Schildkrout, Enid

Enid Schildkrout, born 1941, New Africa Center. Dr. Schildkrout's research focuses on the changing cultures of West Africa, in particular Ghana and Nigeria. She also studies certain issues more widely in Africa-ethnicity, interpretation of material culture and African art, ecotourism and its influence on African societies-drawing heavily on museum collections and fieldwork throughout the African continent.
Dr. Schildkrout is currently conducting research among Ghanaians living in New York City, studying how new African ethnicities are created and transformed in the United States. She has worked with a group of children in New York to see how they learn to understand issues of self-identity and community. Dr. Schildkrout is focusing on the Ghanaians in New York City who come from the city of Kumasi, where she did fieldwork in the 1960s. These immigrants-Muslims from many ethnic groups-coalesce into a community in New York, which defines its ethnicity based on the members' common adherence to Islam and, distinctively, their origin from a particular community within a particular town in Ghana. Dr. Schildkrout is interested in how ethnicities are redefined and constructed in new contexts and how these identities assist people in creating opportunities along a chain of transnational migration.
Dr. Schildkrout also has an ongoing project with Research Associate Dr. Dale Rosengarten on the historical linkages and cultural congruities of African and African American basket making traditions. She has traveled to Senegal several times to conduct fieldwork for this project. (http://www.amnh.org/science/divisions/anthro/bio.php?scientist=schildkrout, 2014-05-12)