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The phenomenon of globalization is a popular and controversial issue that has many facets. According to Lee and Vivarelli 2006), most conversations around globalization tend to describe it in terms of increase in trade and liberalization policies and reduction in transportation costs and technology transfer. Heine and Thakur (2011) opine on globalization as follows:

Many regard globalization as both a desirable and an irreversible engine of commerce that will underpin growing prosperity and a higher standard of living throughout the world. Others recoil from it as the soft underbelly of corporate imperialism that plunders and profiteers on the basis of unrestrained consumerism. (p. 2)

Many regard globalization as both a desirable and an irreversible engine of commerce that will underpin growing prosperity and a higher standard of living throughout the world. Others recoil from it as the soft underbelly of corporate imperialism that plunders and profiteers on the basis of unrestrained consumerism. (p. 2)

The Brundtland Report (1987) was put together in response to agitations over such loses/discontents. This report gave birth to what unarguably is the most popular concept in sustainable development. The Report features the integration of the concerns about strands of development as experienced and as projected across divides, as well as concerns about their interrelationship, and effects on people and the environment. It seeks to reconcile the future with current developments. The recommendations of the report in the end materialized into the millennium development goals (MDGs) in January 2000, which in turn metamorphosed into the sustainable development goals (SDGs) in January 2016. The bulk of the SDGs are to be achieved in the global-south as countries within this categorization including Nigeria have more to do within their territories in order to ensure its actualization. One of the major challenges facing the SDGs in Nigeria is institutionalizing mobilization for the actualization of the goals. Against this backdrop, the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) was launched to bring on board academic institutions, civil societies, non-governmental organizations, and businesses, and mobilize their activities into fewer but more efficient units.

This chapter contextually explores the purpose and roles of the SDSN in Nigeria, and conceptualizes how it will play out for both sustainable development and qualitative participation in globalization. It identified and explored the interface between the three variables of universities: cooperativism, cooperatives, cooperation, and solidarity economics; communities as integral to the actualization of the SDGs; and proportionate participation in globalization. Deficiencies were identified, and remedial actions proffered.

This chapter examines the current incarnation of African literature as written by a younger generation, less concerned with writing back to the colonial empire, and more with examining issues of migration and the consequences of living in diaspora. It contrasts the concerns and experiences of the older generation of African writers such as Chinua Achebe and Ngugi wa Thiongo with the current generation, especially Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Mukoma wa Ngugi.

It engages in literary and cultural analyses of selected texts, revealing how a range of current issues, such as women’s rights, are discussed therein.

A new generation of African writers, many having already been through the migratory experience before writing, are engaging a range of issues that are no longer identical to those concerning writers of the immediate colonial experience. Issues of sexuality, migration and post-independence challenges become prominently articulated.

Women’s rights were raised by an earlier generation of African women writers and are seen now not so much as radical positions but as assessments of how men and women are socialised. The ways in which people are encouraged or discouraged from articulating full equality as part of the larger critique of post-independence African states is a focus.

This chapter highlights the agency of Nigerian immigrant business owners in constructing their business-related social networks. Literature on immigrant business owners emphasizes their social network embeddedness as a key explanatory factor in their economic integration. I show here ways in which members of one immigrant group purposely shape these networks into the most advantageous form: impersonal/socially distant suppliers, personal/socially close employees, and impersonal/socially distant customers.

Data for the chapter come from 36 semistructured qualitative interviews conducted in New York City with Nigerian small business owners and participant observation in their businesses.

Nigerian immigrant business owners in New York tend over time to shift from business networks of primarily Nigerian or other socially close suppliers, employees, and customers, to networks of mainly socially close employees, and socially distant suppliers and customers.

The chapter’s concern is limited to Nigerian immigrant business owners in New York City. Others in other places may behave differently.

The literature on immigrant business owners is dominated by Asian and Latin American examples while this chapter features the experiences of Nigerian immigrants. It also presents a group that does not fit the widely accepted disadvantage hypothesis of immigrant self-employment. Finally, where many studies treat social networks as static structures, this chapter emphasizes the agency of immigrants in altering the composition of their networks to maximize their position in it.

There have been various concerns about the petroleum industry regulation in Nigeria, including issues regarding the protection of host communities. The host communities have hardly derived sustainable developmental value from petroleum resource exploration from their community. Instead, the exploration of petroleum and other mineral resources has caused some environmental, social and economic setback for these host communities. On 17 August 2021, the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) 2021 was signed into law after over two decades of legislative stalemate. The PIA proposes a series of reforms purported to revolutionalise the petroleum industry. According to President Buhari, the Act will create a regulatory sphere that will ensure transparency and accountability across the oil and gas value chain (Ailemen, 2021). Chapter 3 of the Act deals with host communities' concerns. Its overall aim is to ensure host communities have access to sustainable prosperity. The notion of sustainable prosperity implies that the Act seeks to elevate host communities from the poverty baseline to a level of prosperity that satisfies the social, economic, environmental and intergenerational features. Therefore, this chapter examines the provisions of the Act, particularly Chapter 3, to determine its potential to achieve sustainable prosperity for host communities. The chapter shall also identify the weaknesses in the Act, which would otherwise limit its sustainable prosperity goal and how these challenges can be addressed.

Purpose – This chapter examines the socio-economic and political challenges facing Nigeria's oil-producing sector. The Niger Delta's main environmental and social problems arise from oil spills, gas flaring and degradation of the land.

Design/methodology/approach – This analysis is based on a review of government documents as well as materials produced by international development agencies.

Findings – In spite of the large profits made by oil companies operating in the Niger Delta, the people of the region live in squalor without basic amenities. This has resulted in an upsurge of violent activities orchestrated by community-based organizations wishing to draw international attention to the plight of the people in the area. In recent years, both national and international nongovernmental organizations have launched campaigns to address the issues, but little have been achieved because the oil companies are reluctant to be responsible corporate neighbors and the Nigerian government seem unwilling to devise solutions to address the problem.

Originality/value – This chapter suggests ways of developing an effective oil policy framework that will include all the stakeholders in the management of oil resources.

Diverse understanding of corporate social responsibility (CSR) abounds among scholars and practitioners in Nigeria. The purpose of this chapter is to reinvent CSR in Nigeria through a deeper understanding of the meaning and theories of this nebulous concept for better application in the industry. The qualitative research approach is adopted, relying on critical review of scholarly articles on CSR, website information of selected companies and institutional documents. It was found that there are diverse meanings of CSR in the reviewed literature, but the philanthropic initiatives and corporate donations for social issues are the common CSR practices in Nigeria. Besides, the eight dominant theories of CSR that find relevance for applications in the industry are shareholder/agency, stakeholder, legitimacy, instrumental, social contract, conflict, green and communication theories. The implication of the discourse is that better understanding and application of CSR theories would strengthen conceptual, theoretical and empirical research in the field of CSR. Besides, CSR theories are useful sources of information for practitioners for designing social responsibility policies and practices as well as for providing scholars with sound theoretical framework for academic research.

Cartoons have these last years represented an excellent way to lead debates on various socio-political and economic issues affecting Nigeria and to engage and enlighten Nigerian audiences. Almost all Nigerian newspapers and magazines have found them instrumental in their criticism of political malpractices and socio-cultural maladies plaguing the country. In line with this, many social forces (particularly NGOs) have embraced cartooning as a strong tool for environmental activism. Such social entities have in various platforms, deployed cartoons as a fruitful sensitization machinery to mobilize various segments of the Nigerian populace in favor of environmental protection. These sensitization efforts have most often entailed the construction/composition of emotionally and ideologically loaded cartoons that reflect many local myths and which are founded on local idiosyncrasies and worldviews. Understanding some Nigerian environmental cartoons has thus often been a complex task which in many instances, necessitates not only a full grasp of the principles of visual rhetoric but equally sufficient knowledge of some local myths and socio-cultural realities. In view of this fact, it may be interesting to apply semiotics in the reading of environmental cartoons. This chapter addresses this issue. It is divided into three main parts. The first part explores the state of environmental protection in Nigeria. The second part examines cartoons as a tool for social and political activism. The third part provides theoretical illuminations on the use of semiotics in the interpretation of cartoons and the last part provides a semiotic analysis of selected environmental cartoons.

Purpose – This study explores the contributions of African immigrant women, as transnational change-agents, to community development in sub-Saharan Africa and in the Greater Boston and Philadelphia areas.

Design/methodology/approach – This study draws on theories and concepts in migration and feminist studies, such as transnationalism and intersectionality, and uses snowball sampling to conduct in-depth, structured interviews with African immigrant entrepreneurs and civic leaders.

Findings – Although their intersectional status affected their personal and professional lives, these African women adopted a new Pan-Africanism, which enabled them to contribute to development in their homelands and especially to urban revitalization in the United States.

Originality/value of the paper – This research demonstrates African immigrant women's agency in their “home” and “host” societies conducted within the frameworks of transnationalism and intersectionality. It provides insights about African immigrants’ experiences that may be useful in immigration policy.

Family, like other social institutions within society, has undergone changes that have impacted its structure, form, and dynamics over the years. This chapter, through an in-depth review of family and relationship literature, investigates the complexities, dynamics, and changes in the Nigerian family structure. These changes are argued to be influenced among other things by various cultural, social, political, and economic factors that have shaped the twenty-first century. As such, the contemporary Nigerian family structure has witnessed transformations such as an increase in single parenting, separation, divorce, baby-daddy and baby-mama arrangements, and the salient practice of homo-sexual relationships, among others. These changes have not only impacted family structures and formations but also have attendant consequences on relationship patterns in marriages, intimate relationships, and children’s socialization.