Upcoming Africanist conferences & events
To inform the editors of the ASAUK newsletter and website about upcoming conferences and workshops, please contact Simon Heap at editor(AT)asauk.net.
The Impact of the Atlantic World on the “Old Worlds" in Europe and Africa from the Fifteenth to the Nineteenth Centuries
Université de Nantes, Nantes, France, 7–9 June 2010.
The Atlantic world, formed between the fifteenth and the nineteenth centuries, maintained tight relations with the Mediterranean, the Indian Ocean, and the Pacific. Its specificity, however, lay in the conjunction of three interrelated phenomena whose entangled effects were not found elsewhere: European colonization, the slave trade, and racialized slavery. This symbiosis led to the formation of original new societies in the Americas, which differed from the European, African, and Native societies from which they were born. Moreover, the societies of origin in the ‘Old Worlds’, from which large numbers of people left for the Americas, were also changed forever in return.
If the new Atlantic history has benefited from an enthusiastic reception, it has also given rise to intense debate. One of the numerous criticisms, as voiced by Alison Games, is that the new historiographical current risks offering only ‘an expanded history of the colonial Americas’. In order to verify the relevance of the Atlantic paradigm, this conference seeks to reverse viewpoints by focusing on the transformations in Europe and Africa that resulted from their integration in trans-Atlantic dynamics. While the new Atlantic history has mostly been investigated by historians of the ‘New World’, and while specialists of North America clearly dominate the field, this conference seeks to reach out to historians of Africa and Europe in order to enlarge and enrich a still unexplored question. The goal is thus to gather together the whole community of historians potentially concerned with Atlantic history.
The comparison of the impact of the Atlantic world on Europe and on Africa will be one of the main questions of this conference. Which Europe and Africa were affected by these transformations? Who was concerned by and who cared about the Atlantic world? Was the Atlantic world part of the social imagination of European and African populations and societies? Who had knowledge of it; what was the quality of that information; how did they acquire it? Who were the individuals and groups that had imperial and Atlantic interests?
The conference also does not wish a priori to put aside old debates, such as the demographic impact of European and African migrations on areas of departure, the role of the slave trade and colonial trade in the launching of the industrial revolution, the effects of the slave trade on African economies, or the transformations of consumption in Europe and Africa, if they are renewed with original perspectives, through, for example, the comparison between Europe and Africa. In regard to the impact of trans-Atlantic exchanges on European and African economies, several gateways are conceivable, such as the conditions and effects of the marketing of one product (European or American in Africa/ American or African in Europe), the complexity of trade circulations and networks through various scales of analysis, the interlope on European coasts, and the rivalries between African states and European powers on African coasts.
Finally, the conference will explore the nature of social and political relations linking Europe and Africa to the rest of the Atlantic world. Papers could re-consider, concepts of domination, empire, and the ‘colonial situation’, or trace the evolution over time of these political forms and systems, before, during, and after the era of revolutions. Since the emphasis is on the ‘Old Worlds’, particular attention should be paid to imperial institutions, colonial lobbies, debates related to the colonies, slave trade, and slavery, and to the abolitionist movements in metropoles. The role of imperialism in the development of modern states in Europe and the transformations of African kingdoms with their integration in trans-Atlantic dynamics will also be of interest.
Abstracts up to 2,000 characters and short CV in English, French or Spanish by 31 October 2009 to Guy Saupin: guy.saupin(AT)univ-nantes.fr and Cécile Vidal: cecile.vidal(AT)ehess.fr
Education and Empire
Sixth Galway Conference on Colonialism, Galway, Ireland, 24–26 June 2010.
This interdisciplinary conference aims to explore the role of education in shaping, promoting, and challenging imperial and colonial ideologies, institutions and processes throughout the modern world. The organisers invite papers that address the following themes: the role of educational institutions, ranging from primary schools to institutions of higher education such as universities, missionary colleges, engineering and medical schools, and so on, in shaping imperial, colonial and global processes; the relationship between imperialism, colonialism and the development of modern knowledge systems, including new disciplines and new techniques of rule, particularly in areas such as science; the development of curriculum innovation to meet the needs of empire; education about imperial history (during and after empire); education and imperial and (post-)colonial models of childhood; education and the creation of professional diasporas; types and patterns of knowledge transfer within the framework of empire, including publications and broadcasting relating to education, science, technology, health and government, both between metropoles and colonies and within and between colonies; the insecurities or failures of imperial and colonial educational and knowledge practices, as well as of resistances to these practices; and transitions in educational practice, either from pre-colonial to colonial or colonial to post-colonial eras.
Since this conference is being in part funded through a grant provided by the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences to an inter-university group to explore the relationship between empire and higher education in Ireland, papers are especially invited for a strand exploring the particularity of Irish institutions of higher education in shaping the above processes, and of the role of higher education in shaping Ireland's ambiguous coloniality.
300 word abstracts by 31 January 2010 to Fiona Bateman and Muireann O'Cinneide via www.conference.ie
Milestones: Commemorating Southern African History
Historical Association of South Africa (HASA) Biennial Conference, North-West University, Potchefstroom, South Africa, 7–9 July 2010.
In 2010 historians commemorate a series of milestone events that happened 50 or a 100 years ago. In 1910 the Union of South Africa came into existence as a white-ruled state under the British Crown. Fifty years later the fate of the Union was sealed when the Verwoerd government decided to leave the Commonwealth and white voters in a referendum gave the go-ahead for the establishment of the Republic of South Africa. 1960 was also the year in which a series of other memorable events occurred: Harold Macmillan's ‘winds of change’ speech, the first attempt on Verwoerd's life, the anti-pass campaign and the Sharpeville shooting, and the banning of the liberation movements. 1960 is also called ‘The Year of Africa’ because many African states obtained their independence from colonial rule in that year.
Participants are encouraged to consider the formation of panels focusing on a reappraisal of the events of 1910 and 1960 within their particular historical contexts around the following theme: Commemorating 50 years of Union and 50 years beyond, 1910 – 1960 – 2010. This, however, does not preclude the submission of papers on any other topic of significance for Southern African history. Possibilities include who commemorates what and why, as well as commemorating milestones in various aspects of history, such as environmental history, agrarian history, land, inter-group relations, mission and religion, gender history, minority groups, migration, and sporting history.
300-word abstracts by 30 November 2009 to Professor Kobus du Pisani: kobus.dupisani(AT)nwu.ac.za The conference website, with a registration form, can be located at: www.nwu.ac.za/conference/2010/HASA
Celebrating Gavin
Conference
Oxford, 9–10 July 2010.
In 1975, Gavin Williams took up the post of Fellow and Tutor in Politics and Sociology at St Peter’s College, Oxford. From 1975 to date, Gavin has been an important part of many intellectual journeys by his students and colleagues. The organisers wish to celebrate the contributions of Gavin to the enrichment of many lives: his unflinching commitment to his students, his generosity and collegiality, his support for various academic institutions inside and outside of Oxford, and his exemplification of the academic life as a committed moral vocation. This event provides an opportunity not just to demonstrate the breadth and reach of Gavin’s intellectual journeys with students and colleagues, but also the global connections established in the process. All colleagues, former and present students, and friends of Gavin are welcome to participate.
Registration by 2 July 2010 is required and further details are available at here.
Preventing Witchcraft Related Abuse Conference
[see previous newsletter] has been postponed until 23 July 2010.
Announcements about the venue and programme will be made on the WHRIN website.
Independence and future prospects in Sub-Sahara Africa
Houphouet-Boigny Foundation, Yamoussoukro, Cote d'Ivoire, 1–4 August 2010.
The conference which is part of the festivities marking the fiftieth anniversary of Cote d'Ivoire's independence has chosen to celebrate this anniversary by focusing on its long-term understanding without shying away from the attempt to look forward. This call for presentations is based on several axes. The first objective of the colloquium is to stimulate research on independent Sub-Sahara Africa since 1960 through a wide range of sources: photographs, news articles, objects, cinematographic news; radio reports, signs, slogans, artistic productions (painting, sculpture); direct or indirect testimonies whether oral or written; emblems (anthems, flags), contemporary or monuments of the past; song and dance repertoires, clothing; international treaties and agreements; statements by political stakeholders or parties; and various economic data.
Its second objective is to confront the scientific approaches of all the social science specialists (history, geography, sociology, political philosophy, law, political science, economics, and literature) who have focused their analyses on the post-1960's area and tried to shed light on the weakness of African states as well as on their assets for the future.
For the time being, in official statements, 1960 is considered as a time of splendour for the return of the freedom of peoples building new states with their specific attributes (flags, national anthems, constitutions). Is it the case for all the current official or anonymous stakeholders? Half a century after 1960, have the dreams of building freer political communities and more harmonious and just societies come true? When have these dreams become blurred to make room to the harsh realities of building communities in control of their destiny and why? On the other end of the reflection, basing ourselves on specific or similar paths of the fifty years of independence, how have each one of the states or all of them have taken advantage of their assets, constraints, and limits. What has been achieved or not over the past fifty years of the freedom of our peoples and what will happen or where we will stand in the coming fifty years, especially at the pace the new forms of globalization is going?
Abstracts and short CV in French or English by 30 December 2009 to: park1fr(AT)yahoo.fr
Nigeria(AT)50: Politics, Society and Development
Conference Centre, University of Ibadan, Nigeria, 8–12 August 2010
The Department of History, University of Ibadan, invites scholars, public policy analysts and policy makers with interest in the trajectory of Nigeria’s post-colonial experience to present academic papers around the following sub-themes: challenges of Nation building; military in politics; chieftaincy: change and adaptation; social movements and democratization; civil rule and party politics; religion and society; federalism and resource control; corruption and governance; leadership and values; inter-group relations; constitutionalism in Nigeria; civil service reforms; economic reforms; policing Nigeria; educational development; and Nigeria in world politics.
250 word abstracts by 28 February 2010 to: uihistorynigeria50(AT)yahoo.com and historyconferences(AT)gmail.com. Completed papers expected by 30 June 2010.
Mediating Democracy in Africa
The Africa Media and Democracy Conference, Accra, Ghana, 18–20 August 2010
Recent developments of the growing influence of the media in Africa’s fledgling democracies, in particular radio and television in monitoring, pollstering, ‘nuancing’ election results ahead of the Electoral Commissioner, has been contested by politicians, constitutional experts and media practitioners. The conference aims to address and examine among others the location of such media practices, their constitutional legitimacy and in relation to freedom of information in a democratic dispensation. It will seek to address media practices such as the ‘announcing of elections results’ ahead of an Electoral Commission or the ‘deployment of press conferences’ by political parties as political posturing during voting and ballot counting period of an election. The conference will provide context for comparison, dialogue and analysis between media practices situated in different cultural-political environments. When does ‘announcing’ becomes ‘endorsement’ of a particular political party contesting a democratic election? What is the impact on the electorate of such early announcements of election results from electoral constituencies? What are implications for social and national cohesion of such practices in fiercely contested elections? What is the way forward?
Papers are invited on the following sub-themes: media, democracy and governance; media, ethnic identity and democracy; media ownership, democracy and governance; media, media and the concept ‘good of governance’; media and political communication; media, political rhetoric and political violence; media and coup d’états; media, democracy and political education; media, democracy and traditional governance; media, political activism and governance; media, conflict and crises management; media, democracy and aid; media law and regulation; media, gender and democratization; digital media and the renewal of local democracy; media and cultural politics; and new media, democratic theory and the public sphere.
One page abstracts and short biodata by 30 April 2010 to: info(AT)amdmc.org
From Colonization to Globalization: The Intellectual and Political Legacies of Dr Kwame Nkrumah and Africa’s Future
Kwantlen Polytechnic University, British Columbia, Canada, 19–21 August 2010
The conference commemorates the centenary of the birthday of Dr Kwame Nkrumah and brings scholars together from the around the world to share research and ideas on Africa’s place in the global community, and to discuss the life, achievements and shortcomings of Africa’s foremost Pan-Africanist. Topics to be discussed include: perspectives on African decolonisation and development; African intellectuals and decolonisation and development; leadership, democracy, citizenry, and African development; armed struggle and decolonisation in Africa and the International War on Terror; historical and contemporary perspectives on Pan-Africanism; the intellectual traditions and the many strands of Pan-Africanism; the 5th Pan-African Congress and the 1st All-African Peoples Conference; the architects and pioneers of Pan-Africanism and Global (Pan) African Unity; liberation wars and contemporary forms of armed resistance; AFRICOM, militarisation and African security; Darfur and other internecine conflicts as tests for the African Union; African unity in the Age of Globalisation: strategies and tactics; fifty years of political independence in Africa: independent Africa in the global context; the Obama Presidency and Africa’s destiny; African youth and women, and Africa’s future; the African personality and identity in continental and trans-continental/diasporic contexts; and breaking Africa’s cycle of underdevelopment.
250-word abstracts with 3 keywords and short biodata, and suggestions of 3 paper panels, by 20 August 2009 to Dr Charles Quist-Adade: KNIC(AT)kwantlen.ca
Geographies of Black Internationalism
Royal Geographical Society Institute of British Geographers Conference, London, 1–3 September 2010.
The study of black internationalism examines the critical historical engagement of black thinkers and actors with global politics, and the often international channels through which such engagements have taken place. Scholarship has explored how black internationalism has functioned through movements as diverse as pan-Africanism, Négritude, Communism, Surrealism, Liberalism and differing religious movements, to name only some examples (Patterson and Kelley, 2000). We can thus conceptualise multiple black internationalisms, articulated in diverse historical and geographical settings (West, Martin and Wilkins, 2009). Particular attention has been given both to the constructed nature of racial communities and identities within black internationalism, and also the gendered and class-stratified nature such constructions have taken (Edwards, 2003; Stephens: 2005). Such work has opened a space for debate over the meanings of both ‘blackness’ and ‘internationalism’ within global cultures and politics.
The study of black internationalism offers considerable opportunities for geographers working on the spatialities of anticolonialism, political activism, the (historical) geographies of social movements, and the relationship between space and politics. However, at present it remains the terrain primarily of historians and literary critics. Indeed, debates around political geography and nationalism have been accused of remaining ‘woefully ignorant of … African diasporic movements’ (Tyner, 2004: 343). This session will explore the historical and political geographies of these movements in order to think more deeply about the relationship between space and the heterogeneous politics of black internationalism. Topics for discussion might include, but are not restricted to, the following: the ‘imaginative geographies’ of black internationalism; black internationalism and the spaces of print or public culture; place-based articulations of black internationalism; the relationship between black internationalism and other political or cultural movements; the gendering of black internationalist discourse and practice; geographical conceptualisations and contestations of ‘black’ and/or ‘internationalism’; black internationalism’s historical geographies; spatialities of black internationalism today; and methodological reflections on researching black internationalisms.
250-word abstracts by 12 February 2010 to Daniel Whittall: j.whittall(AT)rhul.ac.uk
1960: the “Year of Africa” and French Decolonisation Re-visited. A “French Solution” for Sub-Saharan Africa?
University of Portsmouth, 6–7 September 2010.
Fifty years on, 1960 is an impressive turning-point. Ten years before this crucial year, in 1950, only outsiders would have imagined a rapid transition to independence for France's sub-Saharan colonies. Yet 1960 saw the declaration of independence of all these territories. The events of this so-called 'Year of Africa' meant that the transfer of power in the remaining colonial territories on the African continent was only a question of time.
According to the many of those involved in the process, including politicians, officials and former French administrators, decolonisation in French sub-Saharan Africa was a success story, a smooth transfer of power that was peaceful and well-intentioned. Indeed there was great enthusiasm at the time and African statesmen enjoyed widespread sympathy, both within Africa and on the international stage. Economists specialising in modernisation theories foresaw success for the new African national economies. Pan-African initiatives swept across the continent and solidarity was paramount in intra-African relations.
We now know how disappointing the outcomes were. Self-styled liberators became the proponents of authoritarian regimes. Post-colonial economies, which were frequently built on the export of a small number of primary products, crumbled only slightly more than a decade after independence. The newly created national armies overthrew civilian governments. In many cases, the former colonial powers did not leave the African continent. In the French case in particular, the former colonial power sought to remain an important actor in the sub-region. Only in a few ex-colonies, such as Guinea-Conakry or Congo-Brazzaville, would French influence and the French presence quickly dwindle. Other postcolonial governments, like those of Ivory Coast and Gabon, built their whole strategy for survival on the maintenance of a French military presence and support.
Many questions about the decolonisation process remain unanswered: what was the exact nature of the 'nationalist' and 'anti-colonial' movements in francophone sub-Saharan Africa? How far were the distinct and sometimes contradictory objectives of the different parts of these movements responsible for the discrepancies between the rhetoric of the leaders and the policy outcomes following the transfers of power? How did France maintain its links with sub-Saharan Africa after independence? What were the connections involved, and how did the diffuse motivations of the active participants in those networks feed into concrete policy outcomes? These particularities of the French decolonisation process make the French case a particularly interesting one for comparative study with Britain, Belgium, and Portugal and with similar processes in Asia. While scholars have long formulated the demand for more comparative and transnational research, this dimension remains poorly represented in the studies on the final decades of the colonial states and on decolonisation. The experience of decolonisation in francophone Africa also influenced European engagement in sub-Saharan Africa in various ways. What was the significance of the notion of 'Eurafrique'? What was the role of former French colonial administrators in shaping European Community development policy? Finally, how has political independence been represented and commemorated in francophone sub-Saharan Africa since 1960?
The organisers would welcome panels and papers on the following themes: the French decolonisation process in sub-Saharan Africa: motivations, processes, actors; nationalist movements in French-speaking Africa: militants, agendas, internal dissensions, support base; from Union Française to Françafrique: friendships, networks, informal links; French and other decolonisations as part of a world-wide process; political violence, or its lack of; towards neo-colonialism: aid policy after 1960; and representations and public commemoration of ‘The Year of Africa’ over the last fifty years.
300-word abstracts for papers or panels of three papers in English or French by 30 April 2010 to Alexander Keese: queijo(AT)gmx.de and Tony Chafer: tony.chafer(AT)port.ac.uk
Crossborder Trade in Africa: The Local Politics of a Global Economy
ABORNE Conference, University of Basel, Switzerland, 8–11 September 2010.
ABORNE, the African Borderlands Research Network (http://www.aborne.org/), is an interdisciplinary network of over 100 academic researchers and institutions in Europe, Africa and North America. Its members are from all disciplines of the social sciences, with an emphasis on anthropology and history. They share a long-term interest in all aspects of international borders and trans-boundary phenomena in Africa. The emphasis is largely on borderlands as physical spaces and social spheres, but the network is also concerned with regional flows of people and goods as well as economic processes that may be located at some distance from the geographical border. ABORNE is funded by the European Science Foundation as an ESF networking programme since April 2009.
The conference has room for about fifty speakers in both plenary and parallel panels. Papers are invited from scholars of African borderlands and borders at all levels. Financial support is available for a limited number of participants. Due to the restrictions of a funding scheme financed by European taxpayers, only speakers based in countries financing the networking programme will be eligible for funding (Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Switzerland and the UK). Additional funding for an equal number of scholars based in Africa should be available.
200-word paper or panel abstracts by 30 May 2010 to Gregor Dobler: gregor.dobler(AT)unibas.ch and Wolfgang Zeller: wolfgang.zeller(AT)ed.ac.uk
Global Africans, Pan-Africanism, Decolonisation and Integration of Africa – Past, Present and Future
Abuja, Nigeria, 21–24 September 2010.
Global Africans are children of mother Africa, irrespective of their nationalities and the passports they carry or where they live, but who accept and recognize that their ancestors are directly from Africa. They are persons of African descent resident in Africa and other Continents of the world either through forced or voluntary migrations. As a people, Africans have suffered the worst forms of degradation and dehumanisation. Pan-Africanism has been one of the ways of reversing this condition. The goals of Pan-Africanism, expressed at various times through ideals such as: ‘Back to Africa’; ‘Africans Unite’; ‘African Renaissance’ and ‘United States of Africa’ have not been achieved. The violent and non-violent struggles of Africans on the continent and in the Diaspora contributed significantly to the independence and freedoms of black people from the evils of colonialism and apartheid. New generation of pan-Africanists are building on the gains of the past to tackle the challenges of the present and future. There is therefore the need for a careful re-examination, documentation, preservation and dissemination of the historical contributions of global Africans to African development.
Organised by the Centre for Black and African Arts and Civilization (CBAAC) in conjunction with the Pan African Strategic and Policy Research Group (PANAFSTRAG), this conference seeks papers on theoretical and conceptual issues; historicising Pan-Africanism; Pan-Africanism’s spiritual and cultural foundation; methodological and pedagogical issues in Pan-Africanism; Pan-African thinkers and thought; Pan-Africanism and economic development; Pan-Africanist organisations; Pan-Africanism and the African Union; Pan-Africanism and Globalization; and contemporary issues in Pan-Africanism.
300-word abstracts by 9 May 2010 to: tunde_babawale(AT)yahoo.com and akinalao(AT)yahoo.com and isholawilliams(AT)yahoo.com
The Public Understanding of Science in Africa
British Institute of East Africa, Nairobi, Kenya, 22–24 September 2010.
With the spread of mobile phones and Internet technology, the expansion of medical research sites, the development of genetically modified crops, the growing food crisis, the threat of global warming, and the challenges of particular diseases and health care, the question of how science engages publics is becoming increasingly important in Africa, as elsewhere. The workshop brings together researchers, academics, journalists, policy-makers, and those working in science education to discuss public engagement with science, and the engagement of publics by science in Africa, in scientific controversies, and through various scientific projects – environmental, medical or technological.
Policy makers often assume that ´the public´ lacks knowledge of science, and that its members are irrational, anti-scientific, and in need of education. More recently there has been a move to understanding the public as more differentiated and more capable of engaging with science. However, such moves continue to conceive ´the public´ as lay citizenry separate from scientists and policymakers. Science does not necessarily engage with a freestanding public, but also creates certain publics; while some publics emerge through relations with science. Thus a public may be a group of people that forms around a particular issue, for example, a conservation project, a health issue, or an issue of access to particular resources. Science gains legitimacy through public engagement, but what is the nature of this engagement, and what ethical issues arise?
Organized by the Centre of African Studies, University of Cambridge, together with the British Institute of East Africa and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine’s Anthropologies of African Biosciences Group, the workshop will discuss the following questions: What debates are African publics engaging in, in relation to science and policy-making and scientific debates? How is science in Africa engaging with publics, whom do these publics consist of and how are they conceived? Are particular publics emerging in relation to scientific issues? What do public engagements with science in Africa tell us about opportunities for participation in decision-making, policy and public debates? What relationships exist between the various publics involved and various actors, from the state to international scientific research groups, pharmaceutical companies, NGOs and UN agencies? What do these reveal about the meanings of citizenship and the development of networks of concerned actors in relation to scientific issues, as well as the ability of particular communities to shape or affect scientific policies that concern their livelihoods?
There are three themes. First, science, medicine and public health: media reports on health and medicine; medical research and the engagement of publics; public health campaigns; and global disease programmes and their publics. Second, conservation and the environment: public engagement with conservation projects; public understanding of climate change; water resources; deforestation; foreign states buying land in Africa to cultivate food; environmental degradation and migration; and media reports on climate change issues in Africa. Third, science, technology and development: implications of expanding mobile phone technology and Internet access; debates about genetically modified crops; development of sustainable energy sources; and development of sustainable technology.
Abstracts by 1 May 2010 to Dorian Addison: conference(AT)african.cam.ac.uk
Shifting the Map of Innovation and Reason: Focus on the Africana World
Africana Studies Second Annual Interdisciplinary Symposium, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, Virginia, USA, 8 October 2010.
Africa and its diaspora as a space has been a centre of research on political and economic crisis since 1960s, but seldom do we pay attention to it as a locale for educational, political, social, scientific, creative and other innovations. As a result, such innovations by and about Africana peoples of the world and particularly on the African continent have suffered colonial opulence and Westocentricism. Innovation in and on the Africana space can be discerned or contested in its culture: music, dance, stories, festivals (harvest, rites); political advancement: social justice, democratization and constitutionalism; aesthetics: fabric and designs, hair and ornaments; social existence: community relations, relations between seniors and juniors, familial relations and responsibilities; religion; the ability to exist within multiple religious spaces at the same time and reinvention of or birth of new belief systems; economic sustenance and survival: partnerships, agricultural, commercial and subsistence; and global placement, especially in the realms of technology and health.
200 word abstracts by 15 May 2010 to: muhonjbx(AT)jmu.edu
Portugal and Africa: Accounts, Connections, Identities (15-18th centuries
Centre d'Études des Mondes Africain-Paris, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, Paris, France, 21–22 October 2010.
For a long time historians have dealt mostly with the so-called ‘Discoveries’ (from the end of the fifteenth century to the early sixteenth century), seen then as a glorious moment in Iberian expansion. Scholars tended to pay much less attention to the longue durée and consequently fostered the idea of a rapid decline of the Portuguese empire. First, it appears necessary to question the interactions between the ‘Portuguese’ and Africa over the longue durée and to avoid periodisations that rely solely on the logic of the Portuguese Empire. Second, it seems essential to do away with two major tendencies: on the one hand, a lusocentric approach which often leads to the writing a ‘history of the Portuguese in Africa’; on the other hand, an Africa-centred orientation which frequently uses Portuguese evidences less than critically and tends to overestimate or, conversely, underestimate the Portuguese ‘factor’.
To avoid binary interpretations and compartmentalisations, one needs to question and to integrate these different historiographies. It is also necessary to go beyond an essentialist approach to Portuguese, African, or even Luso-African and Afro-Portuguese, societies, as well as to the Portuguese empire. It is fundamental to take into account their heterogeneity and their internal divisions and to re-insert the historical actors in both space and time. Such a position further invites in depth examination of categories and concepts usually employed, such as ‘Portuguese’, ‘Luso-Africans’, ‘métissage’, ‘connections’, ‘empire’ and ‘colony. Finally, this re-thinking requires historians to go back to the circumstances in which both European and African accounts of this period were produced, so as to consider these accounts as social products: chronicles, missionary works, travel accounts, administrative documentation and local traditions. In this manner, through the study of the ‘modes of interactions’ between the ‘Portuguese’ and the ‘Africans’, the organisers seek to shed more precise light on Portuguese societies overseas, as well as those African societies which they encountered. Interested scholars are encouraged to propose case studies and place Africa within global interactions (Europe, Asia and America).
The organisers seek papers on the following themes: individual itineraries, empire's margins and interstitial positions, urban mixing and hinterland's fiefdoms; circulation of men and women, items and ideas; acculturations, solidarities and hierarchies; depiction of Portuguese, Africans, Luso-Africans and Afro-Portuguese in European and African accounts. In addition, the conference is open to papers that consider Luso-African experiences (Asia, America) in a comparative perspective. Conference languages are French and English.
300 word abstracts and short CV by 15 November 2009 to Hervé Pennec: pennec(AT)mmsh.univ-aix.fr and Thomas Vernet: thomas.vernet(AT)univ-paris1.fr
Africa for Sale: Analysing and Theorizing Foreign Land Claims and Acquisitions
Groningen University, The Netherlands, 28–29 October 2010.
This conference is sponsored by the Netherlands African Studies Association (NVAS) and the African Studies Centre (ASC), Leiden. While the nature and scope of large-scale, foreign land acquisitions has been taken up by NGOs, very little academic scholarship has addressed these deals both analytically and theoretically, from [comparative] historical and contemporary perspectives. In turn, several important questions remain unanswered. What are the implications of foreign land leases for local populations? How are these deals mediated, structured and legitimized? What is the role of multinational corporations and foreign actors in the economic, political, social, and environmental governance of 'developing' countries in Africa? The organisers seek papers from all disciplines analysing these large-scale foreign land acquisitions in Africa. Contributions addressing the following four fields are particularly welcome: food security: foreign (government or company) investments in ‘unused’ arable land for large-scale agricultural production; large-scale mining: multinational claims to land for mineral exploitation; conservation projects: international environmental NGO acquisition or control of land for biodiversity conservation and/or protected area management; and land acquisitions for purposes of tourism development.
400-word abstracts by 15 May 2010 to: nvasconference2010(AT)hotmail.com
Independence: Through Grassroot Experience in the 1960s
International Conference organised by the Africa-Indian Ocean Group, Laboratoire SEDET (Université Paris Diderot-Paris 7), Paris, France, 2–4 December 2010
1960 opened the path for African freedom: years of promises but also years of complexities, years carrying the seeds of conflicts to come. One half-century after independence, 2010 marks, for many countries of the continent, the fiftieth anniversary of the political accession to independence. The international conference’s title refers to the events experienced by the people fifty years later, not to celebrate the events but to offer a renewed reading of them. Everywhere euphoric crowds acclaimed the raising of the national flags, learned the verses from the national anthems which did not cease resounding in the streets, and, in French-speaking former colonies, danced to the sound of ‘Indépendance Cha cha’, to welcome the emancipation of many African countries. The approach adopted by the conference relates to the less known aspects or situations of the very moment of Independence: how did the people live the Independence Day but also the few years which preceded it or followed?
Papers on the following four themes are welcome. First, the conference aims to stimulate the search for new sources and to recreate the lived moments of 1960 by the means of the diverse sources: documents: photographs, newspaper reports, objects, ‘cinema news’, broadcast reports, artistic production (painting, sculpture), slogans, printed materials for the occasion; direct or indirect, oral or written testimonies; contemporary or posterior monuments, emblems (anthems, flags); and repertory of songs and dances, fashion collection. Second, ceremonies: from public to private events. The proclamation of independence was marked by various, immediate or planned meetings which deserve to be documented, analysed and described, such as official ceremonies and private or spontaneous reactions; and hybrid festivities, between national or regional cultural expression and borrowed European ways of performing. Third, individual enthusiasm and official initiatives: because people experienced the day of Independence in different ways, sometimes in a collective mode, sometimes individually, state-organised or not, in rural villages or in urban environments. Lastly, after fifty years, independence has also generated different memories. The history cannot be written without reference to subsequent interpretations of the historical processes leading to independence. Indeed what happened later has modified these interpretations. Reference can be made to writings or films related to independence or focus on the subsequent disenchantment.
Abstracts and short CV in English or French by 15 September 2009 to Sylviane Cheminot: independances.afrique(AT)univ-paris-diderot.fr
African Churches in Europe: Mediating Imaginations
International Conference, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, 8–10 December 2010.
‘African Churches’ have been present in Europe for some decades now, but their developments have taken a new dimension with the intensification of African migrations to Europe in the 80s and 90s. Beyond their doctrinal and institutional diversity and divergences, these churches have in common to be carried by African populations who all too often remain stigmatized and marginalized at the social, political and juridical levels. Simultaneously, they now compete in an explicit way with historical mission churches, however, and attract an important proportion of Africans living in Europe. Depending on the perspective, these churches can alternatively be viewed as a globalized and particularly dynamic contribution to the edification of contemporary Christianities, or as the refuge of ethno-religious communalisms not entirely compatible with European public spaces.
‘African Churches’ in Europe are today at the very heart of transformations of both the imaginations of Europe in the African worlds, and the imaginations of Africa in Europe. They are simultaneously new faces of Africa installed in the heart of European towns and cities that question the Western contemporary ways of (dis)connecting religion and the public sphere, as well as places of significant reinterpretations of European secular values and practices. As key sites in reshaping European representations of Africa, as well as in remaking African paradigms of Europe, these churches play a crucial role of mediation in the relations between the two continents.
The conference will be organized around four research themes. First, debated identities: the entanglement of religious, racial and ethno-national identities in African assemblies in Europe has already generated a series of scholarly debates in the last decade. What forms of (dis)connections between religious and ethno-national affiliations are at work in African Churches of Europe today? What roles do religious identities play in the lives of African Christians in Europe? Second, networks and circulations of religious actors: African Churches in Europe are regularly part of different forms of transnational networks where ethno-national identities are combined with religious affiliations. What are the logics of circulation of African ecclesiastical elites in Europe? How are transnational relations between pastors and between Churches made and unmade? What forms of transnational organization are at work in religious networks, and along which lines do concerns for centralization differ between Churches? Third, relations to the public sphere: what are the different dimensions of the relation to the public sphere in these Churches? Reciprocally, what spaces are carved out in European countries for African Churches? Fourth, gender issues: in European African Churches, how do questions of masculinity and femininity arise, and in what terms? Are gender relations in these Churches vowed to reproduce the forms of “masculine domination” at work in African societies more broadly? What types of feminine religious power are observable in these assemblies?
From the diverse issues of identity, networks and circulations of religious actors, relations to the public sphere, and gender, contributions to the conference will seek to show how African Christian worlds of Europe are now situated at the very heart of dynamics of reconfiguration of African imaginations of Europe, but also of European imaginations of Africa. The conference will be organised in four half-day thematic sessions, along the directions of the call for papers. There will be no parallel sessions.
One page abstracts in English or French by 30 April 2010 to Maïté Maskens: mmaskens(AT)ulb.ac.be and Joël Noret: jnoret(AT)ulb.ac.be
The Upper Guinea Coast in Transnational Perspective
3rd Conference of the Research Group ‘Integration and Conflict along the Upper Guinea Coast’
Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle/Saale, Germany, 9–11 December 2010. Whereas previous conferences concentrated mainly on the comparative exploration of processes of integration and conflict within the region of the Upper Guinea Coast (Halle, 2006) and on the region’s role in the ‘Making of the Atlantic’ (Lisbon, 2008), the upcoming conference focuses on the region’s connectedness with all societies – irrespective of regional concerns – which are linked with it as the result of the expansion of colonialism and the Atlantic slave trade, processes which are, of course, interconnected in manifold ways. Luso-Creole identity, for example, constituted an early ‘travelling model’ that spread across continents and the understanding of which would benefit from comparative research not restricting itself to criteria of mainly regional concern, but including societies, which are interconnected with the Upper Guinea Coast through historical and contemporary processes of interaction – involving people and ideas as well as social practices and ideological models. Thus, the conference aims to investigate the external encounters and exchanges the societies of the Upper Guinea Coast were and are part of and which have shaped their social configuration and have generated – and continue to generate – specific (new) identities and alliances. By paying particular regard to the transnational dimension, it will deepen our understanding of the involvement of the Upper Guinea Coast in contemporary processes of regional and global interaction and exchange. The presence of Upper Guinea Coast alumni in different diasporas and the latter’s interactions with their ‘home’ societies and the role of Creole identities and “Eurafrican” groups (Brooks, 2003) in interethnic relations, in the construction of transethnic identifications, in processes of ethnic and religious differentiation and postcolonial nation-building will be just two of the important issues to be discussed.
200-300 word abstracts by 1 June 2010 to Dr Jacqueline Knörr: knoerr(AT)eth.mpg.de
Linking Ghana and the Caribbean: Legacies, Memories and Belongings
University of Cape Coast, Ghana, 12–19 December 2010.
Organised by the Harriet Tubman Institute for Research on the Global Migrations of African Peoples, York University, Canada through its MCRI Project (“Memory, Slavery and Citizenship”) and the University of Cape Coast, papers are invited which focus broadly on the historical and contemporary connections between Ghana and the Caribbean. Using the Atlantic Slave trade as the progenitor of this link, the organisers seek papers which explore the memories of displacement and loss, the rituals of reconnection, and the claims for belonging on both sides of the Atlantic. The conference aims at bringing together scholars who are working on the archived as well as the lived and/or imagined connections between those Africans who were deported from the general area known as Ghana (the Gold Coast) and their descendants in the African Diasporas of the Caribbean. A major scholarly concern of this conference is the examination of the ways in which these connections have shaped ideas of historical belonging and contemporary citizenship.
The following themes are suggested but are not exclusive: establishing the link: histories of departure and arrival; cultural production and the African diasporic imagination; spirits across the waters: connections in the religious sphere; reproducing history and memory in diurnal ritual; the political strategies of decolonization; and reconnecting: historical and contemporary repatriations and reconnections.
300-word abstracts and short CV by 1 May 2010 to the Ghanaian-Caribbean Diasporas Conference Organizers: tubman(AT)yorku.ca
Searching for the African Voice: Studying Slavery and the Slave Trade in Africa
Buea, Cameroon, 14–16 December 2010.
Most of the sources used to write the history of slavery in Africa are European, but the memories of the Atlantic slave trade remain and are embedded in African ritual, song and memory. The organisers invite proposals dealing with the exploration of new methodologies and the re-examination of old ones. Our major objective is to make available to students and scholars African sources on slavery, enslavement and the slave trade and to improve our understanding of these documents. The conference is open to any methodology that taps African voices. The goal is to seek out and explore new methodologies to find more African sources, and if possible, to look for the voices of the slaves themselves as well as the enslavers, and buyers and sellers on how they perceived their own actions and experiences. The organisers also want to make these sources more widely available.
This is the third gathering on this subject. At the recent Toronto conference on Tales of Slavery: Narratives of Slavery, the Slave Trade and Enslavement in Africa, the organisers received 26 abstracts from Africa. Many of them described interesting and innovative research. The organisers were only able to bring seven of those 26 scholars to Toronto. Our enterprise clearly was of interest to African scholars. Our goal was to find new African sources for slavery and the slave trade, and through that, to give a more varied picture of the African experience. Historians of the slave trade have depended too much on European information. As a result, the West African Research Association has funded this workshop in Cameroon, where much of the best research is being done.
Abstracts by 31 March 2010 to Denis Fomin: fomin_esd_1999(AT)yahoo.com
Women and Gender in Colonial Contexts
International Conference Université Paris I-Panthéon Sorbonne, Paris, 19–21 January 2012.
For decades, colonizing was perceived and analysed as a masculine undertaking. This is probably why historians of colonisation (and decolonisation), who themselves were mostly men, paid little attention to the study of women, of gender relations, or of how gender identities and sexualities were constructed in colonial contexts. Women were seen as negligible actors in colonial wars (both during and after the conquest), even though they were important actors within and victims of such conflicts. Moreover, as primary agents of the European ‘civilising mission’, whose alleged principles were to ‘educate, cure, moralise and convert’, women (both colonisers and the colonised) took part in the process of national assertion and of colonial domination. Last but not least, the colonial process created, and was constantly reshaped by, tensions as well as new forms of racial or social hierarchies and gender roles. Thus, the colonial making of gender proved to be a powerful vector of social transformation, both in metropoles and in colonies, as recent stimulating historical research has demonstrated.
Organised by Université Paris-1 Panthéon Sorbonne (CEMAf et Centre d’Histoire du XIXe siècle), Ecole Normale Supérieure, Lyon (LARHRA) and New York University (Paris), this conference seeks to assess the current state of historical research on this subject in a longue durée perspective, from the late 18th century to the decolonisations of Africa, Asia, and Oceania. Participants are welcome to present research focusing on specific colonial contexts, both in terms of time and space. At the same time, studies of women’s experiences or of gender construction through a comparative perspective between colonies or empires is strongly encouraged. The organisers encourage papers that investigate, within the conference framework, relevant aspects of the following: politics and policies, work, religion, education, health, family, mobilities, sexualities, body/bodies, war, slavery, violence and masculinities.
300-word abstracts and short CV in English or French by 15 June 2010 to: christelle.taraud(AT)wanadoo.fr
