Dr. Olubukola Olayiwola

Bukky Olayiwola, a Wadsworth International Fellow (Wenner-Gren Foundation) has a bachelor’s and masters' degrees in anthropology (U of Ibadan, Nigeria) and a Ph.D. in applied anthropology and Graduate Certificate in Women and Gender Studies (U of South Florida, USA). His training as an applied anthropologist has led him to focus on research that critically analyzes microfinancialization, the informal economic sector, women entrepreneurs, and gender issues with a regional focus on West Africa. His dissertation explores the lived experiences of women entrepreneurs and borrowers - petty commodity producers and traders in Ibadan, Nigeria, and their involvement in government-sponsored and private sector microfinance schemes. Using ethnographic methods, as point of entry Bukky interrogated a popular local concept expressed in the Yoruba language, “owo komulelanta” (“Putting our breasts on a hot kerosene lantern”), that women borrowers use in representing their lived experiences as well as describing their feelings of risk anxiety as a result of resorting to microfinance loans. His dissertation research contributes to anthropological theory related to the political economy of microfinance, the informal sector, gender and development, and to political economy and transnational feminist theoretical perspectives. It is also relevant at the level of providing a critique of development policies centered around microfinance schemes. He has published in Research in Economic Anthropology and World Development. He is presently working on academic publications including a book contract.