Titilope Ajayi is a PhD Candidate at the Legon Centre for International Affairs and Diplomacy (LECIAD), University of Ghana. A feminist researcher and writer on security and civil society, she has held appointments as head of research at the West Africa Civil Society Institute (WACSI) and fellow/West Africa analyst with the International Crisis Group (ICS). Ajayi founded and coordinates Doing A PhD in Africa (www.doingaphdinafrica.org) and also works as an independent copyeditor. She was a Next Gen Dissertation Proposal Fellow (2017) and an African Peacebuilding Network Individual Grant recipient (2018).
Her latest publications include:
The Postponement of Nigeria’s 2019 Elections: Is Democracy on Hold? Kujenga Amani, 22 February 2019.
(2018) Peppering Patriarchy: Re-imagining/Re-making Femaleness in Ghana through Social Media, The CIHA Blog, Conference Paper presented at the African Studies Association annual meeting, Chicago, 15–19 November 2017.
Award Information
Knowledge on transnational activism camouflages Africa's agency and bounds it as the passive recipient of global norms. This jars with the reality of growing citizen mobilisations across the continent and the dynamics surrounding their global mobility in a context of hyperglobalisation and rising insecurity and injustice. This study aims to resituate Africa within transnational activism discourses and re-examine the agencies of its activisms in contemporary global politics. Empirical reference is made to #BringBackOurGirls and #FreeLeahSharibu, two globalised Nigerian activisms that illustrate women's resistance to terror and the growing digitisation of African protest movements. Using field-based comparative case research in Nigeria, North America and Europe, and content analysis of global media coverage and social media data, the study poses two questions: How and why do African activisms become transnational(ised)? In what ways does global transnationalisation affect African activisms and their influence on national and global politics?
