Daivi Rodima-Taylor

Dr. Daivi Rodima-Taylor is a social anthropologist and researcher at the African Studies Center of the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies, Boston University. Her research focuses on informal economies, financial technology, media studies, migration and diaspora, and land and agrarian relations. Her longitudinal field research in East Africa studied local associations of mutual security such as collaborative work groups, savings-credit associations, and informal courts and militias. She has been leading Boston University interdisciplinary Task Force on migrant remittances and human security, which was one of the very first initiatives to systematically study post-conflict remittances and their role in reconstruction and development. Daivi has taught anthropology, international relations, and sustainable development and contributed to international development work. Her recent publications include the co-edited special issue Ajami Literacies of Africa in Islamic Africa (with Fallou Ngom and David Robinson, vols. 14/2, 2023 and 15/1, 2024; blog article in Brill’s “Humanities Matter”), the special issue FinTech in Africa in Journal of Cultural Economy (with Paul Langley, vol. 15/4, 2022, blog post in Just Money), the theme issue Repoliticizing the Technological Turn in Sustainability Governance in Environment and Planning: Politics and Space, 2024, and co-edited volumes Cryptopolitics: Exposure, Concealment, and Digital Media (Berghahn Books, 2023; blog article in CaMP Anthropology) and Land and the Mortgage: History, Culture, Belonging (Berghahn Books, 2022; blog article in Berghahn Blog). Daivi has co-edited a number of special issues, and published in peer-reviewed journals such as Africa (International African Institute), African Studies Review, Anthropology Today, Islamic Africa, Distinktion: Journal of Social Theory, American Anthropologist, Social Analysis, Geoforum: Journal of Physical, Human, and Regional Geosciences, Journal of Cultural Economy, Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, Global Networks, Migration Information Source, Environment and Planning (Politics and Space), American Ethnologist, Journal of International Relations and Development, Global Policy, JRAI (Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute), Economic Anthropology, Review of International Political Economy, and International Journal of African Historical Studies. She is the project manager for the National Endowment for the Humanities Ajami Research Project, Readers in Ajami (RIA) Project, and Digital Preservation of Fuuta Jalon Project, directs the BU African Studies Center’s Diaspora Studies Initiative,  and co-leads the ASC Working Group on Land Mortgage.

For more information, please see her Kudos page and Pardee School Research News.