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The First Four Female Academic Careers in Africa Workshops (2018-2021)

The first two Female Academic Careers in Africa workshops were run in Dakar from 6-7 December 2018 and from 14-15 November 2019. In 2020, the covid-19 pandemic hit the world, and the programme of the workshop, initially planned for April 2020, had to be adapted and conducted online in August 2020. The fourth workshop was hold as a multi-site hybrid event from 21-24 June 2021, with a main group in Dakar, two smaller groups in Bamako and Accra and one only online group. All four workshops were co-organised by the Merian Institute for Advanced Studies in Africa (MIASA), University of Ghana, together with the German Historical Institute Paris (GHIP), represented by Dr. Susann Baller. For the first workshop, they collaborated with the Dakar-based transregional research group “The bureaucratisation of African societies” (GHIP-CREPOS), and for the following three workshops with the Heinrich Böll Foundation Senegal. All workshops combined a non-public coaching seminar with up to twenty participants and a public roundtable, except the 2020 session. The first workshop in 2018 was attended by the two then MIASA directors, Professors Abena Oduro (University of Ghana) and Gordon Crawford (University of Freiburg). In 2019, MIASA’s future MIASA director ‘Ghana’, Professor Charlotte Wrigley-Asante (University of Ghana), the director of the University of Ghana based Center for gender Studies and Advocacy (CEGENSA), participated in the public roundtable.

MIASA CC-BY-4.0: 2018 Female Academic Careers in Africa workshop in Dakar, group picture

Writing strong applications and being assertive

In 2018, the conveners selected sixteen early careers scholars among 120 applications for the workshop, half of them based in Senegal, and the other half from Algeria, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Morocco and Togo. They represented different disciplines, including anthropology, history, geography, law, linguistics and sociology. Dr. Folashade Soule-Kohndou, herself an experienced scholar in political science with a background in Benin, England and France, led the coaching seminar. The seminar focused on tools for successfully achieving an academic career. The first session was devoted to the preparation and revision of CVs, cover letters and letters of recommendation. Soule-Kohndou demonstrated how women candidates often tend to unconsciously use gender-specific terms, which can weaken the applicant’s visibility. In addition, she shared recommendations how to write assertive cover letters and CVs. The second session served to discussing the role that gender concepts can play in teaching and evaluating seminars. This session also addressed the question how to become more resilient in situations of power abuse and sexual harassment in academic settings. The third and final session dealt with the possibilities of raising third-party funds and strategies for expanding international networks. The ihacrepos.hypotheses.org blog includes a summary of the seminar as well as feedback reflections by participants (Dr. Gogoli Ablavi Essayram; Dr. Oscarine Mela, Dr. Rachida Sadouni, and Dr. Soundoss Sabri).

Dealings with social stereotypes and underlying power dynamics

MIASA CC-BY-4.0: 2019 Female Academic Careers in Africa workshop in Dakar, roundtable

The roundtable brought together three distinguished speakers from Senegal, Professors Yacine Diagne (CESTI), Absa Gassama (Université virtuelle du Sénégal) and Fatou Sow (CNRS, Dakar), as well as one experienced researcher from Germany, Dr. Nadine Sieveking (University of Göttingen). The roundtable was held in French and attended by around fifty people. The speakers drew the attention to the extremely weak representation of women at the faculty level and in university leadership positions in Senegal. Sow emphasized that this situation has its roots already in the early days of Dakar’s university, when only very few women graduated who later could become a new generation of women faculty. Moreover, she underlined that until now too many young girls leave school too early. In addition, all speakers agreed that gender stereotypes contributed to which tasks women would get assigned or not. Diagne added that media played a role in reproducing these stereotypes. Sieveking shared the experience that it requires role models for encouraging young women to pursue their academic careers. The speakers also stressed the role of mentorship and support networks. Gassama, however, also deplored that data was limited for better understanding gender-biased power dynamics in academic institutions in Senegal, and that it would need closer monitoring across different universities in the country. A detailed report is accessible on the ihacrepos.hypotheses.org blog: ihacrepos.hypotheses.org/1578.

MIASA CC-BY-4.0: 2018 Female Academic Careers in Africa workshop in Dakar, roundtable: Dr. Folashade Soule-Kohndou (left) and Prof. Fatou Sow (right)

Reflecting about leadership styles and building up efficient team work

MIASA CC-BY-4.0: 2019 Female Academic Careers in Africa workshop in Dakar, group work

In 2019 and 2020, the same group of early career scholars participated in the workshop, six were based in Senegal and ten in nine other countries (Algeria, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, Niger, Togo and Uganda). In addition to the academic disciplines represented in 2018, also archaeology, economics, and philosophy were covered. The coaching seminar was run by a professional coach from Senegal, Patricia Sennequier (Beautiful Souls). The seminar combined discussions in the plenum and group work. Based on feedback of the past group, the seminar addressed five areas: (i) networking and increasing influence, (ii) being self-confident and assertive, (iii) developing career strategies, (iv) setting priorities and time-management, as well as (v) conflict management and leadership styles (based on Reginald Adkins’ “Conflict Management Styles Assessment”). For the second workshop in 2020, the group was split into four small groups of each four participants, who each met for two online sessions for further exploring three fields. Two groups worked on the theme of assertive communication, reflecting on how to prepare for challenging meetings and presentations, how to work on your individual style and how to support each other by amplifying each other’s voices.  Another group focused on the issue on how to manage hierarchies and the professional relationship with your superior by understanding the superior’s leadership style and adapting to it. Asking for feedback was mentioned as another tool to improve academic relations. A last group considered the topic of building effective teams. Group cohesion has to be created by developing trust, a sense of responsibility and the agility to integrate new members. Active listening, transparency, shared information and collaborative leadership are useful ways to achieve this. The ihacrepos.hypotheses.org blog comprises a report on the 2020 workshop (https://ihacrepos.hypotheses.org/3864) as well as a summary reflection by each group, i.e. “assertive communication 1”, “assertive communication 2”, “team building”, and “managing hierarchies”.

Academic career strategies and the challenges of multitasking

MIASA CC-BY-4.0: 2019 Female Academic Careers in Africa workshop in Dakar, roundtable

For the public roundtable in 2019, three speakers were invited, Prof. Fatoumata Hâne (University of Assane Seck Ziguinchor), Prof. Nana Charlotte Wrigley-Asante (University of Ghana) and Prof. Lydia Rouamba (INSS/CNRST-Ouagadougou). The welcome address was given by Prof. Mariame Hady Wane Ly (University Cheikh Anta Diop). They shared insights about their research on women in African societies and about their own career experiences as a woman in academia. All agreed the multiple challenges of dealing with academic work and excellency as well as the manifold social expectations at the same time, in particular, as a mother and wife, or as Wrigley-Asante put it: “You just have to work extra hard, but we have the power!”1 All underlined the support they had in their own families, especially from their husbands, and they indicated the crucial role male colleagues had in empowering women. Moreover, the speakers emphasized the importance of mutual support and mentorship as well as being self-critical in not just reproducing discriminatory behaviours towards other women colleagues or students. The speakers mentioned that for empowering women it was rather necessary to proactively encourage talented female students and to strengthen networks with women colleagues. The ihacrepos.hypotheses.org blog has published a detailed report on the 2019 roundtable: ihacrepos.hypotheses.org/3639.

Set your goals, pitch yourself, and support each other

MIASA CC-BY-4.0: 2021 Female Academic Careers in Africa workshop in Dakar

The 2021 Female Academic Careers in Africa workshop was still overshadowed by the covid-19 pandemic and multiple travel restrictions. Therefore, the workshop was organized as a hybrid, multi-site event. One group of nine participants from Senegal attended the workshop onsite. A smaller group of four participants from Bamako met at the Point Sud offices and joined the Dakar group online. The seminar for these two groups was facilitated by Prof. Fatou Diop Sall (Gaston Berger University) in French. Another small group of four participants met in Accra at MIASA. Together with four only online-participants from Nigeria and Uganda they followed a seminar offered by Dr Ruth Murambadoro (University of Witswatersrand) in English. Both seminar leaders used coaching techniques for accompanying the participants in a process of defining their strengths and goals, while reflecting on how to write a strong application and research proposal. Diop Sall underlined how important it was to highlight your competences and relate them to what is required in a call. Writing a research proposal follows norms and academic standards, but it also requires showing the relevance of a research project not only for yourself, but also for the institution to which you respond in a call. Murambadoro invited participants to carefully think about the attributes, skills and aspirations which describe you best, and to develop your personal “brand”. In addition, she also emphasized to consider well who will be the audience reading the application and what kind of expectations they will have. At the end of the workshop she recapitulated that the workshop had offered “access to more women seeking to create inclusive societies, where ideas, skills and desires of women are taken seriously” (quite from final report of Murambadoro).

Academic career opportunities and experiences

MIASA CC-BY-4.0: 2021 Female Academic Careers in Africa workshop in Dakar, roundtable

The 2021 Female Academic Careers in Africa workshop included two roundtables. One roundtable on the topic of “Funding: How candidates and projects get selected?” was not open to the public and run with simultaneous translation. The panelists represented German, French and African funding institutions: (i) Dr Sarah Ssali from Makerere University and member of the Social Science Research Council, (ii) Dr Daniela Kneissl from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, (iii) Prof. Amadou Mahamane from the University of Bamako and responsible for the Agence universitaire francophone (AUF) as well as (iv) Noloyiso Mtembo, coordinator of the Iso Lomso Fellowships of the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Studies (STIAS). All panelists shared information about what kind of grants and sponsorships their institutions offered for researchers based in Africa, and how their selection processes work. The second roundtable was public and attended by an online audience of over hundred people from across the African continent. It also offered French-English simultaneous translation. The roundtable focused on academic career success stories, but also negative experiences of women at different career stages, who teach and do research in the social sciences and humanities. The roundtable was composed of four speakers: (i) Prof Nadine Machikou (Université Yaoundé 2 and first female professor of political science in Cameroon), (ii) Prof Mavis Dako-Gyeke (Director of the Centre for Ageing Research at the University of Ghana), (iii) Dr Netsanet Gebremichael Wedesenbet (lecturer at Addis Ababa University) and (iv) Prof Djeneba Traoré (Director of the West Africa Institute, Praia).

  1. See for a full report on this roundtable: https://ihacrepos.hypotheses.org/3639. []

OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Susann Baller (January 30, 2022). The First Four Female Academic Careers in Africa Workshops (2018-2021). Merian Institute for Advanced Studies in Africa - Blog. Retrieved February 15, 2025 from https://miasa.hypotheses.org/3605


Susann Baller

Susann Baller is Senior Researcher at the Marc Bloch Center Berlin. From 2017 to 2023, she was affiliated with the German Historical Institute Paris (GHIP), Max Weber Foundation, which is also sponsering her current position. During that period, she was based in Accra as Director 'Germany' at the Merian Institute for Advanced Studies in Africa (MIASA) (2021-2023), and in Dakar as academic director of the transnational research group "The Bureaucratisation of African Societies" (GHIP-CREPOS) (2017-2020). Before, she hold different positions as lecturer and research fellow in Berlin, Basel, Paris, and Ann Arbor. Susann Baller holds a PhD in African history and is specialised in the history of African cities, youth, sports, decolonization and the representation of power in West Africa.

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