Literary communities and colonial citizenship in early twentieth-century Yorubaland, Nigeria

该项目研究了第一次世界大战和第二次世界大战之间的几十年里，尼日利亚西南部文学社区与殖民地公民身份新思想的出现之间的联系。它旨在了解第二代城市和基督教约鲁巴人生活的社会和文化世界，以及这个世界如何与他们的政治活动相联系。从18世纪开始，欧洲就有大量关于识字、公共领域的发展和公民意识之间关系的史学著作，但在20世纪初的世纪非洲，这一主题的研究严重不足。因此，该项目的重要性在于它试图解释尼日利亚两次世界大战之间的政治运动和组织的文化内容，这些运动和组织以前被狭隘地解释为只不过是民族主义的早期表现。三篇期刊文章将提交出版，不迟于2007/2008年发表，预计它们将在非洲历史学术领域产生重大影响。特别是，这些产出可能会刺激南非和英属西非的社会和文化史的进一步比较研究，因为它们引起了人们对史学中共同主题的关注。

This project examined the connections between literary communities and the emergence of new ideas of colonial citizenship in south-western Nigeria in the decades between the first and second world wars. It aimed to understand the social and cultural world in which a second generation of urban and Christian Yoruba men lived, and how this world intersected with their political activities. There is a rich historiography on the relationship between literacy, the development of the public sphere and ideas of citizenship in Europe from the eighteenth century onwards, but this subject is critically under-researched in early twentieth-century Africa. The importance of the project thus lies in its attempt to explain the cultural content of political movements and organisations in interwar Nigeria which have previously been narrowly interpreted as no more than an early manifestation of nationalism. Three journal articles will be submitted for publication to appear no later than 2007/2008 and they can be expected to have a significant impact in the academic field of African history. In particular, these outputs will likely stimulate further comparative research in the social and cultural histories of South Africa and British West Africa because they draw attention to shared themes in the historiography.