C A Akurugu
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 52551 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | C A Akurugu |
| NOMBRES | C A |
| APELLIDO | Akurugu |
| FIRMA | AKURUGU C A |
| AFILIACIONES | University for Development Studies |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6595-0993 |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 21 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 33 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 21 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2020 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 4 |
Negotiating Power, Reflexivity, and Positionality
This chapter examines gendered power dynamics in research as a native feminist ethnographer among the Dagaaba people of northwestern Ghana. Using a feminist decolonial framework, it explores fieldwork relations in light of the joking relationship between the Frafra and Dagaaba, and both the affordances and restrictions this offers. A decolonial perspective helps examine gendered power relations, identification processes, and systems of knowledge …
‘A chief who is a woman’
This article examines how gendered power and women’s subjectivities are discursively constructed within African traditional governance, focusing on the pognaa – a female chieftaincy position in the Waala society of northwestern Ghana. Drawing on decolonial African feminist perspectives and the Sociology of Knowledge Approach to Discourse, it examines how cultural norms, institutional dynamics, and colonial legacies shape women’s authority in trad…
Women’s agency in traditional governance
In this paper, we nuance the discourse on women's agency by situating women's agency within the constrained space of traditional governance in Ghana. Integrating intersectionality and decolonial feminist frameworks with primary data from personal interviews with 52 purposively selected participants, we unpack how differently positioned women navigate context-specific barriers. In the Ghanaian Kingdoms of Dagbon and Asante, we find that diverse ca…
Symposium on Carola Lentz & Isidore Lobnibe’s Imagining Futures
In this book symposium on Carola Lentz and Isidore Lobnibe’s Imagining Futures: Memory and Belonging in an African Family (Indiana University Press, 2022), the authors engage with nine distinguished Africanist colleagues. The symposium addresses, among other themes, the book’s theme of family memory as an innovative approach to African history and the opportunities and challenges of collaborative research and writing. The symposium is organized w…
Unveiling Inequalities
Previous research on representative bureaucracy has focused on the integration of women and minority groups in public administration with less attention being paid to the challenges faced by differently situated women within specific contexts in getting effectively integrated into public administration. This study addresses this gap by exploring women’s participation in local governance in the Northern Region of Ghana, focusing on context-specifi…
Reinvigorating Social Support Systems in Rural Northwestern Ghana
Scholars frequently allude to the concept of a supportive extended family system that provides a lifeline to less privileged members of society, such as the indigent and the aged. Yet, the extended family and the network of support it enables have come under immense threat from neoliberalism. This article examines the constrained role of the extended family system and its implications, based on residential ethnographic fieldwork data gathered in …
Power, Ontologies and Gendered Resistance in Rural Northwestern Ghana
This article examines diffuse and complex resistance practices that are exercised within the context of exogamous virilocal marriage and its constraints. In particular, we consider the deployment of songs and dissimulation as subversive strategies by women in a Dagaaba settlement in northwestern Ghana. We argue that, despite the constraints of marital violence and gendered subordination associated with exogamous marriage practices, and women's re…
Non-governmental organizations’ approaches to women's empowerment amid the Covid-19 pandemic
This article examines local non-governmental organizations (LNGOs) approaches to women's empowerment amid crisis and the implications for decolonizing women's empowerment praxis. The article draws on lessons from the Covid-19 pandemic and decolonial critique of development praxis to analyse LNGOs approach to women's empowerment. The study relied on snowballing to select twenty-six LNGOs operating in northern Ghana for in-depth interviews. Our stu…
The gap between us
While earlier studies on gender equality in parts of Africa revealed some understanding of feminism and the gains made by feminists’ movements across African cities, these studies were conducted largely in urban areas where cultures have been immensely inflected by education, traditional and social media as well as cross-cultural norms and values. The extent to which feminism—a philosophical and a political movement committed to drawing attention…
Small-scale gold mining and gender roles
It Was All Wrong and Shameful to Beat Her”
In this article, our aim is to foreground men's discourses on gender-based violence as linked to gendered hierarchies, power struggles, and social respectability in Ghana. Situated within decolonial feminist theories and drawing on interviews, we argue that men's interpretations of masculinity and the possibility of perpetrating violence against women is significantly mediated by such intersectional factors as sociocultural background, education,…
Marriage, bridewealth and power
This article examines ongoing discourses on the importance of the marriage payment and its role in constraining women's autonomy across societies in Africa. First, we review how bridewealth has been conceptualised across multiple disciplines, including the work of evolutionary human scientists. We then summarise our research grounded in residential ethnographic fieldwork data collected over a period of a year in a rural settlement in north-wester…
Women as Actors in Violence against Women
This article examines violence against women in marriage, and particularly, violence exacted or instigated by women in a relative position of power against less privileged ones, or what I refer to as woman-to-woman violence. This is carried out by paying critical attention to the network of relations and power dynamics between women and men within the marriage space, my designation for the physical space of the home, and the concatenation of rela…
Empowering rural women for sustainable development through the provision of water infrastructure in north-western Ghana
Gender performativity in rural northern Ghana
In this article, I draw on theories of gender performativity and on postcolonial African feminisms to develop an account of femininities in the rural context of northern Ghana. In doing this, I reflect on Judith Butler's theory of gender as performative, that is, as constituted by the reiterative power of discourse to create and also constrain that which it names. Through an analysis of the findings from my participant observation fieldwork among…
Bridewealth, Women's Subordination and Agency in Marriage
This article examines current discourses on the role of the bridewealth in subordinating women and the implications of gender justice advocacy that privilege the undoing of this practice. In northern Ghana, to liberate women from oppression, some women's rights activists advocate the abolition of the marriage payment. Drawing on ethnographic data gathered in north-western Ghana, we argue that dismantling the institution of the bridewealth risks w…
Horizontal Inequity in Healthcare Delivery
This article provides evidence of horizontal inequity in the distribution of the burden and benefits of healthcare in north‐western Ghana. A qualitative approach was used to collect and analyse the data on variation in perceptions of affordability of health services to rural and urban populations in the Jirapa Municipality of Ghana. The article argues that costs of transportation, food and lodging associated with seeking healthcare at the municip…
Real Men’ Support Their Wives”
Although there is growing debate among feminist scholars on how fathers often socialize their male children to aspire to embody specific values and behaviors, there is limited academic research on how fathers themselves construct and represent masculinity in Ghana. This article draws on data from six focus group discussions held with forty men to foreground men's negotiations, expressions, and representations of masculinity among the Dagaaba in n…
Performing Power in a Mystical Context
This article builds on recent accounts of diffuse and complex agentic practices in the global South by drawing on ethnographic data gathered in northwestern Ghana among the Dagaaba. Contemporary feminist discourses and theories, particularly in contexts in the global South, have sought to draw attention to the multifaceted ways in which women exercise agency in these contexts. Practices that in the past were perceived as instruments of women's su…
Redeploying the Abjection of the Pog Gandao 'Wilful Woman' for Women's Empowerment and Feminist Politics in a Mystical Context
In this article, I examine the marginalisation and abjection of strongwilled and assertive women in Dagaaba settings in rural north-western Ghana. This is done by paying attention to a local identity category known as pog gandao -'a woman who is more than a man'. The pog gandao , or what I gloss as the wilful woman, concept is used by men and women locally to stigmatise hard-working and assertive Dagaaba women. Drawing inspiration from the reappr…
Women marrying women in northern Ghana
Marriage, bridewealth and power
This article examines ongoing discourses on the importance of the marriage payment and its role in constraining women's autonomy across societies in Africa. First, we review how bridewealth has been conceptualised across multiple disciplines, including the work of evolutionary human scientists. We then summarise our research grounded in residential ethnographic fieldwork data collected over a period of a year in a rural settlement in north-wester…
Gender performativity in rural northern Ghana
In this article, I draw on theories of gender performativity and on postcolonial African feminisms to develop an account of femininities in the rural context of northern Ghana. In doing this, I reflect on Judith Butler's theory of gender as performative, that is, as constituted by the reiterative power of discourse to create and also constrain that which it names. Through an analysis of the findings from my participant observation fieldwork among…
Bridewealth, Women's Subordination and Agency in Marriage
This article examines current discourses on the role of the bridewealth in subordinating women and the implications of gender justice advocacy that privilege the undoing of this practice. In northern Ghana, to liberate women from oppression, some women's rights activists advocate the abolition of the marriage payment. Drawing on ethnographic data gathered in north-western Ghana, we argue that dismantling the institution of the bridewealth risks w…
Performing Power in a Mystical Context
This article builds on recent accounts of diffuse and complex agentic practices in the global South by drawing on ethnographic data gathered in northwestern Ghana among the Dagaaba. Contemporary feminist discourses and theories, particularly in contexts in the global South, have sought to draw attention to the multifaceted ways in which women exercise agency in these contexts. Practices that in the past were perceived as instruments of women's su…
Power, Ontologies and Gendered Resistance in Rural Northwestern Ghana
This article examines diffuse and complex resistance practices that are exercised within the context of exogamous virilocal marriage and its constraints. In particular, we consider the deployment of songs and dissimulation as subversive strategies by women in a Dagaaba settlement in northwestern Ghana. We argue that, despite the constraints of marital violence and gendered subordination associated with exogamous marriage practices, and women's re…
Redeploying the Abjection of the Pog Gandao 'Wilful Woman' for Women's Empowerment and Feminist Politics in a Mystical Context
In this article, I examine the marginalisation and abjection of strongwilled and assertive women in Dagaaba settings in rural north-western Ghana. This is done by paying attention to a local identity category known as pog gandao -'a woman who is more than a man'. The pog gandao , or what I gloss as the wilful woman, concept is used by men and women locally to stigmatise hard-working and assertive Dagaaba women. Drawing inspiration from the reappr…
Real Men’ Support Their Wives”
Although there is growing debate among feminist scholars on how fathers often socialize their male children to aspire to embody specific values and behaviors, there is limited academic research on how fathers themselves construct and represent masculinity in Ghana. This article draws on data from six focus group discussions held with forty men to foreground men's negotiations, expressions, and representations of masculinity among the Dagaaba in n…
It Was All Wrong and Shameful to Beat Her”
In this article, our aim is to foreground men's discourses on gender-based violence as linked to gendered hierarchies, power struggles, and social respectability in Ghana. Situated within decolonial feminist theories and drawing on interviews, we argue that men's interpretations of masculinity and the possibility of perpetrating violence against women is significantly mediated by such intersectional factors as sociocultural background, education,…
Horizontal Inequity in Healthcare Delivery
This article provides evidence of horizontal inequity in the distribution of the burden and benefits of healthcare in north‐western Ghana. A qualitative approach was used to collect and analyse the data on variation in perceptions of affordability of health services to rural and urban populations in the Jirapa Municipality of Ghana. The article argues that costs of transportation, food and lodging associated with seeking healthcare at the municip…
Real Men’ Support Their Wives”
Although there is growing debate among feminist scholars on how fathers often socialize their male children to aspire to embody specific values and behaviors, there is limited academic research on how fathers themselves construct and represent masculinity in Ghana. This article draws on data from six focus group discussions held with forty men to foreground men's negotiations, expressions, and representations of masculinity among the Dagaaba in n…
Performing Power in a Mystical Context
This article builds on recent accounts of diffuse and complex agentic practices in the global South by drawing on ethnographic data gathered in northwestern Ghana among the Dagaaba. Contemporary feminist discourses and theories, particularly in contexts in the global South, have sought to draw attention to the multifaceted ways in which women exercise agency in these contexts. Practices that in the past were perceived as instruments of women's su…
Redeploying the Abjection of the Pog Gandao 'Wilful Woman' for Women's Empowerment and Feminist Politics in a Mystical Context
In this article, I examine the marginalisation and abjection of strongwilled and assertive women in Dagaaba settings in rural north-western Ghana. This is done by paying attention to a local identity category known as pog gandao -'a woman who is more than a man'. The pog gandao , or what I gloss as the wilful woman, concept is used by men and women locally to stigmatise hard-working and assertive Dagaaba women. Drawing inspiration from the reappr…
Women as Actors in Violence against Women
This article examines violence against women in marriage, and particularly, violence exacted or instigated by women in a relative position of power against less privileged ones, or what I refer to as woman-to-woman violence. This is carried out by paying critical attention to the network of relations and power dynamics between women and men within the marriage space, my designation for the physical space of the home, and the concatenation of rela…
Empowering rural women for sustainable development through the provision of water infrastructure in north-western Ghana
Gender performativity in rural northern Ghana
In this article, I draw on theories of gender performativity and on postcolonial African feminisms to develop an account of femininities in the rural context of northern Ghana. In doing this, I reflect on Judith Butler's theory of gender as performative, that is, as constituted by the reiterative power of discourse to create and also constrain that which it names. Through an analysis of the findings from my participant observation fieldwork among…
Bridewealth, Women's Subordination and Agency in Marriage
This article examines current discourses on the role of the bridewealth in subordinating women and the implications of gender justice advocacy that privilege the undoing of this practice. In northern Ghana, to liberate women from oppression, some women's rights activists advocate the abolition of the marriage payment. Drawing on ethnographic data gathered in north-western Ghana, we argue that dismantling the institution of the bridewealth risks w…
Small-scale gold mining and gender roles
It Was All Wrong and Shameful to Beat Her”
In this article, our aim is to foreground men's discourses on gender-based violence as linked to gendered hierarchies, power struggles, and social respectability in Ghana. Situated within decolonial feminist theories and drawing on interviews, we argue that men's interpretations of masculinity and the possibility of perpetrating violence against women is significantly mediated by such intersectional factors as sociocultural background, education,…
Marriage, bridewealth and power
This article examines ongoing discourses on the importance of the marriage payment and its role in constraining women's autonomy across societies in Africa. First, we review how bridewealth has been conceptualised across multiple disciplines, including the work of evolutionary human scientists. We then summarise our research grounded in residential ethnographic fieldwork data collected over a period of a year in a rural settlement in north-wester…
Non-governmental organizations’ approaches to women's empowerment amid the Covid-19 pandemic
This article examines local non-governmental organizations (LNGOs) approaches to women's empowerment amid crisis and the implications for decolonizing women's empowerment praxis. The article draws on lessons from the Covid-19 pandemic and decolonial critique of development praxis to analyse LNGOs approach to women's empowerment. The study relied on snowballing to select twenty-six LNGOs operating in northern Ghana for in-depth interviews. Our stu…
The gap between us
While earlier studies on gender equality in parts of Africa revealed some understanding of feminism and the gains made by feminists’ movements across African cities, these studies were conducted largely in urban areas where cultures have been immensely inflected by education, traditional and social media as well as cross-cultural norms and values. The extent to which feminism—a philosophical and a political movement committed to drawing attention…
Women marrying women in northern Ghana
Reinvigorating Social Support Systems in Rural Northwestern Ghana
Scholars frequently allude to the concept of a supportive extended family system that provides a lifeline to less privileged members of society, such as the indigent and the aged. Yet, the extended family and the network of support it enables have come under immense threat from neoliberalism. This article examines the constrained role of the extended family system and its implications, based on residential ethnographic fieldwork data gathered in …
Power, Ontologies and Gendered Resistance in Rural Northwestern Ghana
This article examines diffuse and complex resistance practices that are exercised within the context of exogamous virilocal marriage and its constraints. In particular, we consider the deployment of songs and dissimulation as subversive strategies by women in a Dagaaba settlement in northwestern Ghana. We argue that, despite the constraints of marital violence and gendered subordination associated with exogamous marriage practices, and women's re…
Unveiling Inequalities
Previous research on representative bureaucracy has focused on the integration of women and minority groups in public administration with less attention being paid to the challenges faced by differently situated women within specific contexts in getting effectively integrated into public administration. This study addresses this gap by exploring women’s participation in local governance in the Northern Region of Ghana, focusing on context-specifi…
Negotiating Power, Reflexivity, and Positionality
This chapter examines gendered power dynamics in research as a native feminist ethnographer among the Dagaaba people of northwestern Ghana. Using a feminist decolonial framework, it explores fieldwork relations in light of the joking relationship between the Frafra and Dagaaba, and both the affordances and restrictions this offers. A decolonial perspective helps examine gendered power relations, identification processes, and systems of knowledge …
‘A chief who is a woman’
This article examines how gendered power and women’s subjectivities are discursively constructed within African traditional governance, focusing on the pognaa – a female chieftaincy position in the Waala society of northwestern Ghana. Drawing on decolonial African feminist perspectives and the Sociology of Knowledge Approach to Discourse, it examines how cultural norms, institutional dynamics, and colonial legacies shape women’s authority in trad…
Women’s agency in traditional governance
In this paper, we nuance the discourse on women's agency by situating women's agency within the constrained space of traditional governance in Ghana. Integrating intersectionality and decolonial feminist frameworks with primary data from personal interviews with 52 purposively selected participants, we unpack how differently positioned women navigate context-specific barriers. In the Ghanaian Kingdoms of Dagbon and Asante, we find that diverse ca…
Symposium on Carola Lentz & Isidore Lobnibe’s Imagining Futures
In this book symposium on Carola Lentz and Isidore Lobnibe’s Imagining Futures: Memory and Belonging in an African Family (Indiana University Press, 2022), the authors engage with nine distinguished Africanist colleagues. The symposium addresses, among other themes, the book’s theme of family memory as an innovative approach to African history and the opportunities and challenges of collaborative research and writing. The symposium is organized w…
Sociology (16 obras) · Gender Studies (14 obras) · Political science (12 obras) · Gender Politics and Representation (9 obras) · Law (8 obras) · Politics (8 obras) · African Sexualities and LGBTQ+ Issues (6 obras) · Gender Studies (6 obras) · Psychology (6 obras) · Sex work and related issues (6 obras)