I just landed in Atlanta, Georgia and am looking forward to spending the rest of the week at the African Studies Association conference networking and learning from my researcher heroes. The conference has the theme Energies: Power, Creativity and Afri-Futures and is expecting about 2000(!) delegates in 300 events over three days. You can follow all of it under the hashtag #AfricanStudies2018 across social platforms and Ghana studies’ scholars use the hashtag #GSAatASA2018

I have crafted my own mini-program which starts with my own panel at the conference – a discussion on Politically Motivated Internet Shutdowns will happen in this AfricaNOW! special series of issues that are ongoing or new. I also look forward to listening to talks by Finnish/Nigerian feminist and blogger MsAfropolitan Minna Salami during the Women’s Caucus Luncheon as well as the President’s Lecture by Prof Jean Allman, Prof Ato Quayson on Kofi Annan and Prof Mahmood Mamdani – all personal heroes and role models of mine!

This is my tentative and quite busy schedule – still I hope to also have much time for networking and one-on-one-talks! See you there?

Thu

10.30-11.30 My AfricaNOW! panel, see description below

2:00 pm  [Room L403]   Reframing anthropology

2-3.45 publish that article

4-5.45 pitch that article

7.30-9.30 Welcome reception at Morehouse College

Fri

8:30 am [International Hall C]  Registers of Belief, Creativity and Power in Ghana

2-3.45 CCNY Publishing in for Africa

4-5pm Kofi Annan by Ato Quayson

6-7pm President’s Lecture Jean Allman

 7:15 pm in M302 Ghana Business meeting

Sat

7.30-8.30 Queer African Studies association meeting

10:30 am    Roundtable: Futures—African Studies and the Racial Politics of Knowledge Production, 1998-2028 

12.45-2pm Womens Luncheon: Minna Salami

2:00 pm  [International Hall C] Roundtable: Ghanaian Popular Culture Studies: (also Advocacy, also Flash presentations)

6-7pm Mahmood Mamdani Hoormud lecture

7-12pm Awards and Dance party

AfricaNOW!

The increase of politically motivated Internet Shutdowns in Africa: Lessons from democracy research and activism

This session seeks to frame a discussion on internet disruptions as a frontier of democracy research and activism on the continent and seeks to be highly interactive. After an introductory presentation on the state of internet disruptions in Africa, an academic discussant will highlight pertinent issues for democracy scholars and an activist discussant will report on new strategies to curb these disruptions.

Recent elections where shutdowns have been an issue: Mali (August), Cameroon (October),

Dr. Kajsa Hallberg Adu, Ashesi University (presenter), Dr. George Bob-Milliar, KNUST, Ghana (Academic Discussant), Mr. Peter Micek, General Counsel, AccessNow (Activist Discussant)

After an initial application, payment to MINT, or Step 1 of the Ghanaian Citizenship process I covered in an earlier post, you get called to submit additional, but mostly overlapping documents to the Ghana Immigration Service located just behind MINT. In my case, the processing took just three weeks, but as I was called only once and not mailed, I only went back to check on my application months later, so here you need to be proactive.

The new docs are:

• A police report which cost 120 GHS. You need a passport picture and your residence permit. The process takes a week.
• Getting a tax clearance certificate can take long, so start in time. If you are employed, it is your employer who applies for you.
• As the government last week rolled out the National ID card, getting the Non-Citizen ID card has been impossible, but I was allowed to submit my paperwork without the non-citizen ID card (which ironically I have never needed to use before since its inception in 2014).

Next, I will be visited by an immigration officer in my house with my husband to make sure we are truly married and cohabiting.

After that we might be called for an interview to clarify if the visit was not satisfactorily.

Citizenship applications are approved in batches and I was told I just missed one, so waiting for the next.

So far the process has taken me almost a year since I started thinking about it and gathering the documents and since the beginning of June, since I originally submitted my application, that is effectively six months and about five visits to MINT/GIS.