Nnimmo Bassey coordinates Oilwatch International and also directs the Health of Mother Earth Foundation—an environmental justice think tank. He served as the executive director, Environmental Rights Action/ Friends of the Earth, Nigeria, 1993-2013 and chaired Friends of the Earth International, 2008-2012. Bassey has authored books on the environment, architecture, management and poetry. His poetry collections include We Thought It Was Oil But It Was Blood (2002) and I Will Not Dance to Your Beat (2011). To Cook a Continent: Destructive Extraction and the Climate Crisis in Africa (2012) published by Pambazuka Press. His latest book, Oil Politics: Echoes of Ecological Wars is published by Daraja Press. He was named as one of Time magazine’s Heroes of the Environment in 2009 and was a co-recipient of the 2010 Right Livelihood Award also known as the “Alternative Nobel Prize.” In 2012 he received the Rafto Human Rights Award.
Íde Corley is a Lecturer in English at Maynooth University where she directs MA programmes in Postcolonial and World Literatures and in Irish Literature and Culture. Her research focuses primarily on twentieth-century literary engagements with the politics of black unity associated with tri-continental Pan-African nationalism, African socialism and modern African identity. She was the Principal Convenor of an ESF-funded workshop entitled “Multiple Modernities of Same-Sex Sexuality in Nigeria” in 2010 and has published articles and reviews in Modern Language Studies, Interventions and Journal of Postcolonial Writing.
Laurence Cox co-directs the MA in Community Education, Equality and Social Activism at Maynooth University. He is cofounder of the international, open-access social movement journal Interface, co-editor of Understanding European Movements: New Social Movements, Global justice Struggles, Anti-Austerity Protest, Marxism and social Movements and author of Buddhism and Ireland. He is currently part of an international team researching the life of U Dhammaloka, an Irish migrant worker who became a Buddhist monk and anti-colonial activist in early 20th Century Burma. Dr Cox has been involved in a wide range of social movements in several countries for over quarter of a century.
Mark Dummett is Business and Human Rights researcher at Amnesty International, based in London. He has investigated human rights violations linked to business activities in Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Myanmar and Bangladesh. On Nigeria, Mark and his colleagues have focussed on two areas: the failure of oil companies, including the UK-Dutch multinational Shell, to prevent and adequately clean up oil spills that destroy the environment of the Niger Delta; and secondly, the role that Shell played in the 1990’s during the military crackdown on protests in Ogoni. Before joining Amnesty, Mark worked as a correspondent for the BBC.
Helen Fallon is Deputy University Librarian at Maynooth University. She has worked in libraries in Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Namibia and Saudi Arabia. Her professional interests include libraries in developing countries, African women writers, staff development, academic publishing, creativity, and the leadership and marketing of academic libraries. She has published extensively and runs workshops on academic publishing and maintains a blog for library staff who wish to write for publication at http://academicwritinglibrarian.blogspot.ie/
Sister Majella McCarron was born in Derrylin, County Fermanagh. She joined the Missionary Institute of Our Lady of Apostles in 1956. After graduating with a science degree from University College Cork, she taught for thirty years in Nigeria, in secondary schools and at the University of Lagos. She worked closely with Ken Saro-Wiwa on issues of justice and the environment and was compelled to campaign for the lives of the Ogoni 9, hanged on the 10th of November 1995. She now lives in Ireland, continuing her work on environmental justice. In 2011, she donated letters she received from Ken Saro-Wiwa to the Library at Maynooth University.
Graham Kay is a PhD candidate and John and Pat Hume Scholar with the Department of History at Maynooth University. In 2015, he was the inaugural recipient of the Ken Saro-Wiwa bursary. His thesis, entitled: ‘The First Oil War: Great Britain, Germany, and the race for oil, 1896-1921’ is the main focus of his research. Graham completed his BA in History at Maynooth and his MA in War Studies at King’s College, London. His research interests include: contemporary security, cyber-security, and transnational comparative history. Graham lectures occasionally on these topics through the Centre of Military History and Strategic Studies at Maynooth University. You can contact Graham by email at: grahammkay@gmail.com and via Twitter: @GrahamMKay
Dr. Anne O’ Brien is a lecturer with the Department of Media Studies at Maynooth University. She has published a number of articles on the representation of women in radio and television, on women workers in screen production industries and examined on-going gender inequality in media production and representation. She has also undertaken research on community media, examining its social benefit and governance needs. Her book, The Politics of Tourism Development, Booms and Busts in Ireland (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011) examines the role of the state in the development of Irish tourism. She has produced a number of documentaries and series for Irish national broadcasters, RTE and TG4 as well as the Ken Saro-Wiwa audio archive for Maynooth University.
Noo Saro-Wiwa is the daughter of Ken Saro-Wiwa. Born in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, and raised in England, she is an author and journalist. Her first book, Looking for Transwonderland: Travels in Nigeria (Granta, 2012), was selected as BBC Radio 4’s Book of the Week in 2012 and named The Sunday Times Travel Book of the Year, 2012. It has been translated into French and Italian.