Mathew Ayodele

Mathew Ayodele is a PhD student in the Department of History. His research focuses on medical pluralism in late nineteenth and early twentieth-century Nigeria and West Africa. Ayodele investigates the complex power dynamics among African healers, medical missionaries, and European scientists within the lucrative medical landscape of West Africa during this era. He also explores the politics surrounding the production and perceptions of African herbal plants and remedies. Additionally, Ayodele interrogates how gender and class shape reproductive healthcare in West Africa. Specifically, he examines European missionaries' and colonial officials' imposition of certain gender hierarchies within the spaces of maternal and child health professions in colonial Nigeria.