Arianna King is an RPCV, recent Fulbright alumna, and current doctoral candidate in Tulane’s interdisciplinary City, Culture, and Community Doctoral Program. She has recently returned from a year of ethnographic fieldwork in Cape Coast, Ghana and used her time at A Studio in the Woods to make progress on her dissertation, “Beyond the Market Walls: An Ethnography of Market Modernization in Cape Coast, Ghana”. Her dissertation is an ethnographic exploration of the redevelopment of a large public historic market in Cape Coast, Ghana through the eyes of vendors, urban technocrats, and urban citizens.

“I arrived somewhat unsure of what I might find or experience in the residency and left wishing I had another week or four to soak in the quiet concentration that benefited me so profoundly during my stay. The luxury of rising in the morning and sipping my morning tea to the tune of squirrels, butterflies, and birds busying themselves in the surrounding wood was golden. The natural environment allowed me to turn my phone off, ignore my growing inbox of emails and simply immerse myself in MY work.” – Arianna King