Ebenezer Olamiposi Adeyemi

EBENEZER ADEYEMI, then a graduate student at University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, received funding in October 2022 to aid research on “Community-Developed Infrastructure and the Management of Malaria in the Informal Settlement of Makoko, Lagos, Nigeria,” supervised by Dr. Theodore Powers. The first phase of this research included eleven months of ethnographic research — involving participant observation and in-depth interviews — aimed at exploring the strategies that residents of Makoko, a large government-marginalized informal settlement in Lagos State, Nigeria, utilize to build infrastructure to reduce their exposure to malaria-causing parasites and to treat the disease whenever they become infected. Data from the research shows that Makoko residents rely on different community-led initiatives to build infrastructure to reduce their exposure to malaria-causing mosquitos. This infrastructure — which is framed as community-developed infrastructure — includes wooden bridges, mosquito nets, drainages, et cetera. Community members also build makeshift clinics for malaria management. Through the analyses of historical documents, including colonial documents, the second phase of the research, involving one month of archival studies, established similarities between the colonial and post-colonial urban planning schemes in Lagos. Like in post-colonial Lagos, infrastructural development projects by the British colonial administrators in colonial Lagos (1864-1960) were concentrated in neighborhoods where the colonialists lived while the colonized peoples lived in the margin of the city, like Makoko, with heightened susceptibility to infectious diseases. This research brings new insights into anthropology by studying strategies that marginalized communities employ to build infrastructure for disease management.