Dorothy Takyiakwaa is a Lecturer at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology and a Researcher at the Centre for Gender Research, Advocacy and Documentation. She employs intersectionality, feminist methodologies and decolonial lens to unpacking power and inequalities embedded in issues of gender relations, social justice, collective action, livelihoods, poverty, migration, conflict, social stratification, class, conflict, politics of and in Africa, and knowledge production. Besides her personal research and teaching, she has shared her expertise by consulting for UNFPA Ghana, Human Rights Advocacy Centre (HRAC), and Plan International Ghana. Other independent research and advocacy have been done with funding from reputable organisations such as the British Academy and the Andrew Mellon Foundation. Having been a doctoral fellow on the Academy for African Urban Diversity (2017/2018), Dorothy is currently a post-doctoral fellow on Andrew Mellon foundation funded project on ‘Entanglement, Mobility and Improvisation: Culture and the Arts in Contemporary African Urbanism and its Hinterlands’. She was a visiting scholar at University of Bristol’s School for Policy Studies, on a BIRCA funded project ‘Decolonising the Hegemonic Narratives on FGM’. Dr Dorothy Takyiakwaa studied at the University of Cape Coast and Hanze University of Applied Sciences. Before joining the University of Cape Coast, she was a Research Scientist at the Animal Research Institute of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research. 

Change is the only constant in our world. This means everything around is speedily changing mainly to accommodate and provide trends, tastes and new ways of doing things. This is same with the academic environment where diverse people come in periodically, new tools are emerging and challenges abound, yet higher educational structures are slow in catching up or even leading the change. In response therefore, I am open-minded and design my teaching and learning spaces (to the best of my ability) to utilize diverse methods (written, audio, visual, imaginary aids, online & offline) to engender student/learners creativity, give constructive feedback, and assess not only based on text but also discussions, debates, audio-visual and other creative outputs. From a feminist tradition of empathy, intersectionality and social justice, I encourage and provide alternative lenses (African and decolonial lens, power analysis) for my students and learners to be open-minded, ask questions, seek to understand and not to be afraid to critique local and broader social issues. Learners and students are also co-creators of knowledge: thus, I learn from them too. I work towards changing toxic norms and hope that through my teaching and learning attitudes and behaviours will change towards social justice.