That Bird is Singing Us an Invitation to Meet Our Future: Listening to the Call of Sankofa to Develop Memory Practice Methodologies for Performative Practice

This thesis explores the potential of the philosophical, and practical, application of the Akan Adinkra principle of Sankofa, as a memory practice methodology that offers otherwise readings of remembering for lives omitted from or obscured from archives and official documents of history. The common meaning of Sankofa has been defined as get up and go get it” or “go back and get it,” in African Diaspora cultural and memorial practices with other meanings that refer to returning to the source to recover the past and it is not taboo to fetch what is at risk of being left behind. Represented by a pictograph of a bird with its head turned backwards, gently caring for an egg balanced on its back, Sankofa has been called on to think about how to reconstruct a “fragmented past” (Temple 2010: 127) This thesis explores Sankofa as a memory practice methodology, presenting a reading of the Akan philosophical principle through a black feminist/ decolonial lens. The research considers the potential of Sankofa as a guide in developing methodologies for a performative artistic practice that involves collective learning, remembering, storytelling and the development of communities of support, recovery, and transformation. The intent is to bring a perspective to Sankofa that thinks about how this wise bird holds and nurtures the egg on its back, caring for it and how the birds innate embodied wisdom can help us “to meet the future, undeterred” (Kayper-Mensah 1978:4). This research draws on an ongoing artistic projects Declaration of Independence and The Queen and the Black-Eyed Squint, both of which use methods of remembering to explore and undo memories of the continuing legacies of colonialism and enslavement

African Politics in the Digital Age: A Study of Political Party-Social Media Campaign Strategies in Ghana

Digital media is transforming politics. It has made it imperative for political stakeholders to come up with new strategies that respond to challenges triggered by the new digital communication platforms. Equally, the technological developments have affected communication processes and strategies in transitional political contexts, with varying impacts on democratic governance, political participation and forms of deliberation for citizens. However, the actual impact of social media on political processes remains debatable. Many issues emerge including not only how communications technologies revitalise campaign techniques but also how they influence actors, organisations and reorient political campaigning environments. In Africa, it is important to ask in specific contexts how the new technologies are reconfiguring the relationship between the rulers and the ruled, between politicians and the electorate. In particular, how has digital media facilitated new forms of political communications to individuals and groups? Has it gone beyond geography, class, gender, language or race? What has been the specific impact on campaign strategies, and their process and impact on electoral politics in countries such as Ghana, an emerging democracy? Through a case study, this research has explored the changing dynamics of election campaigning in Ghana in the context of social media. By examining the influence of Facebook, Twitter Instagram and other Social Network Sites (SNSs) for political campaigning, the research produces an original analysis of digital political communication, organization and mobilization, among others, as they are deployed by the main political parties, namely, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP), with a focus on the 2012 and 2016 elections. The study has adopted a qualitative research methodology, based on in-depth interviews (formal and informal), focus group discussions, as well as informal observation techniques, which were applied to gather original evidence. The main findings are that social media is implicated in political campaigns in multiple ways, with its ability to change, and are dependent on the availability of resources and policy frameworks that regulate and streamline their usages. The study shows how the campaign process is also implicated by political organizations, actors and voters, rather than just by the technologies. The research has uncovered the role of offline/digital ‘serial callers’, those quasi political communicators hired by political parties to influence political campaigning. Challenges and limitations notwithstanding, the research provides an invaluable insight into the relationship between the use of social media for political communication and its ramifications for democratization in Ghana. It contributes original insights on the shifts and impact of political communication within the African context

Opportunities and challenges of community-based rural drinking water supplies: An analysis of water and sanitation committees in Ghana

Providing safe drinking water in rural areas is a major challenge because it is not easy to establish institutional arrangements that will ensure that drinking water facilities are provided, maintained, and managed in an efficient, equitable, and sustainable way. Like many other countries, Ghana has adopted a community-based approach to meet this challenge. Community-based water and sanitation committees (WATSANs) are in charge of managing drinking water facilities at the local level. They are supported by water and sanitation teams of each district administration and by the Community Water and Sanitation Agency, an independent agency that has been created to facilitate the community-based approach. This paper is based on the analysis of two survey datasets of WATSANs and households in rural Ghana. The paper confirms some findings of the earlier literature on this topic. For example, communities that have a higher level of existing community groups are more likely to have functioning WATSANs, while ethnically diverse communities are less likely to have these organizations. The paper also indicates that WATSANs have a positive effect on the mobilization of payment for water services. Using empirical data on local leaders, the paper shows that leadership also matters for the provision of safe drinking water. In particular, the paper suggests that female leaders seem to be effective in this respect.Community-based resource management, Decentralization, drinking water supply, Participation, Sustainable development,

Holographic description of boundary gravitons in (3+1) dimensions

Gravity is uniquely situated in between classical topological field theories and standard local field theories. This can be seen in the the quasi-local nature of gravitational observables, but is nowhere more apparent than in gravity's holographic formulation. Holography holds promise for simplifying computations in quantum gravity. While holographic descriptions of three-dimensional spacetimes and of spacetimes with a negative cosmological constant are well-developed, a complete boundary description of zero curvature, four-dimensional spacetime is not currently available. Building on previous work in three-dimensions, we provide a new route to four-dimensional holography and its boundary gravitons. Using Regge calculus linearized around a flat Euclidean background with the topology of a solid hyper-torus, we obtain the effective action for a dual boundary theory which describes the dynamics of the boundary gravitons. Remarkably, in the continuum limit and at large radii this boundary theory is local and closely analogous to the corresponding result in three-dimensions. The boundary effective action has a degenerate kinetic term that leads to singularities in the one-loop partition function that are independent of the discretization. These results establish a rich boundary dynamics for four-dimensional flat holography.Comment: 43 pages, 3 figures, 1 tabl

Decentralization and local public services in Ghana: Do geography and ethnic diversity matter?

"This paper explores disparities in local public service provision between decentralized districts in Ghana using district- and household-level data. The empirical results show that districts' geographic locations play a major role in shaping disparities in access to local public services in Ghana. Most importantly, the findings suggest that ethnic diversity has significant negative impact in determining access to local public services, including drinking water. This negative impact is significantly higher in rural areas. However, the negative impact of ethnic diversity in access to local public services (drinking water) decreases as average literacy level increases. The paper relates the results to literature and discusses policy implications of main findings." from authors' abstractDecentralization, Access to public services, Ethnic diversity, Geography, Development strategies,

Evaluating the economic outcomes of the policy of fee exemption for maternal delivery care in Ghana

Background: The Government of Ghana’s fee exemption policy for delivery care introduced in September 2003, aimed at reducing financial barriers to using maternal services. This policy also aimed to increase the rate of skilled attendance at delivery, reduce maternal and perinatal mortality rates and contribute to reducing poverty. Objective: To evaluate the economic outcomes of the policy on households in Ghana. Methods: Central and Volta regions were selected for the study. In each region, six districts were selected. A two stage sampling approach was used to identify women for a household cost survey. A sample of 1500 women in Volta region (made up of 750 women each before and after the exemption policy) and 750 women after the policy was introduced in Central region. Outcome Measures: Household out-of-pocket payment for maternal delivery and catastrophic out-of-pocket health payments. Results: There was a statistically significant decrease in the mean out-of-pocket payments for caesarean section (CS) and normal delivery at health facilities after the introduction of the policy. The percentage decrease was highest for CS at 28.40% followed by normal delivery at 25.80%. The incidence of catastrophic out-of-pocket payments also fell. At lower thresholds, the incidence of catastrophic delivery payment was concentrated more amongst the poor. For the poorest group (1st quintile) household out-of-pocket payments in excess of 2.5% of their pre-payment income dropped from 54.54% of the households to 46.38% after the exemption policy. The policy had a more positive impact on the extreme poor than the poor. The richest households (5th quintile) had a decline in out-of-pocket payments of 21.51% while the poor households (1st quintile) had a 13.18% decline. Conclusions: The policy was beneficial to users of the service. However, the rich benefited more than the poor. There is need for proper targeting to identify the poorest of the poor before policies are implemented to ensure maximum benefit by the target group.This work was undertaken as part of an international research programme . Immpact (Initiative for Maternal Mortality Programme Assessment), funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Department for International Development, the European Commission and USAID