The City, Hegemony and Ethno-Spatial Politics: The Press and the Struggle for Lagos in Colonial Nigeria

In: Nationalism & ethnic politics, Band 9, Heft 4, S. 25-51

Abstract

The centrality & assumed primacy of Lagos, Nigeria, explained why it was important in the (ethnic) hegemonic & counterhegemonic politics of colonial Nigeria, particularly in the context of how this politics was geared toward the appropriation of space -- within that particular sociopolitical formation, over-determined by ethnicity -- as explicated in the newspaper press of the period. Two rival newspapers -- West African Pilot & Daily Service -- are used in this article, as they represent rival claims to 'ownership' & 'primacy' in spatial politics between the Yoruba & the Igbo ethnic nationalities, to explicate a theoretical position that captures these struggles within the framework of 'the political forging.& the institutionalization of a pattern of group activity' in which idealized forms that cohere with the interests of the (ethnic) group are leveraged into 'commonsensical' ideas in the pursuit of group's political, economic, & social interests. Adapted from the source document.