Daivi Rodima-Taylor

Dr. Daivi Rodima-Taylor is a social anthropologist and researcher at the BU African Studies Center of the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies, and Ajami program manager at the Anthropology Department. Her research focuses on human economy, financial technology, infrastructures, migration and diaspora, and land and environment. Her longitudinal field research in East Africa studied local voluntary associations, such as cooperative work groups, savings groups, and informal courts and militias. She has led Boston University interdisciplinary Task Force on migrant remittances and human security, which was one of the very first initiatives to systematically study post-conflict remittances and their role in reconstruction and development. She directs the BU African Studies Center Diaspora Studies Initiative, co-leads the ASC Working Group on Land Mortgage, and is project manager for the National Endowment for the Humanities Ajami Research Project, and Readers in Ajami Project. Daivi has taught anthropology, international relations, and sustainable development, and contributed to international development work. Her recent publications include a special issue FinTech in Africa in Journal of Cultural Economy (with Paul Langley), and co-edited volumes Land and the Mortgage: History, Culture, Belonging (Berghahn Books, 2022) and Cryptopolitics: Exposure, Concealment, and Digital Media (in press, 2023). Daivi has co-edited a number of special issues, and published articles in journals such as Africa (International African Institute), African Studies Review, American Anthropologist, Global Networks, Social Analysis, Geoforum, Journal of Cultural Economy, Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, Environment and Planning (Politics and Space), American Ethnologist, Journal of International Relations and Development, Global Policy, Economic Anthropology, Review of International Political Economy, and International Journal of African Historical Studies.