Elizabeth Eames

Whoopi Afri/canis

Elizabeth Eames, Associate Professor, Bates College, received the Ph.D. from Harvard University and the B.A. at Bryn Mawr College. My areas of expertise are Economic Anthropology; Gender Studies; Film; Africa.

My extended fieldwork, carried on between 1980 and 1985 in Southwestern Nigeria, concerned Yoruba market women's voluntary associations and their role in politically contesting state policy. Deriving from that phase of research, two articles continue to be anthologized regularly:"Navigating Nigerian Bureaucracies, Or, 'Why Can't You Beg?' She Demanded" and "Why the Women Went To War: Women and Wealth in Ondo Town."

I joined the faculty at Bates in 1988, having spent two years at Haverford College. More recently, I have become interested in both African Filmmaking and in Representations of Africa in Cinema. Last year's sabbatical fieldwork included a trip to Burkina Faso, the site of much African art cinema production, as well as work in Ghana and Nigeria on their booming video production industries.

In recent years I have been teaching Cinematic Portraits of Africa; African Film and Filmmaking; Person and Community in Contemporary Africa; Videography of Invisible Youth; Gender Relations in Comparative
Perspective; Production and Reproduction; and Interdisciplinary Modes of Inquiry.

I have served as Chair of Bates' Women's Studies and am currently Acting Chair of Bates' African American Studies Program.