Institute of African Studies

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    Familial roles and social transformations: Older men and women in sub-Saharan Africa
    (Research on Aging, 2006-11) Oppong, C.
    By focusing on old people in sub-Saharan Africa, the author illustrates the need for comparative analyses of how culture, sociopolitical systems, and sweeping social change shape lives, interconnections, opportunities, and constraints among older people. In such work, gender contrasts are critical. Because of their position in reproduction and marital patterns, women in sub-Saharan Africa have tended to use lineal strategies, focused on children and grandchildren, in contrast to the more lateral, partner-oriented strategies followed by men. Migration into urban areas and the AIDS pandemic have left many older women in charge of grandchildren in rural areas with inadequate resources and infrastructure. Shaped by traditional values, norms, and roles in their early lives, they currently find many expectations unmet. Indeed, some of the traditional norms that ensured respect, support, reciprocity, and embeddedness may now leave many older people, especially women, isolated, weakened, and victims of illness and violence. © 2006 Sage Publications.
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    Gender and the stigma of onchocercal skin disease in Africa
    (Social Science and Medicine, 2000-05) Vlassoff, C.; Weiss, M.; Ovuga, E.B.L.; Eneanya, C.; Nwel, P.T.; Babalola, S.S.; Awedoba, A.K.; Theophilus, B.; Cofie, P.; Shetabi, P.
    This paper reports results from a multicenter study of gender differences in the stigma associated with onchocercal skin disease (OSD) in five African sites: Cameroon, Ghana, Nigeria (Awka and Ibadan) and Uganda. The studies used a common protocol to compare affected and unaffected respondents, that is, men and women with onchodermatitis in highly endemic areas and respondents from communities with low endemicity or no onchocerciasis. The methods were both quantitative and qualitative, allowing for the comparison of stigma scores and people's verbal descriptions of their experiences and attitudes. Questions to the unaffected were asked after providing them with photographs and short descriptions (vignettes) depicting typical cases. We found that stigma was expressed more openly by the unaffected, who perceived OSD as something foreign or removed from themselves, whereas the affected tended to deny that they experienced stigma as a result of the condition. Gender differences in stigma scores were not significantly different for men and women, but qualitative data revealed that stigma was experienced differently by men and women, and that men and women were affected by it in distinctive ways. Men were more concerned about the impact of the disease on sexual performance and economic prospects, whereas women expressed more concern about physical appearance and life chances, especially marriage. Similar trends were found in the different sites in the responses of affected and unaffected respondents, and differences between them, despite geographical and cultural variations. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd.
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    Plantations, outgrowers and commercial farming in Africa: agricultural commercialisation and implications for agrarian change
    (2017) Tsikata, D.; Hall, R.; Scoones, I.
    Whether or not investments in African agriculture can generate quality employment at scale, avoid dispossessing local people of their land, promote diversified and sustainable livelihoods, and catalyse more vibrant local economies depends on what farming model is pursued. In this Forum, we build on recent scholarship by discussing the key findings of our recent studies in Ghana, Kenya and Zambia. We examined cases of three models of agricultural commercialisation, characterised by different sets of institutional arrangements that link land, labour and capital. The three models are: plantations or estates with on-farm processing; contract farming and outgrower schemes; and medium-scale commercial farming areas. Building on core debates in the critical agrarian studies literature, we identify commercial farming areas and contract farming as producing the most local economic linkages, and plantations/estates as producing more jobs, although these are of low quality and mostly casual. We point to the gender and generational dynamics emerging in the three models, which reflect the changing demand for family and wage labour. Models of agricultural commercialisation do not always deliver what is expected of them in part because local conditions play a critical role in the unfolding outcomes for land relations, labour regimes, livelihoods and local economies.
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    Men Play, Women Break the Town: Gender and Intergenerational Asymmetry in Sexual and Reproductive Worldview Among the Ga of Ghana
    (2017) Atobrah, D.; Awedoba, A.K.
    A contemporary critique levelled against sexual and reproductive (SR) behavioral studies in Africa is the dominance of Western theories and perspectives, with the main language through which SR categories and concepts are developed and investigated being Western or colonial, which rarely correspond with local and ethnic conceptualizations. In this paper, we conduct an ethnolinguistic analysis of gender and intergenerational constructions of sexual and reproductive behaviors (SRB) among the Ga of Ghana. Ethnographic approaches were used to collect and analyze two data sources from seventy-two respondents; first, a lexicon of common words, phrases, terminologies and coinages on SR activities and relationships. Second, narratives on respondents’ major SR experiences, through a biography of respondents’ body methodological framework. Respondents reflected a high degree of conceptual baggage, underpinned by their own gendered SR experiences, in their selection and interpretation of the terminologies/words. Younger respondents were more likely to use flippant coinages for risky SRB, which resonate with their narratives on their casual and unrestrained SR behaviours. We discuss the SR health threats and opportunities of our findings.
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    Race, Gender and Global Love: Non-Ghanaian Wives, Insiders or Outsiders in Ghana?
    (University of Ghana, 2008) Darkwah, A.K
    Research on inter-racial/inter-ethnic relationships focuses heavily on relationships I the global north with limited references to those in the global south except for relationships that develop in the context of transactional, especially tourist-oriented sex. Drawing on the concept of intersectionality, this article seeks to redress that imbalance. Based on nineteen conversations with non-Ghanaian women married to Ghanaian men and living in Ghana, the article highlights the importance of context specificity in our analyses of the ways in which individuals live their lives as raced and gendered beings. In Ghana, we argue, race is not constructed primarily on the basis of phenotypical difference but, more importantly, on national origin and cultural difference. As such, perceptions of black and white wives do not differ in many ways. However, we also find that the fact of whiteness allows white women far more room to maneuver gender roles in terms of the ways in which they choose to enact their roles as wives.
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