Current Postgraduate Students

Dr Gina Porter, BA, PhD

Biography

Gina Porter has been based at Durham University since 1986, first in the Geography Department, since 2001 in Anthropology. She has undertaken field research in Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa, Kenya, Brazil, Papua New Guinea and India but considers herself primarily an Africanist. (She taught for 10 years in Nigerian universities). Her research combines ethnographic approaches with a strong interest in spatial perspectives.

Current research focuses primarily on on child mobility and transport. Other recent research has included gender and transport, Intermediate Means of Transport, social networks of refugee youth, agricultural marketing and market institutions, conflict in market place trade, gender issues in rural trade), contract farming, local labour markets, off-road communities and issues of physical access, the impact of decentralisation policies, people/environment relationships (taking a political ecology perspective), participatory (community-integrated) GIS, social capital and NGO South-North linkages. She has published on a wide diversity of topics, from advertising to small scale irrigation, census enumeration to street children. Uneven power relationships and associated issues of exclusion are linking themes through her work, much of which has a strong gender component.

Topics on which she has supervised British and overseas postgraduates include: gender and embodied mobility in Ghana (ESRC CASE), gendering of sustainability in Cuban organic agriculture (ESRC), transport impacts on agricultural production in Ghana, microcredit and transport in Ghana, road impacts on women's health in Nepal, masculinities and microfinance in Colombia, trust and farmer-trader relations in Ghana, decentralisation and poverty alleviation in Ghana, gender and fuelwood knowledges in Kenya, sanitation issues in Nigeria, empowerment in Honduras.

Research Groups

Anthropology in Development

Research Projects

Action research to evaluate the impact on livelihoods of a set of post-harvest interventions in Ghana's off-road settlements: focus on IMTs
Children’s transport and mobility: developing a child-centred evidence base to improve policy and change thinking across Africa
Children, mobility and transport in Sub-Saharan Africa
Improving children's mobility and access
Improving market institutions and urban food supplies for the urban poor: a comparative study of Nigeria and Zambia: scoping phase
Investigations on Building a Food Marketing Policy Evidence Base in Nigeria
NGOs and the state in Ghana and India: an exploration of new NGO-state relationships and their impact on poverty eradication programmes
Rural Access Issues and the Supply of Urban Food Markets in Nigeria: Focus on Market Access for Smallholder Vegetable Producers on the Jos Plateau
Scoping Study on the Role of Trade and Markets in Conflict Development and Conflict Resolution with special reference to Nigeria
Social resilience among young Liberians

Selected Publications

Articles: magazine

Porter, Gina & Mawdsley, Emma Mobility and development. Geography Review. 2008;21:16-18.

Books: authored

Fatima Alikhan, Peter Kyei, Emma Mawdsley, Gina Porter, Saraswati Raju, Janet Townsend & Rameswari Varma NGOs and the State in the Twenty-First Century: Ghana and India. Oxford: INTRAC; 2007. (Additional information)
E. Mawdsley, J. Townsend, G. Porter & P. Oakley Knowledge, power and development agendas: NGOs North and South. Oxford: INTRAC; 2002.

Books: edited

P. Fernando & G. Porter Balancing the load: women, gender and transport. London: Zed Books; 2002.

Edited works: contributions

Townsend, J., Mawdsley, E. & Porter, G. Development hegemonies and local outcomes: Women and NGOs in low income countries. In: Kofman, E. & Youngs, G. Globalization: Theory and Practice. London: Continuum; 2008:87-97. (Additional information)
Porter, Gina & Lyon, Fergus Social capital as culture? Promoting cooperative action in Ghana. In: Radcliffe, Sarah A. Culture and development in a globalizing world. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge; 2006:150-170. (Additional information)
F. Lyon & G. Porter The social relations of economic life and networks of civic engagement: social capital and targeted development in West Africa. In: R. Cline-Cole & E. Robson West African worlds: local and regional paths through development, modernity and globalisation. London: Pearson Education; 2005.
J. Townsend, E. Mawdsley & G. Porter: Development hegemonies and local outcomes: women and NGOs in low-income countries. In: E. Koffman & G. Youngs Globalization: theory and practice. London: Continuum; 2003.
J. Townsend, E. Mawdsley & G. Porter Challenges for NGOs. In: V. Desai & R. Potter The Arnold Companion to Development Studies. London: Arnold; 2002.

Journal papers: academic

Porter, Gina & Abane, Albert Increasing children’s participation in African transport planning: reflections on methodological issues in a child-centred research project. Children’s Geographies. 2008;6:151-167. (Additional information) (View publication online)
Hampshire, Kate, Porter, Gina Kilpatrick, Kate, Kyei, Peter, Adjaloo, Michael & Oppong, George Liminal spaces: changing inter-generational relations among long-term Liberian refugees in Ghana. Human Organization. 2008;67:25-36. (Additional information) (View publication online)
Porter, Gina Hampshire, Kate, Kyei, Peter, Adjaloo, Michael Rapoo, George & Kilpatrick, Kate Linkages between livelihood opportunities and refugee-host relations: learning from the experiences of Liberian camp-based refugees in Ghana. Journal of Refugee Studies. 2008;21:230-252. (Additional information)
Porter, Gina Transport planning in sub-Saharan Africa II: putting gender into mobility and transport planning in Africa. Progress in Development Studies. 2008;8:281-89.
Porter, Gina, Lyon, Fergus & Potts, Deborah Market institutions and urban food supply in West and Southern Africa: a review. Progress in Development Studies. 2007;7:115-134. (Additional information) (View publication online)
Porter, Gina Transport planning in sub-Saharan Africa. Progress in Development Studies. 2007;7:251-257. (Additional information)
Porter, Gina Blaufuss, Kathrin & Owusu Acheampong, Frank Youth, mobility and rural livelihoods in sub-Saharan Africa: perspectives from Ghana and Nigeria. Africa Insight. 2007;37:420-431. (Additional information)
Binns,Tony, Porter,Gina, Nel,Etienne & Kyei,Peter Decentralizing poverty? reflections on the experience of decentralisation and the capacity to achieve local development in Ghana and South Africa. Africa Insight. 2006;35:21-31. (Additional information)
Porter, G. & Lyon, F. Groups as a means or an end? Social capital and the promotion of cooperation in Ghana. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space. 2006;24:249-262. (Additional information) (View publication online)
J.G. Townsend, G. Porter & E.Mawdsley Creating spaces of resistance: development NGOs and their clients in Ghana, India and Mexico. Antipode. 2004;36:871-889.
Porter, G., Harris, F., Lyon, F., Dung, J. & Adepetu, A.A. Markets, ethnicity and environment in a vulnerable landscape: the case of small-scale vegetable production on the Jos Plateau, Nigeria, 1991-2001. Geographical Journal. 2003;169:370-381. (Additional information) (View publication online)
Porter, G. NGOs and poverty reduction in a globalising world: perspectives from Ghana. Progress in Development Studies 3,2: 131-145. 2003;3:131-145.
, G. Porter Improving mobility and access for the off-road rural poor through Intermediate Means of Transport. World Transport Policy and Practice. 2002;8:6-19.
Porter, G. Living in a walking world: rural mobility and social equity issues in sub-Saharan Africa. World Development. 2002;30:285-300. (Additional information) (View publication online)
J.G, Townsend G. Porter & E. Mawdsley The role of the transnational community of non-government organisations: governance or poverty reduction? Journal of International Development. 2002;14:829-839.
Porter, G., Rufino-Dabat, C. & Ramos da Souza, H. Local labour markets and the reconfiguration of the sugar industry in north-east Brazil. Antipode. 2001;33:826-854. (Additional information) (View publication online)