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Gavilan College &
California Community Colleges

The California Community Colleges comprise the largest system of higher education in the United States with 2.1 million students attending 115 colleges. I'm currently serving as past president of the statewide Faculty Association of California Community Colleges and as a professor of anthropology and director of the Anthropology Program at Gavilan College. Gavilan College welcomes Dreamers, AB540, and DACA students.

A social justice advocate and leader, I've served as president of the statewide Faculty Association of California Community Colleges and Gavilan College's faculty union and academic senate. As a labor activist, I helped organize two successful strikes and played a key role organizing the UC Santa Cruz graduate student union. At Gavilan College, my colleagues and I constantly engage in the struggle for part-time faculty equity and increased support for all faculty in service to students during an era when public higher education is under threat.

Research

I've been conducting ethnographic research with performing artists in southwestern Nigeria for over twenty years. Recently honored with a chieftaincy title in Èrìn-Òṣun, I'm looking forward to future collaborations with colleagues in Nigeria.
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Based on fieldwork throughout the 1990s and the early 2000s, my ethnography, Yorùbá Bàtá Goes Global: Artists, Culture Brokers, and Fans, documents how practitioners of bàtá—a centuries-old drumming, dancing, and singing tradition—have recast themselves as traditional performers in a global market. This book delves into the lives of Yorùbá musicians, focusing on their strategic collaborations with artists, culture brokers, researchers, and entrepreneurs worldwide.

​My recent research investigates the aesthetics and politics of Yorùbá Islamic culture within the context of Nigerian regional and national politics. This project examines the negotiation of gender, indigenous culture, and Islam through the lens of the popular musical genres of fújì and Islamic.

Education

BA | Anthropology | Brown University
MA & PhD | Anthropology | University of California at Santa Cruz

Visiting legislators with students

As an anthropologist, I study and teach a variety of topics: the relationship between culture and power, globalization, political economy, popular culture, social justice, performance, decolonization, intersectionality (race, class, gender, sexuality, and religion), ethnomusicology, and Yorùbá Studies.

Chief Debbie, King Ọyágbọdún II, Chief Làmídì Àyánkúnlé

In the News

Talking with Drums exhibit (Switzerland)
The Guardian Arts (Nigeria)
​Benito Link (California)
​The Guardian (Nigeria)

Select Publications (Nigeria)

"Tundé Kelani, Èṣù of Nigerian Cinema: Yorùbá Aesthetic Formation, Tradition, and Morality"
The Cinema of Tunde Kelani: Aesthetics, Theatricalaities and Visual Performance (2021)

"Allow Peace to Reign: Musical Genres of Fújì and Islamic Allegorize Nigerian Unity During the Era of Boko Haram"
Yearbook for Traditional Music (2020, vol. 52, 1-22)

"Fújì: Indigenous and Islamic Popular Music Fusions in Nigeria"
Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World, Sub-Saharan Africa Genres (2019, 145-151)

"Being Àyàn in a Modernizing Nigeria: A Multi-Generational Perspective"
The Yorùbá God of Drumming: Transatlantic Perspectives on the Wood That Talks (2015, 192-215)

"A Political Economy of Lifestyle and Aesthetics: Yorùbá Artists Produce and Transform Popular Culture"
Research in African Literatures (​2012, vol 43, no. 4, 2012, 128-146)

"Strategic Collaborations Between Nigerians and Germans: The Making of a Yorùbá Culture Movement"
​Development, Modernism and Modernity in Africa (2012, 131-145)

"Làmídì Àyánkúnlé"
Dictionary of African Biography (2011, 307-309)

"Performing Pop Tradition in Nigeria: From Yorùbá Bàtá to Bàtá Fúji"
Africans and the Politics of Popular Culture (2009, 133-164)

"Building Status and Overseas Networks: Erin-Osun Artists Manage Devaluation"
Money Struggles and City Life: Devaluation in Ibadan and Other Urban Centers in Southern Nigeria (2002, 221-237)

The University of Chicago Press

Yorùbá Bàtá Goes Global:
​Artists, Culture Brokers, and Fans

Responding to growing international interest in the Yorùbá culture of southwestern Nigeria, practitioners of bàtá—a centuries-old drumming, dancing, and singing tradition—have recast themselves as traditional performers in a global market. As the Nigerian market for ritual bàtá has been declining, international opportunities for performance have grown. Debbie Klein’s lively ethnography explores this disjunction, revealing the world of bàtá artists and the global culture market that helps to sustain their art.

Yorùbá Bàtá Goes Global describes the dramatic changes and reinventions of traditional bàtá performance in recent years, showing how they are continually recreated, performed, and sold. Klein explores how reinvigorated performing ensembles are beginning to parlay success on the world stage into increased power and status within Nigeria. Klein’s study of the interwoven roles of innovation and tradition will interest scholars of African, global, and cultural studies, anthropology, and ethnomusicology alike.

Select Publications (California Community Colleges)

"Resisting Decades of 'Reform' Movement Disruption in the California Community Colleges"
FACCCTS (Spring 2021)

"Calbright Funds Would Be Better Spent on Health Benefits for Part-time Community College Faculty"
EdSource (April 24, 2020)

"Making Progress Toward Part-time Faculty Equity"
FACCCTS (Spring 2020)

"Diversity and Whiteness in the California Community Colleges: Recommendations Toward Institutional Transformation"
FACCCTS (Fall 2019)