🔗 linkedin.com/in/edidiongobot

Research Focus: Law and Policy • Diaspora Diplomacy • Institutional Engagement • U.S.–Africa Policy

“Building Durable Pathways of Engagement: Nigerian-Americans as a Strategic Case Study of Diaspora Diplomacy in U.S.-Africa Policy, Development, and Relations”

What research challenge did your dissertation address?

My research addresses the gap between the significant contributions Nigerian-Americans already make and the limited institutional structures available to sustain that engagement. Public and policy conversations often focus narrowly on remittances or occasional consultation, overlooking the ways diaspora communities contribute through political leadership, civic organizing, business, culture, and innovation. Using Nigerian-Americans in Greater Houston as a case study, I examined why these contributions so often remain fragmented, underrecognized, or dependent on individual leaders and informal relationships rather than durable, coordinated pathways connecting diaspora capacity to institutions in both the United States and Nigeria.

What inspired you to pursue this research?

I was inspired by both lived experience and professional work. As a child of immigrants raised in Houston’s Nigerian-American community, I watched people like my parents build businesses, organize cultural and civic institutions, and contribute knowledge and resources to Nigeria, contributions rarely recognized as a form of diplomacy or institutional influence in their own right. Through my work in public policy and U.S.–Africa affairs, I also saw that institutions often wanted to engage diaspora communities but didn’t always know how to identify the right voices or build relationships that outlasted a single event or administration. I wanted to show Diaspora Africans as civic leaders, cultural diplomats, entrepreneurs, and policy actors, and produce something useful, not just scholarship, for the communities and institutions this research describes.

What did your research find, and what is its impact?

Nigerian-American engagement is active across political, economic, civic, cultural, and innovation pathways, but those pathways lack consistent institutional support and durability: much of the work is sustained through community organizations, churches, professional networks, and individual champions rather than lasting structures. I also found that legal and policy design matters: engagement grounded only in executive action or temporary priorities is far less likely to survive leadership transitions than engagement backed by legislation and established institutions. Based on these findings, I developed a framework for more durable U.S.–Africa diaspora engagement, calling for stronger legal foundations, formal diaspora representation in bilateral processes, and coordinated support across multiple pathways, shifting how institutions understand diaspora communities from occasional advisors to long-term partners.

“Engagement grounded only in executive action or temporary priorities is far less likely to survive leadership transitions than engagement backed by legislation and established institutions.”

Dr. Edidiong Chrys Obot

Full dissertation: https://hdl.handle.net/2047/D20862622