The places that change you
When Temitope Famodu was 10 years old, a classmate in England asked them a question they had never heard before.
“If I go to America, will I get as dark as you?”
The question caught them off guard. Until then, Famodu had never thought of their identity as something that needed explaining. Growing up in a suburb of Minneapolis-St. Paul, Famodu had spent much of their early childhood surrounded by their Nigerian American family and community. Their father immigrated from Nigeria. Their mother is from Minnesota. But a two-year move to England at the age of ten exposed them to new perspectives on race, identity and belonging.
At a small Church of England primary school, Famodu and their younger brothers were among the few Black students and the only mixed-race family in the area. Their classmates were curious about their appearance and American accents. For a time, the siblings even tried to adopt British accents in an effort to fit in.
Until then, Famodu had taken for granted the world they knew. In England, they began to see that people's understanding of race, identity and the United States depended on their vantage point. They also began to see how the same person could be understood differently in different places. That insight stayed with them long after their family returned to Minnesota. It would eventually become the thread connecting their studies, their research and their journey to UC Irvine's global studies Ph.D. program. Famodu’s search for answers ultimately took them back to Europe, where, with support from a Fulbright scholarship, they examined how African students navigate identity and belonging in Hungary.
What distance reveals
As an undergraduate at DePaul University, Famodu majored in international studies. By their senior year, they had spent three years grappling with questions about how knowledge is produced and how place shapes people's understanding of history, identity and culture. But they wanted to experience those questions from somewhere else.
"I wanted to think about those issues from outside of the U.S., outside of Chicago," they say.
Famodu initially considered studying abroad in the United Kingdom. But Hungary offered a practical advantage. The program cost about $10,000 less for the year. Famodu decided to study there. The decision would prove consequential. Years later, Famodu would describe this approach as "the fling method."
"I kind of just flung myself over there," they say. "I thought, at best, I will make friends, and I'd enjoy it, at worst, I'd learn something about a new place and about myself."
Unlike many of their classmates, Famodu could not afford frequent weekend trips across Europe. Instead, they spent much of their time in Hungary, building relationships with local residents and developing a deeper understanding of a place they knew little about before arriving. At the time, they had no idea the experience would eventually become the foundation of their dissertation.
Questions of scale
After receiving their undergraduate degree, Famodu worked in nonprofit organizations serving refugees and students in Chicago. The work was meaningful, but they found themself preoccupied by larger structural questions. They wanted to understand the forces shaping displacement, migration and inequality. Why were people moving to the U.S.? How did global politics shape local experiences? What could organizations realistically accomplish within larger systems?
"I wasn’t satisfied with just responding to the global crises I had learned so much about. I wanted to get at the origins and understand how and why these decades-long issues persisted," they say. "I was young, I was fired up, and I imagined different futures were possible."
As they gained experience, Famodu began to see the possibilities, as well as the limits of nonprofit work. Many of the problems that concerned them were larger and more deeply rooted than any single organization could solve. One of their undergraduate mentors encouraged them to consider graduate school and pointed them toward the relatively new doctoral program in global studies at UC Irvine.
"This is actually the only program that I applied for," they say. "I was not certain that I wanted to go to graduate school until I was introduced to this program. It felt like a good fit."
That confidence grew after a lengthy conversation with Yousuf Al-Bulushi, who would become their advisor and is an associate professor in the Department of Global and International Studies.
"I am so lucky to have met Dr. Al-Bulushi," Famodu says. "I really admire his pedagogical approach that is both encouraging and intellectually rigorous. I am still learning from him and look forward to continuing to do so as I embark on my own teaching journey."
Though Hungary was not his area of expertise, Al-Bulushi encouraged Famodu to follow their questions wherever they led. He challenged them to think seriously about the connections between their own experiences abroad, emerging scholarship on Black Europe and broader questions of migration, race and identity. In doing so, he helped them identify a research project that reflected both intellectual interests and the transdisciplinary approach that drew them to UC Irvine in the first place.
Returning to Hungary
Famodu entered graduate school interested in technology supply chains, Black geographies and the relationship between resource extraction in Africa and global capitalism. But their research eventually took a different direction. As they encountered scholarship on Black Europe, they noticed that much of the literature focused on Western Europe and former colonial powers. This led them to begin thinking again about their own experience studying abroad in Hungary.
"Understanding of Black identity and placemaking in Eastern Europe and the post-socialist context wasn't as researched and discussed," they say.
Famodu developed a dissertation that earned additional momentum when they received a Fulbright award and spent the 2024-25 academic year in Hungary as a Fulbright scholar and John Lewis Civil Rights Fellow, conducting fieldwork in Budapest and Debrecen.
Al-Bulushi describes Famodu’s dissertation as examining the intersection of African migration, authoritarianism and Black geographies in Eastern Europe.
"Why, at a time of rising authoritarianism, racism and anti-migrant sentiment, was a country like Hungary increasingly recruiting international university students from African countries like Nigeria?" he says.
Famodu’s interviews revealed how students navigated questions of race, visibility and belonging. Many described being stared at in public because they looked different from the local population. Others spoke about the practical challenges of temporary visas, rising housing costs and uncertain futures. Famodu describes these challenges as part of what it means to be "Black in the Bloc," a phrase that captures the particular experience of African students navigating race and visibility in post-socialist Eastern Europe.
Yet Famodu also found stories of community. Students created informal networks of care through churches, friendships and student organizations. In the absence of robust institutional support, they often relied on one another. Those experiences became central to their understanding of how people sustain everyday life far from home.
Understanding a complex world
For Famodu, understanding the world means looking at how history, politics, culture and everyday life intersect. That is what they value most about global and international studies.
"What I love about it is that it's transdisciplinary," they say. "I think that is the best way to approach learning about anything, especially in a time of multiple crises."
Al-Bulushi agrees and says their dissertation reflects exactly what the program strives for.
“It is methodologically unique, theoretically inspiring and empirically rich,” he says. “This is everything an advisor could ask for, and it is beautifully emblematic of the transdisciplinary and transgressive research program that we insist global studies Ph.D. students to pursue.”
Famodu’s research touches on migration, race, education, nationalism, identity and political economy. Examining any one of those subjects in isolation would miss the larger picture. The same approach shapes their teaching. As a teaching assistant, they have enjoyed helping students understand how contemporary issues emerge from longer historical processes and overlapping social forces.
"I wish that global studies was a standard pedagogical orientation because I think it helps to deepen understanding in any line of educational inquiry," they say.
Famodu successfully defended their dissertation in May and graduated in June. They plan to pursue academic positions while transforming their dissertation into a book-length manuscript. The foundation and expertise they have gained as a Ph.D. student at UC Irvine are unlikely to lose their urgency.
"My skill set will always be relevant, no matter what industry or place I end up in," they say. "I think we will always need to examine how power operates on a global scale by centering the lived-experiences of people who have been structurally dispossessed."
The questions that first emerged when Famodu was a 10-year-old in England continue to guide their work. What began as an effort to understand how people see one another across cultures has evolved into a body of work devoted to understanding how people navigate difference, build community and make sense of the world around them.
"We need people to be thinking and taking care of one another," Famodu says. "Otherwise, there is no future."
-Jill Kato for UC Irvine School of Social Sciences
-pictured: Famodu in Budapest.