Nigerian scholar to visit Iowa State in November

CATEGORIES: September 2017, Voices
Olajumoke Yacob-Haliso
Olajumoke Yacob-Haliso

As part of her visit to Iowa State University as the American Council of Learned Societies/African Studies Association Presidential Fellow, Olajumoke Yacob-Haliso from Babcock University, Nigeria, will present several lectures in November.

On Thursday, Nov. 9, she will visit the Department of Political Science to discuss “The Persistence of Africa’s Big Men: State-Society Relations and Democracy in Africa” from 4-5 p.m. in Room 510 Ross Hall.

On Monday, Nov. 13, Yacob-Haliso will present “Green Light of Peace: Women, War and Post-War Return in Liberia” at 8 p.m. in the Sun Room of the Memorial Union. The lecture is co-sponsored by the African and African American Studies Program; the Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics; the Department of Community and Regional Planning; and the Committee on Lectures, which is funded by the Student Government.

And, on Wednesday, Nov. 15, she will discuss “Intersectionality, African Refugee Women and Durable Solutions” during a brown bag lunch seminar from noon to 1 p.m. in Room 302 Catt Hall. Her lunch presentation is co-sponsored by the Catt Center, Leadership Studies Program, and Women’s and Gender Studies Program. Participants are welcome to bring their lunch with lemonade, water and cookies provided by the co-sponsors.

Yacob-Haliso will also visit a few African and African American Studies classes, noted Tunde Adeleke, director of the program, who is coordinating her visit to Iowa State.

Currently, Yacob-Haliso teaches in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration at Babcock University, Ogun state, Nigeria, as an associate professor. Her research – which centers on African women in post-conflict situations, refugees and forced migration, gender and politics, and democracy in Nigeria – has been published in journals internationally. Yacob-Haliso has received research grants from the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, the Canadian International Development Research Centre and the University for Peace Africa Program among others. She currently serves as editor of the Journal of International Politics and Development.

Yacob-Haliso was a postdoctoral global south scholar-in-residence at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, Switzerland, in 2012. She is a member of the Society for Peace Studies and Practice, the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa, the West African Political Science Association, the Liberian Studies Association, the American Political Science Association and the Global South Caucus of the International Studies Association. Yacob-Haliso earned a Ph.D. in political science in 2011 from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria.