When it comes to teaching about Africa, active citizenship means everything to Political Science Associate Professor and Tisch College Adjunct Associate Professor Pearl Robinson.
“Everything I have done that might be categorized as ‘active citizenship’ has focused on two goals,” Robinson explained. “Empowerment that creates or enhances local agency, and activities that encourage the development of strong, effective, and culturally congruent institutions that people can use to enhance the quality of life.”
“In other words,” she explains, “the term ‘active citizenship’ is not about me.” Over the past 40 years, Robinsons’ research and travel has taken her to 23 African countries. She went to Africa for the first time as a Peace Corps volunteer, where she spent two years as a public health educator in rural Niger. While her interests and research have expanded greatly since that first trip, they always come back to Africa in some way or another. To date, she has conducted research on the role of traditional chiefs in contemporary politics, the structure of political conflict in the one-party state, grassroots participation under military rule, the political context of regional development in the West African Sahel, and military dictatorship in Nigeria, to name a few.
“I’ve always been interested in the relationship between culture and politics, and my research relies heavily on fieldwork and anthropological methods,” she explained.
At Tufts, Robinson currently teaches several Africa-related courses, including African Politics, Regionalism in African International Relations, Race & Ethnicity in US Africa Policy, and a seminar on African Political Economy. All of her courses can be found on Tisch College’s Active Citizenship in the Curriculum list.
She is also the director of Ghana Gold, a Corporate Social Responsibility Study Tour and Colloquium that introduces students to development challenges in Ghana through issues surrounding the gold mining industry. The course, which includes a trip to Ghana over winter break, is sponsored by the Africa in the New World minor and was launched with a grant from Tisch College.
Over the last two summers, Robinson helped two summer scholars travel to Niger and Senegal to conduct research for her Islam and Female Empowerment projects.
“My interest in developing new case study material for my Regionalism in African IR course has led to a student doing a Summer Scholars research project that took him to Senegal for research on Ecobank as a PanAfrican bank and an example of “the new regionalism,” Robinson explained. “I am now open to other students who would be interested in doing case studies of Ecobank in eastern or southern Africa.”
Even outside of the classroom, Robinson continues to be what she calls a “scholar activist.” She spent 11 years as an advisor to Oxfam-America, was involved in the anti-apartheid movement as a member of Trans-Africa, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, where she has pushed to support human right activists in Nigeria. She is currently working on a book about 1950 Nobel laureate Ralph Bunche and a documentary project about Islam and Female Empowerment in Niger.
“My goal is to get the film with its images of empowered Muslim women into mass distribution channels,” she said about her documentary work. “I have completed a pilot with Hausa language narration, and am planning to prepare sound tracks in additional languages.” Through her past 40 years of work, Robinson says that she has discovered four important lessons through her studies and experiences. “I have learned about the importance of strong and coherent institutions, the critical role of African agency to any successful venture, the benefits of a cosmopolitan outlook, and that many of the people who have come to help Africa have done enormous harm,” she said.
