Akosua Adomako Ampofo

In this video, Akosua Adomako Ampofo, Wangari Maathai Visiting Professor at the University of Kassel for the Global Partnership Network (Winter semester 2023), and Emerita Profesor at the Centre for Gender Studies and Advocacy at the University of Ghana, reflects on how knowledge about Global Africa has been produced. Through historical and contemporary examples, she shows the significance of Africa’s representations in daily life, academia, politics, health, and economy. She claims that decolonising knowledge is a matter of human survival.

Suggested Readings
Achebe, Chinua, 1958. Things Fall Apart

African Writing System https://www.bu.edu/articles/2022/fallou-ngom-discovers-ajami-african-writing-system/
Amin, Julius. A. 2021. “Equality, Non-Interference, and Sovereignty: President Ahmadou Ahidjo and the Making of Cameroon-US Relations” African Studies Review 64(4): 826-853.

Anyidoho, Nana Akua and Akosua Adomako Ampofo. “Informalizing the formal: The conditions of female agency workers in Ghana’s banking sector” Contemporary Journal of African Studies.  Vol. 5(2):67-92 https://journals.co.za/doi/epdf/10.4314/contjas.v4i2.3

Bhandari, Rajika, Hilary O’Haire, Shelley Landry & Jill Welch. July 2023. “The Interview of a Lifetime: An analysis of visa denials and international student flows to the U.S”.

Bonacci, Giulia. 2022.  “Geneology of an activist concept” Global Africa (1). [pdf available on line https://www.globalafricasciences.org/ ]

Chakanetsa Kim. “Cameroon's Ngonnso: 'My fight to bring our sacred stolen statue home” https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-65746910

Chasing Slavery’s Ghosts.  The Continent Jan 2023 111
The Case for Reparations https://www.thecontinent.org/archive

D’Alessandroa, Cristina and Leo C. Zulu. 2017. “From the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): Africa in the post-2015 development Agenda. A geographical perspective” African Geographical Review, Vol. 36(1): 1–18 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19376812.2016.1253490

Feminist Africa journal https://feministafrica.net/

Fuh, Divine. 2019. “Bending over backwards: dismantling toxic ‘opportunities’,” Journal of African Cultural Studies

Global Africa journal https://www.globalafricasciences.org/

Green, Toby. 2019. A Fistful of Shells: West Africa from the Rise of the Slave Trade to the Age of Revolution. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.

Gomez, Michael. 1998. Exchanging Our Country Marks: The Transformation of African Identities in the Colonial and Antebellum South. Univ. of North Carolina Press.

Honwana, Alcinda Manuel. 2019. “Youth Struggles: From the Arab Spring to Black Lives Matter & Beyond” African Studies Review Vol. 62(1).

Horn, Jessica. 2020. Talking Back: An Interview with Jessica Horn.” Interview by Rama Salla Dieng, Roape.net, January 21. https://roape.net/talking-back-an-interview-with-jessica-horn/

Imam, Ayesha, Amina Mama and Fatou Sow, eds. 1997. Engendering African Social Sciences. Dakar: CODESRIA. https://publication.codesria.org/index.php/pub/catalog/book/386

Joseph-Gabriel, Annette K. 2020. Reimagining Liberation: How Black Women Transformed Citizenship in the French Empire. Champaign: Illinois University Press.

Manthia Diawara, Manthia. 1987. “The Chronicle of Independence: A Short Story”
Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 August 2021.

Mignolo, Walter D. 1999. “I Am Where I Think: Epistemology and the Colonial Difference.” Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies 8 (2): 235–245. doi:10.1080/13569329909361962

Mkandawire, Thandika. 2014. “The Spread of Economic Doctrines and Policymaking in Postcolonial Africa” African Studies Review, Volume 57, Number 1 (April 2014), pp. 171– 198

Mudimbe, V. Y. 1988. The Invention of Africa: Gnosis, Philosophy and the Order of Knowledge. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.

Musisi, Nakanyike. 2002. “The Politics of Perception or Perception as Politics? Colonial and Missionary Representations of Baganda Women, 1900-1945” In Women in African Colonial Histories, edited by Jean Allman, Susan Geiger and Nakanyike Musisi. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.

Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Sabelo. 2022. “Unthinking Thinking and Rethinking African Future(s)” (scholarly review essay) African Studies Review 65(1): 267-278.

Neuberger, Benyamin. 1974. “Has the Single-Party State Failed in Africa?” African Studies Review Volume 17(1): pp. 173-178

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o. 2017. “The Future of African Scholarship: Resistance to European Metaphysical Empires” in Revisiting African Studies in a Globalised World: International Conference on African Studies edited by Albert Awedoba, Jacob Gordon, Esi Sutherland-Addy and Akosua Adomako Ampofo. 2017. Accra Smartline/Institute of African Studies: 41-52.

Nikoi, Nii Kotei. 2022. “The Global Citizen Festival in Accra”. Contemporary Journal of African Studies.  Vol. 9(2):214-220 https://journals.ug.edu.gh/index.php/cjas/article/view/1963/1196

Nosmot Gbadamosi. 2021. 
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2021/10/12/stealing-africa-how-britain-looted-the-continents-art

Okech, Awino. 2020b. “African Feminist Epistemic Communities and Decoloniality.” Critical African Studies 12 (3): 313–329. https://doi.org/10.1080/21681392.2020.1810086

Omolade Adunbi 2022. “Enclaves of Exception: Special Economic zones and extractive practices in Nigeria”. African Studies Podcasts

Otya’a, Nathanaël Assam. 2023. “Decolonizing inclusion: Pan-Africanism and the indigenous Pygmy peoples of Africa” Global Africa Issue 3.

Pam, Adama Aly. 2022. “History of Biopolitics in Senegal” Global Africa (2). [pdf available on line https://www.globalafricasciences.org/ ]

Peirera, Charmaine and Dzodzi Tsikata. 2021. “Contextualising Extractivism in Africa”  Tsikata Feminist Africa 2(1) https://feministafrica.net/feminist-africa-volume-2-issue-1-2021-extractivism-resistance-alternatives/ 

Pierre, Jemima 2025. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKcedkce2mY 

Rodney, Walter. 1972. How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Panaf Publishing.

Seidman, Ann. 1977. “Problems Of Industrialization in Africa” Testimony before the Subcommittee on Africa, U.S. House of Representatives, 15 September 1977.

When Women Speak. 2022. https://whenwomenspeakfilm.com/ 

Yousef Khalil. 03.19.2017. “The Legacy of the Algerian Revolution” Africa is a Country. https://africasacountry.com/2017/03/the-algerian-revolution-55-years-later 

Ziai, A. 2017. “Post-Development 25 Years after the Development Dictionary.” Third World Quarterly 38 (12): 2547–2558. doi:10.1080/01436597.2017.1383853 

Websites/Blogs

Africa is a Country https://africasacountry.com/ 

Black Central Europe https://blackcentraleurope.com/sources/1000-1500/ 

Black History Studies: Educating the Community to Educate themselves
https://blackhistorystudies.com/resources/resources/15-facts-on-the-moors-in-spain/ 

Critical Investigations into Humanitarianism in Africa  https://www.cihablog.com/ 

Did Europeans Discover Africa? Or Was It the Other Way Around? https://newlinesmag.com/essays/did-europeans-discover-africa-or-the-other-way-around/ 

Glossary of the Institutionalized Regime of Underdevelopment
http://thelionandthehunter.org/glossary-of-the-institutionalized-regime-of-underdevelopment/ 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akan_calendar