and the spread of the lnternet would be quite misleading
as these phenomena are very different in kind. Colonial urbanisation
produced very persistent, and sometimes very coherent identity
formations with directly far-reaching consequences. It is not clear
that the lnternet alone will produce anything like these effects:
indeed, the medium's lack of closure and the difficulties it presents for
creating coherent, persistent understanding militate against such a
possibility. The comparison will be examined in greater detail below,
using concepts borrowed from Bakhtin's work on dialogue.
To understand contact as it is mediated through language in
particular, Bakhtin's conception of opposing centrifugal and
centripetal forces operating throughout language and culture are
particularly useful. "Every concrete utterance of a speaking subject
serves as a point where centrifugal as well as centripetal forces are
brought to bear" (Bakhtin 1981:272). The demands of "unitary
languagen, necessary for understanding in any communication, are
always opposed by the stratifying, centrifugal forces of heteroglossia.
Some balance between these two is manifest in each real, situated
utterance.
The rise of a new environment - such as print-capitalism, the colonial
urban centre, or Usenet in its contemporary social context - necessarily alters the balance of these opposing forces, forcing them
to operate in different ways. Thus we can say that colonialism,
together with its associated transport and communications
technologies, exerted powerful centripetal effects on society in what
became Nigeria. Nnoli describes the boom in physical infrastructure
created by the British in the inter-war period, with rail lines spreading
throughout the country. "Meanwhile, district commissioners
constructed every type of road . . . Telegraph and postal services were
added to these activities and infrastructure. By 1913 deep water
berths had been opened in Lagos ... One common feature
characterised this web of communications. Their respective paths all
ran from the enclaves of colonial production, distribution and
exchange to the ships that would carry the colony's produce to the
advanced capitalist countries." (Nnoli 1978:45). These colonial
enclaves were "the peripheral nerve centres of imperialism. They
formed the relay centres [of] monopoly capital" (Nnoli 1978:43).
Nnoli demonstrates here that the Empire literally provided an
economic centre, towards which centripetal forces could operate.
English, as unitary national print-language, now became an imperial
one: a linguistic and ideological centre, with print (and emergent
secondary orality technologies like radio) intensifying these forces
further.
All the while, of course, other forces exert their own centrifugal
pressures. The penetration of imperial language, culture and trade
did not proceed evenly or completely. The Empire contained its own
internal contradictions; as Nnoli notes, strategies such as indirect rule
acted to discourage the development of a united Nigerian nation
(1980:112-3). English was not spoken by all, though it became a
lingua franca of the elite (Afolayan in Beckett and Young 1997:48-9).
Early novelists such as Tutuola even exerted a heteroglossic pull on
the English print language itself, with works such as the idiolectic
Palm Wine Drinkard.. . (1 952). Yet this confluence of powerful social
forces, language, communications technologies, and religion, were
drawn together around a cultural and economic centre which
undoubtedly marked a strengthening of centripetal forces over the
area now called Nigeria.
Centripetal forces are also in operation on Usenet: the provision of
ever-broader connectivity to one network draws all participants into
potential interaction. The creation of this network from common
protocols (TCPIIP, and in the case of Usenet, NNTP) could
meaningfully be likened to the spread of a unified "language-field",
like the language-fields of national print-languages, described by
Anderson (Anderson 1991 :44; cf. Ong 1982:107). These fields of
communicative possibility are even broader, global rather than
national in scope. Furthermore, the existence of objective archives of
all that passes through the nehrvork gives scope to ground debates in
reference to what has gone before, potentially providing continuity
and a measure of solidity to discourse on Usenet.
However, all of the possibilities for broader, more coherent
communication offered by the lnternet must contend with the powerful
centrifugal tendencies it also exerts. As we saw in Chapter 2, the
structures of the lnternet in general, and Usenet in particular, were
deliberately designed to be centre-less: rhizomic in character,
horizontally organised and not hierarchically dependent on any
particular part. We examined in Chapter 3 how the undermining of the
fixity of print, associated with the sort of "written speech" which is
found on Usenet, further acts to encourage heteroglossia and
stratification of language. This is Bakhtinian heteroglossia in the
truest sense, beyond simply the multilingualism of the Nigerian nation
where Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba, English and the rest coexist. Discourse
in soc.culture.nigeria is multi-generic and intertextual; it combines and
synthesises different languages from within and outside "Nigerian"
discursive space in a way reminiscent of Bakhtin's "languages that
are socio-ideological: languages of social groups, 'professional' and
'generic' languages ... the fleeting language of a day ..." (Bakhtin
1981 :272).25
Examples proliferate across the newsgroup, such as this mix of Igbo, Internet jargon
and a technical-colloquial English: "I biakwa ;) I have just DEL-ed hundreds of mails,
ready to ship out-and there you are.'
These centrifugal forces are so strong in Usenet that on many
occasions, even a minimum level of intersubjective comprehension
between participants is scarcely reached. This stands in contrast to
the "maximum of mutual understanding" that flows from the
Bakhtinian conception of the ideal unitary language as "ideologically
saturated, language as a world view" (Bakhtin 1980:271). For
instance, an African-American writer following the group mistakes
Pidgin for Igbo, noting Igbo's (almost non-existent) similarity to
"Jamaican patois";26 the actions of a Nigerian in Britain seeking a
skin-lightening cream she used to buy in Lagos are incomprehensible
to those whose African identity means "Black is Beautiful".
Authorship of particular texts is frequently mis-attributed, periodically
leading to fierce arguments over statements that no-one on
soc.culture.nigeria actually made. These are extreme examples, but
serve to demonstrate how strong are the centrifugal forces the
Usenet environment exerts on communication, pulling dialogue apart
to incoherence.
For these reasons, the kinds of identity change brought about by the
emergence of social settings like Usenet are less likely to be directly
observable as coherent social movements than those engendered by
-
28Possible deep linguistic connections between Jamaican creole and lgbo language
have in fact been discussed elsewhere on the group; but not the connectron mrstakenly
perceived by this particular writer.
Nnoli's colonial urbanisation. Changes to infrastructure and
communication methods occurred in both contexts, yet the Usenet
example lacks an equivalent of the British Empire, which acted as an
economic and cultural centre. It is also essential to keep in
perspective the relative importance in people's lives of the two
transformations. The ability to maintain links with distant friends and
events is of great importance and value to those Nigerians who were
largely already living and working internationally, but the newly
arrived rural migrant's immersion in a colonial city is surely a more
immediate, inescapable and profound experience. In and of itself, the
Usenet is an interesting and genuinely novel social phenomenon
worthy of study, but its scope is limited to being a part of people's
lives, rather than shaping them.
The enduring effects of the Internet stem from the fact that the
network does not exist "in and of itself'. As this dissertation has
emphasised, soc.cultum.nigeria is connected both intertextually with
other forms of media, and socially with other international Nigerian
networks. These connections ground the exchanges in
soc.cultum.nigeria, counteracting to some degree the centrifugal
pressures on dialogue. They also extend the influence of the
medium, including its consequences for identity, well beyond the
small group of its immediate users (as the return of the urban
migrants to the village carried news and impressions from the "cradle
of ethnicity" outside the city limits) (Nnoli 1980:39). Such connections
are not incidental to soc.cultum.nigeria, but have been fundamental
to its development, as we will now recap.
lntertextuality has been central to the Nigerian diasporic Internet
presence since, as Bastian records, Noble 'Baba' Ekajeh first began
emailing friends with forwarded news reports concerning Nigeria, in
1991 (Bastian 1996:5). Interconnections of this sort are facilitated by
the way Usenet has developed within the wider Internet, where the
common TCPIIP protocol encourages the proliferation of gateways
between its various media. Moreover, soc.culture.nigeria in particular
does not stand apart from wider social networks. The Nigerian
diasporic elite has conducted its social, political and economic
business via transnational networks developed over at least the last
fifty years (e.g. Nnoli 1978:140; Jerrome 1978). Even in the
development of the orthography of the lgbo language itself,
consideration has been given to these communication networks since
the 1970s: could messages be sent in lgbo by teleprinter? (Afigbo
1980:370) The interconnections between these communication
networks, electronic or otherwise, permit the broad influence of the
economic and social centres of attraction around which the networks
are shaped. These centres provide the nucleii of common discourses,
languages and - key to the focus of this dissertation - common
identities.
These discursive 'nucleii', centres of identification, include many
social institutions: religions such as Christianity and Islam, political
parties, the United States university system. Perhaps the most
powerful such centre, with the most persistent and far-reaching
effects for the people involved with soc.culture.nigeria, however, is
the Nigerian federal state itself. Its actions, legislation, and
appointments have profound effects on the social networks engaged
with the newsgroup. Even where ethnonationalist sentiments are
preferred to Nigerian nationalism, the social reality of a federal state
forces such groupings to engage with it, and also with the other
groups that share its boundaries. Though the Nigerian state is only
one of these centres of identification, it is perhaps the single most
powerful acting on soc.cu/fure.nigeria.
In conclusion, this study of soc.culture.nigeria has aimed to
demonstrate firstly that social setting is of key importance to the
expression of identity, as the audience and the communicative means
at one's disposal naturally and necessarily shape the message that
can be conveyed. Inasmuch as soc.culture.nigeria is a new kind of
social setting which combines some properties of several different
older settings (such as the newspaper, the ethnic association, the
university), it is not surprising to find that identities are mobilised
accordingly. However, as Usenet has strong "centrifugal" tendencies,
and lacks the "closure" of print as a medium, the identity formations
and social groupings that emerge from such contact may be less
persistent and coherent than those groupings seen previously. To
counterbalance these forces, texts in soc.culture.nigeria rely on
intertextuality - dialogue with other forms of communication - to again
embed themselves in what Elizabeth Reid calls the "networks of
meaning in the wider community" (Reid in Jones 1995:183).
Economic and political entities such as the Nigerian state still play the
most significant role in the shaping of identity. However, over time
we can expect that these very institutions will be increasingly affected
by the kinds of alliances and forms of identity that emerge from
forums like soc.culture.nigeria.
On a final note, I wish to defend my use of the perspectives of
dialogism for this the study of Nigerian identities by considering
together ideas of both Bakhtin and Chinua Achebe. Firstly, dialogism
as a philosophical view stands opposed to monologism, the "denial of
equal rights of consciousness vis-A-vis truth" (Folch-Serra 1990:274).
Compare this stance to that outlined by Achebe in his essay "Chi in
lgbo Cosmology":
I am the Truth, the Way and the Life would be called blasphemous or s~mply
absurd for is it not well known that a man may worship Ogwugwu to perfection
and yet be killed by Udo?
(Achebe 197594)
Again, Bakhtin's translator, Michael Holquist, notes that:
Dialogism ... takes it for granted that nothing can be perceived except against
the perspective of something else: dialogism's master assumption is that there is
no figure without a ground.
(Holquist 1990:22)
And Achebe accords a "central place in lgbo thought" (ibid.) to the
notion that:
Wherever Something stands, something Else will stand beside it. Nothlng 1s
absolute.
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h t t ~ : / / ~ ~ ~ . a ~ c u s c . o r a l i c m c
Archives of soc.culture.nigeria at Deja.com:
h t t ~ : / W . d e i a . c o m /