Paper short abstract:

The age-long practice of matching naked in the community, with which indigenous women have pressed home their demands, is represented in Ifeoma Nwoye’s Oil Cemetery, as women match against oil corporations. With ideas from ecocriticism, I undertake a bioregional analysis of the novel Oil Cemetery

Paper long abstract:

The oil rich Niger Delta region of Nigeria is a home to many indigenous peoples. These ethnic societies face different kinds of environmental destruction as a result of extractive capitalism in the region. But they have also resisted governmental and multinational forces behind the extractive capitalism. One of the ways in which indigenous women in the region confront ecological and socio-political predicament in their communities is to mobilise themselves into a group (usually age groups) and take communal actions. Such actions could be in form of launching collective complaints, withdrawal of civic responsibilities, and, strangely, matching around the community stark naked. This age-long practice with which indigenous women have pressed home their demands is represented in Ifeoma Nwoye’s Oil Cemetery, as the women, frustrated by the patriarchal, institutional, and multinational forces that unleash eco-destruction on their community, mobilise themselves, throw away their clothes, and match against the oil corporation in their community. With ideas from ecocriticism and feminism, I undertake a bioregional analysis of the novel Oil Cemetery to make the point, among others, that indigenous practices, often neglected because of (post)modernity, remain potent means through which to preserve ecological balance and demand for environmental justice.