Farouk Ajibade
Institution: University of Tennessee
Email: fajibade@vols.utk.edu
Farouk Ajibade is a second-year MA student in the Department of Anthropology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, specializing in the historical archaeology of Atlantic West Africa. He is particularly interested in the transformations of West African societies in response to the commercial revolution ushered in by the Atlantic trade. This interest led him to Professor Akin Ogundiran’s Material History Laboratory at Northwestern University, Evanston, where he is examining clay tobacco pipes from Ede-Ile – a colony of the Oyo Empire (1600-1840), using analytical tools such as portable X-ray fluorescence and LA-ICP-MS to develop a wholesome understanding of tobacco smoking culture, production, and exchange in the Yoruba interior during the Atlantic period.