Cultural Landscape Transactions and Values of a Nupe Community in Central Nigeria

Abstract

Over time, values are culturally developed by people as they relate to the environment in both tangible and intangible forms. However, limited studies or documentations exist on cultural landscapes of minority ethnic groups, especially in developing nations. As such, there is a global call in which UNESCO is at the forefront advocating the need for the preservation of values and identities of cultural landscapes. The uniqueness of this book is on the empirical evidence based on the documentation of an eight-month ethnographic study of minority ethnic group in central Nigeria, the Nupes. One of the distinguishing characters of the cultural values of the Nupe people is that they have their cultural landscape transactions constituted in both tangible and intangible forms. Even though it relates to an ethnic group in central Nigeria, others from similar cultural landscape can relate to the cultural transactions discussed in different chapters of this book. Readers can align to how cultural landscapes are expressed in both tangible and intangible forms. Equally important are the people-space and place relationship which results in a sense of place. The cultural values of communities are a product of both natural as well as the social setting which begins with the family. As such the Nupe basic family structure and its relationship with the domestic space are discussed in this book to give the reader an insight and also exemplify how cultural values are constituted within the domestic space. Additionally, the economic lifestyle of people has an influence on the cultural landscape values of communities. Accordingly, a section of this book demonstrates this assertion as well as how cultural values are exhibited by indigenous professions in their transactions with the landscape. The concluding chapter of this book gives the deductions drawn from the cultural landscape values of Nupe community which resulted in the formulation of Grounded Theory with spatial implications. It is to be noted that, the book is an edited PhD dissertation of the Author on cultural landscape of Nupe community in central Nigeria