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Permanence, Temporality and the Rhythms of Life : Exploring Significance of the Village Arena in Igbo Culture

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Abstract

The village arena (or ‘square’ or ‘Otobo’ in Nsukka Igbo) is at the physical and socio cultural centre of Igbo life, in southeast Nigeria. It is a space where intangible Igbo cultural heritage is played out, and also serves as a virtual museum where heritage materials are kept. The arena performs its roles in two very different ways: as a sacred space hosting initiation rites and religious rituals; and as a profane space for meetings and ceremonies. Either way, these uses see the arena transition between permanency and temporality, following routines and rhythms which themselves give the practices meaning and significance, and contribute to their inscription on the landscape. This paper explores the complexities associated with these village arenas with a particular focus on their socio-cultural, political, economic and religious functions through time, as well as the way those complexities are manifest in material cultures that serve to characterize the village arena.

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... It is as well a virtual museum centre where heritage materials such as figurines, pottery, gong, shrines, a masquerade house and paraphernalia, musical instruments and many other treasures are found. The village arena is "a symbol of an independent village" (EborOU, 2016 in Ugwuanyi and Schofield, 2018); "a place for all kinds of meeting/gathering" (ObiraCE &ObiraAA, 2017 in Ugwuanyi andSchofield, 2018). It provides space, "for law/policy making as well as serving as a native law court to the people" (ObiraCE, 2017; AmaeguFU, 2017 both in Ugwuanyi and Schofield, 2018). ...
... It is as well a virtual museum centre where heritage materials such as figurines, pottery, gong, shrines, a masquerade house and paraphernalia, musical instruments and many other treasures are found. The village arena is "a symbol of an independent village" (EborOU, 2016 in Ugwuanyi and Schofield, 2018); "a place for all kinds of meeting/gathering" (ObiraCE &ObiraAA, 2017 in Ugwuanyi andSchofield, 2018). It provides space, "for law/policy making as well as serving as a native law court to the people" (ObiraCE, 2017; AmaeguFU, 2017 both in Ugwuanyi and Schofield, 2018). ...
... The village arena is "a symbol of an independent village" (EborOU, 2016 in Ugwuanyi and Schofield, 2018); "a place for all kinds of meeting/gathering" (ObiraCE &ObiraAA, 2017 in Ugwuanyi andSchofield, 2018). It provides space, "for law/policy making as well as serving as a native law court to the people" (ObiraCE, 2017; AmaeguFU, 2017 both in Ugwuanyi and Schofield, 2018). A classification of the Arena based on ownership and functions was attempted by Ugwuanyi and Schofield (2018: 5) thus: "according to ownership, there are those owned by the entire village and those that belong to the lineages that make up the village. ...
Article
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The continued practice of ‘Authorized Heritage Discourse’ (AHD) in Nigeria and the non-impact it has on local communities calls to question the sustainability of heritage management in the country. The way archaeology, anthropology and other related disciplines that study and contribute to the management of heritage were introduced into the country made the entire heritage management processes non-inclusive and unsustainable. Established heritage institutions have for long existed as ivory towers with little or no impact on local communities. This paper examines the implications of this hegemony on the Nigerians’ heritage consciousness and further established how the current practices exclude the people that create and use heritage in their cultural places. The essay considered the recognition and integration of indigenous heritage knowledge systems and practices (focusing on the Igbo village arena (or ‘square’) with specific examples from Nsukka cultural area in southeast Nigeria) into the western model-AHDto boost public inclusion and encourage sustainability .
... Results from Nigeria show that these utilitarian values are more important to most people in local communities, especially in Africa (Ugwuanyi, 2018(Ugwuanyi, , 2021(Ugwuanyi, , 2019; see also Onyemechalu and Ugwuanyi, 2022). Even though a heritage may look abandoned (the Western condition of endangerment), in African time and space, the heritage utility follows a repetitive rhythm or cyclical cosmos that makes them become useful or active on an annual or seasonal basis (Ugwuanyi and Schofield, 2018). This rhythm is at the heart of every living community of humans and nonhumans. ...
... It should tap into local people's awareness of the relationship between (culture) heritage, power, and governance that connect members of communities into a shared history, experience, and engagement. In the in-use model, every pre-colonial independent community (like the ones identified by Ugwuanyi and Schofield, 2018) is to be identified, and a national heritage committee constituted by representatives of the people from local, state, and federal levels is to be established. The committee members are to serve as mediators and a link between the national heritage authority and local community authorities, ensuring the representation and coverage of communities in the affairs of the national heritage authority. ...
Chapter
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Every institution has a mandate, and every mandate has a purpose. For a heritage institution, the mandate is to ‘manage’ heritage. In the case of the nations created in Africa by the imperial powers, the purpose is to legitimise the modern states by establishing a national narrative and identity to help colonial and post-independent African leaders maintain relations established by the colony. This chapter draws from the decolonial analytical tools of ‘coloniality of power’, ‘coloniality of knowledge’, and ‘coloniality of being’ using instances from Nigeria to discuss the areas of concern for the decoloniality of heritage institutions in West Africa. Applying the coloniality of power, this chapter examines how heritage institutions are implicated in constructing current global geocultural and social identities through a racially hierarchised, Western-centric, asymmetrical, and modern power structure. This chapter interrogates how the institutions support the coloniality of knowledge by helping to determine who produces which knowledge, for whom, and for what purpose. The chapter further engages how heritage institutions contribute to the objectification of Africans – coloniality of being. It justifies how the coloniality of heritage has persisted because of the global asymmetry in heritage management.
... In Otobo Ogwu, in the arena of the great Ogwudinama deity in Umu-Obira Nkporogu, a tree (unidentified species) is used to symbolize Dimgbokwe and another -an Akpụ tree -Odiọkara. 2 What Dimgbokwu and Odiọkara represent is explained in the following interview from an Obira villager about how the people received the Ogwu deity and the knowledge of the Igbo calendar (see also Ugwuanyi and Schofield 2018), ... Diugwu Egbune consulted a great dibia [medicine man] by name, Dimgbokwe from Obosi (in the present Anambra state) to prepare for him a medicine with which to identify the name of the woman when next she visits. Dimgbokwe came to Umu-Obira, prepared a Ọgwụ [medicine] called Odiọkara and planted Akpụ [silk cotton tree -Ceiba pentandra] where the medicine was kept (Interview, February 11, 2017; see also Ugwuanyi 2017). ...
... After the encounter, two different trees were used to symbolize Dimgbokwe -the dibia and Odiọkara -the medicine he made. Noting Okolie's (1992) excerpt above, it is common to find in all the village arenas in Umu-Obira an Ọgbụ Otobo, a tree in the village arena that symbolizes the sacredness of the Otobo as a political, cultural, religious and social space in Igbo culture (Ugwuanyi and Schofield 2018). ...
Book
Open Access volume available to download now from Open Humanities Press (part of their Critical Climate Change series): http://www.openhumanitiespress.org/books/titles/deterritorializing-the-future/ Understanding how pasts resource presents is a fundamental first step towards building alternative futures in the Anthropocene. This collection brings together scholars from a range of disciplines to explore concepts of care, vulnerability, time, extinction, loss and inheritance across more-than-human worlds, connecting contemporary developments in the posthumanities with the field of critical heritage studies. Drawing on contributions from archaeology, anthropology, critical heritage studies, gender studies, geography, histories of science, media studies, philosophy, and science and technology studies, the book aims to place concepts of heritage at the centre of discussions of the Anthropocene and its associated climate and extinction crises – not as a nostalgic longing for how things were, but as a means of expanding collective imaginations and thinking critically and speculatively about the future and its alternatives. Contributors: Christina Fredengren, Cecilia Åsberg, Anna Bohlin, Adrian Van Allen, Esther Breithoff, Rodney Harrison, Colin Sterling, Joanna Zylinska, Denis Byrne, J. Kelechi Ugwuanyi, Caitlin DeSilvey, Anatolijs Venovcevs, Anna Storm and Claire Colebrook.
... If you go to the Ore Edem market, something was kept on the land, which has made it to survive until today. Even the place we are sitting now (referring to Obu Aja -the palace of Aja deity), something was kept on the land and that is why we are sitting here today (for details on Otobo, see Ugwuanyi and Schofield 2018). ...
... When a further enquiry was made to ascertain if he was talking about his immediate father, he reiterates that 'Anyi nwe yabụ Al' ne ọha, mane Ogiri Ada bụ ọgerenyi -Onyishi -mgbe o wefutere', meaning 'it was a collective land, but Ogiri Ada was the eldest, who was ruling when the land was carved out'. Note that Ọfụ is a village arena (or square) and a symbol of an independent village (Ugwuanyi and Schofield 2018). The said Ogiri Ada is one of the ancient ancestors who ruled at the time Onicha Ogbo gained independence to establish its Ọfụ, an event that took place among a generation in the deep past. ...
Article
This paper reflects on how heritage knowledge is built around time-space discourses. It takes a Critical Heritage Studies (CHS) position to examine heritage knowledge systems through the lenses of Walter Mignolo’s decolonial praxis on ‘locus of enunciation’ and Tim Ingold’s exegesis on ‘dwelling perspectives’. Drawing from ethnographic evidence collected among the Igbo of Nigeria, the study engages Indigenous concepts and heritage ontologies in the context of time and space in heritage making in Africa. Secondly, it interrogates the evidence with the continuity that occurs in society through intergenerational knowledge systems that began with known ancestors. Thirdly, such sustainability mechanisms are examined using what I call ‘territorial communion’ – the ways in which those local knowledge systems are ‘printed’ on the landscape through human-nature ‘relational ontologies’, and how such pictured living holds heritage in a continuum. Finally, the paper contends that a good knowledge of intergenerational ‘dwelling perspectives’ from different loci of enunciation would begin the decoloniality of heritage in Africa.
... Even in the nomad tribes, public space is the place for political activities. Many tribes have a common place/public space between their living spaces to hold the decision making meetings that related to the whole tribe or to hold trials such as Igbo people in Nigeria (Ugwuanyi & Schofield, 2018). Public space could take many shapes and forms, but it will always be the place of the politics either it was a battle or a discussion or any shape of a decision-making process. ...
Thesis
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This MSc. thesis is trying to explore the different motivations behind the public space appropriation. Based on literature, this study hypothesizes that the motivations of public space temporary appropriation are social, cultural, political and economic motivations. This hypothesis will be tested using various tools at the case study of this research: El Gamea square and market in Heliopolis, Cairo, Egypt. It is believed that understanding the motivations of the user’s behavior allows for more adaptive design to the user needs. Which will lead eventually to sensitive urban adjustments to public spaces that will be more inclusive, resilient and sustainable.
... The mediated relationship between humans and nonhumans made it possible to feast and celebrate different 'beings' at various times of the day, week, month, or year. As such, events repetitively occurred in a cyclical form, thus, changing from permanent to temporality and vice versa (Ugwuanyi & Schofield 2018). Birth, life, death, and the afterlife are all celebrated. ...
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... People's memories of a landscape, be it either a 'formal' or mundane site, can be linked to conflict, war and other traumas (Baird and Le Billon, 2012;. There have been efforts to understand the sociocultural meanings and significance of the physical landscape in Nigeria (Okolie, 1992;Ugwuanyi and Schofield, 2018;Ugwuanyi, 2020). Other efforts have been on exploring cultural landscapes in Nigeria, such as Afamefuna and Okonkwo's (2019) investigation of the Sukur cultural landscape in the Adamawa State of Nigeria. ...
Article
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The memories of landscapes that people hold can stabilize histories and traditions in rural areas and are entwined with everyday lives and have several meanings. The paper explores the memories that people hold about plateaus in two adjoining villages (Alor-Uno and Edem-Ani) in the Nsukka area of Enugu State, South-Eastern Nigeria. This area is an exciting and essential area of the world distinctly underrepresented in landscape memory scholarship. The paper shows that the plateaus separating Alor-Uno and Edem-Ani are landscape of political memory of the ancient wars between the two communities and more contemporary disputes regarding territorial extent of the communities and use of the land behind the plateaus if you are in Alor-Uno. Alor-Uno claims wars waged against it by several kingdoms displaced the community permitting occupation of parts of the community's land and they seek to reclaim it from Edem-Ani. However, extant narratives often recognize the disputed area as part of Edem-Ani because of the use of the plateaus as a boundary by colonial administrators. The presence of the plateaus helps the people recollect these ancient wars' memories, and they use it to seek legitimation of their claim over the land. The paper argues that the memory of past land use reinforces the legitimacy of current land tenure configurations and shape sensitivity to territoriality leading to exclusion. This can sustain group identities across generations translating into a ground for future fighting. It calls for more attention to the non-human agency and in connection to landscapes political memory, which speaks to the current post-human thinking in human geography. It suggests that resource conflicts analysis should take social meanings, memories and identities connected to the physical landscape seriously as they contain ideological and symbolic elements foregrounding conflict environments.
... Likewise, for natural heritage resources like caves and lakes; the Igbo belief systems agree on the existence of an unseen creator from whom everything was made. That belief system (intangible heritage) is, again, made manifest in those lakes and caves (tangible heritage), there is not one without the other (see Munjeri, 2004;Ugwuanyi and Schofield, 2018). Hence, we may give the Igbo definition of heritage as various traditions, norms and cultural practices collectively held by a group of people (related Indigenous cultural heritage management by birth or ancestry) over a certain period of time, and that is tied or connected to a place of origin or settlement. ...
Article
This study explored an alternative understanding of heritage through the lens of the Igbo cultural group in Nigeria. It used the Igbo concept of “ Ihe Nketa ” or “ Oke ” to examine the complex relationship between indigeneity, attachment and sustainability in the context of heritage management and conservation. A qualitative approach was used, and ethnographic methods of data collection that include interviews and focus-group discussions (FGD) applied. The interview participants included village chiefs and the elderly (men and women), and the FGD comprised village elders (men and women) and youths. The interview guide contained demographic questions to determine age and occupation, followed by interactive open-ended questions stemming from the study's objectives. The interviews were conducted in the language most preferred by the respondents such as the Igbo language, Nigerian Pidgin English and the English language. The evidence generated was thematically analysed in a descriptive and interpretive manner. The study found that while the Igbo understanding of heritage have related meaning with the definitions offered by the United Nations, their approach to heritage conservation takes a different turn through the concepts of “ Ihe Nketa ” or “ Oke, ” which recognises the ephemerality of tangible heritage resources with particular focus on the preservation of intangible heritage–knowledge over objects. The Igbo approach describes the framework for the acquisition, use and transfer of heritage resources in the Igbo society. This study contributes to the understanding of the concept of heritage through the lens of the Igbo of Nigeria. Against the centralised national management approach to heritage, this paper argues that achieving sustainable heritage management in a multi-ethnic country like Nigeria requires the recognition of the principles that conserve(d) and manage(d) heritage among the indigenous/local peoples.
... Smith underlines the possibilities for conflict as well as consensus over open spaces, reminding us that open spaces can be used against 'official expectations'. An excellent example of Smith's ideas concerns the alternating uses of the Igbo village arena, at the physical and socio-cultural centre of village life, between a sacred space for hosting initiation rites and religious rituals and a profane space for meetings and ceremonies (Ugwuanyi & Schofield 2018). The inner open space at Nebelivka can also be conceptualised as the physical and socio-cultural centre of megasite life, with alternating sacred and profane uses. ...
... After the encounter, two different trees were used to symbolize Dimgbokwe -the dibia and Odiọkara -the medicine he made. Noting Okolie's (1992) excerpt above, it is common to find in all the village arenas in Umu-Obira an Ọgbụ Otobo, a tree in the village arena that symbolizes the sacredness of the Otobo as a political, cultural, religious and social space in Igbo culture (Ugwuanyi and Schofield 2018). ...
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The Ugwuagu Rockshelter (site 1) and the Ugwuagu Abandoned Habitation site (site 2)
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Chikwendu, V. E. 1976. "Afikpo Excavations. May-June 1975: The Ugwuagu Rockshelter (site 1) and the Ugwuagu Abandoned Habitation site (site 2)." Unpublished Ph.D Thesis, University of Birmingham.
The Concept and Symbolism of the Centre in African Architecture
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An Archaeological Survey in Eastern Nigeria
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The Village Square in Igbo Cosmology
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Solid State Of Physics Of Africa (Igbo_ukwu) Bronze Artefacts: The Evolutionary Roots Of Quantum Culture in Acholonu's Trilogy
  • A O E Animalu
Animalu, A. O. E. 2011. "Solid State Of Physics Of Africa (Igbo_ukwu) Bronze Artefacts: The Evolutionary Roots Of Quantum Culture in Acholonu's Trilogy." Ikenga: International Journal Of Institute Of African Studies 12 (1): 27-45.
Early Iron Technology in Igboland: Lejja and Umundu
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Anozie, F. N. 1979. "Early Iron Technology in Igboland: Lejja and Umundu." West African Journal of Archaeology 9: 120-134.
The past as a Scarce Resource
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The Interesting Narratives of the Life of Olauda Equiano
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The Igbo and Their Nri Neighbors
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Lunar and Seasonal Calendar in the Trobriands
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