In/out of Nigeria: transnational research and the politics of identity and knowledge production

Abstract

This article explores the murkiness of fieldwork and writing that often comes with simultaneous positioning as insider/outsider. I engage with two key themes: First, identity, legitimacy and representation and, second, the gray spaces between theory and reality. The first theme examines the contradictions of being perceived as both an insider and outsider; the complexities of identity and language while at ‘home’ in the field, and the challenges of performing the native informant role while back ‘home’ in Canada. The second theme explores the uncomfortable dilemma of engaging with the ‘Rush to Theory’ from the global south. I will examine how the theories are sophisticated and provocative, yet prove unsatisfactory in terms of having practical applications. I conclude the article by positing that, despite the challenges of doing transnational work, transnational subjects invariably contribute to the creation of a new politics of knowledge production and to the attainment of social justice.

Keywords:

• Hyphenated identity
• insider/outsider
• knowledge production
• native informant
• transnational feminist research

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to the anonymous reviewers and the editors of the special issue for their comments on an earlier version of this paper. I would also like to thank Lisa Boucher, Sylvia Bawa and Kathryn Travis for encouraging me to complete this paper and for their insightful feedback on my work.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributor

Grace Adeniyi Ogunyankin is currently an assistant professor of Women’s and Gender Studies at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. She is an African feminist geographer who uses a postcolonial urbanism lens to analyse urban renewal projects and new city building projects in Nigeria and Ghana. Her other research interests include: critical race theory, the paradoxes of ‘Africa rising’ narratives, mothering and disability in the new African Diaspora, and African Diaspora literature.

Additional information

Funding

The research on Ibadan was carried out with the aid of a grant from the International Development Research Centre in Ottawa, Canada.