The emergence and institutionalization of feminist geography in Ghana

Abstract

The emergence and institutionalization of feminist geography in Ghana was in tandem with the global feminist movement in the 1970s and its subsequent international women’s conferences. This paper discusses the pioneering work and research at the Department of Geography and Resource Development, University of Ghana, and its effect on the institutionalization and diffusion of feminist geography in Ghana. Through research and external collaborations, the need for gender as an academic discipline was strongly argued for and instituted as an undergraduate course at the Department of Geography and Resource Development, University of Ghana. These external collaborations with other feminist geographers in international geography associations and universities served as a boost as they created opportunities for highlighting the spatial variations in the role and situation of particularly women’s lives in Ghana. Subsequently, there was a diffusion of feminist geography research and its institutionalization as an academic sub-discipline in Geography departments in other Ghanaian universities. These notwithstanding, the departments of Geography in Ghanaian universities are still dominated by male faculty members. Moreover, research work has been mainly in the field of human geography more than the physical aspects calling for the mainstreaming of gender issues in all the systematic branches of the discipline.

Keywords:

• Development
• feminist geography
• gender
• Ghana
• pioneering worl

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Charlotte Wrigley-Asante

Charlotte Wrigley-Asante is an Associate Professor at the Department of Geography and Resource Development, University of Ghana, Legon. She has an MPhil degree in Human Geography from the University of Oslo, Norway and a PhD in Geography from the University of Ghana, with technical support from the Norwegian Council of Universities Committee for Development Research and Education (NUFU). Her PhD thesis focused on gender, poverty and empowerment issues in rural areas of Ghana. She has been a project team member on exploring Crime and Poverty Nexus in Urban Ghana, with funding from the Canadian International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID) as part of Safe and Inclusive Cities (SAIC) Initiatives. Her current research areas include women and cross border trading issues and gender, crime and safety in urban public spaces.

Elizabeth Ardayfio-Schandorf

Elizabeth Ardayfio-Schandorf is the first Ghanaian woman Emerita Professor in Ghana. She holds a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) degree in Geography (1969), University of Ghana, and PhD. in Geography University of Birmingham, England (1974). She did post-doctoral studies in Environmental Resource Utilization and Management/Rural Energy Systems at UNIFE/United Nations University, Tokyo, and a second post-doctoral in Women, Public Policy and Development at University of Illinois, Urbana Champagne, USA. She is a Member of the Ghana National Commission for UNESCO and a Member of the Advisory Board of the Journal of Humanities, University of Ghana. She was a former Head of Department of Geography, and Africa Representative of the International Geographical Union.