Meet Our 2016 Wadsworth International Fellows: Olubukola Olayiwola

Olubukola Olayiwola received his undergraduate education at the University of Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria. Thanks to the Wadsworth International Fellowship, he will continue his training with a PhD in social-cultural anthropology at the University of South Florida, supervised by Dr. Kevin Yelvington.

The focus of my scholarship traverses different aspects of application in the field of Cultural Anthropology such as economic anthropology; the anthropology of policy; the anthropology of development; complex organizations; and the anthropology of ethnicity and gender, West Africa.

My current research interest is on grassroots women and the violence of credit mobilization in southwest Nigeria. For my PhD at the University of South Florida (USF), I propose to undertake fieldwork focusing on how violence is implicated in the relationship between local women and microcredit institutions. I am interested in investigating the formal and informal processes that guide the disbursement and repayment of small loans by banks that operate in Nigeria under the Grameen Bank model. My interest is driven by the assumption that local experiences of microcredit loans contrast with the popular tendency to see it as sustainable development intervention especially among the poorest of the poor.

After my first degree, I worked briefly as a Program Assistant with the Development Policy Centre, Ibadan (a Non-Governmental Organization) and was involved with the Monitoring and Evaluation of MDGs projects in Oyo State, Nigeria. As part of this position, I conducted field research in a number of locales in Oyo State. The research included key informant interviews, ethnographic participant observation, and focus group discussions and  provided me with what I can now see as important experience as a fieldworker.

During my MA Program at the University of Ibadan, I investigated the role of ethnic identity and organization of informal trade in urban market clusters in Ibadan’s urban areas. Although the idea of the anthropology of space and place was still implicated in this research, my main interest was the historical and social factors that produced specific trade items as specialized areas in which different major ethnic groups maintained trade dominance. This research led to my 2014 M.A Thesis ‘Ethnic Identity and Organization of Informal sector in Ibadan, southwest Nigeria.’ And the following publication: ‘Culture and Informal Marketing’ In A.J Ademowo and T.D Oladipo, eds., Engaging the Future in the Present: Issues in Culture and Philosophy. Pp. 86-92. Ibadan: Hope Publications (2015)

Finally, and more importantly, with greater conviction that application of anthropological knowledge can solve myriad of socio-cultural problems in any human endeavor, a PhD Applied Anthropology will not only fetch me a career in academics but also avail me a rare opportunity of propagating the ‘gospel’ of Applied Anthropology within the shore of West Africa sub-region and beyond.