Jack Goody: Early Fieldwork and the Passing of an Era of Cambridge Anthropology in Northern Ghana

This paper presents, with some contextualization, excerpts of an extended interview conducted with the late professor Jack Goody in 2006 at his academic base of St. John's College, Cambridge University. The interview serves as a token memorial to his contributions to African anthropology and Ghana Studies. Information presented herein highlights Goody's early experiences in the Gold Coast, and also offers a glimpse into the broader ethno-graphic context under which he worked in the 1950s and 1960s in what are the present-day Upper West and Northern Regions of Ghana.