Description
Book SynopsisYorùbá Identity and Power Politics covers the major issues in Yorùbá history and politics, offering through narratives of the past and present a solid understanding of one of the most popular ethnic groups in Africa. Yorùbá Identity and Power Politics covers the major issues on Yorùbá history and politics, thus offering a solid understanding of one of the most popular ethnic groups in Africa. With a careful blend of sources and methods,narratives on the past and present, the book manages to present a long history as the backdrop to complicated contemporary politics. Contributors: Tunde M. Akinwumi, Olufunke A. Adeboye, R. T. Akinyele, Aribidesi Usman, Tunde Oduwobi, Olufemi Vaughan, Abolade Adeniji, Jean-Luc Martineau, Ann O'Hear, Rasheed Olaniyi, Charles Temitope Adeyanju, Julius O. Adekunle, Funso Afolayan, Olayiwola Abegunrin. Toyin Falola is the Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities and University Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Texas at Austin. Ann Genova is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Texas at Austin.
Trade ReviewToyin Falola and Ann Genova have done Yorùbá studies an excellent service by thoughtfully bringing together a collection of essays that draws from the inspiration of previous works but avoids the pitfalls of rehashing old ideas. The result is an imaginative, refreshing, and beautiful scholarship without the pretensions of textual and theoretical jargons. We finally have that long-sought single volume that superbly captures major and diverse historical themes in Yorùbá experience from the precolonial to the present in wholesome interdisciplinary frameworks. Yorùbá Identity and Power Politics is a superior work in the genre, an excellent book to teach and think with on a myriad of topics relevant to contemporary Africa. -- -- Akin Ogundiran, Associate Professor of History, Florida International University, Miami
Yorùbá Identity and Power Politics is a breath of fresh air and a critical watershed in the discourse of the ever-so-challenging and complicated web of the idea of Yorùbáness. This work is indeed an assemblage of serious intellectuals of Yorùbá history whose collective voice projects a cutting edge in the discourse of the socio-political dichotomy of identity and power. This is a must read for anyone who is either genuinely interested in the knowledge of the Yorùbá history or truly excited about a people whose culture, history, and identity remain most enduring and most visible in the vast world of the African diaspora. -- -- Michael O. Afoláyan, PhD, Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville
Table of ContentsIntroduction - Toyin Falola and Ann Genova The Yorùbá Nation - Toyin Falola Oral Tradition and the Reconstruction of Yorùbá Dress - Tunde M. Akinwumi Diaries as Cultural and Intellectual Histories - Olufunke A. Adeboye Historiography of Western Yorùbá Borderlands - R.T. Akinyele The History of the Okun Yorùbá: Research Directions - Ann O'Hear Ilá Kingdom Revisited: Recent Archaeological Research at Ilá-Yàrà - Early Ijebú History: An Analysis on Demographic Evolution and State Formation - Tunde Oduwobi Power, Status, and Influence of Yorùbá Chiefs in Historical Perspective - Toyin Falola Chieftaincy Structures, Communal Identity, and Decolonization in Yorùbáland - Olufemi Vaughan Odogbolu Chieftaincy Dispute in Historical Perspective - Abolade Adeniji Yorùbá Nationalism and the Reshaping of Obaship - Jean-Luc Martineau Approaching the Study of the Yorùbá Diaspora in Northern Nigeria - Rasheed Olaniyi Yorùbá-Nigerians in Toronto: Transnational Practices and Experiences - Charles Temitope Adeyanju Yorùbá Factor in Nigerian Politics - Julius O. Adekunle Politics, Ethnicity, and the Struggle for Autonomy and Democracy - Funso Afolayan Petroleum and Ethno-Politics - Ann Genova Chief M.K.O. Abiola's Presidential Ambitions and Yorùbá Democratic Rights - Olayiwola Abegunrin
