Adwoa Owusuaa Bobie – a career update
My path crossed with Foundation Oumou Dilly at the maiden edition of the CODESERIA Summer School in 2015. The programme was organized in Dakar, Senegal, in collaboration with the Centre for African Studies of the University of Basel. After the Summer School, there was an opportunity to apply for a full PhD scholarship among participants of which I won.
The Foundation sponsored my four-year PhD programme at the Centre for African Studies (Sociology option) at the University of Basel. The scholarship was comprehensive, covering my fees, stay, medicals, fieldwork travels and quota for book purchase. Living in a country like Switzerland, with its high living standards, the monthly stipend and medical coverage eased the financial burdens most migrant students face in Switzerland. The provision of fieldwork allowance afforded me the room to explore my interest in the African fashion industry, specifically Lagos, Nigeria. Studying the Lagos fashion industry was an ambitious task considering the fact that I had never been to Nigeria before the time.
Besides the financial support, the Foundation facilitated the creation of scholarly community for beneficiaries in Basel which became a social network that supported integration and intellectual development. This scholarly community have existed till date and has increased in membership over the years. Based on the financial and social support I received through the Foundation I was able to complete my degree on time amidst managing family back at home and two pregnancies.
Fortunately, I got an opportunity for a three-year postdoctoral fellowship in Ghana in 2019, few months before I completed my PhD. The postdoctoral fellowship was on the Ghanaian creative industry, titled “Advancing Creative Industries for Development in Ghana (ACIG)”. After completing my tenure as a postdoc in 2022, I was contracted by UNESCO for three months to consult as a researcher on the Preliminary Exploratory Research on the African Industry.
Currently, I am a research fellow at the Centre for Cultural and African Studies at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi, Ghana. My research areas are the African fashion industry, cultural and creative industry, gender and development studies. The Foundation Oumou Dilly continues to support my academic career by financially supporting my research work and conference presentations.