Tradition for Peace in Nigeria (T4P)

One of the puzzling aspects of African politics is the prominence of non-state, 'traditional' figures of authority. This project studies these authorities comparatively within the Nigerian context, with a particular focus on their role in conflict resolution and the provision of other public services. The project is supported by the Gerda Henkel Foundation.

Learning Mindset

In this project, we aim to promote the ‘learning mindset’ in order to enhance the experience and outcomes of student learning. We do this by integrating a learning journal into university coursework to stimulate more deliberate goal setting, practicing, and (self-)evaluation. The project is supported by a NWO Comenius grant and won the Dutch National Education Award in 2022.

Africa Knows

Africa Knows is a podcast that brings you conversations with African(ist) scholars and thinkers who talk about their own work, the decolonisation of the academy, and the knowledge revolution taking shape all over the African continent. We are a collaborative platform, with co-hosts calling in from different locations - go to africa-knows.captivate.fm for more details. Nigeria is our first port of call, but we aim to expand our reach over time.

Past Projects

Food sustainability. Together with colleagues from a range of disciplines at LUC, we are working on an interdisciplinary textbook on food security for the Global Challenge courses on Sustainability and Prosperity.

Indigeneship and inequality in Nigeria. Based on an original large-N data covering 8 Nigerian cities as well as qualitative fieldwork, this project looks into the dynamics of indigeneship, Nigeria's subnational variety of citizenship. 

Sharia implementation in northern Nigeria, 2000-2011. A collaborative project led by A.R. Mustapha that focused on documenting the first ten years of sharia implementation in northern Nigeria. It collected qualitative data as well as surveys across the entire northern region; the working papers have not yet been published.

Nativism in Europe and Africa. Originally an American concept, the notion of nativism is helpful in understanding patterns of ethnic and other identity politics across the world. This project analyses the historical development of nativism comparatively, with particular focus on the Netherlands and Nigeria.

The many transformations of Boko Haram. This project uses secondary sources and life history data of Boko Haram members to study the development of the insurgency movement.