Oluseyi Odunyemi Agbelusi

Assistant Professor of Anthropology

Contact:

2112 G St. NW, Rm 102 Washington DC 20052

Oluseyi Odunyemi Agbelusi (he/him/his) is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Africana Studies at George Washington University. He joined the department in 2023 and teaches courses on historical preservation and the Black Atlantic. As an anthropological archaeologist working on African and African Diaspora Studies, Agbelusi’s research reveals local responses to and influences on the nascent British colonialism, imperial policies, and trade networks at Regent, a liberated African village on the Sierra Leone Peninsula during the colonial period (circa 1860 to 1960). He employs a theoretical framework that connects colonial entanglements, cross-cultural exchange, and identity formation to explore how the lives of Africans who were ‘liberated’ from ships and barracoons from different parts of West Africa and resettled in a nascent British Crown Colony in Sierra Leone were entangled in the broader regional and global political economy— an understudied area of Africa’s intersection with the wider Atlantic World. His broader research and teaching interests include African Archaeology, African Diasporas, Historical Archaeology, Atlantic Studies, Colonialism, Museum Anthropology, and Archaeological Conservation. Agbelusi has also conducted archival and archaeological research in Nigeria and Barbados, and his research has been supported by generous grants from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the American Council of Learned Societies, the Society for Historical Archaeology, and the African Studies Association. He was awarded the Graduate Dean’s Award for Excellence in Research and Creative Work by the Graduate School at Syracuse University for his doctoral research in Sierra Leone.

Courses Taught

ANTH 3891: The Black Atlantic
ANTH / AMST 3811: Historical Archaeology
ANTH 6921 / CMST_6601: Historical Site Preservation

Research

I am currently developing a local project on enslavement and freedom in the DMV - the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia.

Expertise

African Archaeology, African-Diasporas, Atlantic Studies, transnational Black Studies, Colonialism, Museum Anthropology, Preventive Conservation, Sierra Leone, Nigeria.

Publications

Journal Articles and Book Chapters
2024 Entangled Landscape: Spatial Discipline and Liminal Freedom in Coastal Sierra Leone. American Antiquity 89(4): 1-17.
2015 Archaeological Education in Nigeria: Concepts, Methods, Challenges and Recommendations.” In Students in Archaeology: A Global Perspective, edited by Claire and Jordan Ralph, pp. 220–245. Special Issue Archaeologies 11(2). Springer, New York.
2014 Afro-Brazilian Influences on Indigenous Yoruba Architecture: The Ibadan Example. West African Journal of Archaeology 39: 61 – 77.
2014 In Search of the Ancestors: A Preliminary Archaeological Reconnaissance of Orile-Owu, Nigeria. Anistoriton 13: 1–11.

Book Reviews
2020    Review of Revelations of Dominance and Resistance: Unearthing the Buried Past of The Akpini, Akan, German, and British at Kpando, Ghana by Apoh, Wazi (2019). Sub- Saharan Publishers. African Archaeological Review 37: 523–525.
2016 Review of The Ethics of Cultural Heritage, edited by Ireland, T. and J. Schofield (2015). Springer. Ethical Archaeologies: The Politics of Social Justice: 4, 1–219. Dig It: The Journal of the Flinders Archaeological Society 3: 92–94.

Entry in Encyclopedia
2016   Yatenga. In African Kingdoms: An Encyclopedia of Empires and Civilizations, edited by Saheed Aderinto. ABC-CLIO Greenwood, USA.

Newsletter
2021    Appiah-Adu, Siaw, Oluseyi O. Agbelusi, Samuel Amartey, and David A. Okanlawon.Pandemic or ‘Plandemic’?: Graduate Study and Research in the COVID Era. Society of Black Archaeologists 21-23.