Coming of Age

It is so crazy that I have less than a month left in the States, and then off for a three month residency in Wiamoase, Ghana. Looking back, I am fairly satisfied with the progress I have made thus far. Of course, I could always try a little harder academically, but I do feel a lot more anthropologically capable. This year has been a unique couple of semesters at college. Freshman year I floundered around in generals, hating my science classes, and wondering if I should teach American Literature to high schoolers (good thing future students of mine missed out on that fate - they probably would not have appreciated my burning passion for The Grapes of Wrath, which I would have undoubtedly made required reading), or if I wanted to enter the Humanities, another passion of mine, but one with even less career opportunities than the social sciences seem to offer. It was not until my Freshman Academy mentor asked what I liked, and I likely responded, "to travel," and she told me about her sister in a major where all she did was learn about worldwide cultures.

That pretty much had me sold. I even got through Anth 101 with a certain professor who I wont name out of courtesy (but I will say has a nicely cultivated faux British accent) - this is usually the first ring of fire for potential Anthropology students - the department really should reconsider how the opening course to the major is presented. However, the next obstacle was my theory class. With one dry (and i mean DRY) professor and my first 20-pager due, it's a wonder I continued to feel passionate about anthropology. Finally, after Buonforte taught a linguistics class I had randomly signed up for, I no longer had any lingering doubts. My mind was probably opened more by the two classes I took from him than it had been for my 4 years of high school "education."

Anyway, the point of this post is to say that it all brought me to where I am right now. Studying methodologies and becoming excited as I realize what practical applications await me in the field of ethnography and development. Ghana will be sort of like an anthropological "coming of age" as I attempt to conduct real field work and apply the theory and methodology that has been pounded into my head. Hopefully the Ghanaians will be able to forgive me of my many, many inevitable blunders. I am sure by the time I am through, I will forever be grateful to my new friends for allowing my intrusion as I attempt to learn the ways of the anthropologist.

The Fences of the Western Mindset

While searching for literary sources for my research project, I started to notice some interesting things that correlated with the lesson we learned in the last combined class through the story of Rosemary and Hernandez. For one, I looked over the abstract for a book by Gwendolyn Mikell (an author who has been popping up frequently with feminist African studies articles in a variety of journals) that was about feminism in Africa. The abstract acknowledged that American feminist studies are often concerned with a woman’s sexual freedom and child-bearing choices. However, Gwendolyn focuses on African feminism movement, which is often more concerned with land ownership and economic control. This surprised me initially, as I would have never thought of this on my own, because my experience with feminism has been purely based on American ideologies and value systems.
When I went to my section class, and learned more about Ghanaian history, I realized how becoming more historically and politically savvy about the area would aid my perception of social issues within the culture. For example, the differences in feminism obviously stem more from cultural variations in concepts of gender differentiation, and possibly historical events that shaped economy (such as the European colonialism that brought the concept of “property” and land ownership to many areas in Africa). This is especially relevant to me, having been brought up in a very capitalistic nation with overarching ideas of meritocracy and fundamentally conservative values compared to many areas of the world. My facilitator, Jackie mentioned how Ghanaian culture often revolved around a community mentality, such as with the rituals of reciprocity, and already I could see how this could differ greatly from the capitalistic context I have grown up in.
These lessons are applicable to my project because they will help me be more prepared to approach involved issues with the expectation of them being conceptualized or approached differently than they might have been in America. For example, I may find that although I am concerned with rural children receiving adequate schooling, this might mean a Westernized standard schooling system in my mind, and could mean something completely different for Ghanaians. Maybe their perceptions of learning include agricultural education as equally significant compared to academics, therefore cocoa farming may seen as more of a help than a hindrance to children. I cannot be sure yet, but by studying Ghanaian history to better understand cultural implications, and readying myself for completely different schools of thought and value systems I will be able to make more research progress faster while in the field.