Finding a Sense of Place within Degraded Ecologies: A Study of Women in the Niger Delta

Abstract

This article examines how oil-induced environmental pollution erodes women's sense of place in selected communities in Bayelsa and Rivers States, Nigeria, one of the most ecologically compromised states in the Niger Delta region. Drawing on a participatory phenomenological qualitative design, the study engaged 60 women across six purposively selected oil-bearing communities through in-depth interviews and focus group discussions. Anchored in Ecological Grief Theory and Feminist Political Ecology, the findings reveal that women's emotional, cultural, and spiritual attachment to their ancestral lands is progressively ruptured by decades of oil spills, gas flaring, water contamination, and associated ecological degradation. This rupture manifests not merely as material loss but as deep psychological grief, a mourning for destroyed livelihoods, erased rituals, fractured intergenerational bonds, and a dissolving sense  of self rooted in place. Despite these adversities, women demonstrate remarkable adaptive resilience, forging new livelihood strategies, mobilising communal solidarity, and leveraging indigenous ecological knowledge as instruments of resistance against environmental injustice. The study advances an original gendered theoretical contribution to the sense of place literature by arguing that ecological grief, far from being a paralysing condition, constitutes both a political emotion and a catalyst for subaltern environmental advocacy. The study recommends gender-inclusive environmental governance, the formal recognition of women as ecological custodians and knowledge holders, targeted livelihood diversification support, and enforceable legal rights for affected communities.