Animality and Colonial Subjecthood in Africa: The Human and Nonhuman Creatures of Nigeria

“By embracing nonhuman animals within the historical frame, Saheed Aderinto significantly expands our understanding of the African colonial encounter. With his fresh conceptual analysis, liberated from narrow disciplinary strictures, the author’s multifaceted research is a tour de force set to change the trajectory of African historiography.” “We have missed a major story of empire by failing to understand its operations at the level of species. Saheed Aderinto’s tremendous book challenges us to see Nigeria, colonial subjecthood, and all animals in integrative and provocative new ways." “This book is a wonderful addition to animal-sensitive histories of Africa, offering an important contribution toward rethinking coloniality and postcoloniality by adding the analytic lens of species to a palimpsest of gender, class, and race. Animality and Colonial Subjecthood in Africa reconsiders the history of relations not only between people and animals but also between various groups of people with animals as a fulcrum.”