Peter Ayoola Oderinde
After completing his PhD programme at the Centre for African Studies at the University of Basel in Switzerland, Peter Ayoola Oderinde is currently a full-time lecturer at the Department of Religious and Intercultural Studies at Lead City University in Ibadan, Nigeria. He also chaired the host committee for the first international conference of the Faculty of Humanities at Lead City University.
Most of Oderinde’s research focus is on internet spiritualities. In the wake of the explosion of Internet churches, his pioneering book (Oderinde, 2022) produced the foremost research on the online community-building initiative of Nigerian-led Pentecostal churches in Switzerland. Other research (Oderinde, 2023) shows that in 2020, there was a total ban on religious gathering in most parts of the world including Africa which led to the rise in digital spiritualities and disembodied congregations in Lagos, Nigeria.
The phenomenon of internet religion explore realities, poses challenges, and explore possibilities of simultaneously creating localized and globalized communities for the spread of Pentecostal doctrines. One of the effects is the shifting public religious culture to the private with class structures since the introduction of data cost, passwords, and other online assemblages. The other is – the freedom of expression that digital spiritual spiritualities gives to members who can afford the cost of internet data.
Peter Oderinde’s latest research is titled: The Green Faithful: Spiritual Activism against Environmental Degradation in Nigeria. This research is in the area of religion and development and seeks to understand how spiritual activism influences environmental policy in Nigeria.