News

On Tuesday 31 March, we welcome Dr Shina Alimi, associate professor in the Department of History at Obafemi Awolowo University for our March methodological seminar titled "Medicalised Black Bodies in Colonial Advertisements: An Ethnographic Lens". In his research, Dr Alimi's can be summarised by a series of questions : how did colonial advertisements medicalise Black bodies and transform them into objects of therapeutic intervention, racial knowledge, and consumer marketing? In what ways did colonial advertisements construct Black bodies as sites of pathology, hygiene, or therapeutic intervention? How did advertising imagery reproduce or reinforce ideas derived from colonial scientific fields such as anthropology, tropical medicine, and colonial medicine? Can advertisements be read as ethnographic archives that reveal colonial attitudes toward African bodies and environments? How might reading colonial advertisements ethnographically challenge the silences in colonial medical archives?

Practical information:

Date & Time: Tuesday 31 March, 10am to 12pm

Location: IFRA-Nigeria's Resource Centre

Link for registration (deadline for application: 26/03/2026): https://forms.gle/b8fP7X5fKPS2VN2HA

On 26 February 2026, IFRA-Nigeria and the Institute of African Studies (IAS) of the University of Ibadan, co-hosted the newest conference in our “Imagine(d) Africa” series. Dr Kudus Adebayo, from the IAS, held a presentation titled “In the Shadows of Global Migration and Deportation: Nigerian men in search of livelihood in China”. Prof. Rasheed Olaniyi, from the Department of History of the University of Ibadan, was his discussant.

On 25 February 2026, IFRA-Nigeria organised an event, themed "Identity, Trade and Preservation of Cultural Heritage in Nigeria," which was held in collaboration with the National Museum of Unity as part of the FEF-financed Nigerian Alternative Heritages project. It was comprised of three parts: an academic lecture, a roundtable discussion, and an exhibition tour.

Between 19 February and 9 March, IFRA-Nigeria and the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) held an exposition titled "Archives of Popular Struggle" at the CAMAA Museum. Building on selected pieces from the different activist's archives digitised by CDD with the support of the French Embassy Fund project Nigerian Alternatives Heritages, it highlighted the pro-democracy movement in Nigeria. From student activism, women's groups and union mobilisations, it covered all the variety of these vibrant organisations. 

On the opening day, Dr Sa'eed Husaini (CDD), curator of the exhibition, walked participants through the different pieces of the collection.

On 17 February, Yemisi Olawale, PhD candidate at the Department of History, University of Ibadan, presented his work in IFRA-Nigeria’s methodological seminar. 

His focus is on the history of Yoruba Nigerian migrants to the Ashanti region of Ghana, from 1970 to 2021. In particular, his interest lies in the “return migration” and the process of reintegration of the migrants forced to leave the country following the 1969 Ghana Aliens Compliance Order.

On 4 February 2026, the National Commission for Museums and Monuments, the National Museum Lagos and IFRA-Nigeria organised an exhibition on the theme "Reimagining Nigerian Alternative Heritage: An Exhibition on Monuments and Natural History". This event took place at the Old Secretariat Building, Federal Ministry, providing an historical setting, ideal to exemplify the exhibition's display of Nigerian monuments. 

On 3 February 2026, IFRA-Nigeria in collaboration with the National Museum of Unity, Ibadan hosted an event as part of the French Embassy Fund-financed Nigeria Alternative Heritages programme. The event, with the theme "Hair Matters", was aimed at exploring the arts, crafts and politics of hair.

Between 9 and 12 February, IFRA-Nigeria held a four-day workshop on sensitive research methods, which are methods calling upon a variety of senses in order to access and share reality as it is lived and experienced. It is an approach that is deeply concerned with being ethical and collaborative throughout the fieldwork. This workshop, led by IFRA-Nigeria’s director and deputy director, Dr Pauline Guinard and Dr Delphine Manetta, was punctuated by interventions from Jean-Fidèle Ananou, photographer, Dr Altaïr Despres, writer and researcher, and sound artist Oluwaseyi Eniayo. Numerous field practices allowed students to hone their new skills.

On 19 January, 2026 the National Museum Lagos in collaboration with IFRA-Nigeria held an immersion meeting with the four successful academics who received a research grant offer from the FEF Alternative Heritages programme to discuss the four projects selected. The session brought together project leads, research fellows, and the National Museum team led by the Curator.

Between 14 and 15 January, the members of the Gender, Law and Political Activism in West Africa (GLOW) project met at the Institute of African Studies (IAS) for its final seminar. The GLOW project emphasizes multidisciplinarity to overcome methodological barriers in the study of women's legal mobilisation for gender equality in West Africa throughout the XX and XXIst centuries. By examining this history, GLOW offers a new perspective on the region's political and social history, and provides new insights into the legal construction of social inequalities. 

During this seminar, researchers from Burkina Faso, France, Ghana, Italy and Nigeria gathered to discuss the various topics they worked on throughout the duration of the project. Through this writing workshop, each received feedback from the other members of the GLOW projects, as well as from a few selected University of Ibadan students who attended the event. You'll find below short summaries of each discussed papers, which will all be published in an upcoming special issue of Feminist Africa.

On 16 February 2026, the Department of Geography of the University of Ibadan welcomes IFRA-Nigeria director, Dr Pauline Guinard, to speak at the Staff and Postgraduate Students’ Seminar with a presentation titled "Experiencing Urban Transformations in Lagos Eastern Coastline". All staff, postgraduate students, and interested members of the university community are kindly encouraged to attend.

Practical information

Date: Friday, 16th January, 2026
Time: 11:00 AM
Venue: SLT (Faculty of the Social Sciences, University of Ibadan)

For our virtual participants, please join the seminar using the link below:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86415349834?pwd=ZjM27JQecXQnbT7SC4H51dBPaWEFu9.1
Meeting ID: 864 1534 9834
Passcode: 600662

Sources. Materials & Fieldwork in African Studies opened a call for abstracts on the theme "Sound Recordings". Contributions in English, French and Portuguese. This issue of Sources ambitions to bring together multiple disciplinary perspectives on one or more sound sources produced in Africa. 

Sources is an interdisciplinary, multilingual, open-access peer-reviewed journal supported by the French Institutes for Research in Sub-Saharan African, including IFRA-Nigeria, and the Laboratoire des Afriques. You can read here the full call in English and the full call in French. 

Deadline for abstracts: 10 February 2026

On 11 December 2025, we had the pleasure of hosting Dr. Moruff Mudasiru from the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Ibadan, who delivered a thought-provoking presentation titled: “Ethnography of Prayer Commodification: Field Encounters, Methodological Challenges, and Theoretical Reflections from Ibadan.”

Drawing on his ethnographic research on Jálàbí, the Islamic petitionary prayer in Ibadan, Dr. Mudasiru took us deep into the realities of fieldwork - highlighting issues of trust-building, ethical dilemmas, unexpected encounters and what it truly means to practice ethnography in complex social settings. His use of a hermeneutic theoretical framework offered rich insights into the symbolic and economic dimensions of prayer practices, making important connections to the anthropology of Islam.

For the first session of our “Imagine(d) Africa” Conference Series on 4 December 2025, the Institute of African Studies (IAS) at the University of Ibadan and IFRA-Nigeria welcomed Chrystel Oloukoï, assistant professor of geography at the University of Washington. They presented their upcoming book building on the PhD fieldwork they carried out in 2020 in Lagos during which they witnessed both the Covid curfews and the #endSARS protests. Their focus is on nighttime in the city, and the many ways in which it is policed.

Their work challenges the vision of Africa as a "night continent", "dark", or "benighted" which is prevalent in the West. It also relies on the concept of “condemnation of the night” which they define as a “naturalized set of assumptions, often animated by a racialized and feminized surplus of meaning, which produces specific “geographies of imagination” and “geographies of management”.”