What does it take to translate academic research into valuable resources and elements for societal engagement (and hopefully some societal impact)? In the past couple of months - actually since December 2024 up to now - I have been doing a sort of autoethnography in search of answers to this question. During this time, I … Continue reading The slow hard work of societal impact I: on needles and threads.
Where does one draw the line between the personal and the professional in the fieldwork context? Is the researcher self the same as the ‘normal’ self? And I write ‘normal’ in quotation marks because what is ‘normal’ and what is ‘not normal’ about the self? How much entanglements do we engage in as researchers between … Continue reading Namib Notes IV: When the field becomes personal and the personal becomes the field
Today 1st January 2025 marks my official promotion to the position of Associate Professor in the Cultural Geography Chairgroup at Wageningen University and Research. This makes it is exactly 4.5 years since I entered the Tenure Track system at the Assistant Professor 2 level -and some 5.7 years since relocating from Sheffield Hallam University as … Continue reading Associate Professor: storytelling and the tourism geographies of slavery and colonial heritage
Then King David went in and sat [in prayer] before the LORD, and said, “Who am I, O Lord GOD, and what is my house (family), that You have brought me this far? (2 Samuel 7:18 Amplified Version of The Holy Bible) What an incredible year it has been for me and my family! The … Continue reading December to Remember: Afehyia Pa ooo
*Rejection Notice*You win some, you lose some. You get some, you are denied some. Back in January 2024, I applied for an NWO (Dutch Research Council) Impact Explorer grant to do some pretty cool stuff - or so I thought 😀 The decision came back today and (un)fortunately my proposal has been rejected! It is … Continue reading Rejection notice
During this past summer I was in Ghana for fieldwork as part of my VENI research project. It was such a rewarding and challenging time in the field. I made copious observational notes and wrote my reflections on a daily basis during this time. However, since returning to the Netherlands and given the hectic start … Continue reading Lift every voice and sing: sound, emotion and affect in the fieldwork encounter
We finally found a home for this manuscript after almost throwing it in the bin at some point. The journey of this manuscript has been perhaps too long and understandably our love in this pet project began to wane. Thanks to my co-author Chris Mensah at Ho Technical University, Ghana for persisting when I wanted … Continue reading [New paper, Open Access] Tourism and Hospitality Research in the Peripheries: Thematic Focus and a Research Agenda from Ghana
A week ago on Friday 3 September, I had the honour and privilege of speaking at the opening of the MA programme in Development Studies and the Mundus MA in Public Policy at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) in the Hague, The Netherlands. It was an honour because the ISS is my alma … Continue reading “If it must be done, it must be done well..”: my talk at the opening of the academic year at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) in the Hague.
"I regret to inform you that the reviews of your manuscript do not support its publication and I must therefore reject it". My week could not have gotten any better nor more complete - we just got a co-authored manuscript rejected! So in a week when I got a paper accepted and won a grant … Continue reading Manscript rejected after reviews…boo!
After a shifting career ambition of becoming a TV News broadcaster and then dreaming of becoming an architect, I finally settled on the romantic idea of becoming an academic...I find myself looking back to see if my romantic ideas match up with reality – especially in the context of what I have encountered through the Postgraduate Certificate in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (LTHE) course....I'm left pondering though, on how my teaching skills and experience developed in the Ghana and the UK will translate to the Dutch context.
Emmanuel Akwasi Adu-Ampong 