Ghanaian Barrister Dr. Jarpa Dawuni: Building Bridges Between Law, Feminism, and Social Change

• Ghanaian barrister and political scientist Dr. Jarpa Dawuni centers women's voices in law, leadership, and social transformation.
• She founded the Institute for African Women in Law (IAWL) and secured $1 million in funding to establish the Center for Women, Gender, and Global Leadership at Howard University.
• Her work focuses on bridging gaps in legal discourse, specifically by developing "matri-legal feminism" to document the experiences of African women in law.

Professional Background and Activism

• A qualified barrister at the Ghana Superior Courts and a PhD holder from Georgia State University, she is currently a Full Professor of Political Science at Howard University.
• She utilizes a "gendered lens" across her roles in law, development, and academia to address the silence in literature regarding African women in the legal profession.
• She views herself as a social entrepreneur, focusing on the "multiplicative effect" where training legal elites to recognize gendered bias impacts their clients and communities at large.

Feminism and Identity

• Dawuni pragmatically navigates the intersection of feminism and womanism, respecting the communal nature of African systems of womanhood while resisting Western-centric universal assumptions.
• She credits her activist roots to her grandmother, describing activism as an inherited trait or "part of the DNA" rather than just the work of the elite.
• Her resilience through personal loss during her doctoral studies informs her view that success is not linear but rooted in invisible, hard work.

Advice for Future Generations

• She emphasizes that storytelling and documentation are forms of activism aimed at historicizing women in the legal field.
• She encourages young professionals to make their own opportunities rather than waiting for mentorship, stressing the importance of preparation to turn unexpected opportunities into success.
• She maintains that being a lifelong learner and striving for excellence are essential to establishing oneself as the right person in any given room.