Dr. Bratton's Research Interests

Cultural Anthropology

Anthropology is a holistic discipline which means that we look at the big picture and consider the affect of multiple variables upon human behavior.  As a cultural anthropologist I focus on contemporary people’s culture, but I also consider historical influences which created the current context.  Culture is a set of beliefs, values, and behaviors that a group of people share in common, which is learned over the course of a lifetime.  Although other disciplines may study people and culture, anthropology is different not only because we are holistic, but because of our emphasis on fieldwork, or immersion into the culture that we study.  Often times we spend a year or more on site for our initial project and then we continue to work in that area over our lifetimes, thereby gaining in-depth knowledge with an outside perspective.

Kumasi City

Current Research

Teenage Pregnancy, Education and the Construction of Sexuality in Ghana

I am currently working on publishing information based on my 2001-2 research which explores the gender socialization that teens in Ghana experience today with the growing emphasis on schooling and the absence of puberty rites.  At a time when it is difficult to get money for school fees, and in a culture where having children is pivotal to one’s identity, I investigate how teen girls in particular cope with schooling, sexuality, and teenage pregnancy.  In order to explore these issues I conducted participant-observation for a year in Ghana at three secondary schools, centering on sexual education, and at a Planned Parenthood Association of Ghana clinic.  I focused my interviews on female and male teenagers in school as well as teenage mothers who were not in school.  Also, I interviewed teachers at the secondary schools.  The expense of school, coupled with its growing cultural value, create financial burdens on parents, whose daughters frequently turn to “sugar daddies” for supplemental income.  However, in doing so they risk getting pregnant and being expelled from school.  Furthermore, over time people have ceased to practice the traditional puberty rites that kept girls’ sexuality in check.  In an effort directed at HIV/AIDS prevention, queen mothers are now introducing Virgins’ Clubs, which provide sex education and support to unschooled girls.  I conclude that gender socialization emphasizes girls’ responsibility for preventing teen pregnancy.  They are taught that motherhood is valued when it is planned inside of marriage, but should not occur before they are financially independent and finished with school. 

africa map Ghana, West Africa

New Research Projects

I have several new and continuing research areas of interests:
1)  Tracking the utility of the Virgins’ Clubs in Ghana.
2)  Analyzing the growing trend of young people to remain single into their late 20s and 30s, and delay the birth of their first child in Ghana.
3)  Examining friendship and fictive kin formation and development in Ghana.
4)  Looking at the movement of people through migration, exile, tourism, missions, study-abroad, etc. and how that movement influences identity and constructions of home.