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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Esb0-xowyPM
Posted on YouTube: March 08, 2010
By YouTube Member: caribbeandiaspora
Views on YouTube: 4110
Posted on DU: February 06, 2011
By DU Member: Charleston Chew
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British Caribbean academic Dr Robert Beckford visits Ghana to explore the poverty and economic conditions 50 years after independence. Despite being rich in natural resources Ghana is one of the poorest countries in the world rigged by child labourer and exploitation by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Dr Robert Beckford is an educator, author and award-winning broadcaster. An educator for most of his life, he first taught adult literacy at Bournville College in Birmingham in the early 1990s and progressed to become the first ever tutor in Black Theology at Queens College, Birmingham (1992-8) where he taught trainee priests and ministers for the Anglican and Methodist churches.
He began teaching at the University of Birmingham in 1999, working first as a Research Fellow with black offenders at Birmingham Prison and then moving to the faculty as the first Lecturer in Black Theology in 2001. He spent two years as the Reader in Black Theology and Popular Culture at Oxford Brookes University. He is currently a visiting Professor of Sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London.
Robert is the author of five academic texts in the field of religion, culture and politics, including a study of Rastafari and Pentecostalism (Dread and Pentecostal 2002), Gang Culture in Birmingham (God and the Gangs 2004) and a Theology of Reggae-Dub (Jesus Dub 2006). His current research explores the role of documentary film as resistance to the bewitchment of black British Christianity by a-politicism and anti intellectualism (Documentary as Exorcism, Continuum 2010).
A firm believer in teaching for social change, Robert has retained a commitment to teaching outside of traditional contexts. An extension of his organic approach to intellectual matters led him into broadcasting in 1999.
Robert has presented a plethora of documentaries on radio and television and made his debut in the Trevor Phillips series, Britains Slave Past. He quickly moved on to work on number of programmes with BBC 4 including Ebony Towers (2001). Robert presented his first mainstream feature length documentary in 2002 for BBC 2 on the story of Jamaican Independence (Blood and Fire) and earned a BAFTA for diversity in educational broadcasting for a six part series for BBC Religion (Test of Time 2002). He began working with Channel 4 in 2003 and struck up a dynamic partnership with the then commissioning editor, Aaqil Ahmed.
To date Robert has averaged an impressive two films per year with Channel 4, becoming a regular fixture on the prime time television slots of Christmas Day and Easter Sunday. He even found time to present a weekly BBC West Midlands Radio Show in Birmingham 2006/7. As one of the most prolific black documentary presenters in Britain, his credits include God is Black (2004), Empire Pays Back (2005), The Secret Family of Jesus (2006), The Great Africa Scandal (2007), The Secrets of the 12 Disciples (2008) Decoding the Nativity (2008)and The Dark Ages and the emergence of an English Inclusivity (2009). His films for channel 4 have earned him a controversial label which he interprets as, a cultural field that can only locate black men as athletes, entertainers or problematic.
Secure with his modest success, Robert has worked to develop talent within the African and African Caribbean community, including Andy Akinwolere (Blue Peter)and Jazz artist Soweto Kinch. Robert is currently turning his hand to TV drama and is currently collaborating with playwright and actor, Kwame Kwe-Armah on a gritty but redemptive urban series.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6756318286045228473#
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