Professor Akwugo Emejulu

FAcSS, PhD, MPhil (distinction), BA (hons)

Department of Sociological Studies

Chair in Sociological Studies

Professor Akwugo Emejulu in front of a bookshelf
Profile picture of Professor Akwugo Emejulu in front of a bookshelf
a.emejulu@sheffield.ac.uk

Full contact details

Professor Akwugo Emejulu
Department of Sociological Studies
The Wave
2 Whitham Road
Sheffield
S10 2AH
Profile

Before entering academia, I worked in a variety of grassroots roles—as a community organiser, a trade union organiser and a participatory action researcher—in both the United States and in Britain.

I am a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, a Fellow of The New Institute in Hamburg, a Richard von Weizsäcker Fellow of the Robert Bosch Academy in Berlin and an inaugural winner of the Flax Foundation's Emma Goldman Prize.

I joined the Department of Sociological Studies in February 2024.

Research interests

As a political sociologist, I have research interests in two areas:

1. racial, gender and class inequalities in Europe and the United States

2. women of colour’s grassroots organising and activism.

Doctoral Supervision

I am interested in supervising PhD students in areas related to grassroots activism, community organising and social movements. I am also particularly interested in working with students who wish to use intersectional, critical race, feminist and/or post-structuralist methodologies and methods in their
research.

External Supervisor, University of Warwick

  • Sue Lemos, 'Pioneers of our own future: The lives and politics of queer Black people and people of colour in Britain'
  • Oska Paul, 'Migrant-led responses to displacement in Athens: Men, masculinity and manhood'
  • Adebayo Quadry-Adekanbi, ‘Queering African feminist activism’
  • Shuzhuo Shi, ‘Covid-19, Sinophobia and the possibilities for racial solidarity’
  • Shona Smith, ‘Black disabled women's lived experiences in Britain’
  • Yuting Wu 'Absent Presence? British Chinese feminist activism since 1970'

Completed PhD Students

  • Melody Howse, 'Black formations and the politics of space in Berlin' (Completed, November 2023)
  • Cristina Asenjo Palma, 'Enhancing well-being: A matter of assets or rights?' (Completed, June 2023)
  • Ashlee Christoffersen, 'The politics of intersectional practice: Representation, coalition and solidarity' (Completed, June 2020)
  • Sara Lindores, 'Gender, class and ethno-Christian identities and the intergenerational transmission of sectarianism in Scotland' (Completed, October 2019)
  • Geetha Marcus, From the margins to the centre: The educational experiences of Gypsy and Traveller girls in Scottish schools' (Completed, June 2016)
  • Patricia Cacho, Race, rurality and Black and Minority Ethnic young people: Exploring the silences in Highland Scotland' (Completed, May 2016)
Publications

Books

  • Emejulu A (2024) Schwarzer Feminismus und die Grenzen des Menschseins [Was bedeutet das alles?]. Reclam Verlag. RIS download Bibtex download
  • Emejulu A (2022) Fugitive Feminism. Silver Press. RIS download Bibtex download
  • Emejulu A & Sobande F (2019) To Exist is to Resist Black Feminism in Europe. Pluto Press (UK). RIS download Bibtex download
  • Bassel L & Emejulu A (2017) Minority Women and Austerity Survival and Resistance in France and Britain. Policy Press. RIS download Bibtex download
  • Emejulu A (2015) Community Development as Micropolitics Comparing Theories, Policies and Politics in America and Britain. Policy Press. RIS download Bibtex download
  • Emejulu A () Precarious solidarity: Women of colour’s activism in a fractured Europe. Manchester University Press. RIS download Bibtex download

Edited books

  • Emejulu A (Ed.) () Ambivalent Activism: Working with Contradiction, Hesitation and Doubt for Social Change. University of Bristol Press. RIS download Bibtex download

Journal articles

Reports

  • Emejulu A (2021) Women of Colour Resist: Exploring Women of Colour’s Activism in Europe RIS download Bibtex download
Grants

Co-creating Inclusive Intersectional Democratic Spaces across Europe (CCINDLE)
€3,325,433: Horizon Europe
Co-creating Inclusive Intersectional Democratic Spaces across Europe (CCINDLE) is a six-nation comparative research project exploring how ordinary citizens, activists and policymakers might co-create solutions to Europe’s crisis of democracy in Hungary, Poland, Sweden, Belgium, the United Kingdom and Spain. My Co-PIs and I focus on three areas: 1. the emboldened far right and how they undermine democracy, particularly through political violence 2. feminist social movement and institutional resistances to far right groups 3. envisioning intersectional feminist futures for Europe.
My co-principal investigators for this project are: Mieke Verloo (Radboud), Elena Pavan (Trento), Andrea Krizsan (Central European University), Petra Meier (Antwerp), Conny Roggeband (Amsterdam), Johanna Kantola (Helsinki), Emanuela Lombardo (Madrid Complutense),Marta Rawluzsko (Warsaw) and Elzbieta Korolczuk (Södertörn).


Women of Colour Resist
$126,682: Open Society Foundations
Women of Colour Resist is a six-nation comparative research project that examines how women of colour activists in the UK, France, Belgium, Germany, Denmark and Spain strategise, organise and mobilise in illiberal Europe. Women of colour, oftentimes operating in hostile contexts, work in innovative ways to advance their political interests. This project aims to make visible this creative work and to map the processes by which women of colour undertake their grassroots activism against austerity, against the far right and for migrant's rights. My co-principal investigator for this project is Leah Bassel (Coventry).
Read the project report and the executive summary
in DanishEnglishFlemishFrenchGerman and Spanish.