Beyond the Modern: Muslim Youth Imaginaries of Nation in Northern Nigeria

Dunne, Máiréad; Crossouard, Barbara; Agbaire, Jennifer and Bakari, Salihu (2020). Beyond the Modern: Muslim Youth Imaginaries of Nation in Northern Nigeria. Sociology, 54(6) pp. 1122–1140.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038520949835

Abstract

The rise of different nationalisms in an increasingly unequal and neoliberal world makes predictions about the dawn of a post-national, global society seem both incongruous and fraught with Eurocentric occlusions. In response, we present a postcolonial analysis of research into Muslim youth narratives of nation in Northern Nigeria. This highlights the continued significance of nation for youth as well as the historical fractures – both internal and external – that infused their identity narratives. We further show the entanglement of nation and religion in youth imaginaries, and their anti-colonial ambivalences, notably with respect to gender reforms. Our analysis calls for a sociology of nation that goes beyond a modern framing and instead attends to the agonistic affective relations through which national imaginaries are constructed; the historical sutures that were intrinsic to the creation of postcolonial nations and their enduring persistence as points of fracture.

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