My research focuses on the social, political and religious history of the Yoruba-speaking Southwest of Nigeria and has been supported by a range of national and international funders, including the ERC (2012-2017), the Leverhulme Trust (2021-24), and the British Academy (most recently 2023).

A key strand of my work explores ethnic and political mobilisation in Nigerian political history, and the life and legacy of the Nigerian nationalist and Yoruba leader Obafemi Awolowo. 

A second strand of my research centres on gender and marriage as a lens onto West African history and social life. In southwest Nigeria, Traditionalists, Muslims and Christians have lived together since the nineteenth century, and many families include members of different religions. You can see a short recording of me speaking about my research here at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin website.

As a scholar interested into African intellectual life, I recognise that the disciplinary divisions in modern academia do not always reflect the conceptual histories of African societies. While most of my research straddles history, anthropology and political science, I have also carried out inter- and multidisciplinary research beyond these disciplines. For example, my colleague Olukoya Ogen and I organised the first large-n survey on religious identification and attitudes in southwest Nigeria since 1963 in 2012-14, and I have worked with fellow anthropologists, statisticians, and linguists to publish data produced by the survey.

After a first degree at the Freie Universität Berlin, Germany, I joined the Centre of West African Studies at the University of Birmingham as a PhD student under the supervision of Paulo de Moraes Farias and Karin Barber. After my graduation, I held the Kirk-Greene Junior Research Fellowship at St Antony’s College, Oxford. I returned to Birmingham to take up a lectureship in the Department for African Studies and Anthropology in 2001, where I am now a Professor.

I work closely with African colleagues and institutions and am a Research Professor at Osun State University, Nigeria. I served as President of the African Studies Association of the UK (ASAUK) in 2016-18 and as Head of the Department of African Studies and Anthropology in 2018-21. I am currently Head of the School of History and Cultures.