Bernard Koomson
Bernard Koomson (Postdoctoral Research Fellow)
Academic profile
Bernard joined the Digital Health and Rights Project (DHRP) as a Research Fellow from the University of Bristol where he had worked as a Research and Teaching Associate. His research at the University of Bristol focused on the post-rescue living realities of young adults considered trafficked in Ghanaian fishing communities. His work was part of a transnational (Portugal, Brazil, and Ghana) research project funded by the European Research Council (ERC) dubbed: “Modern Marronage; The pursuit and practice of freedom in the contemporary world”. Prior to this, Bernard had worked as a Teaching Associate at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (Ghana) where he obtained his PhD.
Research
Bernard's current research explores the future of human rights and youth participation in the digital age, through transnational collaborative approaches with researchers and civil society groups. He is particularly interested in how power inequalities shape access and governance within the digital community for marginalised young adults, and the extent to which these inequalities affect the uptake of their fundamental human rights, particularly the right to health. Through a rights-based epistemological lens, he employs a participatory approach to the study of communities and grassroot organizations that promote human rights initiatives.As a developmental sociologist, he employs a multiplicity of techniques within a largely qualitative tradition to the study of his research interests.
Broadly, his research interests include youth culture and human rights, politics of child and youth economic migration, NGOs and community development, and emerging digital communities. His previous research has been in numerous cocoa growing and fishing communities in Ghana utilising diverse participatory techniques. Currently, he is the post-doctoral research fellow on a Foundation Botnar research project dubbed: “The Future of Human Rights in the Digital Age”.He coordinates research activities under the supervision of the Principal Investigator (Prof. Sara (Meg) Davis). The project entails a transnational participatory action research on digital health and rights among young adult population in four Lower and middle-income countries (Kenya, Ghana, Vietnam, and Colombia). Bernard holds a BA and PhD (Sociology) from KNUST (Ghana) and Msc. Development Studies (London, SOAS). He is a former commonwealth scholar (2012).
Teaching
At CIM, I teach the following modules
- Global Digital Health and Human Rights
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