Dr Shuaib Jalal-Eddeen

School of Sociological Studies, Politics and International Relations

Leverhulme Early Career Fellow

s.jalal-eddeen@sheffield.ac.uk

Elmfield Building

Full contact details

Dr Shuaib Jalal-Eddeen
School of Sociological Studies, Politics and International Relations
Elmfield Building
Northumberland Road
Sheffield
S10 2TU

Profile

Shuaib Jalal-Eddeen is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in the School of Sociological Studies, Politics and International Relations at the University of Sheffield. He completed his PhD at University College London (UCL) in 2025. His research examines the consequences of financialisation, with a particular focus on debt and financial inclusion tools such as fintech in Africa.

Prior to joining Sheffield, Shuaib worked as a researcher at UCL and at the British Institute in Eastern Africa (BIEA), where he contributed to projects on debt advice services in the UK and digital technologies for farmers in Kenya. His work has been published in New Political Economy, Review of International Political Economy and Review of African Political Economy.

Qualifications: PhD, University College London
MSc, University College London
BSc, American University of Nigeria

Research interests

Shuaib's research sits at the intersection of international political economy and cultural economy. Drawing on ethnographic and qualitative methods, his work examines how new financial technologies (fintech), sustained by global finance, are expanding access to credit while simultaneously creating new forms of financial exclusion, indebtedness and algorithmic control in everyday Nigerian life.

Building on his earlier work on everyday financialisation, his Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship examines these dynamics at company-level. Focusing on Nigeria and Ghana, the project investigates how fintech companies are funded, how they are valued and how (global) financial pressures shape their business models, organisational strategies and lending practices.

By connecting company-level dynamics with the everyday experiences of users of financial products, he seeks to develop a clearer account of how global finance, digital technologies and everyday debt are linked.

Publications

Journal articles

Jalal-Eddeen S (2026) Absent branches, digital presence: Fintech and the reconfiguration of everyday debt in Nigeria. Finance and Society, 12(1), 66-82.
Jalal-Eddeen S (2026) Digital financialization through demonetization: disruption, fintech adoption and everyday endurance in Nigeria. Review of International Political Economy, 33(2), 639-665.
Jalal-Eddeen S (2025) Algorithmic governance or extortion? Everyday experiences of fintech for loans in Nigeria. New Political Economy, 30(2), 254-266.
Jalal-Eddeen S () Everyday strategies of debt resistance: the case of fintech in Nigeria. Review of African Political Economy, 53(188).
() Harker, Christopher; Jalal-Eddeen, Shuaib; Huq, Zarina; (2022) How can locally embedded organisations create pathways towards more inclusive and sustainable prosperity? A case study of Money A+E.

Research group: Sheffield Political Economy Research Institute (SPERI)

Grants: Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship

Teaching activities: I have previously taught:
Geography of Money and Finance (University College London)
Debt, Finance & Prosperity (University College London)