News

(French below)

The Ecole Normale Supérieure (ENS) is opening its exchange programme with its Global South partners, the Cheikh Anta Diop University of Dakar (UCAD) and the University of Ibadan (UI). The principle is that one student from ENS will come to one of the partner universities and a student from a partner university will come to ENS for one month. This call is open for students of each institution, at the Master and PhD level. 

The deadline for application is 1 December 2026, though please note that if you are from UI or want to apply for an exchange at UI, you must contact IFRA-Nigeria by 9 November 2026. All information can be found in the call below.

Download the call in English 

Download the application form in English (please do not ask access to modify it on Google Drive, you must download the document)

L'École normale supérieure (ENS) lance son programme d'échange avec ses partenaires africains, l'Université Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar (UCAD) et l'Université d'Ibadan (UI). Le principe est le suivant : un étudiant de l'ENS se rendra dans l'une des universités partenaires et un étudiant de l'une de ces universités viendra à l'ENS pendant un mois. Cet appel à candidatures est ouvert aux étudiants au niveau master et doctorat de chaque établissement, au niveau du master et du doctorat. 

La date limite de candidature est fixée au 1 décembre 2026, mais veuillez noter que si vous êtes étudiants à l'Université d'Ibadan, ou si vous souhaitez y faire un échange, vous devez contacter l'IFRA-Nigeria avant le 9 novembre 2026. Toutes les informations se trouvent dans l'appel ci-dessous.

Téléchargez l'appel en français.

Téléchargez le formulaire de candidature en français (ne demandez pas l'accès pour modifier ce document sur Google Drive, vous devez le télécharger)

Between 21 and 23 September 2026, the participants of the virtual "Research as creation, creation as research" workshops, organised by IFAS-Research and IFRA-Nigeria, met in-person in Ibadan. During three days, the participants, both researchers and artists, from Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana, Zimbabwe and France, worked together to build a way to showcase their work mixing academic research and artistic creation.

Finally, on 24 September, they presented "Research-Creation: A Performed Conference" at the Alliance Française of Lagos. In this show, the participants blended sound, dance, spoken word and literature in an interactive performance. Their goal: to illustrate how art can open new ways of thinking about a research subject, or offer new avenues of expressing truth. In particular, they endeavoured to illustrate the concept of positionality in research.

This event is part of the Débats des Idées (Debate of Ideas) programme, on the theme “Écouter les voix sensibles et alternatives pour ouvrir la voie” (“Listen to sensitive and alternative voices to pave the way”), supported by the Institut Français and the Institut Français of Nigeria. It was photographed by Andrew Esiebo.

The participants were: Dameh Joseph Ali, Kwame Boafo, Eiseke Bolaji, Oluwaseyi Eniayo, Pauline Guinard, Annael Le Poullennec, Carla Mostert, Neo Muyanga (in absentia), Duduzile Ndlovu, Oluwabukunmi Olukitibi and Alexander Opper.

On 17 September, Marie Lureau, Research Project Manager at IFRA-Nigeria, presented her work on “Non-religion in Nigeria: exploring (un)belief” in our September methodological seminar.

This particular seminar was meant to be exploratory - as the research project is still at its beginning - as well as highly interactive to discuss with the audience their perception of what non-religion can be in Nigeria.

Marie Lureau began her seminar by highlighting Nigeria’s perception, both nationally and internationally, as a highly religious country, a perception backed by statistics that indicate a quasi-absence of people without faith. Despite this, she noticed that atheism was a common topic of discussions in media, online and among individuals. Moreover, figures like the writer Wole Soyinka illustrate that leaving religion is not a new phenomenon in Nigeria. Moreover, secular studies, while quite developed in the Western world, are nearly completely absent from the Nigerian continent, which is what convinced her to begin this research project.

On 22 October, we welcome Dr Oladapo Ajayi for a methodological seminar exploring his fieldwork on Fújì music, conducted between 2017 and 2023. This session will adopt a reflective mode to explore the concrete and relational conditions under which the research was produced.

Dr Ajayi will refer specifically to the disciplinary tensions of conducting ethnography on an African popular music genre from within literary studies in a European institution. Furthermore, he will explore the question of shifting positionality that ran through the entire project. As a Yorùbá-speaking Nigerian, he entered the field expecting an insider’s advantage in terms of the ease of shared language, spatial configuration recognition, and culture. However, several moments of the research cast him as an outsider. In some instances, he was the “educated German returnee researcher,” or an alákọ̀wé (the Western-educated person) among many working-class interlocutors. These moments of self-reflexivity also complicated his relational stance to the field, as he realised that his Christian upbringing set him apart from a music culture historically rooted in Yorùbá Muslim working-class community. Therefore, these markers of class, generation, religion, and diasporic affiliation did not simply complicate his access; they actively reshaped it.

This also reveals that “insider” status is neither fixed nor guaranteed by shared ethnicity or language, but is continually exploratory and renegotiated in the field. Dr Ajayi will draw on examples from his research process, including encounters with gatekeepers, patrons, moments of on-the-spot improvisation, and instances of exclusion, to argue that fieldwork on Fújì is best understood as an artisanal practice, shaped by surprise, setback, and constant methodological adjustment rather than the stable execution of a predetermined design.

Practical information:

Date & Time: Thursday, 22 October 2026, between 10am and 12pm

Location: IFRA-Nigeria Resource Centre, Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan

Register here before 16/10: https://forms.gle/kn8VGPWSpRuaWTFX6

IFRA-Nigeria is opening its call for the 2027 Research Grants!

Open to second year master's students, doctoral and postdoctoral students, as well as researchers working in humanities and social sciences on a country under IFRA-Nigeria's geographical mandate (Nigeria, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Niger, Chad and Togo). We accept applications in French or English.

Download the full call or read more below.

Deadline for application: 30 October 2026, 23:59 WAT.

Ahead of the 2027 Presidential elections in Nigeria, IFRA-Nigeria is reopening it's Elections Laboratory project (formerly Elections Observatory). Like in 2023, a set of upcoming researchers will receive a grant to conduct fieldwork related to the elections between December 2026 and January 2027. Their findings will be published in a Working Papers article (you can find here the 2023 edition).

Deadline for applications: 20 October, 2026. 

You can download the full call here.

On 17 September, Marie Lureau, research project manager at IFRA-Nigeria, will present her work in an interactive methodological seminar on “Non-religion in Nigeria: exploring (un)belief.” According to both general perceptions and statistics from the 2024 Afrobarometer, being “non-religious” is extremely rare in Nigeria. Despite this, atheism and other forms of “non-religion” or “unbelief” attract increasing public interest and press coverage.

This leads us to question how these phenomena manifest in a country where religion is such an important part of public and private lives. In this regard, Africa is for now quasi-absent from the field of “secularism studies”. We must therefore ask: what does a “non-religious” life look like in Nigeria? What are the forms of secularities created in this country, and how are they different from ones studied in the West? What are the origins and influences of such ideas in the Nigerian context?

Discussing these questions forces us to see religion and non-religion, belief and unbelief, not as polar opposites, but as categories in constant interactions with one another. Understanding the specific manifestations of secularity in Nigeria demands to take a closer look at these complex interactions, and to question what is the best terminology to encompass them.

This seminar will be a part of the research itself, as it aims to create a moment of dialogue with the participants on what is belief, on the place of secularism in Nigeria, and what non-religion can look like in this context.

Practical information: 

Date & time: 17 September, 10am to 12pm

Venue: IFRA-Nigeria Resource Centre, Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan

Registration (before 14/09): https://forms.gle/tgX6QYPJjjgHphQg9

On 5 and 6 October 2026, IFRA-Nigeria, the Department of History and the Institute of African Studies of the University of Ibadan will hold an international conference on "Urban Myths and Experiences in Africa." 

Cities are built environments where people converge to live, work, exchange, and interact. As such, they constitute tangible economic, social, and political centres. Yet cities are not only material spaces. They are also shaped by the ways people imagine, dream about, narrate, and experience them across different scales of time and space. Cities are produced as much through concrete infrastructures and institutions as through practices and imagination.

This international and multidisciplinary conference on African urban studies seeks precisely to examine the extent to which such urban myths have shaped spaces, practices, and ways of life across African cities.

The conference programme is available for download by clicking here. 

Practical information:

Date : 5-6 October, 2026

Location: Draper's Hall, Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan

Participation: free and open to all but registration is required. 

Registration deadline: 30 September 2026

Registration link: https://forms.gle/BwJDZ1bp5naCCdXM9

On Sunday, 27 September, New Culture Studios, the Institut Français of Nigeria and IFRA-Nigeria bring to you a unique event focusing on "Heritage & Family Archives" in Nigeria and West Africa more broadly. The afternoon will begin with a roundtable featuring Dr Sa'eed Husaini, researcher at the Centre for Democracy and Development in Abuja, Roméo Mivekannin, an internationally recognized multidisciplinary artist, and Rufus Nwoko, creative director of New Culture Studios. 

The event will continue with a screening and discussion around Colette & Justin, a documentary film in which director Alain Kassanda brings to life postcolonial Congo through the story and archives of his grandparents. Watch the trailer here.

This event is part of our 2026 "Debate of Ideas" programme on the theme "Listen to Sensitive and Alternative Voices to Pave the Way3, and is made possible by the Institut Français.

The event is free for all, but you must register before Thursday, 24 September. 

Practical information: 

Registration link: https://forms.gle/RE7gyFMQHKBAEQBC9

Location: New Culture Studios, Ibadan.

Time: 4pm

Date: 27 September.

On 23 July 2026, IFRA-Nigeria, in collaboration with Géo-Cités (CRIA) and the Institute of African Studies (IAS), University of Ibadan, hosted the workshop “Sensitive and Minority Archives: Selection, Digitization and Archiving”. The workshop brought together researchers and practitioners to reflect on how archives are created, selected, preserved, digitized and reinterpreted, with particular attention to minority memories, community knowledge and alternative forms of archiving.

The workshop was part of the ongoing research project “Archiving and Digitizing African Futures: Minority Memories and Heritage,” a collaborative initiative involving IFRA-Nigeria, History Workshop at Wits University (South Africa), Institut des Humanités Numériques africaines de l’Université de Yaoundé (Cameroun), Géo-cités and Prodig research units (Paris, France) and the History Department at the King’s College London (UK).  

l'IFRA-Nigeria a ouvert le processus de recrutement pour un poste de Volontaire International en Administration (V.I.A.), Chargé.e de mission (Chercheur.e).

La description complète du poste et les modalités de candidatures sont disponibles de Business France.

On 13 May, the National Museum of Lagos and IFRA-Nigeria organised the colloquium "Alternative Heritage in Time: Who Sabi?" who concluded our two-year partnership as part of the French Embassy Fund project "Nigerian Alternative Heritages." The four researchers who received a grant as part of the project presented their work in a session moderated by Dr Pauline Guinard, IFRA-Nigeria Director, and Dr Toluwalope Fajobi.

The papers presented were:

• Ecological heritage and the Ikom monoliths: environmental sustainability through indigenous heritage practices in Cross River State, Nigeria by Glory Chika Kanu
• Reimagining Alternative Heritage: embodied memory and mental health narratives in Nigerian museum artworks by Bernard Ogini, Edeyan Omoweh, Daniella Baroywe and E. O. Robyn.
• Unmapped Lagos: mapping alternative urban heritage by Sharon Nworgu and Kelechi A. Ujagbor.
• Reconstructing women' scientific lineages in Nigeria heritage: an archive-led study from the National Museum Lagos by Edemawan Dorothy Ossai.

On 6 July, Adam Rodgers Johns, doctoral student in anthropology and Swahili teacher at SOAS University, presented his work “Mapping the impact of regeneration and gentrification on the Yoruba-led religious spaces in south-east London” in our last methodological seminar of the academic year.

His research focuses on the Yoruba community in south-east London, specifically the Peckham area. Often referred to as “Little Lagos,” given the high number of residents from the Nigerian diaspora, it’s also the neighbourhood where Adam Rodgers Johns grew up.

l'IFRA-Nigeria a ouvert le processus de recrutement pour un poste de chercheur.e.

La description complète du poste et les modalités de candidatures sont disponibles du DiploEmploi. 

As part of the Nigerian Alternative Heritages project, a French Embassy Fund programme, IFRA-Nigeria began a collaboration with the Centre for Contemporary Art Lagos (CCA) at the beginning of 2026. Its main goal was to digitize, make accessible and valorise the CCA archives.