1978-1979
15-month fieldwork for doctoral thesis research in central Upper Volta, in the village of Bentenga, a Moose chieftaincy in the Moose and Bisa linguistic area in the White Volta (Nakambe) River valley. Funded by work as a researcher in a project run by the Purdue University Department of Agricultural Economics
1983-1984
15-month fieldwork in the Bobo-speaking village of Baré near Bobo-Dioulasso on “Income,
Expenditure and Intra-Household Patterns in Bobo Country”. Funded by grants
from the National Science Foundation (BNS 83-05394) and the The Wenner-Gren
Foundation for Anthropological Research (#4392).
1988
One-month archival research in the archives of the White Fathers Catholic Missionary order headquarters in Rome, Italy, on colonial rural development and relations between Roman Catholic missionaries and French colonial administrators. Funded by small grants from The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and International Programs and Studies at the University of Illinois.
1989-1990
15-month fieldwork in the Bobo-speaking village of Baré near Bobo-Dioulasso on the history of farming, masquerades and the yearly ritual cycle, and folk literature. Funded by the National Science Foundation (BNS 88-15676)
1992-1998
Collaborative project on African environmental history, funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation; carried out in five African countries (Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Mozambique, Ethiopia, and Kenya). Responsible for the Burkina Faso part, with a team of colleagues from the University of Ouagadougou and the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and Technologique of Ouagadougou. Several trips to Burkina Faso in the summer and winter vacations during those years for research on agricultural practices, the vegetation cover, and oral history
1993
3-month summer research in the French colonial archives in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, supported by a travel grant from the University of Illinois.
1994
3-month summer research in the French colonial archives in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, funded by a Fulbright-Hays Faculty Research Fellowship.
2000 June-July / Other African field research
2-month survey on transborder women traders, interviews conducted in Mali, Senegal, Benin, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, and Nigeria. Conducted as a consultant for WIDtech A Women in Development project
