Oil, ethnic minority groups and environmental struggles against multinational oil companies and the Federal Government in the Nigerian Niger Delta since the 1990s

Citation

Steyn P (2014) Oil, ethnic minority groups and environmental struggles against multinational oil companies and the Federal Government in the Nigerian Niger Delta since the 1990s. In: Armiero M & Sedrez L (eds.) A history of environmentalism: local struggles, global histories. London: Bloomsbury, pp. 57-81. http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/a-history-of-environmentalism-9781441137890/

Abstract
This article focuses on the complex relationships between oil producing ethnic minority groups, multinational oil companies and the Nigerian federal government in the Niger Delta since the 1990s. It explores the political mobilisation of ethnic minority groups and their environmental and human rights struggles against oil production and its corresponding pollution in their traditional homelands, the marginalisation of ethnic minority groups in independent Nigeria, the failure of the Nigerian federal government to adequately modernise minority territories in the country, and the corporate social responsibility in the Nigerian oil industry.

Keywords
Nigeria; Niger Delta; Oil industry; Shell; Corporate Social Responsibility; ethnic minority groups; pollution

People

Dr Phia Steyn

Lecturer, History