No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
The Negotiations of Nigerian Seamen in the Transition from Colonialism to Independence: Smuggling to Make Ends Meet
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 October 2013
Abstract:
This article examines the economic and cultural opportunities Nigerian seamen exploited in the context of their work and travels throughout the colonial era, and the impact of decolonization on their livelihoods and self-conception. During the colonial era, Nigerian seamen resisted colonial categorizations of them as a cheap and docile source of labor for British shipping companies, and maneuvered to supplement low wages through smuggling enterprises. The processes of decolonization and the transition to independence, though initially greeted with enthusiasm, resulted in the loss of their economic independence and ultimately their vocational identities as seamen.
Résumé:
Cet article examine les opportunités culturelles et économiques exploitées par les pêcheurs nigériens dans le contexte de leur travail et de leurs voyages à travers l'erc coloniale, ainsi que l'impact de la décolonisation sur leurs moyens d'existence el leur identité. Pendant l'ère coloniale, les pêcheurs du Niger ont résisté aux classements identitaires coloniaux en se constituant comme main d'oeuvre pen chère et docile pour les compagnies anglaises de navigation, et ils out manoeuvré pour augmenter leurs salaires avec des entreprises de contrebande. La transition vers la décolonisation et l'indépendance, bien qu'accueillie initialement avec enthousiasme, a enclenché la perte de leur indépendance économique, et finalemcnt leur identité professionnelle de pêcheurs.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © African Studies Association 2011
References
References
Interviews
MMM (Merseysidc Maritime Museum, Liverpool, UK). 1954. 4C 1908 Nigerian Union of Seamen Apapa Strike 1959, Letter from Elder Dempster Representative in Lagos to M. B. Glasicr, 19 February 1954.Google Scholar
MMM (Merseysidc Maritime Museum, Liverpool, UK). 1959a. 4C 1908 Nigerian Union of Seamen 1959–1962. Report of the Board of Enquiry into the Trade Dispute between the Elder Dempster Lines Limited and the Nigerian Union of Seamen.Google Scholar
MMM (Merseysidc Maritime Museum, Liverpool, UK). 1959b. 4C 1908 Nigerian Union of Seamen 1959–1962, Presidential Address by S. M. Ekore, 15 May 1959.Google Scholar
Bolster, Jeffrey W.
1996. “‘Every Inch a Man:’ Gender in the Lives of African American Seamen, 1800–1860.” In Iron Men, Wooden Women: Gender and Seafaring in the Atlantic World, 1700-1920, edited by Creighton, Margaret and Nordling, Lisa, 138–68. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Cooper, Frederick. 1996. Decolonization and African Society: The Labor Question in French and British Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cooper, Frederick. 2002. Africa since 1940: The Past of the Present. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Cooper, Frederick. 2008. “Possibility and Constraint: African Independence in Historical Perspective.” Journal of African History
49: 167–96.Google Scholar
Chafer, Tony. 2002. The End of Empire in French West Africa: France's Successful Decolonization?
Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Davies, Peter N.
2000. The Trade Makers: Elder Dempster in West Africa, 1852–1972, 1973–1989. St. John's, Newfoundland: International Maritime Economic History Association.Google Scholar
Frost, Diane. 1999. Work and Community among West African Migrant Workers since the Nineteenth Century. Liverpool: University of Liverpool Press.Google Scholar
Gilroy, Paul. 1991. The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Hopkins, Anthony. 1966. “Economic Aspects of Political Movements in Nigeria and in the Gold Coast 1918–1939.” Journal of African History
7: 133–52.Google Scholar
Iheduru, Okechukwu C.
1996. The Political Economy of International Shipping in Developing Countries. Newark: University of Delaware Press.Google Scholar
Karras, Alan L.
2010. Smuggling: Contraband and Corruption in World History. Plymouth, U.K.: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
Leubuscher, Charlotte. 1963. West African Shipping Trade, 1909–1959. Leiden: A.W. Sythoff.Google Scholar
Nugent, Paul. 2003. Smugglers, Secessionists and Isryal Citizens on the Ghana-Togo Frontier. Athens: Ohio University Press.Google Scholar
Olukoju, Ayodeji. 2003. “A ‘Truly Nigerian Project?’ The Politics of the Establishment of the Nigerian National Shipping Line (NNSL), 1957–1959.” International Journal of Maritime History
10: 69–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schler, Lynn. 2009. “Transnationalism and Nationalism in the Nigerian Seamen's Union,” African Identities
7: 387–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schmidt, Elizabeth. 2007. Cold War and Decolonization in Guinea, 1946–1958. Athens: Ohio University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sherwood, Marika. 1995. “Strikes! African Seamen, Elder Dempster and the Government 1940–42.” In Ethnic Labour and British Imperial Trade: A History of Ethnic Seafarers in the UK, edited by Frost, Diane. London: Rouilcdge.Google Scholar
Tabili, Laura. 1994. “The Construction of Racial Difference in Twentieth-Century Britain: The Special Restriction (Coloured Alien Seamen) Order, 1925.” The Journal of British Studies
33: 54–98.Google Scholar
Tabili, Laura. 1996. “‘A Maritime Race’: Masculinity and the Racial Division of Labor in British Merchant Ships, 1900–1939.” In Iron Men, Wooden Women: Gender and Seafaring in the Atlantic World, 1700–1920, edited by Creighton, Margaret and Nordling, Lisa, 169–88. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Thomas, Deborah A., and Clarke, Kamari Maxine. 2006. “Introduction: Globalization and the Transformations of Race.” In Globalization and Race: Transformations in the Cultural Production of Blackness, edited by Thomas, Deborah and Clarke, Maxine. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.Google Scholar