Jeremiah O. Arowosegbe

Profile

I teach Intellectual History, Political Theory and African Politics. I am affiliated with the School of History and School of Politics and International Studies. I joined the University of Leeds in October 2023. Until October 2023, I was an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria.

My research and teaching specializations cover African Intellectual History; African Political Thought; African Politics; African Studies; Development Studies. Postcolonial Studies and the Epistemologies of Contemporary Africa. These entail comparative historical research and teaching on Africa's diaspora, Latin America, South Asia, the Caribbean and the Middle East.

Visiting Appointments and Positions:

2021-2023: Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Senior Researcher, Department of History, Humboldt University of Berlin.

2019-2020: Senior Researcher, School of Social Science, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey, United States of America.

2015-2017: Social Science Research Council Senior Researcher, Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies (MESAAS). Columbia University in New York.

2013-2014: A.C.Jordan Postdoctoral Fellow, Centre for African Studies, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa.

2011: Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow, Centre for Humanities Research, University of the Western Cape, South Africa.

2009-2010: American Council of Learned Societies Visiting Fellow, Centre for Humanities Research, University of the Western Cape, South Africa.

2008: Guest Researcher, Nordic Africa Institute, Uppsala, Sweden.

2008: Visiting Fellow, African Studies Centre, University of Leiden, Leiden, The Netherlands.

2007: Bill and Melinda Gates Visiting Fellow, Five College African Scholars Programme, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA.

2007: Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) Fellow, Small Grants Programme for PhD Theses Writing.

2006-2007: SEPHIS Fellow of the Humanities and Social Sciences, Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta (CSSSC) and Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) New Delhi. India.

2006: West African Research Association (WARA) Grantee of a Travel Grant Award to present a paper at the 20th World Congress of the International Political Science Association (IPSA) on "Is Democracy Working?" Fukuoka, 9-13 July.

2005: Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) Laureate in the Child and Youth Studies Institute on the Making of Child and Youth Identities in Contemporary Africa, Dakar, Senegal, 03-28 October.

2004: Claude Ake Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Advanced Social Science (CASS) and Department of Political Science, University of Port Harcourt, 01 April-31 December.

1998: Second Place Award Winner in the all-Nigerian Universities Essay Competition on Colonialism, Population and Reproductive Freedom. Funded by the Reporters' Collective, African Scholarship Awards Foundation, New York. With a Fellowship Residence at the Interdisciplinary Center for the Study of Global Change at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, United States of America. 01 January-31 December.

Research interests

Based on my theoretical reflections on the state, which I do largely in conversation with Ibn Khaldun, Fanon, Ake and Mamdani, I bring to the fore a methodological proclivity to historicize the state in Africa. This is premised on an appreciation of the connections between distant developments of the past and their continued impact on the continent today especially vis-à-vis how it has been configured and how it might be transformed. In particular, I draw on the European colonial expansion in the early modern period and the development of capitalism over several centuries. I underline its impact on the state in Africa.

Central to my research foci is the examination of the corpus and scholarship of major global South political philosophers. I begin my enquiry with Ibn Khaldun's account of political change, instability and state evolution in medieval Maghrib in The Muqaddimah: The Rise and Fall of Civilisations (1377). This is extended to other autochthonous Third World sources and the literature on decolonisation.

I continue to examine the connecting strands and trends together with the distinct contributions to contemporary political theory emanating from Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, the Middle East and other non-metropolitan societies. A major take-away from my taught courses is to demonstrate the claim that, the understanding of non-Western societies is best achieved through a comparative examination of the related and shared histories of the distinct practices of power in these societies.

Academic Publications:

Books:

2018: Claude E. Ake: the making of an organic intellectual. Pretoria: University of South Africa Press. Online: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvhn0d7c?

Articles:

2024: History and the development of historical scholarship in Africa. History in Africa.

2023: African universities and the challenge of postcolonial development. Africa: Journal of the International African Institute 93(5):591-614.

2023: Federalism and development in Nigeria. Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism 23(1):100-119. Online: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/sena.12386

2021: Academic freedom, decolonization and the state in Africa. Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 22(3):275-297. Online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14649373.2021.1962086.

2021: COVID-19 and political modernity in Africa: citizens' engagements and states' responses. African Journal for the Psychological Study of Social Issues 24(1):113-122.

Online: http://ajpssi.org/index.php/ajpssi/article/view/457.

2020: Territoriality and violent conflicts in Tivland. International Journal on Minority and Group Rights 28(3):436-465. Online: https://doi.org/10.1163/15718115-28030001

2020: Academics and election administration in Nigeria. Journal of International Development 32(7):1009-1032. Online: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jid.3506.

2019: Hausa-Fulani pastoralists and resource conflicts in Yorubaland. Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies 21(8):1157-1187.

Online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1369801X.2019.1649182.

2017: Corruption and profligacy as governance failure in Nigeria. Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria 26:122-153. Online: https://www.jstor.org/stable/48562082?seq=1.

2016: African scholars, African studies and knowledge production on Africa. Africa 86(2):324-338. Online: https://www.jstor.org/stable/26158019#metadata_info_tab_contents.

Impact: this article generated the following published reviews:

* Ogen, Olukoya and Insa Nolte. 2016. Nigerian academia and the politics of secrecy. Africa 86(2):339-343. Online: https://www.jstor.org/stable/26158020#metadata_info_tab_contents.

* Kane, Ousmane O. 2016. Arabic sources and the search for a new historiography in Ibadan in the 1960s. Africa 86(2):344-346. Online: https://www.jstor.org/stable/26158021#metadata_info_tab_contents.

* Melber, Henning. 2016. African studies: the ambiguity of ownership and originality. Africa 86(2):347-349. Online: https://www.jstor.org/stable/26158022#metadata_info_tab_contents.

* Adebanwi, Wale. 2016. Rethinking knowledge production in Africa. Africa 86(2):350-353. Online: https://www.jstor.org/stable/26158023#metadata_info_tab_contents.

2016: Citizenship and resource competition in Nigeria. Anthropological Forum 26(1):54-73. Online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00664677.2015.1121861.

2016: Endogenous knowledge and the development question in Africa. Cambridge Review of International Affairs 29(2):611-635. Online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09557571.2015.1060692.

2016: Ethnic minorities and the land question in Nigeria. Review of African Political Economy 43(148):260-276. Online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03056244.2015.1126816.

2014: Introduction: African studies and the universities in post-colonial Africa. Social Dynamics: Journal of African Studies 40(2):243-254.

Online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02533952.2014.946266.

Impact: this introduction was accompanied by these published articles:

* Robbe, Ksenia. 2014. African studies at a crossroads: producing theory across the disciplines in South Africa. Social Dynamics: A Journal of African Studies 40(2):255-273.

Online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02533952.2014.932175.

* Ntsebeza, Lungisile. 2014. The Mafeje and the UCT saga: unfinished business? Social Dynamics: A Journal of African Studies 40(2):274-288.

Online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02533952.2014.946254.

* Mendisu, Binyam Sisay and Moges Yigezu. 2014. Restoring African studies to its linguistic identity: reflections on Ethiopian studies. Social Dynamics: A Journal of African Studies 40(2):289-307. Online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02533952.2014.946267.

* Arowosegbe, Jeremiah O. 2014. African studies and the bias of Eurocentricism. Social Dynamics: A Journal of African Studies 40(2):308-321.

Online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02533952.2014.942074.

* Onuoha, Browne O. 2014. Publishing postcolonial Africa: Nigeria and Ekeh's two publics a generation after. Social Dynamics: A Journal of African Studies 40(2):322-337.

Online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02533952.2014.948657.

* Oloruntoba, Samuel Ojo. 2014. Social sciences as dependency: state apathy and the crisis of knowledge production in Nigerian universities. Social Dynamics: A Journal of African Studies 40(2):338-352. Online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02533952.2014.946268.

2014: African studies and the bias of Eurocentricism. Social Dynamics: Journal of African Studies 40(2):308-321.

Online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02533952.2014.942074.

2012: The making of an organic intellectual: Claude Ake, biographical and theoretical orientations. African and Asian Studies 11(1):123-143.

Online: https://brill.com/view/journals/aas/11/1-2/article-p123_5.xml.

2011: Claude E. Ake: political integration and the challenges of nationhood in Africa. Development and Change 42(1):349-365.

Online: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1467-7660.2010.01681.x.

2011: State reconstruction in Africa: the relevance of Claude Ake's political thought. International Affairs 87(3):651-670.

Online: https://academic.oup.com/ia/article/87/3/651/2417112?login=true.

First Impact: After 100 years of its publication, the Editorial Team of International Affairs ranked this article as one of its three leading and most impactful articles in the projection of a non-Eurocentric position on Africa and the global South. Source: https://medium.com/international-affairs-blog/impressions-from-the-archive-looking-back-on-100-years-of-international-affairs-1901912e1607.

Second Impact: This article has recently been listed in "Reading List: Africa" and "Reading List: Colonial Legacies in International Relations" by the Editorial Team of International Affairs.

Source: https://academic.oup.com/ia/pages/reading-list-africa.

Third Impact: From a total of 94 international journals, International Affairs––in which my article was published––is presently ranked as number 1. It is also the topmost rated Journal in the sub-discipline of International Relations in the world. It has had an impact factor of 6.154 over the past five (5) years as well as an impact factor of 7.910 in 2022. Source: https://academic.oup.com/ia.

2009: Violence and national development in Nigeria: the political economy of youth restiveness in the Niger Delta. Review of African Political Economy 36(122):575-594.

Online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03056240903346178.

2008: The social sciences and knowledge production in Africa: the contribution of Claude Ake. Africa Spectrum 43(3):333-351. Online: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40175253?seq=1.

Chapters in Conference Proceedings:

2005: Elections and the politics of democratic transitions in Nigeria: lessons from the 2003 exercises and the Anambra saga. In Godwin Onu and Abubakar Momoh eds. Elections and democratic consolidation in Nigeria. Lagos: Nigerian Political Science Association. pp. 248-271.

2005: Oil and the national question in Nigeria: The case of the ethnic minorities in the Niger Delta. In Warisu O. Alli ed. Political reform conference, federalism and the national question in Nigeria. Lagos: Nigerian Political Science Association. pp. 334-361.

Chapters in Edited Books:

2011: Claude Ake: the political economy of Africa, an intellectual legacy. In Prabir K. Basu ed. Avenel companion to modern social theorists. Calcutta and New Delhi: Avenel Press. pp. 206-219.

Discussion Papers:

2011: Reflections on the challenges of reconstructing post-conflict states in West Africa: insights from Claude Ake's political writings. Discussion Paper 54. Uppsala: Nordic Africa Institute.

Online: https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A440127&dswid=7173.

Guest Edited Journals:

African studies and knowledge production in the universities in post-colonial Africa. Social Dynamics: Journal of African Studies 40(2):243-352. A Special Section.

Online: https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rsdy20/40/2?nav=tocList.

Working Papers:

2017: Ethnic minorities and land conflicts in south-western Nigeria. African Peacebuilding Network. Working Paper 14. New York: Social Science Research Council.

Online: https://www.ssrc.org/publications/ethnic-minorities-and-land-conflicts-in-southwestern-nigeria/.

2008: Decolonizing the social sciences in the global South: Claude Ake and the praxis of knowledge production in Africa. Working Paper 79. Leiden: African Studies Centre.

Online: https://www.ascleiden.nl/publications/decolonising-social-sciences-global-south-claude-ake-and-praxis-knowledge-production.

Other Publications:

2013: Claude E. Ake and the praxis of knowledge production in Africa. Africa Development 38(3 and 4):1-19.

Online:https://www.jstor.org/stable/afrdevafrdev.38.3-4.1?searchText=Jeremiah+O.+Arowosegbe&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3DJeremiah%2BO.%2BArowosegbe%26so%3Drel&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_search_gsv2%2Fcontrol&refreqid=fastly-default%3A226d2995aaaadcbbc8b5982f7625a598#metadata_info_tab_contents.

2011: State reconstruction in post-conflict Africa: the relevance of Ake's political thought. Economic and Political Weekly 46(19):60-7.

Online: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41152373#metadata_info_tab_contents.

2007: Minorities, the national question and the discourse on colonialism. SEPHIS Electronic Magazine 4(1):7-12.

1996: Nigeria: a future of tenacity. National Concord. Thursday 24 October. p. 8.

Dissertations and Thesis:

2010: Arowosegbe, Jeremiah O. The state, democracy and development in the works of Claude Ake. Unpublished PhD Thesis. Ibadan: Department of Political Science. University of Ibadan.

2007: Arowosegbe, Jeremiah O. The state in Africa as a modern regime of power. Unpublished MPhil Thesis. Calcutta and New Delhi: Centre for Studies in Social Sciences/Indian Council of Social Science Research.

2002: Arowosegbe, Jeremiah O. A political economy of state creation in Nigeria: a case study of Ekiti state. Unpublished MSc Dissertation. Zaria: Department of Political Science. Ahmadu Bello University.

1998: A political economy of colonialism, population and reproductive freedom in Africa: a focus on Nigeria. Unpublished BSc Project. Zaria: Department of Political Science. Ahmadu Bello University.

Qualifications

• PhD in Political Science: University of Ibadan
• MPhil in History and Philosophy: CSSSC and ICSSR India
• MSc in Political Science: Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria
• BSc in Political Science: Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria

Professional memberships

• African Association of Political Science
• African Studies Association in the United Kingdom
• African Studies Association in the United States of America
• African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands
• Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA)
• Historical Society of Nigeria
• International Political Science Association (IPSA)
• Nigerian Political Science Association
• West African Research Association (WARA)
• West African Research Center (WARC)

Student education

In my past and present employments, I have developed and continue to teach the following undergraduate courses––History of Political Thought; Politics of Development and Underdevelopment; Problems of Political Philosophy; and Theories of the State. I also teach the following postgraduate courses––Colonialism and Social Formations in Africa and the Global South; Contemporary Political Analysis; and Selected Themes and Topics in Political Theory.

My postgraduate seminars, supervision and taught courses have focused on the provenance of African Intellectual History, African Studies and Political Theory. I teach these postgraduate courses: African Government and Politics; Colonialism and Social Formations in Africa and the Global South. My postgraduate seminar courses are Africa in World Politics; Selected Topics in African Political Thought; and Selected Topics in Colonialism. One of my towering achievements is my supervision of a dissertation on the works of the late Chinua Achebe. I have also taught related courses at the University of Cape Town and University of Gothenburg.