The ‘Home from Home’ project aims to explore the legacies of pioneering British Nigerians in the UK and their impact on society. The project highlights and celebrates British Nigerian contributions to the cultural, political, educational, artistic, spiritual, and sporting life of Britain and London, in particular. In this interview we feature Dr Toyin Agbetu.
Who is Dr Toyin?
My biography will tell you that I am a scholar-activist and lecturer in political and decolonial anthropology at University College London. What I do is much broader. Through my work, I challenge Afriphobia and the misrepresentation of African people, history, and culture in social and public institutions. I continue to serve as a community educator, using my praxis to promote Pan-Africanism and human rights. I am a father, husband, brother and uncle, as well as a romantic artist, guerrilla filmmaker, music-loving, sci-fi nerd. All these identities are important to me.
What does “Home From Home” mean to you?
Home is where I feel safe, a place where I am in close proximity to healthy, nurturing relationships that are both loving and healing. The phrase ‘home from home’ invokes the idea of a spiritual retreat and not necessarily a fixed place. I visualise it as any physical or spiritual space where I can be my authentic self without compromise or fear of attack.
How do you celebrate your Nigerian heritage?
I try to normalise my heritage in everyday practices. Although my spoken Yoruba is at the primary school level, I try to speak a little every day, listen to songs my father played to me in my youth every week, and try to eat traditional dishes, which I can still cook, at least every month. In the classroom, I share some of the history of Nigeria and the cultural resistance of its people when teaching about colonialism, anthropology and self-determination.
What does being “British Nigerian” mean to you?
For some, what I am about to say may be controversial. However, while I am proud to be a ‘Nigerian’, I don’t use the term to define myself due to its dehumanising meaning (area of the [n words]) which are directly linked to the degrading beliefs and violent acts of the British colonialist Frederick Lugard and his wife, who coined it. I am a Yoruba man with ‘Nigerian’ heritage. Having British nationality means I am also part of a movement of immigrants from the continent who have created a continuously adapting hybrid identity. Being a British African means acknowledging that my ethnicity is partly influenced by our lived experience in the West while firmly rooted in Pan-African principles that are inclusive of Nigerian values.
How do you stay connected to your identity?
I consider many of our parents, grandparents and Ancestors who travelled here in the past to be amongst the world’s earliest pioneers. Their sacrifices and resistance in the face of so much dehumanisation created the path of opportunities many of us walk today. As a result, I actively resist the pressure to collude in any erasure of our identity. This is despite it being frequently demanded by successive political leaders in the UK as evidence of patriotic loyalty.
What does culture mean to you?
This is not a simple question for a social anthropologist to answer. Culture is the essence of a people, and with African people, it includes the genius of our orality. It is shared through everything we create, language in particular, alongside our sacred and profane objects, our traditional rituals and values, as well as our new customs and practices. Culture is explicitly linked to our personal and collective identities, aspirations, philosophies, sciences, and beliefs that manifest through all the behaviours we engage in, as well as all the symbols and artefacts we create and use to represent us in this world. Big or small, old, new, good and bad.
What do you imagine the future of the British Nigerian Community to look like in the next few years based on your industry?
Vibrant and persistent. Some will choose to suppress their ethnic identity and culture in order to assimilate into the wider society. I believe the majority will continue to innovate, celebrate and investigate what it means to be a ‘British Nigerian’ in modern Britain. In the academy, there is a growing community of scholars with similar background as myself and we take pride in helping other people with African heritage find sanctuary from the Afriphobia and anti-immigrant hysteria that persists in society.
Links to website/Social Media:
https://twitter.com/toyinagbetu
https://www.facebook.com/agbetu/
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2021/nov/spotlight-dr-toyin-agbetu
