By Fawaz Balogun

A University of Ibadan doctoral candidate, Rukayat Usman, has become the first Nigerian-based scholar to win the Wenner-Gren Foundation’s Dissertation Award.

Usman is a doctoral fellow at the ADRRC and a doctoral candidate in Public Policy in the Department of Sociology at UI.

The international grant provides up to $25,000 to doctoral students to cover essential research expenses for projects that advance anthropological knowledge. 

It supports theoretically driven and innovative research that deepens understanding of human experiences and challenges established assumptions.

Usman’s research examines the migration trajectories of young internally displaced persons (IDPs) after they leave displacement camps.

The study focuses on the experiences of young people who have endured prolonged displacement, examining their movements beyond the camps and challenging existing perspectives in migration studies that prioritise arrival at a destination.

Usman’s research is co-supervised by Professor Olufunke Fayehun of the Department of Sociology and Dr Kudus Adebayo of the Institute of African Studies and ADRRC. Adebayo also supervised her master’s thesis.

Before receiving the award, Usman was a doctoral fellow of the Partnership for Social and Governance Research (PASGR), an African Fellow of the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, and an awardee of the PhD Academy of the International Migration, Integration and Social Cohesion (IMISCOE).

She is also a member of the inaugural cohort of the Youth Advisory Board of the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

Usman obtained a bachelor’s degree in History from the University of Ilorin and a master’s degree in Diaspora and Transnational Studies from the Institute of African Studies in UI.

Her research has been published in Refugee Survey Quarterly and the Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies.

Credit: ADRRC