Social Media and Connective Mourning: Analysing the EndSARSMemorial2 Protests in Nigeria

Introduction

Mourning is usually preceded by the death of individuals so dear, related or known by some members of the society. Mourning is sadness shown by individuals following the death of a person or persons. In some parts of Nigeria, mourning is depicted with the wearing of black or red clothes. This is done as a way to express sadness about the death of someone (Ademiluka, 2009; Akinbi, 2015). The social functions of grief and mourning create social solidarity. These mourning rituals as described in Durkheim (1912/1965) re-integrates the deceased the mourners (Wagoner & de Luna, 2021). This type of belief leads to questions such as “who am I now that my loved one is gone?” (Fuchs, 2018, p. 57).

Collective mourning occurs when many people grief the loss of an individual simultaneously in a given social milieu. Collective mourning prior to the diffusion of social media were mainly via public displays of collective grief. These typically take the form of grassroots temporary memorials as happens when people leave flowers, candles, and photos in a central public space (Wagoner & de Luna, 2021). However, these practices are changing since the diffusion of digital media technologies. It has been noted that advances in technology, particularly computer-mediated communication have changed “the death systems” by allowing online memorials, virtual cemeteries, and spaces for social support to occur instantaneously (Bingaman, 2022; Sofka et al., 2012, p. 6).

Studies in online mourning (Cao et al., 2022; Cherasia, 2022; Erll, 2022; Hoskins, 2016; Jiwani, 2022; McCammon, 2022; Wertsch & Roediger, 2022) have outlined how the digital affordances of persistence, replicability, scalability and searchability created suitable spaces for remembering and memorialising the dead online (Cherasia, 2022; Jiwani, 2022). The chapter shows that beyond this realm of relatedness to mourn the dead, there is a large hidden world of “connective mourning” where one mourns those that they do not have ties to or unrelated to but memorialised due to shared beliefs, and connective repertoires. In this chapter, “connective mourning” is conceptualised from Bennett and Segerberg (2012) theorisation of the logic of connective action. The logic of connective action explains the rise of a personalised digitally networked politics in which diverse individuals address the common problems of the time such as economic fairness and climate change. Connective action is the self-motivated (though not necessarily self-centered) sharing of already internalised or personalised ideas, plans, images, and resources with networks of others (Bennett & Segerberg, 2012, p. 753). In this chapter, connective mourning is seen as a form of online mourning by a group of persons who hitherto did not have a tie or relationship with the deceased but only knew the deceased either through the nature of their death or the cause that the deceased is engaged in. It is slightly different with online collective mourning where the mourners use networked space to grief but are either related or know the deceased. This chapter focuses on both the nature of the deaths and the cause that the dead engaged in before their death. Thus, this chapter explores how Nigerians have resorted to Twitter to mourn and memorialise protesters who were killed during the 2020 #EndSARS protests in Nigeria.

This chapter first highlights the issues related to the 2020 #EndSARS and memorial protests in Nigeria. Next, the chapter interrogates the digital activism and online mourning literature. The research methods are then delineated. This is followed by the results and the discussions of the findings.