Research

Concept of Slavery in African History

The aim of my research project is to understand conceptions of servitude in three West African regions with ties to the slave trade: Lagos, Calabar and the area which covers the old Oyo empire. I explore how such conceptions might explain the ubiquity of strong asymmetric dependencies in these areas today. The formative nature of slavery to ongoing relations of production is well understood in the European and American societies that received slaves from West Africa. In illustrating their consequences for some of the sending societies, I hope to both contribute to our understanding of the disruption or, in some cases, continuity that European arrival represented to the existing practices of slavery and to underscore the relevance of the slave trade to labour relations in the present.

Education

• 2021–2024                 Ph.D. in Cultural Studies, Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies, University of Bonn, Germany
• 2016–2019                 M.A. in English and American Studies, University of Paderborn, Germany
• 2010–2014                 B.A. in Honours, English and International Studies, Osun State University, Nigeria

Academic Positions

• 2021–2024                 Research Associate, Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies, University of Bonn, Germany
• 2019–2020                 Research Assistant,“Hybrid Narrativity Research Group”, Universität Paderborn, Germany
• 2017–2019                 Student Assistant, University of Paderborn, Germany
• 2017                             Editor (Intern), Education as A Vaccine (EVA), Nigeria