'We Did Not Sell Our Own People': Reclaiming the Narrative- A Conversation with Osa Fasehun

The Oxbridge African Scholars Summit, held on the 22nd of February, 2025, celebrated research on Africa and its diaspora. Among the standout presentations was Osa Fasehun’s, a DPhil candidate in Anthropology at Oxford. Placing third, his work challenges misconceptions about African agency in histories of oppression.

Osa Fasehun has a powerful agenda. An educator by profession, a published writer and columnist and now a DPhil Candidate at Oxford University focused on creating knowledge about Africa and Africans that competes with and abolishes age old misconceptions. Having written about the precariousness of black and African histories in history textbooks, he gave a groundbreaking presentation that won the judges and audiences' approval at the inaugural Oxbridge Summit.

Groundbreaking research is so often associated with scientific or technological discoveries, destined to shape or improve humanity or the way humans live. The Oxbridge Africa Conference was rich with such innovation as young students and researchers proved to be providing such in their respective arenas- creating medicines to tackle or cure cancer, expanding the confines of artificial intelligence or manipulating technology to generate more power for disadvantaged communities.

Osa Fasehun, Oxford DPhil Candidate

However, the presentation that appeared to intimately move and instigate a personal and cultural fervour among the audience of 140 African scholars and academics was that which focused on history and anthropology. Osa Fasehun, arguably, is in the middle for groundbreaking research, re-writing the age old narrative that Africans 'sold their own', a tag line that was used to justify the enslavement, abuse and dehumanisation of black people around the world, and continues to be propelled by racist groups today who want to subdue the legacies of their ancestors and the continued dehumanisation of black people.

I spoke with him about his research, its impact, and the summit experience.

This is a fairly strong and political topic to dedicate three years of research to. What inspired you to take on this research?

Osa: "My research investigates the stories of Atlantic slavery that falsely holds people of African descent accountable for their own oppression. Part of this research stemmed from my time in undergrad hearing anti-black narratives, ones that continued into my time as a secondary school teacher in the United States.

Some Black students would say it was unfortunate that “we sold our own people.” In another year, I remember one Black student would have a sullen face asking, “How come our people didn’t fight back?”

It occurred to me that before I had even conducted a lesson on the class reading of a book on slavery, students had already heard disingenuous stories about racial chattel slavery. 

There are histories of enslaved Africans and native Africans resisting the slave trade throughout the centuries that the institution went on—like Nat Turner, Benkos Bioho, Ndongo prince Lourenço da Silva Mendonça, the Mende captives who took over The Amistad ship. Growing up with experiences in Nigeria and the US, I also knew the terms “African” and “Black” are often used to flatten ethnocultural identities and dehumanise us as backward or uncivilised.

CC: Getty Images

It is a dangerous narrative to think that whatever is happening to Africans and African diasporans, we’re doing it to ourselves.

Narratives like this are used to silence Black diaspora descendants of slaves when they talk about the horrors of racial chattel slavery, or Africans when they speak about colonial subjugation. After learning that in 2024, anti-restitution campaigners were still arguing for European museums to keep stolen African objects (like Benin art) away from their source communities, I had to understand why. So many foreign ethnographers and anthropologists of the past attempted to be the authoritative voice on Africa—a continent with 54 countries within it, and hundreds of ethnicities in Nigeria alone.

Since my discipline had a colonial reputation of reducing Africans to a monolith, I feel I have an opportunity to correct that."

Given that your project was selected as one of the best of the day, how has that shaped your opinion and confidence in your work?

"I was deeply moved by the way my work was so well-received. I remember after childhood trips to Nigeria, classmates would ask if I came across lions and tigers when I was there.

Sculpture of a chained slave gang, highlighting the harsh realities of slavery, from the Slavery Heritage Museum in Nigeria.

At the Oxbridge African Scholars Summit, I was speaking to an audience that was more familiar with stereotypes made about Africa. Still, many of my peers are not in the social sciences so it is nice to know that they understood and responded well to my research.

Input from fellow scholars has also enriched my work. Some people might imagine academics as folks who live for research and stow themselves away in libraries writing their work, not caring if it reaches broad audiences. I wish to help debunk that notion.

Speaking with audience members after my presentation reminded me of my deep commitment to anthropology as a tool to humanise and create proximity—not distance—between groups with whom we share the world.

One audience member and fellow scholar who was interested in my work had said about her community, “traditionally we don’t put our culture on display.” That remark alone made me think of how African-based museums with colonial vestitages may change cultural landscapes if they are not indigenous to the particular society."

Osa Fasehun, 2025

Osa's work is perhaps more critical in the era that we are living in. History appears to be sidelined as a subject fixated on the past and irrelevant to our current global system; the reversal of DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) initiatives are eroding long-standing progress around our understanding of racial and gender discrimination and the rise of far-right governments in Europe and the United States facilitate hostile environments for black and African peoples- in certain instances further dehumanising them or encouraging racist and xenophobic stereotypes about our cultures, histories and purpose in this world. The call for Africans to develop our own states and forge stronger, more concrete identities outside the limitations of western storylines calls for writers, cultural curators, lawyers and researchers to unearth, criticise, demolish and reconstruct our bastardised histories.

Osa's research challenges the myths that have long been used to justify oppression and exclusion, offering instead a story of resilience, defiance, and agency. As he continues his studies at Oxford, his work serves as a reminder that anthropology, at its best, can be a means of empowerment and truth-telling.