Learning how to dance Yorùbá bàtá. Photo by Rafiu Ayankunle.
Learning how to stir ẹbà, a cassava dish. Photo by Rafiu Ayankunle.
Gavilan College & the CCC SystemThe California Community College System is the largest system of higher education in the United States with 2.1 million students attending 114 colleges. I'm currently serving as president-elect of the statewide Faculty Association of California Community Colleges (FACCC) and as a professor of anthropology at Gavilan College in Gilroy, a rural agricultural area of the central California coast, with additional sites in Hollister, Morgan Hill, and Coyote Valley. Gavilan College welcomes Dreamers, AB540, and DACA students.
I've been working with colleagues to develop programs relevant to students' lives, interests, employment, and transfer needs. We've recently developed a new multidisciplinary major in Social Justice Studies. We offer service learning experiences in most social science disciplines, and our department is leading Gavilan's Civic Engagement Program, fostering our commitment to understand, connect, and transform ourselves and our communities. As director of Gavilan's Anthropology Program, I'm excited about our new anthropology degree. Please check it out! Research
I've been conducting ethnographic research with performing artists in southwestern Nigeria for over twenty years. Recently honored with a chieftaincy title, Iyalode Aare of Èrìn-Òṣun (Honorary Mother Chief of Èrìn-Òṣun), I'm looking forward to participating in new and ongoing projects with family, friends, and colleagues in Nigeria and elsewhere.
Based on my fieldwork throughout the 1990s and the early 2000s, my ethnography, Yorùbá Bàtá Goes Global: Artists, Culture Brokers, and Fans, tracks collaborations between Yorùbá performers and overseas culture brokers and artists. I describe changes and reinventions of bàtá performance during a time of Christian and Muslim religious intolerance, neoliberal reform, political corruption, and economic collapse. I document the reinvigoration of local musical ensembles as they perform in Europe and the US and return to Nigeria. Devalued in Nigeria, bàtá performance has found lucrative markets overseas, elevating the power and status of its practitioners as important brokers in acquiring visas, foreign exchange, as well as cultural capital. Such expansive markets for this culture movement do not break from the tradition but build upon it, drawing on mechanisms of innovation and reflexivity that characterize Yorùbá culture. EducationB.A. in Anthropology from Brown University
M.A. & Ph.D. in Anthropology from UC Santa Cruz |
Visiting legislators with students to discuss the Governor's proposed budget for the CCC System.
As an anthropologist, I'm interested in a variety of topics: the relationship between culture and power, globalization, political economy, popular culture, social justice, performance, aesthetics, decolonization, social theory, diaspora studies, human rights, gender studies, Yorùbá studies, and Africa.
King Ọyágbọdún II, Chief Debbie, Chief Làmídì Àyánkúnlé. Photo by Rafiu Ayankunle.
My recent research investigates the aesthetics and politics (gender, class, and morality) of Yorùbá Islamic culture within Nigerian popular culture. Specifically, I'm examining the Nigerian popular music genre called fújì as well as Nigerian cinema.
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Select Publications: Books, Articles, Chapters, Reviews
"Tundé Kelani, Èṣù of Nigerian Cinema: Yorùbá Aesthetic Formation, Tradition, and Morality." Across Time and Era and the Other Nollywood: Tunde Kelani and the Development of African Cinema. Journal of Communication and Media Research, vol 2, no. 2, in press.
"Fújì." Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World, Volume 12: Sub-Saharan Africa Genres, Bloomsbury Academic, in press.
"Being Àyàn in a Modernizing Nigeria: A Multi-Generational Perspective." The Yorùbá God of Drumming: Transatlantic Perspectives on the Wood That Talks, edited by Amanda Villepastour, University Press of Mississippi, 2015, pp. 192-215.
Review of Yorùbá Music in the Twentieth Century: Identity, Agency, and Performance Practice, by Bode Omojola. Leeds African Studies Bulletin, vol. 75, Winter 2013/14, 2013, pp.114-116.
"A Political Economy of Lifestyle and Aesthetics: Yorùbá Artists Produce and Transform Popular Culture." Measuring Time: Karin Barber and the Study of Everyday Africa. Research in African Literatures, vol 43, no. 4, 2012, pp. 128-146.
"Strategic Collaborations Between Nigerians and Germans: The Making of a Yorùbá Culture Movement." Development, Modernism and Modernity in Africa, edited by Augustine Agwuele, Routledge, 2012, pp. 131-145.
"Lamidi Ayankunle." Dictionary of African Biography edited by Emmanuel K. Akyeampong and Henry Lewis Gates, Oxford University Press, 2011, pp. 307-309.
"Performing Pop Tradition in Nigeria: From Yorùbá Bàtá to Bàtá Fúji." Africans and the Politics of Popular Culture, edited by Toyin Falola and Augustine Agwuele, University of Rochester Press, 2009, pp. 133-164.
Yorùbá Bàtá Goes Global: Artists, Culture Brokers, and Fans. University of Chicago Press, 2007.
"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, 1986-1996, edited by Jane I. Guyer, LaRay Denzer, and Adigun Agbaje, Heinemann, 2002, pp. 221-237.
"Fújì." Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World, Volume 12: Sub-Saharan Africa Genres, Bloomsbury Academic, in press.
"Being Àyàn in a Modernizing Nigeria: A Multi-Generational Perspective." The Yorùbá God of Drumming: Transatlantic Perspectives on the Wood That Talks, edited by Amanda Villepastour, University Press of Mississippi, 2015, pp. 192-215.
Review of Yorùbá Music in the Twentieth Century: Identity, Agency, and Performance Practice, by Bode Omojola. Leeds African Studies Bulletin, vol. 75, Winter 2013/14, 2013, pp.114-116.
"A Political Economy of Lifestyle and Aesthetics: Yorùbá Artists Produce and Transform Popular Culture." Measuring Time: Karin Barber and the Study of Everyday Africa. Research in African Literatures, vol 43, no. 4, 2012, pp. 128-146.
"Strategic Collaborations Between Nigerians and Germans: The Making of a Yorùbá Culture Movement." Development, Modernism and Modernity in Africa, edited by Augustine Agwuele, Routledge, 2012, pp. 131-145.
"Lamidi Ayankunle." Dictionary of African Biography edited by Emmanuel K. Akyeampong and Henry Lewis Gates, Oxford University Press, 2011, pp. 307-309.
"Performing Pop Tradition in Nigeria: From Yorùbá Bàtá to Bàtá Fúji." Africans and the Politics of Popular Culture, edited by Toyin Falola and Augustine Agwuele, University of Rochester Press, 2009, pp. 133-164.
Yorùbá Bàtá Goes Global: Artists, Culture Brokers, and Fans. University of Chicago Press, 2007.
"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, 1986-1996, edited by Jane I. Guyer, LaRay Denzer, and Adigun Agbaje, Heinemann, 2002, pp. 221-237.
Select Publications: Video Shorts
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In 2017, Èrìn-Òṣun celebrated the installation of five new chiefs. Here's part 1 of our ceremony. Ire oo!
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Alhaja Seidat Fatimah granted me and my research team an interview in Ìlọrin. Here she sings an excerpt, unplugged, from her famous CD, Kádàrá (Destiny).
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Delving into my new research with wéré, fújì, and Islamic artists in Ìlọrin. Emir Gambari offers some reflections about the recent violence in Nigeria.
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A small slice of the opening ceremony for the celebration of Òrìṣà Ṣàngó in Èrìn-Òṣun, Nigeria. Behold the beautifully clear dancing and bàtá drumming, which inspired possession.
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The Lébe alárìnjó group played for a funeral in Ifón. They're training children to dance by encouraging them to improvise. Túndé Ayangoke played the omele méta to inspire the dancers.
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The Èrìn-Òṣun alárìnjó troupe, Lébe, performed for a funeral in Ògbàagbàá. They're singing in the neotraditional style called ewì, praise poetry sung by masquerade performers. Songs include: oríkì, prayers, incantations, proverbs, & moral stories.
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A wonderful clip of acrobatic tricks performed by alárìnjó troupes. Alárìnjó performers are born into masquerade families who revere and bear sacred masks for the Egúngún, Òrìṣà of the ancestors.
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A depiction of long-term anthropological study and preliminary exploration of the intersections between Òrìṣà, Islam, and popular culture in Òṣun, Ondó, and Kwara States. Egúngún make an appearance.
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Yorùbá masquerade dancers, Fúnké and Wusilat Òjéyẹmí, sang praise songs and danced bàtá in Èrìn-Òṣun.
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ÀyànÀgalú of Èrìn-Òṣun played for Òrìṣà Èṣù, Ṣàngó, Ọbàtálá, and Òṣun. This is a straight-up drumming archive featuring Chief Làmídì Àyánkúnlé on ìyáàlù.
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Introduction to Yorùbá Bàtá performance in Èrìn-Òṣun, Nigeria. Featuring Chief Làmídì Àyánkúnlé, master bàtá drummer.
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