A Major Phenomenon in Space Contestation among Yoruba Religious Groups of Southwestern Nigeria by Oladosu Olusegun Adebolu, Makinde AbdulFatai Kola and Odewale Victor Taiwo

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DOI 10.33234/ssr.11.4

Religious Symbolic Identity:  A Major Phenomenon in Space Contestation among Yoruba Religious Groups of Southwestern Nigeria

Oladosu Olusegun Adebolu (Ph.D)
Makinde AbdulFatai Kola (Ph.D.)
Odewale Victor Taiwo (Ph.D.) 

 

 

Abstract

The southwestern Yoruba religious groups – Christianity, Islam and African Indigenous Religion – have their cultural identities which could be identified through language, names and greetings. Christianity and Islam in Yorubaland were presented as a form of cultural heritages of other races.  Their practices reveal to the Yoruba people another dimension of worshipping the God that they already knew. The new belief systems therefore show the process of new etymological dimension of religious practices among the people. The traditionalists viewed this attempt as a challenge because of serious contestation for space and membership.  In order for the three religions to maintain and increase their adherents, they created a symbolic ideology which not only give identity but also establish rigorous contextual space recognition within the sphere of religious ideologies. This paper, therefore, investigates the dimension through which these ideologies have been manifested in the area of car inscriptions and stickers as displayed by the car users among the adherents of the religious groups. Oral Interviews, semiotic and phenomenological methods were used in the understanding of the Yoruba religious tradition with a view to appraising the importance of symbols and signs in the expression of ideas and feelings in religion and culture.

 

Keywords: Symbolic identities, Religious ideologies, Space contestation, Inscriptions, Stickers, Yoruba.