Original Contributions to the Sociology of Memory and Social Trauma in Communities Affected by the Nigerian Civil War

The social memory of the Nigerian Civil War of 1967 to 1970, and its continuing effects on inter-ethnic relations, community identity, and intergenerational trauma transmission in South East Nigerian communities, constitutes a profoundly underresearched domain of Nigerian sociology despite its demonstrable contemporary social significance. This doctoral study makes original contributions to the sociology of collective memory and social trauma through six years of research in Igbo communities of Anambra, Enugu, Imo, and Abia States, and comparative research with Yoruba and minority ethnic communities directly affected by the conflict. Research combined oral history collection with 112 memory narratives across three generational cohorts, ethnographic observation of memory practices including war memorial commemorations, community reunion ceremonies, and family storytelling events, analysis of Igbo-language written memory texts, and thirty interviews with non-Igbo memory communities for comparative perspective. The doctoral study makes four original sociological contributions. First, it theorises the concept of silenced social trauma to describe how state suppression of civil war memory created a distinctive intergenerational transmission pattern through non-communication rather than narrative. Second, it documents an original memory generation concept: Igbo persons born after 1970 who nonetheless carry embodied trauma dispositions transmitted through family and community habitus. Third, it develops a comparative analysis of how different ethnic communities' memory practices generate divergent social implications for contemporary inter-ethnic relations. Fourth, it advances an original theory of memory activism as the sociological mechanism through which civil society actors are challenging silenced trauma in contemporary Igbo communities. Keywords: collective memory, social trauma, Nigerian Civil War, Igbo communities, intergenerational trauma.