Author ORCID Identifier
Semester
Spring
Date of Graduation
2024
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Type
PhD
College
Eberly College of Arts and Sciences
Department
History
Committee Chair
Dr. Joseph Hodge
Committee Member
Dr. Tamba M'bayo
Committee Member
Dr. Devin Smart
Committee Member
Dr. James Siekmeier
Committee Member
Dr. Timothy Stapleton
Abstract
ABSTRACT
The Paradox of Welfare: British Colonial Army, Post-War Demobilization and End of Empire in Nigeria, 1945 - 1965
Waliu Alao Ismaila
This dissertation is a contribution to the history of colonial welfare development. It does so by recovering the voices and agency of World War II veterans in postwar politics and welfare in Nigeria through a welfarist paradigm from 1945 to 1965. It sheds light on the postwar welfare policies and interventions of the British colonial government, which were aimed at improving the living standard of veterans. It examines three central questions: (1) How did the colonial government attempt to maintain their colonial order, with veterans feeling more entitled to state welfare interventions after the war? (2) What resettlement policies were implemented for post-war integration, and how were they managed? (3) how did veterans adapt to postwar welfare schemes? Drawing from previously unmined colonial archival records in Nigeria, the United Kingdom, and the United States, as well as oral interviews with surviving family members of veterans, it approaches postwar development from a welfarist lens. Foregrounding the ambiguous status of the veterans – who have often been straightforwardly understood as supporters of the nationalist movement in previous studies – it conceptualizes veterans as a complex “social welfare group” who both pushed back and sought accommodation with the colonial state to advance their material interests and living standards in ways that defy easy classification as objects or supporters of nationalist mobilization. The study adopts both imperial and transnational frameworks to reconstruct the history of post-World War II Nigeria and how the outcome of the war both empowered and dispossessed Nigerian veterans. The four main chapters articulate case studies that reveal the on-the-ground government schemes and policies for veterans and their implications for nationalism, employment, healthcare, disability, and trauma in late colonial Nigeria.
Recommended Citation
Ismaila, Waliu Alao, "The Paradox of Welfare: British Colonial Army, Post-War Demobilization and End of Empire in Nigeria, 1945 – 1965" (2024). Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports. 12441.
https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/etd/12441
Embargo Reason
Publication Pending
Included in
Africana Studies Commons, African History Commons, Military History Commons, Political History Commons, Social History Commons
Comments
This dissertation is currently on embargo until further notice.