Ping-Ann Addo

Ping-Ann is an assistant professor in the area of Cultural Preservation and Representation. She is a scholar-curator in the area of Socio-cultural Anthropology with experience in the Tongan/Pacific Islander material culture, and contemporary cultural migration to New Zealand and the U.S. She has also recently run a community project at the intersection of visual arts, natural history, and community activism in California and has published an exhibit catalog and worked on a documentary video on her work with Tongan communities in Oakland

She currently is working on a book comparing Tongan migration processes, gender issues, and artistic forms in Auckland, New Zealand and Oakland, CA. Having grown up in Trinidad, Dr. Addo also has scholarly and artistic interests in Caribbean diasporic movements and Carnival costume production. She regularly attends east coast U.S. diasporic Caribbean Carnival festivals as a willing participant observer of material culture in motion.