Adunbi is a political and environmental anthropologist, Professor of Anthropology and Afroamerican and African Studies, Professor of Law (courtesy) and the Director of the African Studies Center. He is a Faculty Associate and is affiliated with the Program in the Environment (Pite), the Donia Human Rights Center (DHRC) and the Institute for Energy Solutions at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. His areas of research explore issues related to governance, infrastructures of extraction, environmental politics and rights, power, violence, culture, transnational institutions, multinational corporations and the postcolonial state. In 2016, he received The Class of 1923 Teaching Award at the University of Michigan. He is also the recipient of the 2022 John Dewey Award for Excellence in Research and Teaching at the University of Michigan. His book, Oil Wealth and Insurgency in Nigeria (Indiana University Press, 2015) won the 2017 The Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland’s Amaury Talbot Book Award for the best book in Anthropology of Africa. His latest book, Enclaves of Exception: Special Economic Zones and Extractive Practices in Nigeria, (Indiana University Press, 2022) interrogates the idea of Free Trade Zones and its interrelatedness to oil refining practices, infrastructure and China's engagement with Africa. His new project is at the intersection of social media, climate change and the politics of the environment.