RESILIENCE OF NIGERIAN WIDOWS IN THE FACE OF HARMFUL WIDOWHOOD PRACTICES IN SOUTHWEST NIGERIA: AN INTERDISCIPLINARY ANALYSIS

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

She stood in the storm, and when the wind did not blow her way, she adjusted her sails. ―Elizabeth Edwards, Resilience: The New Afterword

In this study, I explore issues of resilience and strength in Nigerian widows as they undergo trauma and stress, not only from the loss of their spouses but also from certain rites that characterize widowhood in Southwest Nigeria. Scholars such as Kate Young and Uche Ewelukwa maintain that these rites are largely harmful and detrimental to the rights and well-being of women, particularly those in developing countries such as Nigeria, Ghana, and India.1 Some of these practices include being made to sleep in the same room with the deceased’s corpse, to drink the water used to wash the deceased’s body, to have one’s hair shaved, and to confine her movement for a specific time. Depending on the social status of a widow, the intensity of these practices may vary, but ultimately they serve to oppress, re-traumatize, and discriminate against widows.

The imposition of adverse rites and rituals raises the question of how Nigerian widows cope with these practices and lays the foundation for this study. My research indicates some Nigerian widows are coping well and consequently I argue primarily that in spite of adverse and discriminatory cultural practices that Nigerian widows are subject to in many cases, they are able to rise above their challenges to rebuild and reconstruct their lives mainly through resilience. As widows are the focus of this research, I also argue that their narratives contribute to knowledge production and best provide invaluable insights into how they demonstrate resilience on a daily basis. According to Emily Crawford, Margaret Wright, and Ann Masten, the “study of resilience is a search for knowledge about the processes that could account for positive adaptation and development in the context of adversity and disadvantage.”2 I adopted an interdisciplinary method of inquiry that combines critical insights from the fields of psychology and feminist studies to discover the coping mechanisms that enable Nigerian widows to persevere in settings of adversity and trauma.

In the last decade, more researchers are seeking to learn how individuals thrive and cope with adversity as it provides a useful theoretical framework to understand the ways in which people deal with challenges. As Nigerian widows steer their way through the varied contexts of gender and cultural norms in society, I used this study to understand the emergence of strength in Nigerian widows through the lens of resilience theory. Research on Nigerian widows’ resilient outcomes is an important area of investigation because it offers widows the ability to thrive in the midst of challenging circumstances as well as to think positively. However, the broader purpose of this thesis situates itself within the empowerment of Nigerian widows. One of the goals of this study was to acknowledge the small, yet powerful contribution that Nigerian widows make to sociocultural change as they become more resilient and demonstrate agency.

According to Curtis McMillen in “Better for it: How People Benefit from Adversity,” adopting a resilience model emphasizes the human potential as they face challenges in life.3 In my research, resilience theory not only serves to highlight the strength and ability of Nigerian widows to cope with adverse cultural practices, but also illuminates their ability to conceive themselves as strong and capable of dealing with challenges as they arise. Furthermore, feminist standpoint theory revealed that Nigerian widows exercise agency in small but impactful ways in the face of adverse widowhood practices and stifling patriarchal structures in society. The results of this study show that as individuals continue to demonstrate resilience, they become more empowered and better able to exercise their individual and collective agency in society. Overall, the usefulness of this study is its potential for giving voice to Nigerian widows and empowering, not only the widows, but also Nigerian women in general because as Fredoline Anunobi insists, “women are crucial to the success of social development.”4 Nigerian women can best bring about sociocultural change when they feel empowered and can exercise agency. I therefore argue that focusing on the resilience and strengths of Nigerian widows fundamentally links to female empowerment and provides a key for women in Nigeria to gain agency. In addition, demonstrating resilience also helps to improve their sociocultural status, and in doing so, begin to invoke change.

Simply put, resilience is the capacity to overcome trauma and stress. The term resilience originates from the Latin word “resilire” which means to return to a prior position.5 Resilience is the ability to get back on one’s feet after facing misfortune or change. Over time, scholars have offered several definitions of resilience across contexts; Chapter 2 presents a detailed analysis of scholars work on the topic of resilience. Suffice it to say, the fundamental basis of resilience is the ability of an individual, group, or community to bounce back from circumstances that induce stress or trauma.

In this study, I adopt a trauma-informed approach as a foundation for analyzing the resilience of widows. Although the term trauma can apply to different contexts, this study’s primary concern is the type of trauma that Nigerian widows experience concurrently by being both widows and women. In Writing Trauma, Writing History, Dominick LaCapra, a well-known researcher in trauma studies, refers to trauma as “a disruptive experience that disarticulates the self and creates a hole in existence.”6 In other words, the individual becomes destabilized and thrown into a state of confusion, causing her/him to feel uncoordinated or to lose focus. Individual trauma may result from an event or a series of events that can be physically, emotionally harmful, life-threatening, and can affect the individual mentally, physically, socially, emotionally, or spiritually.7 Trauma manifests itself in the lives of Nigerian widows, because during the grieving process, these women deal with accusations of witch craft. In some cases, a widow faces the threat of either marrying her brother-in-law, losing her children, or denied access to her spouses’ property. Some researchers refer to this type of trauma that widows, and indeed women in general undergo as “gender trauma” mainly because it occurs as a result of oppressive patriarchal structures and sociocultural practices.