Stemming the tide of centrifugal forces in Igbo orthography

The paper deplores the increasing practice whereby individuals and groups write Igbo with orthographic conventions that deviate from those of the official Igbo (Ọnwụ) Orthography. It warns that these divergent acts are steadily dragging Igbo Orthography into a state of anarchy whose consequences could be more disastrous than those of the earlier orthography controversy of 1929–1961. The paper briefly traces the history of Igbo orthography from the earliest mention of Igbo in the sixteenth century writings of European travelers to the present times. Among its recommendations for the restoration of sanity in Igbo orthography are: the respect of the present official one until new conventions are officially agreed to and sanctioned; the revival of the Igbo Standardization Committee which formerly regulated and supervised developments in the language; the convening of an international workshop on Igbo orthography and the production of an enlarged Pan Igbo orthography for writing in dialects while the present official (Ọnwụ) orthography serves for Standard Igbo.

Two Renowned Nigerian Scholars: Ikenna Nzimiro and Victor Chikesie Uchendu

The article honors two Nigerian anthropologists of Igbo background who recently passed away. Both scholars made major contributions to a broad range of scholarly thought in anthropology and in general social science to crucial issues in Nigerian politics, society and life. Nzimiro is considered in terms of his traditional anthropological training in Germany and England, through which he investigated four Niger River basin communities, and then his emergence as a Marxist anthropologist for the rest of his life in Nigeria, where he consistently critiqued neocolonialism in Nigeria. He explored issues of ethnicity, the Nigerian civil war, militarism, the state of the social sciences, the environment, Oguta culture, where he was born, ethnic conflicts, conditions at Nigerian universities, and other issues. Nzimiro generally rejected the post-colonial world, arguing that it was not revolutionary enough. Uchendu dealt with many of the same issues, but in contrast to Nzimiro he did so by accepting the existence of post-colonial Nigeria, though suggesting many ways to improve education, the environment, cultural and national transition, dependency theory, and to study urbanization and ethnicity, while also writing a major work on Igbo culture. Both authors are honored for their critiques of Nigerian society, as well as their contributions to Igbo ethnology.     

Yam is King! But Cassava is the Mother of all Crops: Farming, Culture, and Identity in Igbo Agrarian Economy

The history of Igbo scholarship has benefits from pioneer scholars such as Victor Uchendu, Ikenna Nzimiro, Don Ohadike, Michael Mbabuike, Ezenwa-Ohaeto, and Angela Uwalaka, among many others. Collectively, their scholarship defined the contours of Igbo political economy, anthropology, and sociology, and linguistic. As an agricultural people, the history of the Igbo people was defined by their relationship to the land and their ecology. These scholars, to whom I humbly devote this piece, have touched upon the changing nature of Igbo political economy as much as the link between Igbo agriculture and their identity.     

Gifting as Governance: NGO Service Projects and Disciplinary Power in Rural Migrant Settlements in China

ABSTRACT

In contemporary China, migrant workers have gathered in urban villages and formed communities of their own. The regulative power of the state has not fully penetrated these enclaves, thus creating opportunities for NGOs to shoulder many of the ongoing welfare responsibilities. The primary goal of this study was to explore how NGO service projects can generate a new type of disciplinary power through give-and-take practices. I argue that service projects allow the givers to transform their economic power and social resources into political power, through which social inequality is obscured, legitimised, and translated into the delivery of ‘love’, ‘caring’ and ‘compassion’. Such political power also delivers middle-class values and lifestyles to rural migrants, who feel obligated to transform their subjectivities in order to reciprocate.     

The Collaborative Image of The City: Mapping the Inequality of Urban Perception

A traveler visiting Rio, Manila or Caracas does not need a report to learn that these cities are unequal; she can see it directly from the taxicab window. This is because in most cities inequality is conspicuous, but also, because cities express different forms of inequality that are evident to casual observers. Cities are highly heterogeneous and often unequal with respect to the income of their residents, but also with respect to the cleanliness of their neighborhoods, the beauty of their architecture, and the liveliness of their streets, among many other evaluative dimensions. Until now, however, our ability to understand the effect of a city''s built environment on social and economic outcomes has been limited by the lack of quantitative data on urban perception. Here, we build on the intuition that inequality is partly conspicuous to create quantitative measure of a city''s contrasts. Using thousands of geo-tagged images, we measure the perception of safety, class and uniqueness; in the cities of Boston and New York in the United States, and Linz and Salzburg in Austria, finding that the range of perceptions elicited by the images of New York and Boston is larger than the range of perceptions elicited by images from Linz and Salzburg. We interpret this as evidence that the cityscapes of Boston and New York are more contrasting, or unequal, than those of Linz and Salzburg. Finally, we validate our measures by exploring the connection between them and homicides, finding a significant correlation between the perceptions of safety and class and the number of homicides in a NYC zip code, after controlling for the effects of income, population, area and age. Our results show that online images can be used to create reproducible quantitative measures of urban perception and characterize the inequality of different cities.     

The Igbo of Southeast Nigeria: The Same Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow?

This paper examines Uchendu’s ethnographic study entitled ‹the Igbo of Southeast Nigeria’ with a view to interrogating its relevance in explaining the Igbo of the contemporary time. Chapter by chapter examination of the book shows that although written more than four decades ago, it is still relevant in its account of the continuity and change in Igboland. For instance, although marriage in the traditional way is still the most cherished and popular, church and court marriages are acceptable. Those who can afford it can go through the three rituals. The paper notes that although phenomenal changes in population growth, infrastructure and human resources development, modern economic activities, etc., have taken place, the very essence of Igbo world view, belief system, Igbo hospitality, marriage, kinship and non-kinship networks, Igbo traditional ways in government and affinity to fatherland as captured in the book, to a large extent, still holds true of the Igbo.     

Bird densities are associated with household densities

Increasing housing density is an important component of global land transformation, with major impacts on patterns of biodiversity. However, while there have been many studies of the changes in biodiversity across rural–urban gradients, which are influenced in large part by housing densities, how biodiversity changes across the full range of regional variation in housing density remains poorly understood. Here, we explore these relationships for the richness and abundance of breeding birds across Britain. Total richness, and that of 27 urban indicator species, increased from low to moderate household densities and then declined at greater household densities. The richness of all species increased initially faster with household density than did that of the urban indicator species, but nonurban indicator species richness declined consistently after peaking at a very low housing density. Avian abundance showed a rather different pattern. Total abundance and that summed across all urban indicator species increased over a wide range of household densities, and declined only at the highest household densities. The abundance of individual urban indicator species generally exhibited a hump-shaped relationship with housing density. While there was marked intraspecific variation in the form of such relationships, almost invariably avian abundance declined at housing densities below that at which the UK government requires new developments to be built. Our data highlight the difficulties of maintaining biodiversity while minimising land take for new development. High-density housing developments are associated with declines in many of those species otherwise best able to exploit urban environments, and those components of native biodiversity with which human populations are often most familiar.     

Developing sociopolitical consciousness of race and social class inequality in adolescents attending progressive and no excuses urban secondary schools

Sociopolitical consciousness refers to an individual’s ability to critically analyze the political, economic, and social forces shaping society and one’s status in it. A growing body of scholarship reports that high levels of sociopolitical consciousness are predictive in marginalized adolescents of a number of key outcomes including resilience and civic engagement. The present study explored the role that urban secondary schools can play in fostering adolescents’ sociopolitical consciousness through a longitudinal, mixed methods investigation of more than 400 adolescents attending “progressive” and “no excuses” charter high schools. Analyses revealed that, on average, students attending progressive high schools demonstrated sizeable shifts in their sociopolitical consciousness of racial inequality, and students attending no excuses high schools demonstrated sizeable shifts in their sociopolitical consciousness of social class inequality. Qualitative interviews with participating students offered insight into the curriculum, programming, and practices that these youth perceived as contributing to these differences in their sociopolitical consciousness.     

Entrenched Geographical and Socioeconomic Disparities in Child Mortality: Trends in Absolute and Relative Inequalities in Cambodia

Background

Cambodia has made considerable improvements in mortality rates for children under the age of five and neonates. These improvements may, however, mask considerable disparities between subnational populations. In this paper, we examine the extent of the country''s child mortality inequalities.

Methods

Mortality rates for children under-five and neonates were directly estimated using the 2000, 2005 and 2010 waves of the Cambodian Demographic Health Survey. Disparities were measured on both absolute and relative scales using rate differences and ratios, and where applicable, slope and relative indices of inequality by levels of rural/urban location, regions and household wealth.

Findings

Since 2000, considerable reductions in under-five and to a lesser extent in neonatal mortality rates have been observed. This mortality decline has, however, been accompanied by an increase in relative inequality in both rates of child mortality for geography-related stratifying markers. For absolute inequality amongst regions, most trends are increasing, particularly for neonatal mortality, but are not statistically significant. The only exception to this general pattern is the statistically significant positive trend in absolute inequality for under-five mortality in the Coastal region. For wealth, some evidence for increases in both relative and absolute inequality for neonates is observed.

Conclusion

Despite considerable gains in reducing under-five and neonatal mortality at a national level, entrenched and increased geographical and wealth-based inequality in mortality, at least on a relative scale, remain. As expected, national progress seems to be associated with the period of political and macroeconomic stability that started in the early 2000s. However, issues of quality of care and potential non-inclusive economic growth might explain remaining disparities, particularly across wealth and geography markers. A focus on further addressing key supply and demand side barriers to accessing maternal and child health care and on the social determinants of health will be essential in narrowing inequalities.     

Noblesse Oblige? Social Status and Economic Inequality Maintenance among Politicians

Economic inequality is at historically high levels in the United States and is among the most pressing issues facing society. And yet, predicting the behavior of politicians with respect to their support of economic inequality remains a significant challenge. Given that high status individuals tend to conceive of the current structure of society as fair and just, we expected that high status members of the U.S. House of Representatives would be more likely to support economic inequality in their legislative behavior than would their low status counterparts. Results supported this prediction particularly among Democratic members of Congress: Whereas Republicans tended to support legislation increasing economic inequality regardless of their social status, the social status of Democrats – measured in terms of average wealth, race, or gender – was a significant predictor of support for economic inequality. Policy implications of the observed relationship between social status and support for economic inequality are considered.     

Equity-Oriented Monitoring in the Context of Universal Health Coverage

Monitoring inequalities in health is fundamental to the equitable and progressive realization of universal health coverage (UHC). A successful approach to global inequality monitoring must be intuitive enough for widespread adoption, yet maintain technical credibility. This article discusses methodological considerations for equity-oriented monitoring of UHC, and proposes recommendations for monitoring and target setting. Inequality is multidimensional, such that the extent of inequality may vary considerably across different dimensions such as economic status, education, sex, and urban/rural residence. Hence, global monitoring should include complementary dimensions of inequality (such as economic status and urban/rural residence) as well as sex. For a given dimension of inequality, subgroups for monitoring must be formulated taking into consideration applicability of the criteria across countries and subgroup heterogeneity. For economic-related inequality, we recommend forming subgroups as quintiles, and for urban/rural inequality we recommend a binary categorization. Inequality spans populations, thus appropriate approaches to monitoring should be based on comparisons between two subgroups (gap approach) or across multiple subgroups (whole spectrum approach). When measuring inequality absolute and relative measures should be reported together, along with disaggregated data; inequality should be reported alongside the national average. We recommend targets based on proportional reductions in absolute inequality across populations. Building capacity for health inequality monitoring is timely, relevant, and important. The development of high-quality health information systems, including data collection, analysis, interpretation, and reporting practices that are linked to review and evaluation cycles across health systems, will enable effective global and national health inequality monitoring. These actions will support equity-oriented progressive realization of UHC.

This paper is part of the PLOS Universal Health Coverage Collection.

Summary Points

• The equitable realization of universal health coverage requires an equity-oriented approach to monitoring; equity advocates should be unified in proposing a technically sound platform for monitoring that is easy to understand and communicate.
• Global monitoring should include complementary dimensions of inequality (such as economic status and urban/rural residence, in addition to sex), adopt a gap or whole spectrum approach, and conceptualize economic-related measures using quintiles.
• Both absolute and relative measures of inequality as well as disaggregated data should be reported, and national averages should be presented alongside inequality monitoring.
• Targets for global monitoring of health inequalities should be based on proportional reduction of absolute inequality.
• Countries can develop capacity for health inequality monitoring by strengthening health information systems for data collection, analysis, reporting, and dissemination.

     

Eulogy to the Quartet and The Gleaning Platform (Trend and End)

The following two poems are a tribute to honor the four prominent Igbo Scholars who have passed away, and whose works touch most directly on the area of Igbo culture and identity: Prof Don Ohadike, convener of the first Igbo Studies Association conference at Ithaca, Prof Ikenna Nzimiro, member of Dialectical Anthropology’s international editorial board, Prof Victor Uchendu, author of the classic ethnography, The Igbo of Southeastern Nigeria, and most recently, Prof Michael Mbabuike, executive board member of Dialectical Anthropology.     

The presence of the past: youth,memory making and the politics of self-determination in southeastern Nigeria

This article focuses on recent reconstructions of Igbo ‘memory’ by the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign state of Biafra (MASSOB). MASSOB is a second-generation Igbo separatist movement that draws on a collection of ‘memory repertoires’ to agitate for the self-determination and exit of the Igbo ethnic group from the Nigerian state into an alternative political and administrative arrangement known as the Republic of Biafra. The core issues relate to dual narratives generated by the Nigerian–Biafran War. While the state shapes the official history, memories and narratives of the war to suit its own vision, interests and politics, MASSOB contests these official views as the sole legitimate framework for remembering and interpreting the war, but still connects to the war as a war of Igbo national liberation. These contestations provide the context for the enactment of memory claims and counterclaims, and their association with political violence in contemporary Nigeria.     

Metropolitanism and the Transformation of Urban Space in Nineteenth-Century Colonial Metropoles

In this paper, I argue that the nineteenth-century movement of "metropolitanism" was a transnational attempt to rebuild and re-imagine cities in a bourgeois image and through a capitalist process of investment. This movement began with the attempt by wealthy residents of imperial metropoles to remake their cities in ways that created greater social distance between themselves and their colonies—both external and internal. I explore how a discourse with specific urban content can engender a movement that revolutionizes people's view of the city. The analysis points toward a revitalization of this movement in the present moment of global transformations, suggesting that the reshaping of urban social organization and urban institutions through transnational processes is not new. [urban, metropolitanism, colonialism, housing, architecture]     

Book Review Essay: Mary Angela Uwalaka. Ọfọ: Its Juridical and Linguistic Potency. Ibadan, Afrika-Link Books, 1996. 69 pages

Rev. Mother (Dr.) Mary Angela Uwalaka was a distinguished and devoted religious woman linguist. Her major area of research was Igbo syntax, where she made tremendous contributions, through published texts and scholarly articles towards the development of a unified Igbo language and the field of Linguistics. As a renowned scholar, her research interest was not limited to Linguistics only. In the words of Prof. Ben Elugbe, her colleague at the University of Ibadan where Mother Uwalaka worked until her demise in January 7 2007, she also “found time and ability to work and publish in the areas of religion and Igbo culture.” Ọfọ: Its Juridical and Linguistic Potency, which we shall review here, is an evidence that Uwalaka’s interests extended to other areas of Igbo studies, apart from the Igbo language.     

Who Killed Biafra?

Stanley Diamond opens his essay with a euphoric statement by C.O. Ojukwu, the leader of Biafra, who defined Biafra’s endeavour and its relevance to pan-Africanism as the “potential of the black man ... the breaking of the chains” that would demonstrate that the “basis of neo–colonialism has been removed; which is continued economic dominance,” in 1969. This historic milestone still has not been achieved as we concur with the author who in 1970 went on to analyze the reasons for this failure within the context of the larger global frame of reference as applied to the local scene in Nigeria. Diamond’s analysis is still valid and even increasingly relevant in view of globalization, ongoing wars, and current geo-strategic and oil interests confronting our world today. The Igbo people in general and their intellectuals—including the honourees of this special issue—were all affected by the struggle over Biafra in one way or the other. The article is divided into four segments: The first part begins with the defeat of Biafra by Nigeria’s federal forces and offers an account of the Igbo people’s heroic struggle against overwhelming military and economic powers, contextualized within global strategic and business interests. Biafra was indebted to no European country for support, bought whatever supplies were available from just a few sources—some African countries, Portugal, China, and the Czech Rep., and from private companies—all with cash. Biafra largely manufactured her own arms, and received only non-political Joint Church Aid assistance. Nigeria, on the other hand was aided by both Russia (then the Soviet Union), and the North-Atlantic Alliance (particularly Nigeria’s former colonial master, Britain)—as well as by much of Moslem North Africa, with Egyptian pilots flying Russian-made MIGs against the breakaway enclave which had no air force of its own. The humanitarian disaster unfolding in Biafra where 2 million people were killed and a generation of children was starved to death was grossly ignored and understated by the world powers. The second part examines British support for Nigeria against her post-colonial history and political development on the one hand, and the Igbos' ethnic and cultural idiosyncrasies on the other. Diamond characterizes the Igbo people as pan-Africanist nation builders, who were originally in strong support of a Nigeria they conceived as universal and egalitarian, but who later became disenchanted with the country’s post/neo-colonial developments, He accounts for the subtleties of the Igbo language and praises the culture as exceedingly democratic, exhibiting gender equilibrium, resisting foreign domination, despising acculturation, displaying restiveness under British oppression, yet endowed with a passion for modern education, He notes that Igbos made up for 2/3 of all Nigerian students in the USA_’ a dynamic group committed to upward social mobility. Despite his dated terminology—writing of the “lbo” rather than the “Igbo” and characterizing then civilization as “primitive,”¹—Diamond’s admiration and sympathy for the Igbo people and their culture is clearly evident. He further identifies Nigeria’s internal cultural dynamics and especially the differences between her feudal North and democratic Southeast, as an economic threat to the Nigerian federation and thus to foreign - especially British - economic and strategic interests. To Diamond, this is the overriding rationale behind the overwhelming foreign support for the federation. The article’s third part further analyzes foreign interests and politics and their bearing on the conflict over Biafra. In particular, Russian and British geo-political strategies emerge as competing in outdoing each other over their support of and friendship with Nigeria’s Islamic North in an effort to cement their relations to the Mediterranean Islamic associations, whereby oil interests became intensified, even though they were not the primary cause of the conflict over Biafra. China mostly expressed sympathy for Biafra and emerged as the ideological winner over Russia’s declared materialist goals. In the fourth section, Diamond concludes that the Nigerian civil war was not only an example of biological, but also cultural, genocide, aiming not only at the physical extinction of Biafra, but as well the collapse of the Igbo universe, because of the cultural possibilities of the Igbo as a people, Luckily, the Igbo people are well and alive today, striving throughout the world, and as resiliently as ever pursuing their careers, cherishing and grooming their language and their culture—37 years after Biafra. Sabine, Jell- New York, May 2007.     

The Holy Spirit in the Household: Pentecostalism, Gender, and Neoliberalism in Mozambique

The recent expansion of Pentecostalism and independent churches in Africa has generated growing interest among social scientists. This attention parallels a renewed interest among Africanists on witchcraft and occult activities, also believed by many to be increasing. Some suggest the two trends may be related, but it remains unclear how and why. Drawing on a study of Pentecostalism and health in the city of Chimoio, Mozambique, in 2002–03 that focused on attitudes toward recent social change, we argue that structural adjustment economic reforms have deepened economic inequality and exacerbated household stresses that affect men and women differently. Women increasingly seek spiritual help for reproductive health problems from Pentecostal churches, whereas men disproportionately pay traditional healers to engage "occult" practices to manage misfortune related to employment. The increased resort to both spiritual resources reveals social distress caused by economic adjustment, with important implications for health programs.     

Impact of Income Inequality and Other Social Determinants on Suicide Rate in Brazil

Studies about suicide worldwide have mainly focused on individual-level psychiatric risk factors. In Brazil, suicide is an important public health problem. Brazil has evidenced important socioeconomic changes over the last decades, leading to decreasing income inequality. However, the impact of income inequality on suicide rate has never been studied in the country.

Purpose

To analyze whether income inequality and other social determinants are associated with suicide rate in Brazil.

Method

This study used panel data from all 5,507 Brazilian municipalities from 2000 to 2011. Suicide rates were calculated by sex and standardized by age for each municipality and year. The independent variables of the regression model included the Gini Index, per capita income, percentage of individuals with up to eight years of education, urbanization, average number of residents per household, percentage of divorced people, of Catholics, Pentecostals, and Evangelicals. A multivariable negative binomial regression for panel data with fixed-effects specification was performed.

Results

The Gini index was positively associated with suicide rates; the rate ratio (RR) was 1.055 (95% CI: 1.011–1.101). Of the other social determinants, income had a significant negative association with suicide rates (RR: 0.968, 95% CI: 0.948–0.988), whereas a low-level education had a positive association (RR: 1.015, 95% CI: 1.010–1.021).

Conclusions

Income inequality represents a community-level risk factor for suicide rates in Brazil. The decrease in income inequality, increase in income per capita, and decrease in the percentage of individuals who did not complete basic studies may have counteracted the increase in suicides in the last decade. Other changes, such as the decrease in the mean residents per household, may have contributed to their increase. Therefore, the implementation of social policies that may improve the population’s socioeconomic conditions and reduce income inequality in Brazil, and in other low and middle-income countries, can help to reduce suicide rates.