Before entering academia, Akwugo worked in a variety of grassroots roles—as a community organiser, a trade union organiser and a participatory action researcher—in both the United States and in Britain. She joined the Department of Sociology at the University of Warwick in 2017 as Professor of Sociology. Akwugo is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, a co-editor of Politics, Groups and Identities and an inaugural winner of the Flax Foundation's Emma Goldman Prize.

This interview was conducted on 15 April 2019 at Wilton's Music Hall by Julija Gulbinovic at Audre Lorde: Sister Outsider.