Ghana, Published Elsewhere

The Recent Royal Visits on Africa Is A Country

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At the end of last year, I saw how Prince Charles of Wales was welcomed to Ghana – pomp, circumstance, and reverence – during his royal visit to West Africa.

I had an eerie feeling until I saw the billboards where Prince Charles and Ghana’s president stood together under the text “Shared History, Shared Future”. How could we understand this? To understand (but also fuelled by anger and disgust at this public, at very best, omission), I blogged and attended an event at Libreria to decolonise and discuss, but only this year with another visit, that of the Hollywood actors in the FullCircleFestival, I could tie it all up in a bow in an essay for Africa is a Country.

Find the essay here.

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Ghana

Tema – Center of the World (Call for Presentations)

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The Ghana Studies Association is organizing its triannual conference this summer and together with two fabulous colleagues, DK Osseo-Asare and Kuukuwa Manful, I am organizing a Visual Roundtable with Flash Presentations. If you are a researcher who has taken an interest in the city of Tema, Ghana (an extremely interesting space, if I may say so myself as an inhabitant since 12 years), do apply to join us, details below!

City of Tema: Center of the World

While the harbor town of Tema geographically is the center of the world as it encompasses the Greenwich meridian and is the closest landmass to the equator passing Ghana in the ocean, as a planned urban space it also can be understood as central to Ghana’s historical modernization efforts and hence nation building.

In the words of Nkrumah at the official opening of the Tema Harbour, Tema “represents the purposeful beginning of the industrialisation of Ghana”. From the late 1950s to mid 1960s, Tema, true to intentions was both a symbol of and an experiment in modernity and modernisation. Furthermore, Tema was a global city interlinked with the global community through the siting of multinational companies, internal and international migration as well as the harbour which was a hub for West Africa. Paradoxically, the proximity to the capital Accra made Tema peripheral in certain ways and this was exacerbated by the downfall of industries and the decline of Nkrumah’s modernisation project.

What is Tema today and what are unique experiences of Tema like? Is it still central to Ghana, West Africa and the world? What are the contemporary (legacies of) expressions of modernity in Tema?

This session aims to discuss the centeredness of the town of Tema as part of a local and global network of ports and places, from both a historical and contemporary perspective – with a focus on lived experiences, urban planning, design, art and architecture, borders, boundaries, commerce, the state, and transnational entities.

This 90-minute session welcomes 5-minute flash presentations with up to 10 slides and will include a closing conversation making it a visual roundtable.

Chairs: Kajsa Hallberg Adu, Ashesi University; Kuukuwa Manful, SOAS University of London; DK Osseo-Asare, Penn State.

Please submit your flash presentation or a 250-word abstract by email to khadu@ashesi.edu.ghby 27 Jan

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Ghana, PhD, Sweden

Sabbatical or Time to Think, Read, and Write

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I am lucky enough to work in a sector where there is a tradition to allow a block of time every 6-7-8 years of employment to focus on research. The time has come to me and this spring, Jan-May, I will be 100% focused on thinking, reading, and writing.

It is exhilarating – so much potential! – and scary. I am worried I will somehow squander the time, get derailed by emails, or just get less productive when the walls of structure that I am used to are gone.

Three weeks into the sabbatical, I am still a bit worried, although have read much more research already than I did all of last semester, and asked senior colleagues for help and guidance. I am also walking more, both to lessen the anxiety and to think better. But should I continue to work from my house with all distractions that come with it or should I find an office space away from home? For now, I am taking up colleagues on their offers of co-writing sessions and paying a short-term visit to a research environment in Sweden for focus and inspiration.

Potential Outputs

  • I hope to finish four papers that are almost (some just halfway) done and send them off to academic journals (and attend fewer conferences and workshops). 
  • I also want to publish shorter texts with more popular outlets (and write fewer emails and blog posts). 
  • I also hope to read more, especially classic texts like Nkrumah and Mamdani but also new ones, especially on decolonial theory and higher education, as well as monographs by researchers I know and aspire to write like (and do fewer lists of books and articles I should read). 
  • I want to do two-three sets of interviews to deepen projects already started (and not only rely on previous data I have collected)
  • I want to apply for research funding (and not think too much about what I am teaching next). 
  • Finally, I want to relax my body which has patiently supported a four-hour daily commute for years!

What would you do if you had five months of work time to plan yourself?

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Ghana, Personal

Becoming Ghanaian: Registration as a Citizen Part 3 – The Interview

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After 11 years in Ghana, I have applied to become a Ghanaian Citizen. This is the third post in the series of my experience of the application process. Read part 1 Submitting the application and paying the fee and 2 Submitting the Application to Ghana Immigration Service.

Just before the holidays, I sent a few WhatsApp 

messages to my Ministry of Interior contact to ask of my citizenship application. I wanted specifically to know if the application had reached the stage where they would make a home visit and interview my husband and me. After a little back and forth, we decided on the last Friday before Christmas.

It was a brief affair. After arriving almost two hours late, due to Christmas traffic and phone network disturbances to clarify our location, the visit / interview seemed to be centered around two issues:

  1. Did we live where we said we lived?
  2. Had my husband written the “consent letter” to support my application included in my docket?

Everything else was pleasantries that reminded me of cordial, although formal, family visits before an engagement or similar where you take turns to welcome/accept the welcome, offer water/drink the water, and state the purpose of the visit/ accept the purpose of the visit.

At the tail end of the two officers’ visit, we enquired how long it would be before my application was concluded and were told it would most likely be finalized in the first quarter of this year.

So there we have it, step three toward my Ghanaian citizenship is now behind me. End of this month, it will be one year since I started the process and took the selfie that illustrates this post at the Ministries in Accra. 

If you have any questions on this process, please post them below and I will do what I can to help.

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