Contested Burial Grounds: African Religious Communities, Urban Displacement, and the Spatial Politics of Difference in Colonial Lagos, Nigeria.
This article uncovers how Black interfaith communities agitated to preserve public cemeteries on Lagos Island from the nineteenth century until the 1930s. As burial grounds became full during the 1920s, the British administration proposed closing Muslim and Christian cemeteries. The Black residents...
| Publicado en: | Journal of Social History Vol. 58; no. 3; pp. 493 - 526 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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Oxford University Press / USA
Spring2025
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ssf&AN=183483641&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ssf uiTerm: 183483641 longDbName: Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson) uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00224529 JSH jtl: Journal of Social History issn: 00224529 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Spring2025 vid: 58 iid: 3 pid: 622 pub: Oxford University Press / USA artinfo: ui: 183483641 10.1093/jsh/shae080 ppf: 493 ppct: 33 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 3.4MB tig: atl: Contested Burial Grounds: African Religious Communities, Urban Displacement, and the Spatial Politics of Difference in Colonial Lagos, Nigeria. aug: au: Somotan, Titilola Halimat su: Lagos (Nigeria) Cemeteries Black people Religious communities Interment Funerals Urban planning & politics sug: subj: Cemeteries Black people Religious communities Interment Funerals Lagos (Nigeria) Cemeteries and Crematories Urban planning & politics ab: This article uncovers how Black interfaith communities agitated to preserve public cemeteries on Lagos Island from the nineteenth century until the 1930s. As burial grounds became full during the 1920s, the British administration proposed closing Muslim and Christian cemeteries. The Black residents would be expected to bury the dead on Lagos mainland, which was connected to the island by the Carter Bridge. News of the cemetery closure galvanized Africans to successfully campaign for the expansion rather than the closing of public graveyards. Historians of mortuary politics and colonial planning have studied how European rulers mandated cemeteries and how Africans developed new burial rites in public burial grounds. This article demonstrates that the cemeteries were more than colonial instruments of dispossession. Interfaith practitioners developed new meanings for burial grounds that later motivated their struggles to ensure cemeteries' accessibility. Despite their varying attitudes to burial grounds, as the traditional rulers maintained the precolonial practice of home burial, Lagosians claimed the right to inter their loved ones in the same area that they considered home. I argue that Black residents agitated against cemetery closure to challenge colonial residential segregation and maintain belonging to Lagos Island. The campaigns for burial grounds offer insight into Lagosians' intervention in the built environment and resistance to colonial planning schemes. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: N holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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