Cati Coe

Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminal Justice
Rutgers University 
405-407 Cooper Street
Camden, NJ 08102-1405

Education

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA, PHILADELPHIA, PA
Ph.D., Graduate Program in Folklore & Folklife, August 2000
M.A., Department of Folklore & Folklife, August 1995
Dissertation Title: "'Not Just Drumming and Dancing': The Production of National Culture in Ghana's Schools"

WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY, MIDDLETOWN, CT
B.A. with Honors in General Scholarship, June 1992
Phi Beta Kappa, Giffin Prize for Excellence in Religious Studies
Thesis Title: ""It's Death You're Going to Wed': Desire, Marriage, and Deception in Folklore and Literature"

Postdoctoral Training

NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION, JULY 2006
Short course on anthropological survey research methods

SPENCER FOUNDATION, 2000-2001
Advanced Study Institute on the Interrelationship of Anthropology and Education

Awards

DISSERTATION AWARD, HONORABLE MENTION, 2001
Council of Anthropology and Education, American Anthropological Association

MacEDWARD LEACH PRIZE FOR THE BEST PAPER IN FOLKLORE, 1996
Department of Folklore & Folklife, University of Pennsylvania
For "Histories of Empire, Nation and City: Four Interpretations of the Empire Exhibition, Johannesburg, 1936"

Grants, Fellowships, and Awards

CODESRIA, MULTINATIONAL WORKING GROUP ON YOUTH AND IDENTITY IN AFRICA, 2008-2009
On "The Impact of Transnational Migration on Fosterage in Ghana," $5,000

THE WENNER-GREN FOUNDATION FOR ANTHROPOLOGICAL RESEARCH, 2007-2008
Post-Ph.D. Research Grant, "The Impact of Transnational Migration on Family Arrangements in Ghana," $500

THE WENNER-GREN FOUNDATION FOR ANTHROPOLOGICAL RESEARCH, 2007-2008
Workshop grant on Childhood and Migration with co-PI Rachel Reynolds, $15,000

NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION, DEVELOPMENTAL AND LEARNING PROGRAM, 2007-2008
Co-PI with Rachel Reynolds for grant to support 2008 Interdisciplinary Conference on Childhood and Migration, $15,000

NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION, CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY PROGRAM, 2007-2009
Project Title: "The Impact of Transnational Migration on Family Arrangements in Ghana," $43,000

RESEARCH COUNCIL GRANT, RUTGERS UNIVERSITY, 2007-2008
Project Title: "Children's Changing Relations of Belonging in the Gold Coast," $1000

RESEARCH COUNCIL GRANT, RUTGERS UNIVERSITY, 2006-2007
Project Title: "Children's Rights and Child Circulation in Ghana," $1000

CHILDHOOD STUDIES GRANT, RUTGERS UNIVERSITY, 2006
Project Title: "Children's Rights and Child Circulation in Ghana," $1000

INSTITUTE FOR RESEARCH ON WOMEN SEMINAR FELLOW, RUTGERS UNIVERSITY, 2005-2006
Seminar on Diasporas and Migrations, $1500

RESEARCH COUNCIL GRANT, RUTGERS UNIVERSITY, 2004-2005
Project Title:"The Strategies Ghanaian Immigrant Parents Use to Educate their Children," $1000

BILDNER FOUNDATION INTERCULTURAL FELLOW, RUTGERS UNIVERSITY, 2003-2004
Project Title: "Representing Culture in Classrooms," $3000

DISSERTATION FELLOWSHIP, SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA, 1999-2000
Project Title: "Drumming and Dancing in Ghanaian Schools: The Politics of Heritage Revival in a Postcolonial State," $10,000

FULBRIGHT GRANT, INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION, 1998-1999
Project Title: "Cultural Politics, Education, and Development in Ghana," $24,000

FORD FOUNDATION DISSERTATION DEVELOPMENT TRAVEL GRANT, 1997
Workshop on the Problematics of Identities and States, University of Pennsylvania
Project Title: "The Politics of Culture and Identity: International Development Organizations and Education in Ghana," $1500

GRADUATE FELLOWSHIPS, 1994-1997
Department of Folklore & Folklife, University of Pennsylvania

Teaching

RUTGERS UNIVERSITY, CAMDEN, NJ
Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminal Justice
Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Fall 2002-
Sociology of Education, Individual & Society, Politics of Culture, Cultural Anthropology, Peoples & Cultures of Africa, Immigration & Families

WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY, MIDDLETOWN, CT
Graduate Liberal Studies Program
Instructor, Researching Everyday Life, Spring 2002

COMMUNITY COLLEGE OF PHILADELPHIA, PHILADELPHIA, PA
Department of Social Sciences
Instructor, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, Summer 2000

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA, PHILADELPHIA, PA
Department of Folklore & Folklife
Teaching Assistant, Qualitative Research Methods, Spring 1997
Teaching Assistant and Writing Across The University Fellow, Fairy Tales, Fall 1996
Teaching Assistant, Folk & Alternative Medicine, Fall 1995

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA, PHILADELPHIA, PA
Freshman English Program
Instructor, Fall 1994 and Spring 1995

Lectures in Other Classes

"Ghanaian Immigrant Children in the US," Urban Education, Rutgers University, Camden, Summer 2007

On "Dilemmas of Culture in African Schools," African Education, Bryn Mawr College, Spring 2007

"Curriculum Construction," The Red and the Black: American Indians and African-Americans, Rutgers University, Camden, Spring 2007

"On Veiled Sentiments," Women's Studies Senior Seminar, Rutgers University, Camden, Fall 2006

"Polygamy," Crime and Deviance, Rutgers University, Camden, Spring 2007 and Spring 2004

Book

Dilemmas of Culture in African Schools: Youth, Nationalism, and the Transformation of Knowledge, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, September 2005.  For a description, see: http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/hfs.cgi/00/153625.ctl

Peer-reviewed Articles

Cati Coe and Bonnie Nastasi. "Stories and Selves: Managing the Self through Problem-Solving in School," Anthropology and Education Quarterly 37:2 (2006): 180-198

"Educating an African Leadership: Achimota and the Teaching of African Culture in the Gold Coast," Africa Today 49:3 (2002): 23-46

"Learning How to Find Out: Theories of Knowledge and Learning in Field Research," Field Methods 13:4 (2001): 392-411. Translated by Valentina Mutti into Italian and published in ACHAB: Rivista di Antropologia 11 (2007): 18-27.

"The Education of the Folk: Peasant Schools and Folklore Scholarship," Journal of American Folklore 113:447 (1999): 20-43

"Defending Community: Difference and Utopia Online," International Journal of Cultural Studies 1:3 (1998): 391-414

Chapters in Books

"Ghana," The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Children's Issues Worldwide: Sub-Saharan Africa, edited by Laura Arnston (pp.197-216). Westport: Greenwood Publishing, 2008

"Pedagogies and Politics of 'Culture': Chiefly Authority, the State, and the Teaching of Cultural Traditions in Ghana," Pedagogy and Revolution, edited by E. Thomas Ewing. Palgrave-Macmillan, 2005

"Education: Folklore in Schools," African Folklore: An Encyclopedia, edited by Philip M. Peek and Kwesi Yankah. New York: Routledge, 2004

Other Articles

"Recuperating Tradition while Expanding Schooling," Anthropology News March 2002: 8

"Histories of Empire, Nation and City: Four Interpretations of the Empire Exhibition, Johannesburg, 1936," Folklore Forum 32:1/2 (2001): 3-30

"A Dangerous Dance: Teaching Heritage in Ghana's Secondary Schools" (photographic essay), The World & I (March 2000): 206-213

Works in Progress

Edited book on Everyday Ruptures: Children and Migration in Global Perspective, in collaboration with Deborah Boehm, Julia Meredith Hess, Heather Rae-Espinoza, and Rachel Reynolds (20% of the contribution is mine)

"The Structuring of Feeling in Ghanaian Transnational Families," accepted by City & Society, April 2008

"Fosterage, Pawning, and Slavery" in preparation for a chapter in Fosterage and Adoption in West Africa Reviewed, edited by Erdmute Alber, Jeannett Martin, and Catrien Notermans

"Domestic Violence, Child Pawns, and Child Sexual Abuse in the Gold Coast, 1900-1928," in preparation for Domestic Violence in Africa, edited by Richard Roberts, Emily Burrill, and Elizabeth Thornberry, under review at Ohio University Press

"From Pawning to Fosterage? Children's Dependency Relations in the Gold Coast," manuscript currently being revised

Book and Manuscript Reviews

Review of Tongnaab: The History of a West African God, by Jean Allman and John Parker, African Studies Review 50:1 (2007): 204-205

Review of The Afterlife Is Where We Come From: The Culture of Infancy in West Africa, by Alma Gottlieb, Africa, 76:3 (2006): 455-456

Review of Culture and the Senses: Bodily Ways of Knowing in an African Community by Kathryn Geurts, American Anthropologist 106:3 (2004): 618-619

Review of Religious Encounter and the Making of the Yoruba, by J. D. Y, Peel, Journal of Folklore Research, online review, 2004.

Review of Speaking with Vampires: Rumor and History in Colonial Africa, by Luise White, Journal of American Folklore116:460 (2003): 233-234.

Review of Folklore, Heritage Politics and Ethnic Diversity, ed. Pertii Antonnen in collaboration with Siikala et al. American Ethnologist 28:2 (2001): 477-479.

Review of Coming of Age in Post-Soviet Russia, by Fran Markowitz, Anthropology and Education Quarterly, online review, Fall 2000.

Review of Ethnicity and Nationalism in Africa, ed. Paris Yeros, Africa Today, 47:2 (2000): 223-225.

Occasional manuscript and grant proposal reviewer for: 

Institutional Reports

Mills, M., J. Jacobs, C. Coe, A. Conrad, R. Mudge, L. Protzmann, A. Scanlan, C. Sevoian, & W. D. Wilkerson. "Course Choice: How Arts and Sciences Undergraduates Plan Their Studies." Report for the College of Arts and Sciences, University of Pennsylvania, December 1997

Elizabeth Useem and Cati Coe. "Library Power in Philadelphia: Final Report from Seven Case Studies." Report for the DeWitt Wallace-Readers' Digest Fund, September 1997

Cati Coe and Elizabeth Useem. "Bringing Standards into the Classroom: A Report of the Summer Work of Partnerships for Standards-Based Professional Development." Report for the Education Trust and the North Philadelphia Community Compact for College Access and Success, September 1996

"'Caught Between Two Worlds': A Professional Development Initiative in Multicultural Education." Report for PATHS/PRISM: The Philadelphia Partnership for Education, December 1994

Invited Talks

"Ways of Learning in Ghana," talk for "The Ghana Project" at Bard College, Annandale, NY, October 2004 

"Making 'Culture' Teachable: Age, Youth, and the Construction of Knowledge in Akuapem, Ghana." Harvard Graduate School of Education, Cambridge MA, February 2001

Paper Presentations

"Reciprocities of Care among Ghanaian Migrant Families: A Historical and Ethnographic Perspective," Wenner-Gren Workshop on Children and Migration, New York City, January 2008

"Responsibility, Risk, and the Scattered Family: The Emotional Responses of Ghanaian Parents and Children to Transnational Migration," Childhood Studies talk, Rutgers University, Camden, November 2007

"Navigating the Rights Landscape: How Ghanaian Parents Raise their Children in a Global Environment," African Studies Association, New York City, October 2007

"Child Fosterage and Debt Pawning: Belonging, Living Together, and the Transfer of Rights in Children," Invited conference on Fosterage and Adoption in West Africa Reviewed, University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany, May 2007

"Defilement and Children's Relations of Belonging in the Gold Coast," Symposium on Law, Colonialism, and Domestic Violence, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA, April 2007

"Pawning in Akuapem, Ghana: Thinking about Rights-in-Children" African Studies Association, San Francisco, November 2006, as part of a panel I organized on "Relatedness and Rights in Child Fosterage in West Africa"

"Ghana's School Cultural Competitions," School of Performing Arts, University of Ghana, Legon, June 2006

"Child Fosterage among Ghanaian Parents in the United States," American Anthropological Association, Washington DC, November 2005, as part of a Society for Urban, National, and Transnational Anthropology invited panel on "Global Childhood: The Use of Child Fosterage among Transnational Migrants" (organized with Rachel Reynolds)

"Strategies of Ghanaian Immigrant Women to Raise Their Children," Institute for Research on Women seminar on Diasporas and Migrations, November 2005

"The Public Display of Heritage: How Culture Became Drumming and Dancing in Ghana, 1957-1978," Center for African Studies brown bag series, Rutgers University, December 2004

"Schools, Youth, and Political Participation in Ghana," African Studies Association meeting, New Orleans, November 2004; Childhood Studies seminar, Rutgers University, Camden, March 2004; and 11th Annual African Studies Consortium workshop, University of Pennsylvania, October 2003

"Development Morality Plays: Christian Identities and National Imaginings of Ghanaian Secondary-School Girls," African Studies Association, Boston, MA, November 2003

"Nationalizing and Localizing Drum Language: Schools, Youth, and Performance in Ghana." African Studies Association, Washington DC, December 2002

"Slogans and Stories: The Reproduction of Cultural Models in Drug Education," American Anthropological Association, New Orleans, LA, November 2002

"Orchestrating Modern Selves: School Cultural Festivals and Competing Modernities in Ghana," African Studies Seminar, University of Pennsylvania, November 2002

"Problem-Solving as a New Narrative Genre." Canadian Anthropology Society and Society for the Anthropology of North American joint meeting, Windsor, Ontario, May 2002

"Pedagogies and Politics of 'Culture': Chiefly Authority, the State, and the Teaching of Cultural Traditions in Ghana." Revolution and Pedagogy conference, Ohio State University, April 2002

"Development Morality Plays: The Orchestration of Self and the Evaluation of Tradition in Ghana's Schools." Yale University, African Studies brown bag lunch series, February 2002

"'Culture' as School Knowledge: The Construction of Tradition and Authority in Ghana." American Anthropological Association, Washington DC, November 2001

"What Do You See? Complementary Perspectives on a Classroom Intervention Project." Ethnography in Education Forum, Philadelphia PA , March 2001

"Christianity, 'Tradition' and the State: Local Understandings of Culture in Ghana." CAE Invited Panel on "The Uses of Culture in Anthropology and Education: Recapturing Culture for Use in the Public Sphere," American Anthropological Association, San Francisco CA, November 2000

"Development Morality Plays and the Revival of Tradition in Ghana." American Folklore Society, Columbus OH, October 2000

"Popular Culture" panel (discussant).  African Studies Day with Karin Barber, University of Pennsylvania, March 2000

"Representing 'Tradition' in Ghanaian Schools." American Ethnological Society, Tampa FL, March 2000

"Drumming and Dancing in the Classroom: Culture, Christianity, and Ghanaian Students." Ethnography in Education Forum, Philadelphia PA, March 2000

"Contexts of Learning in a Ghanaian Town." Comparative and International Education Society, San Antonio TX, March 2000

"Using the Local to Create the Nation: Drumming and Dancing in Ghanaian Schools." Conference on "Nation/Nationalism" at the University of Cape Coast, Ghana, June 1999

"Identity, Education, and 'Tradition' in Ghana." Ford Foundation Workshop on the Problematics of States and Identities, University of Pennsylvania, September 1997

"Representations of Africa" panel (discussant). African Studies Annual Day with V. Y. Mudimbe, University of Pennsylvania, April 1997

"Difference and Utopia in an Electronic Community." American Anthropological Association, Washington DC, November 1995

"Performing Empire, Nation, and City: Three Historical Narratives of a South African World's Fair." American Folklore Society, Lafayette LA, October 1995

"School-Change Teams and Curriculum Reform: Factors Affecting Implementation of Change Across School Sites." Eastern Sociological Society, Philadelphia PA, March 1995

"Negotiating the Imagined Community in Cyberspace." American Folklore Society, Milwaukee WI, October 1994

Media Interviews

"Ghanaian Immigrant Parents Choose to Have Children Raised in Ghana," Voice of America Daybreak Africa story, 22 August 2006 at http://www.voanews.com/english/Africa/2006-08-22-voa52.cfm

Related Experience

THE INSTITUTE FOR COMMUNITY RESEARCH, HARTFORD, CT
Classroom Ethnographer, August 2000-April 2002

THE PHILADELPHIA EDUCATION FUND, PHILADELPHIA, PA
Qualitative Researcher, October 1997-June 1998
Research Assistant, December 1996-May 1997

THE EDUCATION TRUST, WASHINGTON DC
Qualitative Researcher, July-September 1996

PATHS/PRISM: THE PHILADELPHIA PARTNERSHIP FOR EDUCATION
Intern, May–December 1994

University Service

Rutgers University University of Pennsylvania

Professional Memberships