Applying the “baby nursing model” in under-resourced audiovisual archives in Africa

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith Opoku-Boateng
Keyword(s):  
African Countries ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Field Recordings ◽  
Extensive Documentation ◽  
Audiovisual Archives ◽  
The University ◽  
Traditional Arts ◽  
University Of Ghana ◽  
Private Collections ◽  
Positive Results

It is a well-known fact that there has been extensive documentation of African traditional arts in post-colonial Africa, which has contributed to the growing accumulation of field recordings in Africa that could form the nucleus for archives in individual African countries. These include private collections as well as recordings at broadcasting and television stations; government ministries such as Tourism, Culture and Information; museums and academic institutions. Sadly, these precious traditions – which have been expensively captured – are often not properly managed in their host institutions. The caretakers of this heritage mostly sit by as collections deteriorate and sometimes are disposed of due to lack of institutional support. Such practices prevail in most African archives. This paper proposes a new mode of consciousness of the value of audiovisual heritage materials by comparing them with human babies. This new archival management principle, ‘the baby nursing model’, has been adopted and practiced at the University of Ghana and has achieved positive results.

The nature of E-learning adoption by stakeholders of a university in Africa

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 226-243 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Ansong ◽  
Richard Boateng ◽  
Sheena L Boateng ◽  
Augustus B Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Learning System ◽  
Future Research ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Learning Platform ◽  
E Learning ◽  
Future Research Directions ◽  
Multi Stakeholder ◽  
The University ◽  
University Of Ghana ◽  
To Receive

Studies looking at the nature of technology adoption from a multi-dimensional perspective have remained below expectation especially in African countries. This study, therefore, sought to explore the nature of e-learning adoption in the University of Ghana using a multi-stakeholder approach. A quantitative survey approach was adopted for this study. The three major categories of stakeholders (students, instructors and e-learning administrators) responded to a questionnaire on the nature of their engagement with the Sakai Learning Management System of the University of Ghana. The data were analysed using the descriptive statistics. The analysis revealed that e-learning was yet to receive a university-wide adoption and again it was discovered that, the prevalent activity on the e-learning platform was “viewing marks and grades.” And some of the activities were less popular with the users of the e-learning system. For instance, “Detecting and fishing out cheating and plagiarism in students’ or researchers’ work” was the least popular activity on the e-learning platform. The originality of the study lies in the multi-faceted (student, lecturers/instructors and e-learning administrators) approach to the study of e-learning adoption in an African country. The study concludes with a discussion of implications and future research directions.

scholarly journals The Union Trade Company and Its Recordings: An Unintentional Documentation of West African Popular Music, 1931–1957

2004 ◽  
Vol 31 ◽  
pp. 393-405
Author(s):  
Veit Arlt
Keyword(s):  
Popular Music ◽  
Leisure Activities ◽  
West African ◽  
Cape Coast ◽  
Trading Company ◽  
Field Recordings ◽  
Musical Cultures ◽  
Postcolonial Africa ◽  
The University ◽  
University Of Ghana

This paper introduces a unique collection of roughly 700 historical recordings of African popular music generated by a Swiss trading company, which today is located at the archives of mission 21 (formerly Basel Missioin) in Basel. The music was recorded and distributed by the Union Trade Company of Basel (UTC) during the 1930s and 1950s in the Gold Coast and Nigeria. The collection represents a rich resource for the study of African history and cultures and caters for the growing interest shown by social historians of Africa in everyday life and accordingly in leisure activities and consumption.As music and dance undoubtedly play an important role in African social and religious life, they have received much attention and there is a longstanding tradition of ethnomusicological research that has led to a great number of sound collections. The historian interested in the “modern” and “postmodern” or in popular culture, however, tends in many cases to be frustrated by the material contained in these archives. The ethnographic collectors often showed a blind eye to the modernizing forces within the African musical cultures they researched and concentrated on documenting what they perceived as the “original” or “traditional.” Furthermore the collection and documentation of the popular music of the day was rarely on the agenda of national research institutions and archives in postcolonial Africa. In the case of Ghana at least three initiatives have resulted in important collections of music that go beyond a narrow ethnographic documentation. The first, by Prof. Kwabena Nketia at the Centre of African Studies at the University of Ghana, features a mixture of field recordings and a few commercial records. The others focus specifically on the commercial and popular. These are the Gramophone Records Museum in Cape Coast, discussed below by its founder Kwame Sarpong and the Bokoor African Popular Music Archives Foundation (BAPMAF) of John Collins in Accra.

scholarly journals COVID-19 pandemic in resource-poor countries: challenges, experiences and opportunities in Ghana

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (08) ◽  
pp. 838-843 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Kwame Afriyie ◽  
George Awuku Asare ◽  
Seth Kwabena Amponsah ◽  
Brian Godman
Keyword(s):  
Protective Equipment ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Mechanical Ventilators ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Poor Countries ◽  
Fast Tracking ◽  
Novel Coronavirus ◽  
The University ◽  
University Of Ghana ◽  
Initial Results

The novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19, is seen world-wide. In developing countries, adequate health facilities and staff numbers are a concern. Ghana recorded its first 2 cases of COVID-19 on 12 March 2020. On 30 March 2020, a partial lockdown for 14 days was imposed and later extended along with other measures. By the end of the initial lockdown, 19 April 2020, an estimated 86,000 people had been traced and 68,591 tests performed. Of the 68,591 tests, there were 1,042 (1.5%) positive cases, 9 deaths, and 99 recoveries, with Ghana ranked number one among African countries in administering tests per million people. Ghana’s effective track and trace system, as well as lockdown and other measures, have helped limit mortality with only 85 recorded deaths by 23 June 2020. Scientists from three facilities of the University of Ghana have also successfully sequenced the genomes of COVID-19 from 15 confirmed cases, and the Food and Drugs Authority in Ghana have also helped address shortages by fast-tracking certification of hand sanitizers and local production of 3.6 million standardized personal protective equipment. There has also been the development of prototypes of locally-manufactured mechanical ventilators to meet local need at intensive care units. Most people have also resorted to changing diets and the use of supplements to boost their immune system. Although initial results are encouraging, further research is needed to understand the dynamics of COVID-19 in Ghana and provide additional guidance.

scholarly journals LAW, RELIGION, AND SAME-SEX RELATIONS IN AFRICA

2021 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-71
Author(s):  
M. Christian Green
Keyword(s):  
Moral Issue ◽  
African Continent ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Biblical Law ◽  
Moral Issues ◽  
International Conference ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Political Act ◽  
The University ◽  
University Of Ghana

Some years back, around 2013, I was asked to write an article on the uses of the Bible in African law. Researching references to the Bible and biblical law across the African continent, I soon learned that, besides support for arguments by a few states in favor of declaring themselves “Christian nations,” the main use was in emerging debates over homosexuality and same-sex relationships—almost exclusively to condemn those relationships. In January 2013, the newly formed African Consortium for Law and Religion Studies (ACLARS) held its first international conference at the University of Ghana Legon. There, African sexuality debates emerged forcefully in consideration of a paper by Sylvia Tamale, then dean of the Makarere University School of Law in Uganda, who argued pointedly, “[P]olitical Christianity and Islam, especially, have constructed a discourse that suggests that sexuality is the key moral issue on the continent today, diverting attention from the real critical moral issues for the majority of Africans . . . . Employing religion, culture and the law to flag sexuality as the biggest moral issue of our times and dislocating the real issue is a political act and must be recognised as such.”

Archaeology at the University of Ghana, Legon

1968 ◽  
Vol 11 (03) ◽  
pp. 314-315
Author(s):  
Merrick Posnansky
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Research Work ◽  
Guinea Coast ◽  
The Past ◽  
Volta Basin ◽  
Senior Research ◽  
Extensive Program ◽  
The University ◽  
University Of Ghana ◽  
Source Of Information

In October 1968, the University of Ghana commenced an extensive program in African archaeology. Graduate students from overseas are eligible to enroll for courses at the University, though no scholarships are presently available for non-Ghanaians. The Department of Archaeology of the University of Ghana was established in 1951 under the professorship of A. W. Lawrence. It presently has a senior teaching establishment of four together with a curator and two senior research fellows under the chairmanship of Professor Merrick Posnansky. The Department has a small specialist library, a museum, laboratory, dark room, workshops, and a team of trained technical staff. Most of the Department's research work is normally conducted in the dry season from November to May each year. In the past Professor Oliver Davies, author of the Quaternary of the Guinea Coast (1964) and West Africa before the Europeans (1967), conducted extensive fieldwork relating to the Stone Age and neolithic periods of Ghana's past and made large surface collections from all parts of Ghana which provide a rich topographical source of information on archaeology in Ghana. The Department has conducted extensive excavations in Ghana and its research fellows are presently engaged in writing up the results of the Volta Basin Research Project, in which more than thirty sites have been excavated since 1963 in advance of the formation of a large lake consequent upon the construction of the Volta Dam. The majority of the excavated sites have been of Iron Age date. In September 1968, Mr. C. Flight commenced a new season of excavations at “Neolithic” rock shelter sites at Kintampo, where occupations and burials dated to the middle of the second millennium B.C. were uncovered in 1967. Other excavations conducted during 1968 included work by Mr. D. Calvocoressi at the funerary terracotta site of Ahinsan and by Mr. Duncan Mathewson at the seventeenth-century A.D. Gonja site of Jakpasere. In 1969 a training excavation will be conducted at Elmina on the sixteenth- to eighteenth-century A.D. town in the vicinity of the Portuguese castle.

‘An old and faithful servand’: A Pair of Early Seventeenth-Century Gauntlet Gloves given by King Charles I to Sir Henry Wardlaw

Costume ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 8-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claire Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
High Status ◽  
Social Significance ◽  
Charles I ◽  
The Social ◽  
King Charles I ◽  
Technological Developments ◽  
The University ◽  
Design And Manufacture ◽  
Private Collections

A pair of embroidered seventeenth-century gauntlet gloves, reputedly presented by King Charles I to his courtier Sir Henry Wardlaw, was donated to the University of St Andrews in 2001. This article sets out to uncover the truth behind this nearly four-hundred-year-old family legend by investigating Sir Henry’s royal connections and the social significance of the gauntlet gloves as a high-status, luxury clothing accessory. Based on the study of historic gloves in museum and private collections, it endeavours to date the gloves by discussing their design and manufacture within the context of seventeenth-century clothing fashion. This article also explores the symbolism behind the gauntlet gloves’ decorative scheme by unravelling some of the hidden messages that are conveyed about cultural, religious, political and technological developments and perspectives through seventeenth-century embroidery.

The First International Congress of Africanists

1963 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 250-252
Author(s):  
Michael Crowder
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Study ◽  
International Congress ◽  
The Political ◽  
Cultural Foundations ◽  
Political Unification ◽  
The University ◽  
University Of Ghana

President Nkrumah, in opening this Congress in the Great Hall of the University of Ghana, called for the objective scientific study of Africa. He urged: ‘While some of us are engaged with the political unification of Africa, Africanists everywhere must also help in building the spiritual and cultural foundations of the unity of our continent.’ This appeal had in a sense already been answered by the arrival of scholars from nearly every State in Africa.

An Archaeological Survey of Caves in Washington

1954 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 387-389
Author(s):  
Earl Swanson ◽  
Alan Bryan
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Field Work ◽  
Archaeological Research ◽  
Archaeological Survey ◽  
Large Area ◽  
Columbia Plateau ◽  
Long Period ◽  
Western Washington ◽  
The University ◽  
Private Collections

During a long period of the time when archaeological research was in progress in other areas of North America, the Columbia Plateau and western Washington lay relatively untouched and unknown. Only recently have systematic studies been undertaken by the University of Washington.The archaeological survey of cave sites in Washington, during the summer of 1952, is a part of those studies. The plan was to locate as many caves as possible, to determine if they had been occupied aboriginally, and to evaluate them with an eye to future excavation.Prior to the field work, reports had been received of caves in various parts of Washington, but the total was small, and we had little expectation of swelling the known number. Many of these had been learned of through newspaper clippings and letters, and from amateur activities. The problem, then, was not simply to examine a few choice caves for testing and excavation, but of surveying a large area in order to initiate an immediate program of excavation to save what remained. In addition to the survey of the caves, the University provided money for the examination of private collections.

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