A Forest of Memories: Trauma and the Biafran Identity in Post-colonial Nigeria

The Nigeria-Biafra War of 1967-1970 occasioned the Igbo pogrom and the lingering memory of starvation as a weapon of war. The collective trauma of the period has remained buried in the group’s consciousness. Existing literature on the war paid little attention to how the children of the survivors have appropriated the memories of their parents’ violent past. To address this gap in research, I aim to apply Hirsch’s framework of post-memory to understand how the post-war generation of Biafran survivors have owned and reproduced that horrific past, and its current influences on their perception of the Nigeria-Biafra War as they attempt to create “a state within a state.” The data will be collected through interviews, ethnographic research across the Southeastern region, social media platforms, print media, books and journals. This research aims to contribute to the debate on transitional justice, peacebuilding and conflict resolution, memory, civil society, nationalism and the role of social media in memorialisation in Africa.