Main content start

Mathew Ayodele

Department:
History
Cohort
2025
Project Title
Yoruba Healing Experts: Mapping Herbalists and Ifa Priests' Social Identities and Knowledge Exchange Networks in West Africa, 1920s - 1950s

Mathew Ayodele is a PhD student in the Department of History at Stanford University. His research investigates African agency, resistance, adaptation, and innovation within the repressive medical, social, and cultural landscapes of nineteenth and early twentieth-century West Africa. Ayodele examines the complex web of power and competition among African healers, European scientists, medical missionaries, European-trained African doctors, and faith-based healers within the highly lucrative West African medical marketplace. He seeks to understand how, when, and why Africans and Europeans perceptions of African healers shifted from being regarded as essential to being seen as extraneous, as well as the social changes that drove these evolving attitudes during this period. Ayodele also explores how African healers responded and adapted to these transformations over the long durée. Recognizing that perceptions and attitudes toward healers were not static, Ayodele aims to uncover the impact of these historical shifts on contemporary healing practices in West Africa. He has received support from the Stanford King Center on Global Development fellowship, the Anglo-California Stansky grant, the History of Science Medicine and Technology grant, and the Center for African Studies Graduate Research Fellowship to pursue various aspects of his research. 

Project Description

My dissertation seeks to recover and center voices of indigenous Yoruba healers in early twentieth-century southwestern Nigeria, revealing their understudied contributions to the biomedical landscape and complex relationships with African and European officials in the colonial period. I will use ArcGIS StoryMaps software to create digital stories to highlight Yoruba healers' contributions to the West African medical system, particularly Nigerian healthcare. These digital narratives will blend short stories and media to explore individual healers' practices, social identities, networks, associations, and significant medical interventions, including collaborations with other healing systems and practitioners. The ArcGIS StoryMaps project aims to promote the enduring relevance of African healers in addressing healthcare gaps, offering historical insights as valuable alternatives amid the contemporary exodus of modern medical practitioners from African states.