Racial Capitalism and Difference: Structuring Exploitation and Expropriation of Resources through Differences in Nigeria

Nigeria is a colonial creation and has diverse identities. These identities range from linguistic, ethnic, gender, class, spatial and religious forms. This thesis aims to analyze differences in Nigeria by drawing on the racial capitalism framework developed by Cedric Robinson. Differences in Nigeria are often analyzed by referring to class, ethnic divisions or civic/primordial dualism. Robinson made a novel contribution with his racial capitalism framework because he does not understand racialism in terms of differences in skin color but he explains racial capitalism as capitalism using differences (racial, gender or other forms of differences) to structure exploitation and expropriation of resources. The analysis conducted in this thesis is original because racial capitalism theories are often used to explain North American and Caribbean development yet they had not been used to explain African development in general and Nigeria in particular. This thesis will analyze racial capitalism in Nigeria by focusing on the recent history of differentiation and dispossession in the Niger-Delta region. It will engage itself with these questions: How are identities produced in the colonial period? How have these identities been reproduced in the subsequent post-colonial era in the Niger-Delta areas? How are these identities employed to structure exploitation of people and expropriation of resources to support capitalist accumulation? This thesis will also discuss land dispossession and pollution as dimensions of capitalist exploitation in the Niger Delta and examine the rise of community-based social movements in resistance to oil exploration and exploitation. Keywords: exploitation, expropriation, racial capitalism and difference