Fordham-Ghana Program Courses

Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA) in Accra, Ghana, 
May 19-31, 2025 (Seminar)
June 2 – July 4, 2025 (Optional Externship)

Students will enroll in one main course – Comparative Transactional or Comparative Criminal Law.

Main Course Title:
Collective Ownership in Ghana and the U.S.: Land, Labor, and Legacies of Racial Capitalism

Professors Gowri Krishna and Norrinda Brown

Course Description:
This course examines collective ownership in Ghana with a focus on both land and labor. By situating Ghana's current economic and social structures within a historical context, the course aims to explore how legacies of exploitation and dispossession, on the one hand, and Ghana’s history of libertarianism, including its position as the first sub-Saharan African nation to gain independence, on the other, shape present-day approaches to collective ownership. Political sovereignty and self-determination will be examined as driving forces behind the country’s approaches to community-based governance, economic autonomy, and collective stewardship of land and labor. Students will investigate legal frameworks, indigenous governance systems, and the influence of colonial and capitalist practices on the evolution of property and labor rights in Ghana.

Additionally, students will compare Ghanaian legal structures with laws and practices in the United States, examining how collective land ownership and worker ownership arrangements are treated in both legal systems, with particular attention to the differences in indigenous land rights and worker cooperative movements in the two countries.

Main Course Title: 
Transhistorical Connections in Criminal Justice in the United States and Ghana
 
Professor(s): Mariam Hinds
 
Course Description: 
This course examines the deep-rooted connections between the Transatlantic Slave Trade and the evolution of the criminal justice systems in both the United States and Ghana. We will explore how slavery laid the foundations for systemic oppression in the U.S. criminal justice system, drawing parallels to modern issues like mass incarceration, racial profiling, and over-policing of marginalized communities. Simultaneously, we will investigate the historical and lasting impact of the slave trade on Ghana’s legal structures, including how colonialism shaped its criminal justice system and the legacy of customary law in contemporary practice.
 
In a comparative framework, the course will analyze the similarities and differences between the criminal law systems of Ghana and the United States. Students will engage with key legal concepts, case studies, and jurisprudence from both countries, exploring how each nation’s approach to crime, punishment, and justice reflects its historical and social contexts. Through this exploration, the course will challenge students to think critically about the ways in which legacies of the past, particularly slavery, continue to shape justice and inequity in both Ghana and the U.S. today.

Counter Storytelling Workshop 
Professor Aysha Ames 

All students will participate in this upper-level legal writing workshop will be taught in conjunction with the visit to the Slave River and Slave Castles. The workshop will have the goal of centering non-dominant narratives in the law. Counter storytelling creates space for untold narratives and truths from “outsiders.” By exploring Critical Race Theory’s application and methodology in the field of counter storytelling, rhetoric, and writing, the goal is to empower students to be more critical of the legal stories we are told, the legal stories we tell ourselves, and the legal stories we tell when we advocate for others. In the Workshop, students will engage with counter stories that are not usually included in the legal writing classroom -- narratives from enslaved people, freedom cases, oral histories, and primary source materials like photos, ledgers, manifests, and maps. Students will gain the insight to apply counter storytelling as a methodology to draft counter stories in legal writing genres such as briefs, memoranda, and/or complaints.

Legal Experiences 
Students will visit Parliament and the Supreme Court. 

Cultural Experiences 
The course will include various cultural experiences to deepen the student's knowledge, including an Accra City Tour, Day and Night Market Tours, Batik Making, Slave River, Slave Castles, Kakum National Park and an overnight stay in the town of Elmina.