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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:When Neutrality is Taboo. Navigating Institutional Identity in Protracted Conflict Settings: The Nigerian Ife/Modakeke Case
Author:Soyinka-Airewele, PeyiISNI
Year:2003
Periodical:African and Asian Studies
Volume:2
Issue:3
Period:September
Pages:259-305
Language:English
Geographic term:Nigeria
Subjects:ethnic relations
conflict
universities
Ethnic and Race Relations
Politics and Government
Education and Oral Traditions
External link:https://doi.org/10.1163/156920903322661726
Abstract:This paper explores the means by which social institutions such as universities can navigate institutional roles and identities in African communities that are deeply polarized along ethnic-related lines. Using a case study of ethno-political conflict in the Ile-Ife and Modakeke communities of southwestern Nigeria, the paper investigates how universities have sought to survive as a zone of diversity located in cities with rigidly structured mythico-histories and conflicting geopolitical claims. Through this exploration of the paradox of the uneasy cohabitation of contested realities and the quest for postwar healing and rehabilitation, the paper unveils the unusual local interpretation, rejection and reconstruction of the concept of neutrality, and highlights the challenges, both philosophical and concrete, which confront the academy. The findings of the study suggest a need to cautiously resituate the university as a civically engaged arena for the creative re-envisioning of diversity and cultural pluralism and, ultimately, for local and national conflict transformation in Nigeria. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract]
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