Isaac "Asume" Osuoka
Fellow In-Residence
| Degrees: | BA, Philosophy (University of Calabar); MA, Social and Political Philosophy (University of Port Harcourt); PhD, Environmental Studies (York University) |
| Email: | IsaacOsuoka@cunet.carleton.ca |
| Office: | Room 2127 Dunton Tower |
Isaac ‘Asume’ Osuoka is an international development scholar with almost three decades of engagement with communities, civil society and governments in Africa and globally. Dr. Osuoka holds a doctorate in Environmental Studies from York University, where he has been a member of faculty and visiting scholar. As a graduate student, he received the Elia Scholarship, York’s most prestigious graduate studies award, and the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship for his research that exposes the theoretical anomalies and practical implications of applying euro-western concepts of civil society to non-western sites.
Before and after doctoral studies, Dr. Osuoka participated in the Nigerian pro-democracy movement and coordinated international civil society networks supporting communities resisting the negative impacts of resource extraction and unfair trade regimes in Africa. Dr. Osuoka believes that learning should be relevant to the needs of emancipation and social transformation, which informs his popular education teaching and interdisciplinary research that intersects the state, civil society and social movements, labour, environment, and climate change, focusing on the Gulf of Guinea and the Sahel regions of Africa.
Dr. Osuoka is working on a book that traces how colonial (state) development and contemporary NGO interventions contribute to shaping ethnic elite cooptation and the privatizing of civic spaces in Africa.
Selected Publications
Osuoka, I. A. (2020). Cooptation and contention: Public participation in the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative and the demand for accountable government. The Extractive Industries and Society, 7(3): 796-803
Osuoka, I. (2018). Niger Delta: Community and Resistance, in Lang, M., König, C. D., & Regelmann, A. C. (Eds.), Alternatives in a world of crisis, Brussels: Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung/Quito: Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar
Osuoka, I., Zalik, A. (2016). No Change There! Wealth and Oil, in Hay, I. and Beaverstock, J. V. (Eds.), International Handbook of Wealth and the Super-Rich. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Osuoka, I. (2010). Operation Climate Change: Between community resource control and carbon capitalism in the Niger Delta, in Sandberg, L. A., & Sandberg (Eds.), Climate change: Who’s carrying the burden? : The chilly climates of the global environment dilemma. Ottawa: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.
Osuoka, I., Zalik, A. (2010) The Dilemmas of Global Resistance against Extractive Capital: The Oilwatch Network in Africa. Rethinking Extractive Industry: Regulation, Dispossession, and Emerging Claims. Special issue: Canadian Journal of Development Studies, xxx (1-2): 237-257.