Partners

Prof. Dr. Valentina Mazzucato Maastricht University Professor of Globalisation and Development My name is Valentina Mazzucato and I am the coordinator of the TCRA programme. My interest in Africa was sparked many years ago when I volunteered as a teacher in a Harambee high school in north-eastern Kenya. Since then all my working life I have worked in and on Africa. In the transnational migration group I have established here at Maastricht University, we have set out to bridge boundaries between classical anthropological studies on child fostering systems in Africa and transnational migration studies to ask how child care works within transnational families under conditions of global migration and in a cultural context where child fostering is an accepted norm. We do this for various African migration flows, giving equal attention to outcomes for migrant parents and children and their caregivers back home. Studying and teaching such topics means bridging boundaries between disciplines and between geographical localities. My passion for this endeavour stems from my own transnational family life and the fact that bridging boundaries has always framed both my academic and personal life.   ↑Page Top

Dr. Bilisuma Bushie Dito Maastricht University Post-doctoral researcher My Name is Bilisuma Bushie Dito. I am a Development Economist from Ethiopia. I obtained my Ph.D from the Institute of Social Studies (ISS), Erasmus University in December 2011. Before joining ISS, I was a lecturer at the School of Economics in Addis Ababa University. I am currently living in the Netherlands and working as a post doctoral researcher at Maastricht University. My research interests are on the link between migration and development and also on issues of intra-household resource allocation behavior and its implications on individual’s welfare within a household. ↑Page Top

Miranda Poeze Maastricht University Ph.D. researcher My name is Miranda Poeze and I am a Ph.D. candidate at the Maastricht University. My current research addresses transnational childraising arrangements (TCRA) among Ghanaian migrant parents in the Netherlands and children in Ghana who have one or both of their parents living abroad. New configurations of relationships as a result of physical separation due to international migration has intriged me and is also part of my own life. I have spend several periods abroad, away from friends and family. Nowadays, the advancement of technology has made it easier and cheaper to stay in contact with those at home on a daily basis. These technologies have also enabled me to maintain a transnational love relationship; even though the distance at times can be difficult to cope with, with cheap airline tickets, internet and mobile phones it is possible to be part of each other’s life while living thousands of kilometres apart. ↑Page Top

 

Prof. Takyiwaa Manuh University of Ghana Institute of African Studies My name is Takyiwaa Manuh and I recently retired from the the University of Ghana as a Professor of African Studies. My interests in migration and transnationalism were fostered when I lived in the United States with my children for several years and saw myself as a migrant and a transnational. My Ph.D work on Ghanaian Migrants in Toronto, Canada, allowed me to share in the life and experiences of an active transnational Ghanaian community where I also observed at first hand issues to deal with the care and rights of the children of migrants, including those who still lived in Ghana. Researching those issues brought together my training as a lawyer and an anthropogist as well as my abiding interest and commitment to gender and women’s rights issues. ↑Page Top

Dr. Mariama Awumbila University of Ghana Centre for Migration Studies My name is Mariama Awumbila and I am currently head of the Centre for Migration Studies and also Senior Lecturer, Department of Geography and Resource Development both at the University of Ghana. My research interests include population, gender, environment and development inter-relationships, migration and development and in participatory research methodologies. I have undertaken extensive research and published in the areas of migration, livelihoods and development, land and natural resource tenure and management, gender and development and poverty reduction strategies. ↑Page Top

Dr Ernest Nimfah Appiah University of Ghana Post-doctoral researcher My name is Ernest Nimfah Appiah and I am a Research Fellow at the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research at the University of Ghana. I am a broadly trained social scientist with education spanning across disciplines such as Sociology, Population Studies, and Public Health and Policy. My interest in transnational migration dates back to 1998 when I undertook a study on Female migration and the health of children left behind in a rural district in Ghana. Presently I hold a Post-Doctoral Fellowship on TCRA and I have managed TRCA project 1 fieldwork in Ghana involving planning and data collection among basic school pupils and Senior Secondary school students, as wells as facilitating the data collection activities of Ph.D students on TCRA projects. Surely my involvement in TCRA offers me wonderful opportunities to advance my interest and knowledge in the ever relevant arena of international migration and its dynamics and impacts. ↑Page Top

Ernestina Korleki Dankyi University of Ghana Ph.D. researcher My name is Ernestina Korleki Dankyi. I am one of the two PhDs on this project and I am glad to work among my own people and in my own country, Ghana. My current research looks at the outcomes of TCRAs on left behind children and their caregivers in Ghana. Being a part of this project makes me a transnational mother as I have to leave my daughter with my mother anytime I have to travel to the Netherlands. Mine is a TCRA that mainly comprises myself in the Netherlands and my daughter and her main caregiver (my mother) in Ghana. My first experience as a transnational mother during my first trip to the Netherlands has given me a foretaste of what to expect from my respondents and I can’t wait to satisfy my curiosity as I journey through my second and perhaps most exciting year on this project. ↑Page Top

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Dr. Djamila Schans External My name is Djamila Schans, I am currently living in the Netherlands and working at Maastricht University. During my studies on migration, I lived in Los Angeles as well as Tokyo and I was fascinated with both cities! While working on a project on family ties of migrants in the Netherlands (NKPS), I became interested in transnational families. I am part of a transnational family myself, with my father currently working in China, after holding jobs in Japan and various African countries. Moreover, my small children communicate with their grandparents in Japan by webcam on a weekly basis. Although we are lucky to be able to move freely to and from Japan, the costs of doing so prevent us from seeing each other as often as we want. Nevertheless, modern technologies make staying in touch a lot easier! ↑Page Top