Below are our current AAMR Fellows. Select each profile to learn about their backgrounds, research interests and publications.
Henrietta Eshalomi
AAMR Fellow
Henrietta Omo Eshalomi is a Nigerian and graduate of European Studies with major focus on Russian Language from the University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria. After her graduation in 2011, she proceeded to get her Master’s degree in Peace and Conflict Studies with an environmental bias from the Institute of African Studies in the same university in 2015. Henrietta is a doctoral candidate of Diaspora and Transnational Studies at the same Institute. In 2019, Henrietta won the CODESRIA College of Academic Mentors Award aimed at providing young scholars with academic mentorship for not just their thesis but also cutting-edge research. Following her impressive commitment and mentorship to younger scholars, the Post-Graduate College of the University of Ibadan awarded Henrietta with a Teaching and Research Assistant position assigned to the Institute of African Studies. Her research titled Delta State Diaspora and the Ramifications of Ethnic Ambivalence for Homeland Development is ingenious by the way it steers the wheel from the dominant phenomena like militancy, insecurity, environmental pollution, interethnic conflict, brigandage, kidnapping etc. about the state/region, to a more radical and intriguing phenomenon of diaspora and development. Henrietta is interested in migration studies, peace and conflict studies, environmental studies, ethnic studies, and development studies. By the privilege of being a student in African Studies, Henrietta has developed research interests beyond her core research focus to include gender studies, and media studies. Henrietta has won some travel grants to participate at conferences in different parts of the world. While she has published in both local and high-impact journals, some of her articles are currently under review. She was an assistant researcher for a UNESCO Project on Actualising Sustainable Development Goal 16.10 in Relation to Migration and Development in Africa and Europe: Realities, Prospects and Challenges in 2019.
Research Interests
My past research has been solely my long essay and dissertation as basic requirements for the completion of Bachelor and Masters degree respectively in the university of Ibadan, Nigeria. For my long essay, my research titled Comparative Analysis of Tourism in Nigeria and Russia laid the foundation for exploring spaces, location and environment. My MA. Dissertation was on Environmental Governance and Waste Management in Lagos State. This research curled in variables ranging from population to pollution, wealth creation, conflict management, governance and environment. The huge consequences of migration were critical to the unpacking of environmental governance with regards to waste management. Upon resumption of my PhD studies, my first conference presentation on When the Cars Crawl on the Road: Traffic Hawking and Pollution Dynamics in the City of Lagos, organised by SETAC in Ghana 2018 was influenced by my Masters dissertation.
Although my PhD thesis titled Delta State Diaspora and the Ramifications of Ethnic Ambivalence for Homeland Development is heavily focused on diaspora and development, the research scope span cultural and ethnic studies. One prominent variable that has been reiterated by some of the participants from the already concluded interviews is the concept of environment and how it intersects with culture. Environment appears to be at the core of human endeavour especially as interviewees drew a nexus between environment and the critical concept of ethnic ambivalence. Despite having a few publications on gender, media and security studies, I am currently working on some paper that are being teased from my PhD research while concurrently working to wrap up my research. I intend to focus on issues around migration and migrant studies, with minor concentration on gender and sexuality studies.
More importantly, I will be collaborating with junior and senior academic colleagues for research purposes and publications. My long-term project is to convert my PhD thesis into an academic book; and a monthly opinion editorial with one of the dailies in my country. In addition to that, I will explore social media for monthly videos that will be a blend of academic and social realities on migration and migrants’ diary. The essence is to create awareness and educate people on safe migration, because my interaction with people has availed me the opportunity to know that a high level of dis/misinformation and ignorance are critical causes of irregular migration- a position that has been supported by literature. I am currently developing an idea for the setting up of a Civil Society Organisation which I have christened Migration Hub. The aim of the organisation will be to ensure safe and legal migration process, encouraging dignified return and reintegration as well as advocating a better life for deported and repatriated migrants. This endeavour will grant me the ample opportunity, and access to information, data and experiences from field because of the methodology I intend to employ, which will include ethnography that involves interviews, focus group discussions. This kind of experience and strategy boost both learning and teaching because as a learner or lecturer, concepts, phenomena and discourses would be more real than abstract.
As time progresses, I will propose panel session at conferences and calls for publication for edited volumes on empirical migration study, and its allied concepts like remittances, reintegration, resettlement, hostland, homeland, among others.
Publications
Book Review of Africa’s Return Migrant: The New Developers? Journal of Contemporary African Studies. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02589001.2020.1795090
From Physical to Virtual Space: Social Media as an Alternate Place for Solution to Human Challenges. KUJUA: Journal of the African Students’ Association, Ibadan 1(1): 42-58 https://assauijournals.com/admin/img/paper/KUJUA%20Vol1-1&2.pdf
Emerging Pregnancy Culture in the Age of Social Media: Exploring the Case of Nigerian Women. Journal of Black Culture and International Understanding 6&7(1) 125-149
PUBLICATION FROM RESEARCH FEATURED
Actualising Sustainable Development Goal 16.10 in Relation to Migration and Development in Africa and Europe: Realities, Prospects and Challenges. 1-61 https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000372459
PUBLICATION IN ACADEMIC MAGAZINE
‘The power of banga’: Exploring food as a cultural connector between migrants and the homeland. Issue 11. https://www.routedmagazine.com/power-of-banga