Awardee’s Bio
Fauziyatu Moro (Fauzi) is a PhD candidate in the African History Program with a minor in African Cultural Studies. She is a 19th and 20th century urban and social historian whose research interests coalesce around topics of urban migration, identity formation, and spatial configurations in African cities. Her passion for African history and culture began at the University of Ghana, Legon, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in History and English, followed by an MPhil in History. She joined the PhD program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison to further hone her intellectual curiosity about the African continent and expand the depth and breadth of this curiosity through research.
Research Description and Significance
My dissertation, which earned me the William Allen Brown Research Award in 2023, investigates how internal African migrants influenced Africa’s Pan-African identity. Concentrating on migrants in Nima—a small migrant town and internal African diaspora in Accra, Ghana—I utilize various ethnographic methods to reveal how these migrants perceived and embodied Pan-Africanism in the 20th century, thereby transforming Accra into a beacon of Black transnationalism. My research delves into themes such as transnationalism, Black internationalism, the African diaspora, and the urban popular culture and imaginations of migrants. I heavily rely on oral interviews, visual and material cultures, and archival data. By retelling the history of Africa and Pan-Africanism from the perspective of internal African migrants, many of whom are working class, I build on the work of scholars who have championed grassroots Pan-Africanism. My work also significantly contributes to the scholarship on African urban politics and history and challenges scholars to view African urban spaces occupied by migrants as more than just outcomes of developmental failures in Africa.
In the summer of 2023, after receiving the William Allen Brown Research Award, I traveled to Ghana to conduct preliminary research for my proposed dissertation. I collected archival data from key sites such as the Public Records and Archives Administration Department (PRAAD), the Ghana Information Service Department, and the Institute of African Studies (IAS) at the University of Ghana. A significant portion of my research trip was dedicated to Nima, where I conducted oral interviews with three generations of migrants in Accra who serve as key interlocutors for my study.
Impact of Award and Gratitude
During my brief visit to Accra, I successfully assessed the feasibility and potential of my research topic. This effort proved invaluable the following Fall semester when I took my preliminary exams for candidacy in the History Department because the insights gained from the archives and interviews became the foundation for my dissertation proposal. These ideas also played a crucial role in securing me the Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Innovation Fellowship, which funded my year-long dissertation field research in the 2024/2025 academic year. I am deeply grateful to the benefactors and committee members of the William Allen Brown Research Award for believing in my research during its early stages and enabling its development into a significant contribution to African history and cultural studies.
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