ABSTRACT
This chapter reflects on the spaces of entanglement presented in the book and considers the larger implications of the research. This examination of the Biafran region’s spatial history not only illuminates a comparatively neglected site of inquiry but also informs contemporary discourse about globalization, race, and the built environment. By examining Old Calabar’s built environment through a historical lens, this study complicates linear assumptions about progress and backwardness in the scholarship on globalization and cities. Though the project seeks to describe instances of congruence between early modern and contemporary Calabar, the broader purpose is to describe how spatial conditions from various historical periods can co-exist in non-linear ways, competing and contesting one another. Borrowing from Édouard Glissant, it proposes a means of thinking about spatial paradigms and their relationships. Extending this thinking to the mangrove forests of the region, it argues for expanding our historical spatial imagination and creating spaces for more just and sustainable futures.
