Published: April 11, 2012

Members of KaliTora, left to right: Fuseina Wumbei, Ayishetu Mussa, Amishetu Nagumsi, Zeliatu Mohammad, and Sanatu Mutala (photo taken by Stuffelbeam 2011).

Ph.D. candidate Katie Stuffelbeam is the winner of the 2012 African Libraries Student Paper Prize of the Society for Ethnomusicology's African Music Section (AfMS). This prize recognizes the most distinguished student paper on African music presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology. The paper, ‘Performing Advocacy: Women’s Music and Dance in Dagbon, Northern Ghana” is, in the words of the three co-chairs, "well written, ethnographically convincing, theoretically grounded, and enhanced with good literature."

Stuffelbeam conducted field research most recently from December 2010 through June 2011. Her paper explores how Dagbamba women’s involvement with singing and dancing can create a transformative space where advocacy, agency, catharsis, and social critique can all take place. Working with an all-women's singing group KaliTora on various occasions exemplified this dynamic and was one of the many highlights of Stuffelbeam's time in Tamale, northern Ghana.