Final Round Critics

Public Forum Debate

Topic -- On balance, the benefits of urbanization in West Africa outweigh the harms.

Ndubueze Mbah

Professor Mbah is a West African Atlantic historian at the University of Buffalo. He examines changing labor systems, mobilities, slavery and abolition, and cosmopolitanism; as well as constructions of gender, sexuality, and ethnicity in West Africa.

Jeffrey Paller

Professor Paller specializes in African politics and sustainable urban development at the University of San Francisco. His research examines the practice of democracy and accountability in urban Africa. He has conducted fieldwork in Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, and South Africa.

Ato Quayson

Professor Quayson is a Ghanaian literary critic and Professor of English at Stanford University. He is also the President of the African Studies Association (of North America). His writings on African literature, postcolonial studies, disability studies, urban studies and in literary theory have been widely published.