ASAAJU Morenikeji

Lecturer I

Email address(es): morenikeji_asaaju@yahoo.com; masaaju@oauife.edu.ng

Office Address: Room 231b Humanities Building II, Faculty of Arts Building, Obafemi Awolowo University

Academic Qualifications:

B.A History & International Relations; M.Phil History; Ph.D. African History (University of Bayreuth)

Areas of Specialization: Gender & Women History

Title of M.A. Thesis: Women Participation in the Politics of Abeokuta, 1914-1965

Title of Ph.D. Thesis: Gender and Marriage: An Exploration of Changes in Marital Relations in Southwestern Nigeria, 1914-1960

Scholarships:

Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD), Graduate School Scholarship Programme June 2014-February 2017 Deutscheforschung Gemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) 2014-2018

Fellowships:

Cadbury Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of African Studies and Anthropology, University of Birmingham, UK (2022)

A.G. Leventis Visiting Fellow, Centre of African Studies, University of Cambridge, UK. (2021)

Leventis Research Fellow, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, UK (2020)

Ongoing Current Research:

Gender, Marriage and Social Change in Colonial Yorubaland

Publications:

Asaaju, M. (2023). Between Tradition and Modernity: Marriage Dynamics in Colonial South-western Nigeria. In A.S Ajala and S.A Ogundele (Eds.), Nigerian Cultural History and Challenges of Postcolonial Development. pp. 67-79. Cambridge Scholars, United Kingdom

Asaaju, M. (2023). Revisiting gender and marriage: runaway wives, native law and custom and the native courts in colonial Abeokuta, Southwestern Nigeria. Journal of Women’s History, 35(1), 80-99. https://doi.org/10.1353/jowh.2023.0004.

Asaaju, M. (2022). “They gave me nothing”: marriage, slavery and divorce in twentieth-century Abeokuta, Nigeria. Slavery and Abolition, 43(2), 346-365. https://doi.org/10.1080/0144039X.2022.2063234

Asaaju, M. (2021). ”I have never been betrothed to anyone, no dowry was paid on me”: controversies over bridewealth, female consent and marriage in colonial native courts, southwest Nigeria. Ife: Journal of the Institute of Cultural Studies, 14(2021), 178-198.

Asaaju, M. (2019). ”The Girls of Akure are Now too Costly”: Gender, Bridewealth and Legal Debates over Marriage in Colonial Southwestern Nigeria. In S. Memusi, & A. Balogun (Eds.), Gender and Social Encounters; Experiences from Africa (Vol. 9, pp. 6-29). Institute of African Studies University of Bayreuth. https://epub.uni-bayreuth.de/4402/

Asaaju, M. (2018). Prospects of Native Court Records as Sources of Historical Reconstruction of Gender in Southwestern Nigeria. African Notes, 1-13. [Vol. 42 Nos. 1&2].

Asaaju, M. (2018). The Native Court and the Regulation of Marital Relations in Colonial Egbaland. In V. Edo, & D. Olupayimo (Eds.), Socio-Political and Culture History of Nigeria (pp. 50-70). John Archers Publishers.

Staff Profile:

My research focuses on gender, marriage and social change in Africa. My doctoral research illustrates the central role of marriage in maintaining political stability in colonial Abeokuta and, by extension Yorubaland. My forthcoming book explores the social and cultural processes of heterosexuality relationships as African societies confront changes imposed by the colonial order. Focusing on Abeokuta, a central urban community in southwestern Nigeria, it explores how marriage practices shifted with changing political regimes and conventions of masculinity and femininity.