Beyond Normal: Thinking About the Multi-dimensionalities of Distressed - Aliyu Barau | Cyberseminar on the Habitability concept

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Marion Borderon

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Mar 17, 2023, 7:41:16 AM3/17/23

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Dear colleagues,

We are already on our fifth day of discussions on habitability! If the last four days have been mainly focused on theoretical and conceptual aspects, today’s two contributions allow us to think about (unin)habitability through a regionally grounded perspective.

The first case study of the day takes us to Africa's largest arid region, the Sahel. Aliyu Barau (Bayero University) ’s statement “Beyond Normal: Thinking About the Multi-dimensionalities of Distressed Habitability Landscapes in Dryland African Cities” discusses the changing landscapes of habitability, climate, and conflict nexus, which have affected the population of the Sahel region. You will find the statement attached and also available here.

The paper argues that environmental change and conflicts have compounded the challenges of habitability in northern Nigeria, leading to human displacement, poverty and insecurity especially in cities at the edge of conflicts. This leads to profoundly humanistic and legitimate questions: In contexts where life is becoming increasingly difficult, who will protect the most vulnerable groups? Is urban poverty an indicator that certain inhabited areas are already uninhabitable/hostile to certain populations?

Lastly, by discussing the semantics used in several languages to characterise populations displaced by conflict or environmental reasons, Aliyu invites us to think about an ecological linguistics of habitability in climate-conflicts nexus. I find this perspective particularly enlightening and I think in particular of the fact that the definition of “what constitutes a habitable environment” could vary widely across cultures and an eco-linguistic approach underlines the importance of taking the cultural context into account.