Yoruba Ethnicity Research Articles

Health Care Providers’ Readiness to Screen for Intimate Partner Violence in Northern Nigeria

Research on screening for intimate partner violence (IPV) within health care in a sub-Saharan African context is rare. This paper assessed factors associated with the readiness to screen for IPV among care providers (HCP, n = 274) at Kano hospital, Nigeria. Readiness was measured using the Domestic Violence Health Care Providers' survey instrument, which measures grade of perceived self-efficacy in screening for IPV, fear for victim/provider safety, access to system support to refer IPV victims, professional roles resistant/ fear of offending clients, and blaming the victim for being abused victim. Social workers perceived a higher self-efficacy and better access to system support networks to refer victims than peers in other occupation categories. Female care providers and doctors were less likely to blame the victim than males and social workers, respectively. Younger care providers of Yoruba ethnicity and social workers were less likely to perceive conflicting professional roles related to screening than older providers of Hausa ethnicity and doctors, respectively. Implications of our findings for interventions and further research are discussed.

Healthcare providers readiness to screen for intimate partner violence in Northern Nigeria

IntroductionScreening for intimate partner violence (IPV) against women within healthcare has been advocated and practiced as routine in high income countries. However, screening for IPV against women in sub-Saharan African...

Screening for intimate partner violence in healthcare in Kano, Nigeria: extent and determinants

IntroductionThe adverse health consequences of domestic violence have led to increased call to involve healthcare providers in the management of partner violence prevention through screening for it within the healthcare.ObjectiveTo...

'Heepa' (Hail) Òrìşà: The Òrìsà Factor in the Birth of Yoruba Identity

The popularization of Christianity and Islam among Yoruba-speaking slaves in the diaspora is widely seen as the root of Yoruba ethnic consciousness. Returning ex-slaves, Christians, and British colonialists starting in the 1830s, in a form of reversing sail, propagated this identity in the homeland among those who did not cross the Atlantic. This essay suggests that the focus on world religions offers only a partial explanation of the evolution of this consciousness in the homeland. The essay identifies what role orisa worship practice and its conductors played in the birth of Yoruba ethnicity. It argues that as in the diaspora, nineteenth-century homeland Yoruba witnessed substantial population mixture, urbanism and interethnic marriage in ways that transformed orisa from local to regional symbols. Based on the web of links created among the Yoruba, the prescriptions of diasporic Yoruba and their supporters could be understood and accepted by the majority of those left behind because they drew upon existing commonly shared beliefs. Nonetheless, these conditions were not sufficient for the birth of a nation. The nation needs its advocates. Returning Yoruba ex-slaves, aided by the Christian church and European colonialists, reduced Yoruba language into writing and made the text the symbol through which others were persuaded and trained to accept the Yoruba nation. In the diaspora and later the homeland, common language distinguished the Yoruba from their neighbors, especially the multitude of ethnicities that merged into the Nigerian state.

Reflections on the Children of Shango: An Essay on a History of Orisa Worship in Trinidad

Studies of the transfer and development of Yoruba religious practices in the Americas have tended to focus on Candomble in Brazil and Santeria in Cuba. This essay examines the development of the practice of Orisa worship in Trinidad which received the bulk of its Yoruba settlers in the post-emancipation period. It explores the impact of the socio-economic adjustments of a frontier society on the development of this religious practice and identifies a process of consolidation, debilitation and resurgence. The essay also discusses the emergence of a constructed Yoruba ethnicity as the signifier for African identity in Trinidad.

Yoruba etnic groups or a Yoruba Ethnic Group? A review of the problem of ethnic identification

In spite of the upsurge of interest in anthropological studies in the last half century, ethnologists and kindred scientist have not been able to agree on what criteria to use for identifying an ethnic group.