Furman Professor Janet Kwami Receives NSF Grant To Study Gender And New Technologies

GREENVILLE, SC – December 8, 2010 – Furman University communication studies professor Janet Kwami has received a grant from the National Science Foundation to study how gender and new technologies intersect in the processes of social development among marginalized groups in developing countries.

The three-year, $445,000 grant is titled “How Marginalized Populations Self-Organize with Digital Tools: Ethnographic Case Studies.”  More than $94,000 of the grant is earmarked for Kwami’s particular area of focus. The study is a collaborative project directed by Kwami and Jenna Burrell of the University of California, Berkeley.
 
Kwami will investigate how Ghana’s “market women” use digital tools such as mobile phones and the Internet in the negotiation and coordination of trade and work.  This project builds on her previous research on information and communication technologies for development in Ghana, West Africa.

Kwami, a native of Ghana, said, “In this project, the issue of socio-economic development is approached not as a science applied by external experts; rather, we seek to understand how populations marginalized from the global economy or other structures of power attempt to achieve development for themselves, and how digital connectivity tools have become involved in their efforts.”Kwami, who joined the Furman faculty in 2009, is a graduate of the University of Science and Technology in Ghana.  She received her master’s from the University of Ghana and holds a Ph.D. from the University of Oregon.  Her academic interests include the intersections of gender, new media and social justice in the global South, mass communication and international communication.