Adam Ashforth
University of Michigan
Podcast
The RISE Podcast: Adam Ashforth on How Communities See the Role of Education in Malawi
Adam Ashforth discusses his ethnographic research in Malawi and what the education system looks like for the average person in the country.
In this episode of the RISE Podcast, Jason Silberstein, a RISE Research Fellow at Oxford University’s Blavatnik School of Government, speaks to Professor Adam Ashforth. The conversation draws on Adam’s ethnographic research to explore what the education system looks like for the average person in Malawi. He shares accounts from the Malawi Journals Project, which shed light on what most families see as the core purpose of education. In doing so, we learn just how absent the state is in many schools and how this space is filled with local relationships of accountability.
Links
- An Analysis of the Political Economy of Schooling in Rural Malawi: Interactions among Parents, Teachers, Students, Chiefs and Primary Education Advisors (Working Paper), by Susan Watkins and Adam Ashforth: https://riseprogramme.org/publications/analysis-political-economy-schooling-rural-malawi-interactions-among-parents-teachers
- The Malawi Journals Project (Archive): https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/handle/2027.42/113269
- Institutionalising Reforms from Below: When the State Fails to Lead (Blog), by Masooda Bano: https://riseprogramme.org/blog/institutionalising-reforms-below-when-state-fails-to-lead
- Summary of RISE’s Political Economy Implementation team and work: https://riseprogramme.org/countries/political-economy-implementation
Guest biography
Adam Ashforth is a Professor in Afroamerican and African Studies at the University of Michigan. Adam has published extensively on state formation and the political implications of spiritual insecurity in everyday life in South Africa. During South Africa's transition to democracy he spent many years living and writing in Soweto. He is currently researching responses to the HIV/AIDS epidemic in everyday life in rural Malawi and ethnic conflict in Kenya's Rift Valley. His publications include four books: The Politics of Official Discourse in Twentieth-Century South Africa (Oxford, 1990); Madumo, A Man Bewitched (Chicago, 2000); Witchcraft, Violence, and Democracy in South Africa (Chicago, 2005) [winner of the Herskovits Award, 2005]; and The Trials of Mrs. K.: Seeking Justice in a World with Witches (Chicago, 2018).
Attribution
RISE is funded by the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office; Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade; and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The Programme is implemented through a partnership between Oxford Policy Management and the Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford. The Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford supports the production of the RISE Podcast.
RISE blog posts and podcasts reflect the views of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the organisation or our funders.