03/25/2022
By Jason Carter

Global Studies invites you to attend a dissertation defense by Cecilia Idika Kalu on Friday, April 8 at noon in Dugan Hall room 204.

Dissertation Title: Security and Sensemaking: Investigating Terror Management Mechanisms In Women’s Experiences with Boko Haram

Committee Members:

  • Jenifer Whitten-Woodring (Chair)
  • Min Jeong Kim
  • Arie Perliger

ABSTRACT
This dissertation examines the experience of women with Boko Haram. The Boko Haram Insurgency has ravaged North-Eastern Nigeria, Chad, and Cameroon for over a decade. The group’s killing, kidnapping, and burning of homes have left millions homeless in its wake. The Boko Haram Insurgency has the dubious distinction of deploying the highest number of women as suicide bombers in history, in addition to kidnapping 276 girls. Abducted for ransom, the girls were targeted for representing western education “especially for women”. This research suggests that the participation of women and girls in terror groups in sub-Saharan Africa is propelled by a combination of ideology and agency. This participation in terror groups is influenced by poverty and exclusion. The overarching research question examines how the socioeconomic challenges in the Nigerian environment connects to the agency of women in Boko Haram, and how their ideology connects to victimhood. I use terror management mechanisms and agency-communion as an overarching framework for understanding women’s experiences with Boko Haram. I use a phenomenological approach in my methodology to explore their experiences.
The study is organized as a three-article dissertation. Although the three articles function separately, they are related by one overarching framework. The first question I pose is: How do women who are affected by Boko Haram experience self-regulated learning? The goal is to understand sense-making and self-efficacy within their context. The second paper examines the women’s experience of Boko Haram. It examines the similarities and differences in the recruitment and deployment of women by Boko Haram and other groups in suicide bombing and other strategies of combat. This paper uses Sen’s development theory to understand the role of women. The third paper explores how ideology influences the role that women play in Boko Haram, and the agency they exercise in their weaponization. It examines how the kind of ideology in the group affects the women’s experiences.