Virtual Summit Submission

Florida State University
International Affairs and French

Biography

Charlotte Stuart-Tilley is a senior at Florida State University, where she majors in International Affairs and French, minoring in Religion. During her time at FSU, she has been a Sustainable Fellow with Sustainable Campus, conducted research through the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program, and currently works as an intern in the Disaster Analysis Intelligence Lab. Academically, she is interested in global politics, especially in an African post-colonial context. Post-graduation, Charlotte hopes to work in a human rights or sustainability-related field.

Project

Marginal People, Minimal Rights – Indigenous Fulbe Approaches to Human Rights & Sociopolitial Stigma in the Accra Metropolitan District of Ghana, West Africa
This summer, I traveled to Accra, Ghana, to interview Fulbe people about their experiences with discrimination and their perceptions of human rights. Fulbe people, a historically nomadic ethnic group living across West Africa, adhere to a code of conduct called “pulaaku,” meaning “responsibility.” They also experience discrimination and community violence in Ghana, where many Fulbe families practice cattle-herding as a primary way to earn income. I hypothesized that when discussing human rights, Fulbe people would speak in terms of “capabilities” rather than “rights” and would reference notions of pulaaku and “seemtende,” a related word meaning “shame” or “shyness.” An initial analysis of data suggests that many respondents think more in terms of access, such as access to services or a national identity card. From my research, I intend to create a lexicon of terms in Fulfulde, the Fulbe language, to understand how Fulbe conceptualize their experiences and cultivate an alternative approach to human rights.