Email: siera.vercillo@uwaterloo.ca
Twitter: @sieravercillo
Siera is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the School of Environment, Enterprise and Development. Her research interests are broadly located in the fields of feminist geography and critical development studies with a focus on agrarian and nutrition transitions, smallholder rural livelihoods, urban food systems and household food security, political ecology and good governance across sub-Saharan Africa, particularly northern Ghana. Siera’s research is both qualitative and quantitative, community based and dedicated to understanding the ways that liberalized agri-food policy and practice, and the changing biophysical environment, shapes socioeconomic disparities in resource access and control, as well as roles and responsibilities within African households. Her postdoctoral research is committed to examining how different types of people (based on their gender, age, ethnicity, class and location) engage with urban food systems to assess changes in food culture and diets associated with the globalization of food. She is also co-leading a research grant focused on explaining women’s leadership barriers to civic engagement and local governance in Ghana.
Selected Publications:
- Vercillo, S., & Hird-Younger, M. (2019). Farmer resistance to agriculture commercialization in northern Ghana. Third World Quarterly.
- Cochrane, L., & Vercillo, S. (2019). Youth perspectives: Migration, poverty and the future of farming in rural Ethiopia. Global youth migration and gendered modalities. G. Bonifiacio (Ed). Policy Press, University of Bristol. (ISBN: 978-1447340195)
- Sano, Y., Sedziafa, A., Vercillo, S., Antabe, R. and Luginaah, I. (2018). Women’s household decision-making autonomy and safer sex negotiation in Nigeria: An analysis of the Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey. AIDS Care, 30(2): 240-245.
- Braimah, J. A., Atuoye, K. N., Vercillo, S., Warring, C., and Luginaah, I. (2017). Debated agronomy: Public discourse and the future of biotechnology policy in Ghana. Global Bioethics 28(1), 3-18. DOI:
- Kuuire, V.Z., Kangmennaang, J., Atouye N. K., Vercillo, S., Boamah, S., Antabe, R., Amoyaw, J.A., Luginaah, I. (2017). Timing and utilisation of antenatal care service in Nigeria and Malawi. Global Public Health 12(6), 711-727.
Degrees:
- Ph.D - Geography, University of Western Ontario
- M.A. - Gender and Development, Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex
- B.A. (Hons.) - Political Science & African Studies, University of Toronto