Decrying Despoilation: Nigerian Popular Music and the Lived Environment

There has been a fervid interest in the state of the environment and the roles played by human activities in its ruination. This has spurred reactions and interventions. In Nigeria, creative and cultural interventions in ecocriticism have been documented in and explored via fictional narratives, poetry and indeed ecocinema. In the present study, I give attention to environmental discourses as depicted in selected Nigerian popular music, an under-examined domain. Approached from linguistic and postcolonial ecocritical perspectives, I discuss eight tracks by five artistes. I centre the discussions on constructs of and ideologies around water; documentations of environmental degradation; and the prescription of interventions and call-to-action towards ensuring environmental rejuvenation and justice. Within these intersecting environmental discourses, language plays a pivotal role as it documents existential Nigerian postcolonial realities and contributes to the possibilities of social change.

Der Vortrag findet in englischer Sprache statt.

Dr. Paul Onanuga ist Senior Lecturer an der Federal University Oye-Ekiti (Nigeria) und zur Zeit Gastwissenschaftler an der Friedrich-Schiller-Universität. Mehr Informationen finden Sie hierExterner Link.