In Conversation #005 — On Identity, Faith and the Power of Stories | Prof. Akosua Adomako Ampofo

Transcript

Professor Akosua Adomako Ampofo joins me for a wide-ranging conversation about identity, power, faith, masculinity and the stories through which we understand ourselves and others.

We begin with her idea of the classroom as an activist space and what decades of teaching have taught her about listening, disagreement and changing minds. That takes us into questions of faith, doubt and belonging: why changing a belief can be difficult when that belief also connects us to family, religion and community.

We then turn to African masculinities and Prof. Ampofo’s longstanding work on men and gender. Drawing on her research with young African men, we explore one particularly persistent expectation: that a man must provide. We discuss why unemployed men are judged differently from unemployed women as prospective partners, whether the male-breadwinner model is really as traditionally African as we sometimes assume, and how colonialism, religion and changing economic realities have shaped our ideas about men’s roles.

That leads naturally into fatherhood. What happens when we measure a father’s contribution primarily through money? What value do we place on presence, care and the relationship a man builds with his children? And what does the contemporary manosphere offer men when so much of its vision of masculinity revolves around status, wealth and control?

Finally, we discuss Prof. Ampofo’s growing work in film and storytelling, including 715House, which she co-founded with filmmaker Akosua-Asamoabea Ampofo. We talk about music and popular culture, why stories can make academic ideas tangible, and why theory and lived experience need not exist in separate worlds.

We close with three books: Peace Adzo Medie’s His Only Wife, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s Wizard of the Crow, and James Baldwin’s Go Tell It on the Mountain.

A conversation about masculinity, but also about something broader: how our identities are formed, what makes beliefs difficult to change, and the institutions, communities and stories that shape the way we see the world.

Source: http://www.africanmenspeak.com

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Ralph Ofuyo

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