Announcing the winners of the 2015 GSA Research Grants!

 

Patience Gyamenah--2015 GSA Research Grant winner

Patience Gyamenah is an MPhil student and a graduate assistant at the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana, where she is completing a dissertation in Anthropology of Health, focusing on the relationship between cultural beliefs on illness causation and health-seeking behaviours. Patience’s research in “Culture and healthcare pluralism among Akan cancer patients in Ghana” examines the perspective of cancer patients regarding their choice of health care; this involves their conceptualization of their illness with respect to illness causation, reasons for and implications of their choices. The grant will be used to conduct fieldwork on cancer patients at Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital in Kumasi, Ghana.

 

 

 

IAS_0671Patricia Afrifa is a PhD student of the Institute of African of African Studies, at the University of Ghana. She will apply the GSA grant to her research work on “Formalised Childcare Arrangements in Ghana: A Study of Selected Day Care Centres in Accra”. Formalised child care arrangements are a growing and viable option for working parents due to changes in functions of traditional institutions like the extended family. Using qualitative methods, the study examines the nature of care in day centers and the factors that influence the choice of care by parents. The grant will cover the cost of transportation for visiting day care centers; to pretest data gathering instrument; and finally to conduct interviews.

 

 

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Samson Ninfaazu--2015 GSA Research Grant winner

Samson Ninfaazu is doctoral student in Social History at the Institute of African studies at the University of Ghana. His research topic is titled “Disambiguating the ambiguities: a socio-historical study of the Lobi of northwestern Ghana” in which he challenges the ethnic categories that European anthropology has imposed on people who self-identify as Lo-Birirfor, Lo-Dagaa and Lo-Wiile. The grant will be used for trips to Lobi Library at Jabuge in Burkina Faso to read, scan and interpret French documents since I am not literate in French. He also plans to visit the towns of Gaua, Lagmoia, Bakye in Burkina Faso and Cote D’Ivoire and Nadom, Lawra, Lassia Tuolu, Kalba in Ghana to conduct interviews.