Dr. Marit Ostebo has been cultivating partnerships through her upcoming research projects and within her position as the faculty coordinator for the Social Change and Development in Africa (SCAD) Working Group. Most recently she has established connections with other researchers working on the concept of partnership through the SCAD Working Group symposium, “Revisiting Partnership in Africa” where scholars from Norway, Washington, and Washington D.C. came together with UF faculty and students to discuss partnership in the context of African development.
Through one research project funded by the Norwegian Research Council, Dr. Ostebo has developed a collaboration with Jon Harald Sande Lie from the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs. The project, titled “Developmentality and the Anthropology of Partnership” will focus on partnerships and development in Ethiopia. Dr. Ostebo will contribute to the project through her research on maternal health partnerships in Ethiopia. The SCAD Working Group symposium provided a platform for Jon Harald Sande Lie to be invited to UF to share his own research and establish connections with the Center. Dr. Ostebo is also working on constructing a project that will connect UF scholars with Norwegian scholars. This project intends to focus on maternal health in Africa and technologies of governance implemented in institutional deliveries.
Dr. Ostebo comes from an academic and professional background that relies on collaboration and interdisciplinarity, which she finds crucial to her approaches as a faculty member at UF. She hopes to continue utilizing the SCAD Working Group to foster new professional relationships between UF scholars and other institutions, with the intent to strengthen networks for potential research collaboration in Africa.