Sweet Medicine

Adefolatomiwa Toye is a PhD student researching how the architectures of Nigeria’s first universities reveal the politics of nation building in our early post-Independence era. This was a fun conversation on the optimistic spirit of the Nigerian ‘60s, ethnic and class divides in Nigeria, challenges faced in accessing educational resources, the disconnect between universities and their surrounding communities, and the need for honesty and historical consciousness in addressing societal issues.

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01:54 How is your archival research going?

05:30 The Role of Universities in Nation Building

12:05 Post-Independence University Politics

27:53 Reflections on Optimism and Disconnection

32:30 Class Divide and Awareness in Nigeria

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Website: sweetmedicine.me 

Newsletter: studiostyles.substack.com.

Instagram: @ss.studiostyles

Support Sweet Medicine: https://flutterwave.com/donate/olt4tbjytsjr

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Amarachi Iheke is a doctoral researcher at Kings College London writing a dissertation on Azanian (South African) resistance anthems. This Saturday, I bring you a really powerful conversation I had with her that lasted four hours and meandered through many issues from standards of beauty, to corporal punishment, gerontocracy in Nigeria, the civil war, class and the Nigerian spirit world. It was my first recorded conversation in the series and exemplifies what I set out to do with these researchers and practitioners: get them to apply their academic expertise to everyday issues in our everyday Nigerian lives. The casual violence, the emotional repression, the cycles of harm and irresponsibility on one hand and everyday remedial acts of courage, storytelling and curiousity on the other hand.

03:04 Healing vs. Reconciliation

05:58 The Legacy of the Nigerian-Biafra War

12:00 Beauty Standards and the Burden of Appearance

17:53 Cultural Expressions and Radical Empathy

20:54 Courage and ‘Strength’ in Nigeria

36:59 The Cycle of Bullying and Power Dynamics

46:08 Biafra, the idea and symbol

50:29 Spirituality and Collective Responsibility

Website: sweetmedicine.me 

Newsletter: studiostyles.substack.com.

Instagram: @ss.studiostyles

Support Sweet Medicine: https://flutterwave.com/donate/olt4tbjytsjr

#socialhealing #Nigeria #genocide #Biafra #resistance #ptsd #decolonisation #Africanspirituality #reconciliation #radicalempathy #gerontocracy

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Often I hear young people say, “Thank God our generation is documenting now. Thank God we are only just starting to appreciate archives.” Unfortunately, we are not the first. As Mrs Kudirat Ayoola, the lead archivist at the National Film, Visual and Sound Archive (NFVSA) in Jos, said to me in an interview about the economics of running a public archive in Nigeria: “better soup, na money kill am.”

In this episode, I propose we do four things with with History, the discipline:

1: Accept that it is not the be all and end all, and that it will not prevent existential death. 

2: Make it in our backyards.

3: Be transparent with it.

4: Fund It!

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02:30 Exploring my Personal History and Education

11:42 Accept that it is not the be-all and end-all

16:44 Make It In Your Backyard

18:45 Be Transparent With It

21:06 Fund It!

29:11 Conclusion

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Website: sweetmedicine.me 

Newsletter: studiostyles.substack.com.

Instagram: @ss.studiostyles

Support Sweet Medicine: https://flutterwave.com/donate/olt4tbjytsjr

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This Sunday, I bring you a conversation I had with six people who joined the Studio Styles text club meeting on July 6, 2024. This was our third week of discussing Paolo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed.

As with all our club meetings, the conversation moved from the text and into our everyday lives to explore how we can apply the ideas to action in our lives, what changes we’d like to see in the world and how we can contribute to making that change. We went on to discuss what fear is good for, feeling the fear and protesting anyway, #EndSARS and the question of whether Nigeria is a psychopathic entity not worth dialoguing with, the intelligence of plants and the potential of spirituality and plant medicine as transformative tools of change. It was from this conversation that I picked up the practice of using ‘life-affirming’ as a metric by which I now assess my actions and beliefs.

People in the episode:

Aaliyah Ibrahim, a writer and an international development practicioner

Gbope Onigbanjo, a consultant and researcher on international affairs, peace studies, and political economy

Chiamaka Dike, a journalist

Dede Israel, a writer and research analyst

Amanda Madumere, an ed-tech entrepreneur and arts administrator

Deborah Iyalagha, a writer and nursing student

Keren Lasme, an artist and researcher and the only non-Nigerian (Ivoirian) on the call. 

01:10 Exploring Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed

06:35 Challenging Workplace Norms and Individual Freedom

12:03 The Limits of Dialogue in Liberation

14:58 Navigating Fear in Society

18:46 Imagining a Safe World

29:13 Life-Affirming Practices/What is the 'Human'

34:08 Spirituality and Plant Medicine as Tools for Change

#SweetMedicine #PauloFreire #socialhealing #Nigeria #fear #plant medicine #spirituality

Website: sweetmedicine.me 

Newsletter: studiostyles.substack.com.

Instagram: @ss.studiostyles

Support Sweet Medicine: https://flutterwave.com/donate/olt4tbjytsjr

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This Saturday, I bring you my conversation with Fr Anselm Adodo, the founder of Nigeria’s leading plant medicine research laboratory, Pax Herbals. Fr Anselm is a Benedictine priest at the Ewu monastery in Edo State and his work exeplifies a wide range of expertise spanning education, environmentalism, social work. Fr Adodo’s unwavering commitment is to inspire individuals and promote collaboration between academia and industry, paving the way for transformative advancements in healthcare.

In this conversation, perhaps more than any other in this project, we kept returning to how one’s material conditions affect their ability to see the bigger picture and tap into the healing that comes from meaning-making and re-storying one’s life, a task that requires vulnerability and integrity. 

00:00 Introduction to Sweet Medicine Podcast

00:59 Father Anselm Adodo: A Journey of Healing and Discovery

09:27 Education and the genius of the local

14:40 How have Nigerians been taught to think?

17:58 The Impact of Capitalism on Nigerian Society

26:10 Social Innovation and Densu in Ayi Kwei Armah’s novel The Healers

30:31 Case Studies of Integrated Living in Africa

36:41 Thank you.

Website: sweetmedicine.me 

Newsletter: studiostyles.substack.com.

Instagram: @ss.studiostyles

Support Sweet Medicine: https://flutterwave.com/donate/olt4tbjytsjr

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In 2020, Nigeria's president Muhammadu Buhari comforted kidnapped and released school boys in Kankara, Katsina State by telling them that "You children are very lucky. I hope you will be very careful your success in the future depends not on subjects like History and English but Technology." This derision for the humanities (and the idea that one can study only one or the other, and when faced with the choice, one must study only Technology) is a widely held sentiment in Nigeria by leaders and everyday citizens.

In this episode, I make a case for why 'Humanities and Social Sciences' or 'Technology and Natural Sciences' is a false dilemma. Interdisciplinary education can provide a more holistic understanding of society and foster critical thinking and communication skills in individuals. The Humanities are critical for the well-being of a diverse, democratic and postcolonial society like ours because they help us define what 'better' means for us.

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00:00 Introduction to Sweet Medicine Podcast

05:20 Critique of Government Attitudes Towards Humanities

10:52 Interdisciplinary Approaches to Education

17:40 Personal Journey and Opportunities in Humanities

21:31 The Broader Impact of Humanities and Social Sciences

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Website: sweetmedicine.me 

Newsletter: studiostyles.substack.com.

Instagram: @ss.studiostyles

Support Sweet Medicine: https://flutterwave.com/donate/olt4tbjytsjr

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode brings snippets from the 14 conversations I had with guests working in the humanities and social sciences and oriented towards social healing in Nigeria. In these conversations, we discussed the ideas that animate their research, their career journeys and how they use their work to make tangible impact in their communities.

Timestamps:

00:00 Introduction to Sweet Medicine Podcast

01:13 Personifying Nigeria: A Patient's Perspective

04:57 Nigerians' Emotional Landscape: How have we been taught to think about how to be in the world?

09:17 Innovation is responding to our reality, to the gift of now

10:56 The Complex History of Nigerian Identity

16:13 Understanding Harm and Responsibility

Guest list (in order of appearance in the episode):

• Aaliyah Ibrahim, a writer and international development practitioner
• Didi Cheeka, a filmmaker, critic and archivist
• Amarachi Iheke, a PhD student researching radical re-imaginations of African selfhoods in South Africa
• Obayomi Anthony, an artist, photographer, filmmaker and National Geographic explorer
• Israel Wekpe, a theatre director and lecturer at the University of Benin
• Tobiloba Akibo, a landscape architect and researcher,
• Mobolaji Otuyelu, an entrepreneur and an organiser for the Federation of Informal Workers (FIWON)
• Fr Anselm Adodo, the founder of the Pax Herbals https://www.paxherbals.net/about-us/
• Gbope Onigbanjo, a researcher and consultant working in the fields of international affairs, peace studies, and political economy with an MA in Conflict Resolution in Divided Societies
• Oluwakemi Agbato, a design writer, researcher and founder of RENIKEJI jewelry design practice
• Adefolatomiwa Toye, an architect and PhD student researching the role of Nigeria’s first universities in the development of national identity
• Gbemi Adekoya, a psychotherapist

Takeaways

• The humanities and social sciences are crucial for social healing.
• Nigerians often live in a state of survival mode.
• Art can serve as a powerful medium for social change.
• Understanding historical context is essential for identity formation.
• Exemplary violence is a normalized part of Nigerian society.
• Innovation should respond to local ever-changing realities.
• Knowledge becomes real when it is personally relevant.
• Trauma can perpetuate cycles of harm within families and communities.
• People are complex and often face moral dilemmas.
• Healing requires a collective effort and understanding of our histories.

Website: sweetmedicine.me 

Newsletter: studiostyles.substack.com.

Support Sweet Medicine: https://flutterwave.com/donate/olt4tbjytsjr

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This is the introductory episode to the Sweet Medicine podcast. Here I share my understanding of social healing an orientation towards life-affirming relations with ourselves, with all beings around us, and with the world that we are all co creating. By social healing, I also mean an exercise in integrity and integration, an exercise in the kind of connection we can achieve only by accepting ourselves as new as we will be every single day.

Listen for an overview of Nigeria's social problems today, an overview of how the Sweet Medicine project was designed and how the podcast will run over the next 8 weeks. Thanks for being here.

Website: sweetmedicine.me

Newsletter: studiostyles.substack.com

Instagram: instagram.com/ss.studiostyles

Support Sweet Medicine: https://flutterwave.com/donate/olt4tbjytsjr

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.