Renato Perucchio

For the last three summers, Rochester undergraduates have worked to analyze and preserve the ancient forts along the coast of Ghana, while exploring the historical and cultural context of the structures they study.

I learned about the process, etiquette, and household names of ethnography in the classroom, and so I was ecstatic about the opportunity to test my know-how out in the field and conduct a study for myself.

The most help I can do for the preservation and heritage of Elmina castle, Fort Amsterdam, and the other slave castles along of the coast of Ghana is to teach others how they can study and care for the castle tomorrow.

The goal of this entry isn’t to try and definitively answer these questions, but rather to discuss how I got my feet planted. The first step was to acknowledge that I am not here to be comfortable.

"Since arriving at Elmina, my heart has been flooded with sorrowful thoughts that fly back to the colonial period, when elegant pieces of architecture such as Elmina Castle were built to house pillaged materials such as gold and ivory, as well as human beings."

Hear from eight Rochester students spending this summer at a field school in Ghana. Led by Professors Renato Perucchio, Michael Jarvis, and Chris Muir, the students are studying the engineering, historical, and cultural aspects of the country's historic coastal forts.

On her first days in Ghana, mechanical engineering major Louisa Anderson ‘20 settles in for a summer at a field school near Accra, learning about the history, people – and food.

Jiacheng Sun on the incorporation of plant structures into old slave structures in Ghana, and their preservation as a result.

Gilda DeDona on the transition from tourist to researcher in her first weeks at a summer field school in Ghana.

Researchers from the U.S., Singapore, Ghana and Italy will give talks at "Analysis and Conservation of Cultural Heritage Monuments: Challenges and Approaches Across Disciplines."