BIODATA
Prof. Samuel Awuah-Nyamekye is a Professor of Religion and Environment in the Department of Religion and Human Values at the University of Cape Coast in Ghana. Aside this, Prof Awuah-Nyamekye’s professional expertise includes Environmental Ethics, Religion and Development, Religion and Medicine and Religion and Politics.
Prof. Awuah-Nyamekye was appointed as an Assistant Lecturer in 2003 to the Department of Religion and Human Values in the University of Cape Coast. He was upgraded to Lecturer in 2005 and promoted to the rank of Senior Lecturer in 2010, Associate Professor in 2014 and Professor in 2019.
He has written and published two books, co-edited two others, one book review and two encyclopaedia entries. He has authored 23 articles in internationally esteemed scholarly journals and 15 book chapters. He has presented academic papers at several international conferences some of which were at, USA, UK, Israel, and The Netherlands.
Prof. Awuah-Nyamekye has successfully supervised two PhD students, one of them is now a Senior Lecturer and currently in the process of applying for promotion to the rank of Association Professor. Currently, he has 7 PhD students under him and many of them are about completing while others are at different stages of completing their programmes.
Prof. Awuah-Nyamekye encourages colleagues to engage in collaborative research. He demonstrated this by publishing four articles with 4 different Lecturers in his Department.
He is the immediate past Head of the Department of Religion and Human Values at the University of Cape Coast. Prior to this appointment, Prof. Awuah-Nyamekye served as Academic Advisor to students in his Department for several years and served as Departmental Registration and Examination Officer for two consecutive terms.
Prof. Awuah-Nyamekye was appointed the Head of Department of his Department in 2015 and by the time of leaving office as the HoD in 2021, all the lecturers in the Department had attained their terminal degrees (i.e., PhDs).
It is worthy to note that it was during his tenure as the HOD that the Department had the highest number of PhD students completing their programmes. For instance, history was made in this university when in a single day, 3 PhD viva voces involving Hon. Dr. Mustapha Abdul-Himid, Rev. Sis. Dr. Matilda Alice Nsiah, the current HOD of the Department, and Dr Vincent Assanful were done. In the case of Dr Vincent Assanful, Prof Awuah-Nyamekye happened to be the principal supervisor.
Again, it was during Prof. Awuah-Nyamekye’s term of office as HoD that a Memorandum of understanding was signed to link the Department of Religion and Human Values to the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. Some of the benefits of this partnership are that two years ago, one student from the Department went to the University of Groningen on an exchange programme. Prof Kocku von Stuckrad of the University of Groningen also visited our Department to organise a week long workshop for our post-graduate students in 2017.
In addition, as a result of this collaboration, a full sponsorship was secured from the University of Groningen in 2019 to organise the First ever, Five-Day (January 21 to 25) Winter/New Year School programme at UCC, an event which attracted participants from seven (7) countries. The theme for the Winter/New Year School was titled: Religion and Human Security in Africa.
At the end of his term as the HoD in 2021, the Vice Chancellor appointed him to head the Department of Classics and Philosophy for one academic year.
Prof. Awuah-Nyamekye is a member of the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment (ASLE) and the International Society for Environmental Ethics (ISEE) Representative for Ghana. He is also a member of the International Association for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture. In addition, he serves on the Advisory Board of Counterpoint: Navigating Knowledge, an interdisciplinary research centre and information hub based in Berlin, Germany. He also serves on the Advisory Board of the Cambridge Scholars Publishers in the UK.
He has been the Chairman of the Faculty of Arts Research, Publications and Grant Sourcing Committee since 2019. He has also been the Course Coordinator, for Environmental Ethics, Religion and Environment and African religion and Health Management for the Institute of Education of the University of Cape Coast since 2020. He in addition, serves as the course coordinator for Religion and Environment for the Centre for Distance Education (Code) of the University of Cape Coast.
He is currently serving as the Editor-in-Chief of three Journals in the Faculty of Arts of the University of Cape Coast:
- Asemka,
- Drumspeak and
- Oguaa Journal of Religion and Human Values.
He has been serving as reviewer for several academic journals across the globe. Notable among them are:
- Politics and Religion, 2023-
- Climate and Development, 2022 to Date
- Religion Compass, 2021 to Date
- Ghana Journal of Education, 2020 to Date
- Journal of Theology for Southern Africa, 2020 to Date
- Sage Open, 2019 to Date
- Journal of Biodiversity Management and Forestry, 2019 to Date
- Journal for the Study of Religions (JSR) , 2016 to Date
- Legon Journal of the Humanities, 2015 to Date
- Worldviews: Global Religions, Culture and Ecology, 2014 to Date
- Community Development Journal, 2013 to Date
- African Journal of History and Culture, 2012 to Date
- Africa Today, 2012 to Date
His scholarship extends to reviewing and assessing project proposals from reputable organisations and publishing houses outside Ghana. For instance, in 2021, he received a request from the Swiss National Science Foundation to review a project proposal submitted to it under the title: ‘Religion as a lever in times of global warming? Religious communities’ climate change perceptions and activities in the sub-Saharan Africa (Religious climate)’.
Again, last year, the Bloomsbury Publishing house requested him to review a book proposal titled: Handbook of Schools and Religion. All these reviews were successfully executed.
Prof. Awuah-Nyamekye has on many occasions served as an External Assessor for PhD Theses, promotion to the ranks of Senior Lecturer and Associate Professor both in Ghana and outside Ghana.
He has been the University of Cape Coast Representative on the Governing Council of West End University College at Kasoa since 2016. Prof. Awuah-Nyamekye is also University of Cape Coast Representative on the Governing Council of SDA College of Education at Asokore, Koforidua. He has on many occasions, represented the Vice Chancellor of the University of Cape Coast to confer degrees on graduating students of the Affiliated University Colleges at their congregation ceremonies. He was a member of the Ad hoc Committee that drafted the UCC’s Policy for naming of UCC Monuments.
As regards other extension services, he was a Board Member of the National Commission on Culture from 2009 to 2012 and was the Chairman of the Education Sub-Committee of the Komenda-Edina-Eguafo-Abrem (KEEA) Municipal Assembly and Member of the Finance Committee of the same Assembly. He was the teacher’s Representative on the Board of Governors of the Edinaman Senior High School from 2001 to 2003.
Prof. Awuah-Nyamekye was privileged to be among the few Africans, in fact, the only Ghanaian, who was invited to submit a paper in honour of the late cerebrated African scholar, Philosopher cum Theologian, Emeritus Prof. J.S. Mbiti of Kenya. The title of his paper was ‘Climate change and insecurities’.
In June, 2013, Prof Awuah-Nyamekye’s abstract to his paper titled: Between Rhetoric and Reality: Post-Independence African Governments’ Attitude to Indigenous Ecological Knowledge – Case study from Ghana won the best abstract award worth $500.00 at the Tenth Biennial Conference of the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment (ASLE) under the theme: Changing Nature: Migration, Energies, Limits, University of Kansas, USA. This paper was later transformed into an edited book with the title: Between rhetoric and reality: The state and use of indigenous knowledge in post-colonial Africa published in 2015.
And in 2014, Prof Awuah-Nyamekye was one of the three African experts in Religion and Environment nominated to attend a workshop under the theme: Environmental change and African Societies in Essen, Germany. The paper he presented at this workshop was titled ‘Climate change and indigenous Akan religio-cultural practices: Lessons for policy-makers and implementers in environmental conservation in Ghana’
Prof. Samuel Awuah-Nyamekye was born on 25th January 1962 at Biadan near Berekum to the late Daniel Dartey (aka Sie Kofi) and the late Mercy Akosua Kraa (aka Maame Mercy) all of Biadan.
He began his education at the Biadan Methodist School near Berekum. He had his secondary education at Berekum and Dormaa Secondary schools. He was trained as a teacher in 1988 at the Berekum Training College, now Berekum College of Education. After teaching for 2 years at the Berekum Training College Demonstration Junior Secondary School, he wrote his A-Level examinations (privately) and gained admission into the University of Cape Coast for his BA and Dip.ED. in 1991. He did his National Service in his Department in the 1996/97 academic year. He enrolled for his M.Phil.degree and completed in 2002.
Prof. Awuah-Nyamekye was awarded Ghana government’s scholarship to pursue his PhD programme at the School of Philosophy, Religion and the History of Science of the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom in 2010. While at Leeds, he was awarded the prestigious Professor Adrian Hastings’ African Scholar Award for his academic excellence, an award with a cash prize of 6000 pound sterling and a laptop computer. While at the University of Leeds, he was appointed as African Ambassador by University of Leeds African Studies Centre (LUCAS). The purpose of this appointment was to take him to primary schools to give talk to the pupils in the primaryschools to disabuse their minds on the negative perceptions on the African. This appointment took him to 3 different primary schools in the city of Leeds.
Prof. Awuah-Nyamekye also has a certificate in HIV/AIDS Counselling and Care Giving from the University of Ghana in 2004.
Prof. Awuah-Nyamekye is married to Madam Joyce Effah with whom he has 5 children, and 3 other children from his previous marriage. In all, he has 4 handsome sons and 4 beautiful daughters with 4 grandchildren.
The Nexus between Religion and Environment: Matters Arising
ABSTRACT
The link between religion and environment or ecology can be said to be as old as humanity and one will be right to argue that those in the area of study are familiar with this link but that cannot be said of those outside it. I personally experienced this fact when I enrolled at the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom in 2010 to pursue my PhD in Religion and Environment. At the first meeting of all post graduate students of the Department, each was to introduce him-/herself and his or her programme of study.
When it came to my turn and I said my area of study was Religion and Environment, the facial expression with which some other students received this information betrayed their lack of awareness of any connection between religion and the environment. But when I started explaining it then they came to understand what I meant because they started nodding their heads indicating that they knew something about the link but were unconscious of it.
This has always been the case whenever I have been asked about my area of research. What this simply means is that although this field of study has been there for over five decades it still seems not to have won people’s appeal as an area worth researching into. It, therefore, behoves on scholars in the field to make people understand the relationship between religion and the environment, and how crucial it is for a research work and sustainable development.
This lecture then, while reminding us of some of the relationship religion has with the environment, will dwell especially on humans’ actions and inactions towards the environment, giving that human beings are the practitioners of religion. The lecture also looks at how religion can be used to address some of the ecological challenges the world is facing today.
The theory underlying the link between religion and environment is that an individual’s interaction with the ecosystem is often conditioned by religio-cultural beliefs and practices
Although research has shown that religion has a role to play in salvaging nature, some scholars are of the view that the ecological values/attitude of some religious traditionsparticularly, traditional African religion is more based on fear or respect for ancestral spirits than on respect for nature itself. Thus, scholars need to re-examine religious people’s attitudes to nature if religion is to re-emerge as a stronger environmental force in today’s global village. Much as this concern is true to some extent, the argument here is that whether the environmental values in religious beliefs and practices are fortuitous or not, the bottom line is that religion if managed well, can play a key role in salvaging nature and thus, we must take note of this fact if we are to holistically confront the environmental challenges of today.
In this lecture, the three dominant religions in Ghana, namely; African Traditional Religion, Christianity and Islam will be used to guide the discussions