Campus & Community

African Studies awards summer research grants

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The Harvard Committee on African Studies has awarded 11 research grants for undergraduate and graduate students to travel to sub-Saharan Africa during the summer of 2005.

The five undergraduates who received grants will be doing research for their senior honors theses. The six graduate student grant recipients will be conducting research for their doctoral dissertations. A portion of the graduate student grants are funded by an endowment established as a result of the generosity and commitment to Harvard African Studies of Jennifer Oppenheimer ’89, J.D. ’93.

The committee has awarded these summer research grants since 1984. More information on the grants and recipients for past years is available at http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~cafrica/grants.shtml/.

Following are this year’s undergraduate grant recipients:

Lindsay Crouse ’06, a history concentrator, will research “The Legacy of the Dop System: Understanding Alcohol on South African Farms from Colonialism to the Present.”

Kathryn Eidmann ’06, a social studies concentrator, will assess the “Role of Liberal Discourse in the Transnational Feminist Movement: Domestic Violence and Women’s Advocacy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.”

Bethany Hoag ’06, a social anthropology and African studies concentrator, will research “Displaying Pain: Community Theater in the Fight Against HIV and AIDS in Swaziland.”

Virginia Schnure ’06, a social anthropology and African and African-American studies concentrator, will research “Implementing Uganda’s Health Care System with Severely Limited Means: An Ethnography of Buhinga Hospital’s Doctors and Nurses.”

Zoe Sachs-Arellano ’06, a philosophy and African studies concentrator, will do a “Case Study on the Possibility of a Paradigm Shift in Approaches to International Development and Education: Focusing on Individual Agency,” in Namibia.

Following are this year’s graduate grant recipients:

Sharon Abramowitz, medical anthropology, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS), will research “Trauma and War in Civilian Populations in West Africa,” in Guinea and Liberia. She is a recipient of the Jennifer Oppenheimer Graduate Grant in African Studies.

Sana Aiyar, history, GSAS, will research the “Relationship Between the South Asian Diaspora in Kenya and the Government of India.”

Jonathan Harris, government, GSAS, will research “Traditional Governance and Local Economic Outcomes,” in South Africa. He is a recipient of the Jennifer Oppenheimer Graduate Grant in African Studies.

Anne Hazel Mugo, Harvard Law School, will be “Evaluating Firms’ Response to Information Costs and How Political Risk Is Necessary for Successful Legal Reform,” in South Africa.

Brian M. Wood, anthropology, GSAS, will research “Food Sharing Among Hadza Hunter Gatherers,” in Tanzania. He is a recipient of the Jennifer Oppenheimer Graduate Grant in African Studies.

Myles Osborne, history, GSAS, will research “Kenya’s Forgotten People: Ethnicity and Identity Among the Akamba, 1938-63.”