Nana Kesse

Nana Kesse is a historian of Africa at Clark University, where he holds the position of Higgins/New Earth Conversation Faculty Fellow in Environmental Humanities. He specializes in the histories of water and the environment, slavery and the slave trade, as well as the social and cultural history of West Africa. His research covers the last three hundred years, focusing on the intricate relationships between bodies of water and human societies in West Africa and how these connections have shaped the history of the region. Kesse’s current book project, Living with Water: Aquaculture, Environment, and Slavery in a West African Stilt House Community, c. 1750-1850, examines the environmental and social history of Nzulezo, the only stilt-house
community on water in Ghana and one of the few in Africa. Using Nzulezo as a historical case study, Kesse demonstrates how prolonged human interactions with bodies of water often resulted in complex relationships between culture, humans, and the environment. Nzulezo’s story also deepens our understanding of the social and cultural meanings of water, as well as human-animal relationships in precolonial West Africa. 

In addition to this research, Kesse actively speaks and writes about the Atlantic slave trade and the sociopolitical history of West Africa, with a particular focus on Ghana. His first book, Ethnic Factor in Ghanaian Politics: A Case Study of the Asawase Constituency, published in 2013, explores the relationship between ethnicity and politics and how both impact Ghana’s political geography. His other scholarly works on the transatlantic slave trade and the African environment have appeared in peer-reviewed journals and other popular venues, including the International Journal of African Historical Studies, Canadian Journal of African Studies, and the global history podcast “Fascinating People, Fascinating Places.” Currently, two of Kesse’s article manuscripts are under review in the Journal of African History and History in Africa. These projects have generously been funded by competitive grants and fellowships, including the Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, the Fulbright-Hays Fellowship, and the Otumfuo Fellowship, which is awarded by the King of the Asante Kingdom.