Ann Cassiman

Ann Cassiman is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology of the University of Leuven, Belgium. Herongoing research focuses on young women in Muslim migrant communities (zongos) in Accra (Ghana), and more in particular on themes of friendship, apprenticeship, kinship, strangerhood, in relation to love, intimacy and trickery. In her most recent collaborative project with photographer Fibi Afloe, she explores women’s expectations and desires within marriage, delving into themes of self-making, love, female agency, and the everyday ethics of womanhood. This research has led to the exhibition “Kayanmata” which is currently on show in Accra. Her earlier research work on material culture and housing in Northern Ghana led to two book publications (the monograph Stirring Life: Women’s Paths and Places among the Kasena of Northern Ghana and the edited volume Architectures of Belonging: Inhabiting Worlds in Rural West-Africa) and two exhibitions (SONGO: Ritmes van wonen in the Afrikamuseum of Berg en Dal, the Netherlands; and Home Call: Ghanaian migrants in Antwerp, in MAS, Antwerp). She is the academic coordinator of the Advanced Master program in Cultural Anthropology and Development Studies (CADES).