Daivi Rodima-Taylor, Ph.D. is a social anthropologist and Africanist, and researcher and lecturer at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies, Boston University. She is Fellow at the Boston University Institute of Culture, Religion, & World Affairs. Her research focuses on collaborative economies, financial technology and inclusion, migration and diaspora, and land and agrarian relations. Her longitudinal field research in East Africa studied local associations of mutual security such as collaborative work groups, savings-credit associations, and informal courts and militias.
She has been leading Boston University interdisciplinary Task Force on migrant remittances and human security – one of the very first initiatives to systematically study post-conflict remittances and their role in reconstruction and development. Daivi has taught anthropology, international relations, and sustainable development and contributed to international development work.
Her recent publications include co-edited special issues “FinTech in Africa in Journal of Cultural Economy (vol. 15/4, 2022), “Ajami Literacies of Africa” in Islamic Africa (vols. 14/2, 2023 and 15/1, 2024), “Repoliticizing the Technological Turn in Sustainability Governance” in Environment and Planning: Politics and Space (vol. 42/5, 2024), and co-edited book volumes Cryptopolitics: Exposure, Concealment, and Digital Media (Berghahn Books, 2023) and Land and the Mortgage: History, Culture, Belonging (Berghahn Books, 2022). She has published in journals including Africa (International African Institute), African Studies Review, Anthropology Today, Islamic Africa, Distinktion: Journal of Social Theory, American Anthropologist, Social Analysis, Geoforum: Journal of Physical, Human, and Regional Geosciences, Journal of Cultural Economy, Review of International Political Economy, Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, Global Networks, Migration Information Source, Environment and Planning (Politics and Space), American Ethnologist, Journal of International Relations and Development, Global Policy, JRAI (Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute), Economic Anthropology, and International Journal of African Historical Studies.
She is the project manager for the National Endowment for the Humanities Ajami Research Project, Readers in Ajami (RIA) Project, and Digital Preservation of Fuuta Jalon Project, and has directed the BU African Studies Center’s Diaspora Studies Initiative and co-led the ASC Working Group on Land Mortgage. She holds a Ph.D. from Brandeis University.