Identity development and practices in the Kano Kantin Kwari business community in Nigeria

Abstract

Many studies on African communities tend to address how identities are embedded in peoples’ practices and cultures. However, little attention has been paid to the indigenous business communities in the African continent, particularly in Nigeria. The study is thus concerned with addressing this research gap from an interdisciplinary perspective using ‘community of practice’ (CoP) and ‘acts-of-identity’ frameworks to explore how participants develop, practise and negotiate identity in the Kano Kantin Kwari business community, Nigeria. Using qualitative ethnographic methods, five focus groups and 18 individual participants were selected through snowball sampling. The findings obtained offer social and pedagogical implications and reveal the significance of sociocultural, sociohistorical and sociopsychological backgrounds in projecting, focusing and diffusing identities. For the most part, macro influences and micro practices determined members’ negotiation of their identities. Despite the ethnographic fieldworker’s constraints, this study provides implications for similar under-represented and muffled communities as it reveals how identity – as an ongoing phenomenon – is socially constructed, developed and practised.