Kent State University

Faculty Member, Pan African Studies

Chair of the Department of Pan African Studies,Associate Professor, tenured

Arts and Sciences

Thesis Title: Resource Management in a Stratified Fulbe Society

About

Research Interests: Pastoralism in Africa, African diaspora communties in North America; Slaves from Madagascar and their descendents in America, slavery and unfree systems of labor in Africa, identity, memory and ethnicity


Current Position: Chair of the Department and Associate Professor (Tenured, full time) – Pan African Studies, Adjunct Professor- Department of Anthropology and Women's Studies Program; Coordinator, African Studies Minor program

Preceding Position: Director, West African Research Center, Dakar; Council of American Overseas Research Centers, West African Research Association, September, 1999 – July 2004

GRANTS

Distance Learning: On-line Course Development for Black Experience II, with Amoaba Gooden, Kent State University, Spring 2009

Faculty Incentive Award, Kent State University, Spring, 2009

Co-Director and grant co-writer: West African Research Association Summer Institute, U.S. Department of Education, summer, 2009 Awarded in 2008

Kent State University Faculty Conference Presentation Award - 2008

Virginia Foundation for the Humanities. ROOTS Summer Seminar under the direction of Professor Joseph Miller, University of Virginia,  June – July 2007

Information For All Project  (IFAP) UNESCO, Project Coordinator, Co-author of proposal; Kent State University, Pan African Studies, Lead Invesigator; in collaboration with West African Research Association , April 2005. Project calendar: 3/07 – 8/07.For work in Senegal, Mali and Burkina Faso on distance learning, digitization and categorization of at-risk manuscripts, and on-line archiving

Colonial Williamsburg Rockefeller Library Fellow, 2005  Colonial Williamsburg,  Virginia,  2005 

LANGUAGES : English, fluent ; French, near fluent, Spanish, good ; Wolof, very good, Pulaar, good ; Hausa, and Djerma, fair

PUBLICATIONS
BOOKS AND MONOGRAPHS:

W. Wilson. The Family, Local Institutions and Education.  Drylands Research Institute. United Kingdom. 2000. Series on Senegal, Drylands Research Working Paper 20. (R,I) (monograph)

Malagasy Free Black Settlement in Hanover County, Virginia during Slavery: The Intriguing Story of Lucy Andriana Renibe Winston (October, 2007) The Hanover Historical Society, the African American Historical Society of Hanover, pub. Hanover, Virginia MONOGRAPH (I) Forthcoming by Mellon Press, 2009

ARTICLES:
- W. Wilson, with Charles Sow. Kimoh, Dar You Are!” Journal of Pan African Studies (Volume 1 Number 10, 2007).  http://www.jpanafrican.com/
- “The Upward Mobility of Wives: Gender, Class and Ethnicity," The Journal of African Philosophy. Volume 12. No. 2, 1999  Carfax Publishers, London, England. Pp 175 – 195. (R)
- "Multiple Perspectives in the Field: Applied Anthropology in Senegal" in Practicing Anthropology, Ed. Bill Roberts. National Association of Practicing Anthropologists/ Society of Applied Anthropologists. April, 1997 pp 18 – 22. (R, I)
-"The Fulani Model of Sustainable Agriculture." Nomadic Peoples, No. 36/37:1995, pp 35-52. International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences; Commission on Nomadic Peoples. (R)

BOOK CHAPTERS:
W. Wilson-Fall “Women Merchants and Slave Depots: St. Louis, Senegal and St. Mary’s, Madagascar” in Slaving Paths:Rebuilding and Rethinking the Atlantic Worlds, Ana Lucia Araujo, editor, Cambria Press. Book submits to publisher August 2010. (R,I)

W. Wilson. “Women and Literacy in Africa” in  Readers of the Quilt II: Essays on being black,
female and literate,  Joanne K. Dowdy and Sandra Golden (eds.) forthcoming, 2010 (R, I)

- “Life Stories and Ancestor Debts: Creole Malagasy in Eighteenth Century Virginia”  in Cossing Memories: Slavery and the African Diaspora,  Edited by Paul Lovejoy and Ana Lucia Araujo. Africa World Press,  Forthcoming.  2010 (R, I)
- "The Fulbe of the Dieri and the Ferlo."  La societe senegalaise entre le local et le global  Editor, Momar Coumba Diop. Karthala, Paris. 2002. (R, I)
-"Traditional African Conflict Medecine: The Fulbe Example." in  Traditional African Conflict Medecine ed. William Zartman. Johns Hopkins University. SAIS. 1999, .(I)

ENCYCLOPEDIA CONTRIBUTIONS; "Islam in Niger" in World Encyclopedia of Islam. Oxford University Press. 1992 , 2008. (R, I) , “Al Sawm”, World Encyclopedia of Islam, Oxford U. Press, 2008; “Divination,” World Encylopedia of Islam, Oxford U. Press, 2008

BOOK REVIEWS:
Freedom by a Hair’s Breadth: The Tsimihety of Madagascar.  For  University of Michigan Press. 1990.

FIELD WORK EXPERIENCE: In northern Nigeria, among the Fulani: 1975-1978; in Niger, among the Fulani and Wodaabe, 1981-83; among the Djerma and Hausa, 1981-83, in Madagascar, 1989, 1990, 1996 (Boina and Imerina) ; in Senegal, Fulani, and Wolof communities: 1992-2003; Virginia: 2004, 2005, 2007

APPLIED ANTHROPOLOGY EXPERIENCE:

RELEVANT AND SELECTED/APPLIED TECHNICAL EXPERIENCE

6/08 – present Co-convener of interdisciplinary research group at Kent State University on environment, society and development

9/08 – Participation, Africa Carbon Forum, Dakar, Senegal

4/03 – 5/03 - Team Leader, National Survery of Touristic Hunting and Community Linkages, International Resource Group (IRG) in Senegal. Analysis of community participation, support, or lack of support for entrepenurial initiatives in visual (wild animal) or hunting tourism.

4/02 – Technical advisor for IIED and LandNet sponsored conference on Land Tenure and Pastoralism held in Senegal. Development of a lobbying prospectus for herders’ NGOs.

3/00 - 4/00: Team Leader for World Bank Poverty Profile for Senegal (FISS study). Survey of ten villages, five ecological zones selected from national agriculture data base for development of critical indicators of rural poverty in Senegal. Survey included person-to-person and focus group interviews using an interview guide developed expressly for the FISS.

1/99 to 9/99 Team leader and social anthropologist for national survey of levels of satisfaction with decentralization GOVERNANCE activities and policy in Senegal. Six teams were organized to cover the ten regions of Senegal.  Associates for Rural Development.

1998 – Regional Coordinator of NCNW, assisted in preparation of GEF proposals which made next to last selection for Senegal

11/98 - 12/98  Team leader for socio-economic analysis as component of environmental impact analysis.  Etruscan Mines and AfricGeoMines (Canada), Associates for Global Change, in Republic of Niger.

1992 Community/Institutional Analysis Specialist. Niger. Member of three person team studying linkages between natural resource management and food aid.  Assessment included community stakeholder/ institutional capacity to sustain public works project participation and the sustainability of the resulting infrastructures. Abt Associates for the Niger USAID Mission.

1990 Institutional Analyst. Madagascar. SAVEM Project Design Team, USAID Mission.  Responsible for recommendations of institutional character of national agency for management of protected areas.  June to August.  Tropical Research