Amarachi Iheke
"You don’t genocide a people and forget that kind of language."
The Transcript
Amarachi Iheke is a learner-educator and community worker inspired by imaginations of pan-African liberatory worldmaking.
Her ongoing doctoral project explores explores radical re-imaginations of African selfhoods in Azania (South Africa) through a sonic militant Body Archive.
Her work is also concerned with Igbo oral-textual cultural productions in wider explorations of anticolonial psychosocial justice in Eastern Nigeria. Essays from this strand have been featured in The Republic and The Funambulist Magazines. She also collaborates with the black Radical Book Publisher and Community Archive, the Huntley Archives.
Amarachi holds a BA in International Relations and African Studies, from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) and an MA in Conflict Security and Development, from King's College London.
Her ongoing doctoral project explores explores radical re-imaginations of African selfhoods in Azania (South Africa) through a sonic militant Body Archive.
Her work is also concerned with Igbo oral-textual cultural productions in wider explorations of anticolonial psychosocial justice in Eastern Nigeria. Essays from this strand have been featured in The Republic and The Funambulist Magazines. She also collaborates with the black Radical Book Publisher and Community Archive, the Huntley Archives.
Amarachi holds a BA in International Relations and African Studies, from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) and an MA in Conflict Security and Development, from King's College London.
Publications
Moving Beyond Semantics: Examining the ‘Biafran’ genocide claim (The Republic)
We the Vanquished: On Biafra, the Nigerian Postcolony, and the need for Radical Solidarities (The Funambulist)
Our recorded conversation went on for almost four hours and meandered through many issues from standards of beauty, to corporal punishment, gerontocracy in Nigeria, the civil war, class and the Nigerian spirit world.
Timestamps
03:04 Healing vs. Reconciliation
05:58 The Legacy of the Nigerian-Biafra War
12:00 Beauty Standards and the Burden of Appearance
17:53 Cultural Expressions and Radical Empathy
20:54 Courage and ‘Strength’ in Nigerian Culture
36:59 The Cycle of Bullying and Power Dynamics
46:08 Biafra, the idea and symbol
50:29 Spirituality and Collective Responsibility
Full transcript to be uploaded soon.