Department of Development Studies

Professor Dzodzi Tsikata

Key information

Roles
Department of Development Studies Distinguished Research Professor Feminist Centre for Racial Justice Member
Qualifications
LL.B (Ghana) M.A Development Studies (The Hague), M.Phil Sociology (Ghana), Ph.D Social Science (Leiden)
Building
Russell Square: College Buildings
Office
371
Email address
dt48@soas.ac.uk
Telephone number
0730 826 0993

Biography

Dzodzi Tsikata is Distinguished Research Professor of Development Studies at SOAS University of London.

She spent thirty years at the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER) at University of Ghana rising through the ranks from Junior Research Fellow to Research Professor of Development Sociology. Between 2016 and 2022, she was Director of the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana, and before then, Deputy Director and Director of the Centre for Gender Studies and Advocacy (2005-2012). She is currently an Adjunct Professor at the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana. 

Her research in the last 30 years has been centred on the gendered labour relations of agrarian and urban informal economies, the trajectories of African social policy regimes and gender and development policies and practices. She has led pan-African research teams to study these subjects, engaged in extensive fieldwork across Ghana and undertaken occasional field visits in Kenya, Tanzania and Zimbabwe over the years. She is currently the Principal Investigator of a pan-African research, networking and advocacy project, the Gender Equitable and Transformative Social Policy for Post-COVID-19 Africa (GETSPA), which is now in its second phase. 

Dzodzi is a leading member of several independent global South capacity building, research, and policy advocacy networks, including the International Development Economics Associates (IDEAS), the Agrarian South Network, Third World Network Africa, and the Network for Women’s Rights in Ghana. She is the Managing Editor of the pan-African journal, Feminist Africa and a member of the editorial collective of Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy. She is currently a board member of the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), the Development Network DAWN, and Africa Journals Online (AJOL) and the Centre for Democracy and Development in Abuja. She is a Fellow of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Research interests

  • Africa
  • Ghana
  • Labour relations
  • Work conditions
  • Agrarian change
  • Social policy
  • Gender and development