Dr. Davis-Olwell’s research in Uganda and Ghana addresses the urgent problem of infant and child malnutrition, emphasizing caring work done by women and the social, nutritional and developmental significance of infant feeding and the mother-infant relationship.Using a study design that combined ethnographic methods with the more quantitative time use study (direct observation), her research posed questions concerning the impact on infant feeding practices, specifically breastfeeding rates, following women’s increased participation in the informal economy. Based on the time-use data she argued that women’s income generating activities did not interfere with breastfeeding, but that household work did, specifically carrying water. The second strand of Dr. Davis-Olwell’s research interrogates the reproductive and sexual identities of women market traders in Kampala and examines the social, political and cultural significance of the categories “town women” and female-headed household.
