The Conceptualisation of Culture and Its Manifestations in the Nigerian Communities

The concept of culture is a key term in several fields such as social sciences, humanities, biology, management, and medicine, with different meanings in both academic and popular practice. Although, in general, anthropologists and sociologists consider culture as a methodological concept to understand human meaning-making and social organization, it is a space by which identity is negotiated and social cohesion is preserved. The paper provides some of the key definitions of culture, outlines the material and non-material aspects of culture, and evaluates the different methods of studying culture. It contextualizes such theoretical views in the Nigerian context, emphasizing cultural manifestations of key ethnic groups, including the Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo, and so on. The paper addresses the problem of ethnocentrism and examines some of the major cultural activities, festival, folktales, marriage systems, and administration of justice as well as artistic traditions. Finally it contends that culture is an essential process of generating and negotiating identity, behaviour and social cohesion within the pluralistic society of Nigeria.