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Date: Wednesday 21 September 2011
Time: 15.30-17.00
Venue: Room SB11, Pieter de la Court building, Wassenaarseweg 52,
Leiden.
Speakers: Dr Benedetta Rossi, Department of History, University of
Liverpool.
Discussant:
Dr Rijk van
Dijk, African Studies Centre
You are kindly requested to register for this seminar.
This seminar is being organized in cooperation with the Department of
Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology at Leiden University.
The case of Hadijatou Mani is emblematic. It has a place in the
history of anti-slavery struggles and in the fight for recognition of
women’s rights. It also sheds light on historical transformations of
dependent relations in the Republic of Niger. After contextualizing
Hadijatou's case in the society that generated it, Benedetta Rossi
compares and confronts international human-rights approaches and
ideologies of gender and hierarchy held by many in southern Niger and
northern Nigeria. These groups are not simply producers of 'local'
knowledge but mobilize normative arguments that they see as being based
on global Islamic dictata. International human-rights networks claim
universal relevance. However, their assumptions clash with views
supported by Hadijatou’s society of origin. The seminar will discuss
how, if at all, a meaningful dialogue can be established across
different ethical and hermeneutical traditions.
Benedetta Rossi has an RCUK Fellowship at the Department of History at
the University of Liverpool, where she lectures in African history and
runs an MA in International Slavery Studies. Her recent publications
include the edited volume Reconfiguring Slavery: West African
Trajectories (Liverpool, 2009) and the co-edited volume Being and
Becoming Hausa: Interdisciplinary Perspectives (Brill, 2010).
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