Emma Davies

I am a doctoral student in Area Studies (Africa) at St Antony’s College. I graduated with a first-class degree in MSc African Studies in 2023, also from the University of Oxford. My research focuses broadly on Nigerian history and politics in the 20th and 21st centuries, including the Nigerian diaspora. 

In my current research project, I am interested in how social media platforms have been used by ordinary Nigerians in different communities to contest historical narratives surrounding conceptions of Nigeria, and ‘Nigerian-ness’. My research methods include physical and digital archival research, digital ethnographies, oral interviews, popular culture, and public history.  

My MSc research focused on the Nigerian Civil War (1967-1970) and explored how hegemonic masculinities and femininities were produced and disseminated by the federal Nigerian military state during the war, through speeches, poetry, newspapers, and advertising. 

My wider research interests include queer studies, gender studies, and disability studies, in the African continent and also globally.  

My MSc and DPhil degrees are both generously funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Grand Union Doctoral Training Partnership (2022-2026).  

Supervisors:  

• Professor Rebekah Lee 

• Professor Peter Brooke