The modernist extractive tendencies separate humans from nonhumans and nature from culture. But such dichotomies differ from many other worldviews whose ontologies of nature recognise the interconnectedness of these elements within a ‘living community of beings’. Among the Igbo of Nigeria in West Africa, Ala is the life entanglement of the universe, the fountain of fertility, the mother of all things - humans and nonhumans, the Mother Earth. This ontological understanding led many Igbo communities to symbolise Ala with various animals and tree species, and to revere and sacralise different landforms and water bodies in a reciprocal relationship that preserves them and their associated biocultural diversities. Consequently, birth, living and death in Igbo communities involve rites that continuously re-enact these human-nonhuman relational ontologies, a practice I conceptualise as ‘territorial communion’. In this lecture, I will explore the Igbo heritage of territorial communion to demonstrate how their practice retains invaluable lessons for living in relation to and sustainably with the Earth, as opposed to the violence of modern capitalist extractivism in the so-called Anthropocene.

Speaker: Dr. J. Kelechi Ugwuanyi is a Lecturer in Archaeology and Museum Studies at the School of Humanities, University of Glasgow. Before moving to Glasgow in April 2025, he was an Associate Professor of Heritage Studies at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Bonn. Kelechi's research questions the epistemics of coloniality in heritage and museum studies and practices, and the ways it struggles with indigenous/local knowledge systems, especially in Africa. His research interests include critical heritage studies, decolonial heritage, museum studies, cultural landscape, more-than-human ontologies and posthumanism, indigenous knowledge systems, and contemporary archaeology. His recent publications include “Nsọ Aka heritage, traditional ecological knowledge and nature conservation in Ishiagu, Nigeria”, published in Human Ecology, and “Institutional ethics versus field experience: a decolonial perspective from heritage research in Nigeria”, published in Routledge Handbook of Heritage Ethics.

Moderator: Friederike Odenwald (UHH)

The event ist part of the WONAGO Lecture Series. In order to register for remote participation, visit the WONAGO Lecture Series website.