Speaker: Dr. Naaborle Sackeyfio, Miami University of Ohio

Abstract
The acceleration of Africa’s economic trajectory in the 21st century will likely depend on how effectively it marshals a sustainable energy transition. As perspectives shift to energy governance in the global south, African countries are assuming center stage. Accordingly, this project interrogates Ghana’s potential for an electric energy transition in the wake of intermittent energy crises and plans to implement a Renewable Energy Master Plan. Mainstreaming gender within the scope of political representation and an electric energy framework, however acknowledged, remains peripheral. Consequently, this project examines the role of gender in the political ecology of Ghana’s electric energy policy landscape in lieu of heightened attention on renewable energy. The latter focus, in particular stems from little recognition thus far about the intersection between knowledge production, representation and gendered dynamics for promulgating an electric energy transition in a country widely touted as a model state on the continent.

Biography
Dr. Sackeyfio is an Assistant Professor of Global and Intercultural Studies at Miami University of Ohio. Her first book, Energy Politics and Rural Development: The Case of Ghana was published in 2018. Her research interests encompass energy and resource politics; gender and the political economy of sustainable development in sub-Saharan Africa. Her research also interrogates the dynamics of rural and urban development and the wider implications for economic change, growth, eco-governance and sustainability. In addition, she is interested in the politics of “runaway” development, as well as the intersection between globalization, micro-finance, and economic empowerment for West African women.