The exploitation of Nigeria’s Chibok girls and the creation of a social problem industry
研究#BringBackOurGirls运动意外催生了一个围绕奇博克女孩及其社区的社会问题产业，基于160多名受访者的数据，揭示了不同行动者如何利用该议题，并指出社会问题理论在发展中国家应用中的不足。
ABSTRACT Scholarship on the #BringBackOurGirls (#BBOG) movement mainly focuses on its success in generating global attention to the 2014 kidnapping of Nigeria’s Chibok girls. This paper focuses on an unintended consequence of the movement—the establishment of a social problem industry around the Chibok girls and their community. The paper draws on a dataset with over 160 interviewees and focus group discussion (FGD) participants, including 42 #BBOG activists. The findings demonstrate the interplay of contextually situated actors with particular values and interests engaged in claims-making regarding the Chibok girls. The #BBOG turned the Chibok kidnapping into a social problem in a sociological sense. In the process, the BBOG engaged in an ideational battlefield with three other entities. The paper contributes to the sociology of social problems by articulating weaknesses in social problem theory. This helps to suggest how to make social problems theory more applicable to developing world contexts. The paper’s approach avoids the unilinearism and determinism of existing theory. It argues that not all social problems are resolved in ways that are favourable to those affected. The exploitation of the Chibok girls and their community provides an example of the persistence of social problems: social problems are useful in appropriate hands.