Susan Drucker-Brown's Ethnographic Research Amongst the Mamprusi of Northern Ghana with Dr Alicia Fentiman
This presentation discusses the ethnographic research conducted by Susan Drucker-Brown amongst the Mamprusi of northern Ghana. It focuses on her work on chieftaincy, oral history and rituals. It also provides recent reflections and recollections of Susan from the Mamprusi community in Nalerigu. These were collected by me during a field visit in February 2024. These reflections highlight the significant impact Susan had on the Mamprusi, and they are a testament to her enduring legacy.
Alicia Fentiman is a social anthropologist who has worked extensively in Africa. Alicia was a PhD student of Dr Esther Goody in the Department of Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge. Her research was conducted amongst the Ibani-Ijo in the Niger Delta, Nigeria. She also conducted post-doctoral ethnographic field work on a large comparative project with Esther Goody on Roles of Authority and Learning in Northern Ghana. She worked amongst the Konkomba. Alicia has applied her anthropological training to numerous international projects and consultancies on education and health. For the past twenty five years, she has applied her anthropological research experience to educational development issues, mainly concerning the basic human rights of children and youth, with a particular emphasis on access to education. She has spent a considerable amount of time in Sub-Saharan Africa working on a number of educational research projects for UNICEF and the Partnership for Child Development. From 2008-2014 she was a senior researcher at the Centre of Commonwealth Education, University of Cambridge where she managed two major research projects in Tanzania and Uganda. In addition, she was a mentor for the Cambridge Africa Programme (CAPREx) which assisted young scholars in Africa to work with senior mentors at the University of Cambridge. She has been a freelance education consultant and has worked for a wide range of organisations such as the World Bank, UNICEF, the Partnership for Child Development, Save the Children, DFID, FAHAMU, CAMFED, Namibia College of Distance Learning (NAMCOL), Botswana College of Distance and Open Learning (BOCODOL), and government ministries in Nigeria and Namibia. She has conducted numerous evaluations in education for a variety of organisations including the Africa Educational Trust, the BBC World Service Trust, the International Extension College, Botswana College of Distance and Open Learning (BOCODOL), and the Commonwealth of Learning. The findings from her research have been disseminated in various ways to a wide audience through refereed publications, reports and conference papers.