TIV HOSPITALITY AND INTERGROUP RELATIONS FROM PRE-COLONIAL TIMES TO 2023

Abstract

This research examines the evolution of Tiv hospitality and its role in shaping intergroup relations in Nigeria from precolonial times to 2023. The study is motivated by the need to understand how a long-standing cultural practice, once central to Tiv social life, has been reshaped by modernization, religious change, and recurrent conflicts. By weaving together oral accounts from Tiv elders, displaced persons, and community leaders with historical records, archival material, NGO reports, and contemporary scholarship, the work traces how hospitality has shifted across centuries of political and social change.Findings indicate that Tiv hospitality, historically expressed through the free accommodation of strangers, sharing of farmlands, and extension of kinship ties, has undergone significant reconfiguration. Urbanization and economic pressures have shifted practices toward shorter-term and more transactional forms. Recurrent conflicts, particularly with Fulani pastoralists, have further strained traditional systems, producing internally displaced persons (IDP) camps that rely on both formal relief structures and residual cultural norms of generosity. The study concludes that Tiv hospitality has not disappeared but adapted. It remains a resilient framework for survival, negotiation, and peacebuilding, with important implications for managing interethnic relations in contemporary Nigeria. Keywords: Tiv, hospitality, conflict, intergroup relations, Nigeria, Middle Belt