| This dissertation examines the cultural construction of tradition among the Yoruba of southwestern Nigeria. Based on fieldwork in Ile-Ife, the research seeks to describe, analyze, and interpret social and political processes of forming, invoking and deploying Yoruba tradition in both the colonial and post-colonial periods. The research focuses on contemporary agents--Yoruba traditional historians, monarchs, diviners, ritual specialists and scholars--and their various discursive strategies in four overlapping realms: historiographic, political, religious, and academic. Beginning with the colonizers' role in inventing "the Yoruba," the study moves from early twentieth-century anthropological constructions of "Yoruba traditional culture" to the subsequent strategic use, by cultural nationalists, of indigenous traditions in ongoing decolonization struggles. Drawing on ethnographic interviews and close analysis of auto-ethnographic texts, the thesis considers: the Anglophone writings of traditional historians; the role of an ethnic traditional ruler in national political debates; Yoruba religious counter-discourses, particularly the immense divination corpus of Ifa, an early and continuing resource for the cultural nationalist project; and recent academic efforts within various university departments and institutes to reclaim traditional paradigms for use within modern scholarly disciplines. Thus, this research situates itself with studies of colonial discourse, cultural decolonization and post-coloniality. |
