Literature and Resistance: A Study of Christie Watson’s Tiny Sunbirds Faraway

Abstract

The Niger-Delta region in recent times has been experiencing the politics of local resistance which has remained decisively violent, and the indigenes as a result, have been compelled to perceive the oil environment as a metaphor for death and no longer as a source of improved life. This research work explored the violent contestation around a historically construed sense of grievance, injustice, and inequality experienced through wanton exploitation and devastating impoverishment by both the government and trans-national oil companies. Using Christie Watson’s Tiny Sunbirds Faraway, this study further showcased how the degradation and exploitation of the Niger-Delta environment in the course of oil exploration by both the government and oil companies led to the present conflict which has escalated from ethnic minority protests to fully blown insurgency that has attracted worldwide attention. The transition from resistance as mere protests to militancy as represented by attacks on innocent citizens and oil companies, the effects on the female members of the indigene communities and how these women cope are also critically analyzed in the study. The duo of eco-feminism and Marxist feminism are the theoretical frameworks used in the course of this research. The study concludes by recommending that both the government and the oil companies in the region should, as a matter of policy and urgency provide employment and award contracts to the indigenes of the host communities. This way, the youths’ restiveness in the region which is mostly caused by joblessness will be nipped in the bud.