Born in Nigeria,  I was educated at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria and University of California at Berkeley, USA. In 2021 I won the Distinguished Africanist Prize of the African Studies Association (ASA). The focus of my research is on gender, race, coloniality, hierarchy and the production of knowledge. I am the author of two monographs and three edited collections. My book "The Invention of Women: Making an African Sense of Western Gender Discourses" (Uni of Minnesota Press 1997) received the Distinguished Book Award (Gender Section) of the American Sociological Association in 1998.