Asaba Memorial Project

Asaba Memorial Oral History Project

These oral histories were conducted on October 9th and 10th at the 2009 Asaba Inaugural Symposium in Tampa, Florida.  The Symposium and the interviews took place in the USF Tampa Campus Library Grace Allen and Florida Studies Center rooms.  The interviewers were Dr. Elizabeth Bird, Dr. Erin Kimmerle, and Dr. Fraser Ottanelli and Tampa Police Detective Charles Massucci.  The interviewees are all survivors of the Asaba massacre that took place on October 5th 1967, in the Delta State of community of Asaba, in Nigeria. 

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The Interviewers

S. Elizabeth Bird is Professor of Anthropology at the University of South Florida. Her specialties include the role of media in culture, folklore, and cultural heritage. She has published four books, the most recent being The Anthropology of News and Journalism: Global Perspectives (Indiana University Press 2009), and has written more than 60 articles and book chapters. She has been a Visiting Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania (Annenberg School for Communication), serves on several international journal editorial boards, and is an external member of the Centre for Memory Studies, University of Warwick, U.K. 

Personal website: http://anthropology.usf.edu/faculty/bird/

Erin H. Kimmerle is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of South Florida. Her research is in the areas of forensic anthropology, human rights and transitional justice. She has published in anthropology and forensic science journals and is the first author of the book, Skeletal Trauma: Identification of Injuries in Human Rights Abuse and Armed Conflict. Her worked is based on numerous missions in Nigeria, Peru, Kosova, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and Bermuda since 2000. Other professional appointments include state and national mass disaster response teams and Adjunct Senior Lecturer for the College of Medicine, Lagos State University, Nigeria.

Personal website:  http://anthropology.usf.edu/faculty/kimmerle/

Fraser Ottanelli is Professor and Chair of the Department of History at the University of South Florida in Tampa.  His areas of specialization are ethnic and labor History, comparative migration, and US history in a global age. On these topics he has authored two-books and numerous articles and essays. He is currently completing a book manuscript, Migration and the Shaping of Ethnic Identity, to be submitted to Illinois University Press. Professor Ottanelli has been a Visiting Scholar in the Department of History and Civilization of European University Institute, Florence (Italy) and a Professeur Associé at the Université Paris VII—Denis Diderot (France). Currently he served on the Executive Committee and is a member of the Board of Governors of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives (ALBA) at NYU.

Personal website:  http://history.usf.edu/faculty/fottanelli/