Research

Adebola Oshipitan has conducted academic and clinical research on topics like psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy for various prestigious institutions like Harvard University to Northwestern Memorial Hospital. He has also written about more personal interests, such as African Hybridization within fashion. His research spans and incorporates multiple disciplines, including medicine, fashion, social psychology, music, anthropology, and more. His current research focuses on Negrophilia's global implications in shaping how Black popular culture is consumed and loved compared to how Black people are perceived and treated within different global communities between Western and Eastern societies.


Watson Project

NEGROPHILIA: How Blackness is "Loved" Across the World?

Follow the Journey

MY SOCIOCULTURAL PERSPECTIVE

MY PROJECT PROPOSAL

Perri Tomkiewicz

The Gatekeeping of Psychedelics

Harvard University-Nock Lab 

The Current Issue

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Western psychiatry has revived the clinical interest in psychedelic research in treating psychological disorders, such as post-traumatic stress disorder and addiction in the 21st century (George et. al). Despite new medical knowledge being gained on psychedelics’ healing potential, Western medicine continues to frame psychedelic science’s origin from a Eurocentric viewpoint that begins with 20th century researchers, disregarding the major contributions of indigenous people in influencing modern day practices. Modern psychedelic medicine and science owes its success to the traditions and ritualistic practices of indigenous peoples’ plant-based medicines. Despite their millennia-spanning work, indigenous and Black communities have been restricted from accessing the healing practices they founded and developed. These groups have been exposed to more stress and mental illness as disenfranchised people compared to white populations, but participant groups in psychedelic studies are mostly comprised of white people. Systemic discrimination and racism, such as the War on Drugs, violent over-policing, racist policies, drug stigmatization (against psychedelic healing practices), etc. has led to a lack of minority group inclusion in psychedelic medicine. Psychedelic-related studies require improved minority representation in their patient populations, so clinical efficacy not only reflects white populations but Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) as well.

CALLS TO ACTION

  • Fund BIPOC psychedelics researchers
  • Tenure and provide positions to BIPOC psychedelics researchers
  • Minimum quota for minorities in research
  • Provide visibility, safety, and support for individuals who have been doing psychedelics work in the shadows
  • Establish community partnerships with indigenous peoples for psychedelic research
  • Legalization of psychedelics
  • Lower financial barriers for receiving psychedelic care through government lobbying and enacting new public policy
Clinton Oshipitan's Harvard Psychedelics Presentation.pptx

African Hybridization

How European Colonization Shaped Modern African Fashion

What is African Hybridization?

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As a result of European colonization, formerly colonized African tribes and groups have adopted aspects of Western traditions and artworks and integrated signs and symbols into their existing traditional clothing, garments, style, and textiles, birthing the fashionscape of African Hybridization. Eurocentric structures and customs were gradually imposed on and normalized in African colonies. Thus, fashion in the European context becomes the new standard in African communities and civilization. The ““language” of fashion presents itself as European almost everywhere and constantly reiterates its anchor in the European-urban world” (Mentges, 2011). As a result, to be recognized and legitimized in the Western fashion scape (that encapsulates most of the world), African countries and communities adopted European values and norms. Additionally, the effects of diaspora, migration, and exile along with enforced foreign value systems on a population are irreversible and permanently alter a group’s relationship and understanding of their tradition. Post-colonized peoples have realized that despite their best efforts to reclaim their original pre-colonial identity based on their ancestor’s traditions, they cannot. They have opted to create new cultural meanings and traditions, reconciling past heritage and modern-day colonial influence to shape a hybrid future. This future takes various forms that “may be contingent to [European] modernity, discontinuous or in contention with it, resistant to oppressive, assimilationist technologies” (Bhabha 1994, 6), but all African countries, ethnic groups, and individuals consult past and ongoing colonial cultural exchanges and attempt to answer the vital question “where do we as a culture go from here?”

THE ANSWER

Nigerian-born designer Amaka Osawke's fashion brand Maki Oh incorporates traditional Nigerian fabrics like adire with Western silhouettes to create daring collections based on topics like absurdism and the Adult Swim show "The Boondocks."
The late Ewe American designer and former artistic director of Louis Vuitton Virgil Abloh designed kente pieces for the brand's haute couture show, fashioning the fabric into dresses and over suits and streetwear clothing.
Ghanaian fashion designer Aisha Obuobi of the Christie Brown label crafts beautiful bespoke gowns, practical yet statement pieces to innovative accessories inspired by the African culture and art for the contemporary African woman.
Kenyan-based designer Kepha Maina uses his architecture degree and interest in African art history to create innovative garments with classic silhouettes, using lines, curves, and paneling to manipulate the fabric into elegant designs that accent the shape of the female body.
Ivorian American fashion Loza Maléombho bridges Ivorian traditions with New York's urban fashion scene, fusing the normally diametric opposed influences into elaborate silhouettes and dynamic color palettes and patterns.
Senegalese fashion designer and artist Selly Raby Kane champions individuality and includes an avant-garde aesthetic that pulls from sci-fi, surrealism, and nature to create otherworldly collections.

Psychiatry Department Presentation

Rural Student Engagement in STEM

Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy's Student Inquiry and Research (SIR)

SIR Presentation