Adele Flores-Noel
Pronouns: she/her
Research Mentor(s): Omolade Adunbi
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Department of Afroamerican and African Studies / LSA
Program:
Authors: Omolade Adunbi, Adele Flores-Noel
Session: Session 1: 9:00 am – 9:50 am
Poster: 103
Abstract
This research project undertakes a critical exploration of the role of social media in ethnographic mapping of energy practices, with a specific emphasis on its contribution to highlighting environmental challenges within resource-rich countries. We also do this in order to gain a more nuanced understanding of the specific challenges that face Nigerians and how they express their sentiments, as well as raise awareness using social media. More specifically, we looked at posts on Twitter and TikTok to find what Nigerians were posting about. Additionally, we narrowed our focus to posts related to climate change protests in Nigeria and examined the photos and/or videos that the posters included alongside their captions to further analyze the message they were trying to convey. One of the main questions we had was: How can these memes and other social media posts be organized into a coherent framework? So, we learned that three main issues were affecting Nigeria: oil pollution, flooding, and garbage dumping. Lastly, there are questions that can be answered by this research. How can this research be used to further understand how countries like Nigeria respond to climate change? How can this project be used to understand the broader implications of multinational oil corporation’s energy practices in resource rich countries such as Nigeria?
