Ayodeji Olukoju

The past four decades of my life have been devoted to the study of seaports, port-cities, shipping, maritime trade and economic development with a comparative focus on Africa (especially, Nigeria) and Japan. My research is located at the intersection of local, imperial and global dynamics, and port-hinterland-foreland relations. This has enabled me to take up ancillary themes in social, urban, agricultural, monetary, business and transport history. I have utilized research fellowships in Japan, the United Kingdom, Germany, the United States and South Africa between 1993 and 2024. My research output comprises four sole-authored books, seven co-edited volumes, several monographs, chapters in numerous edited books, and articles in dozens of high-impact scholarly journals. I have served on the editorial boards of prestigious journals, including Journal of Global History, Journal of African History, African Economic History, History in Africa and Afrika Zamani. I have also consulted for UNESCO, European Research Commission, the Nigerian National Merit Award Commission, Ford Foundation, the Netherlands Foundation for Tropical Research, the Austrian Science Foundation and the Israel Science Foundation, among others. I have reviewed book manuscripts and articles for more than a dozen high-impact scholarly journals and academic publishers.