Idowu "Jola" Ajibade

Assistant Professor, Geography

My research focuses on how individuals, communities, and cities respond to global climate change and their different capacities for adaptation and transformation. I explore adaptation in the context of resilience planning, eco-industrialization, eco-gentrification, uneven development and managed retreat. I draw on urban political ecology and environmental justice lenses to interrogate both conventional as well as alternative approaches to adaptation, disaster risk reduction, and sustainability.

I firmly believe there is a need for critical engagement with diverse knowledge systems, modes of politics, ethics, leadership strategies, production systems, and socio-cultural norms in facilitating environmental justice and societal transformation. I value interdisciplinary scholarship and collaborative learning and employ these approaches in understanding the opportunities and barriers presented by climate change and on-going sustainability transitions in megacities of the global south.  While most of my work to date has been in Lagos, Manilla and Tokyo, I am also interested in the human-environment challenges in the United States, particularly in Portland, Oregon.