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White-collar fundamentalism: interrogating youth religiosity on Nigerian university campuses

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 November 2007

Ebenezer Obadare
Ebenezer Obadare*
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, University of Kansas, 1415 Jayhawk Blvd., 722 Fraser Hall, Lawrence, KS 66045-7556, USA
*
Email: Obadare@ku.edu
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Abstract

Home historically to a politically engaged youth sector, Nigeria has, over the past two decades, witnessed a growing incidence of religious extremism involving educated youth, especially within university campuses. For all its important ramifications, and despite the continued infusion of social and political activity in the country by religious impulse, this phenomenon has yet to receive a systematic or coherent treatment in the relevant literature. This paper aims to locate youthful angst displayed by Nigerian university students within the context of postcolonial anomie and the attendant immiseration of civil society. Youth religious extremism on Nigerian campuses reflects both young people's frustration with national processes, and their perceived alienation from modernity's ‘cosmopolitan conversation’.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 45 , Issue 4 , December 2007 , pp. 517 - 537
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2007

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