Africa UP Close

Open to doctoral students at universities based within the U.S. and first-year doctoral students based at universities within the following countries: Botswana, Kenya, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. 

Workshop dates:

Spring – May 19-24, 2013 in Washington, D.C.

Fall – September 25-29, 2013 in Johannesburg, South Africa

This field focuses on migration as a form of individual and collective empowerment in contexts of economic and physical precarity. Examining movements primarily within and from Africa, it considers mobility as both a response to and transforming agent of acute socio-political and economic uncertainty in sending and receiving sites. Whereas predominant framings of displacement underscore disempowerment, our premise is that whatever its motivation—ecological uncertainty, violence, poverty, or persecution—human mobility fundamentally represents an ‘empowerment strategy’ through which people actively work to ameliorate their condition. Mobility from and within situations of precarity can transform opportunity structures, redistribute resources across time and space, and generate new meanings that are both intended and unforeseen. The consequences are often far reaching, not only for migrants, but also for dependents left behind and for those with whom they live near and interact where they settle.

Ghana Center for Democratic Development offers suitable candidates internship opportunities. The Center receives most of its interns in the summer though applicants may apply throughout the year.

Interns will be under the supervision of the Head of Research and Programs but can also be assigned work by the Executive Director. While at CDD-Ghana, the intern will be working with CDD staff on a number of programs and activities on democratic development in Ghana. Law interns work under the supervision of the Research Fellow (Governance and Legal Policy) and are involved in a wide variety of legal and governance research and advocacy.

The Center offers a wide range of internship opportunities to current, recent, or returning college students.