‘Oily Lifeworlds’: On Oil and Everyday Spirituality in Nigeria’s Niger Delta

Abstract

In Nigeria’s Niger Delta, seven decades of crude oil extraction have produced severe environmental toxicity, yet residents continue to reshape their realities through meaning-making processes that generate diverse, entangled relationships with oil. Tracing these relationships to the integration of crude oil into indigenous environmental worldviews, this paper highlights the centrality of oil in everyday spirituality, arguing that beyond its status as a capitalist commodity, crude oil deeply informs extractive and healing ritual practices.

Keywords: Oily Lifeworlds, Everyday Spirituality, Extractivism, Niger Delta.