Brief Profile

Prof Akosua Adomako Ampofo was the foundation Director of the University’s Centre for Gender Studies and Advocacy 2005 to 2010. She was the first Professor of African and Gender Studies at the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana (UG). Prof  Adomako Ampofo is President of the African Studies Association of Africa; an honorary Professor at the Centre for African Studies at the University of Birmingham; and a Fellow of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is the immediate past Dean of International Programmes and the Institute of African Studies Director. 

Adomako Ampofo considers herself an activist scholar. Her areas of interest include African Knowledge systems; Higher education; Race and Identity Politics; Gender relations; Masculinities; and Popular Cher current work on black masculinities, she explores the shifting nature of identities among young men in Africa and the diaspora. Another project, “An Archive of Activism: Gender and Public History in Postcolonial Ghana” seeks to constitute a publicly accessible archive of, and documentary on gender activism and “political women” in postcolonial Ghana (with Kate Skinner, University of Birmingham; funded by the British Academy). Adomako Ampofo’s recent publications include:

• Producing Inclusive Feminist Knowledge: Positionalities and Discourses in the Global South. Bingley: Emerald Publishing (forthcoming & Co-edited with Josephine Beoku-Betts).
• “Young African Men’s Reflections on Negotiating Sexual Intimacy”. In Gabriela M. Torres and Kersti Yllö. (Eds.)  Sexual Violence in Intimacy: Implications for Research and Policy in Global Health. Philadelphia: Routledge (in press).
• “Re-viewing Studies on Africa, #Black Lives Matter, and Envisioning the Future of African Studies” in African Studies Review (59)2: 7-27 (2016).