About the Project
The When Women Speak film is an output of a research project titled An Archive of Activism: gender and public history in postcolonial Ghana. The project was designed and managed as a collaboration between Professor Akosua Adomako Ampofo (Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana) and Dr Kate Skinner (Department of African Studies and Anthropology, University of Birmingham) between 2018 and 2022. It was funded by the British Academy Sustainable Development Programme (which is in turn supported by the UK government’s Global Challenges Research Fund). The project aims to:
- Address gaps in our knowledge about gender activism and women in public life in Ghana since Independence from Britain, particularly under periods of single-party and military rule.
- Identify the issues around which women mobilised, and their evolving strategies for engaging locally, nationally, and internationally, particularly in the 1970s and 1980s.
- Use this knowledge to empower women’s organisations and challenge negative representations of African women and male-dominated accounts of nation-building.
- Create resources for educators, researchers, civil society activists, and policymakers.
- Inform public and policy debates on Affirmative Action and other gender concerns.