Spotlight: Farewell Ton Dietz
Prof. Ton Dietz has retired as Director of the African Studies Centre Leiden and as Professor of the Study of African Development on 1 September 2017. He gave his Farewell Lecture 'Africa: Still a Silver Lining' on Monday 25 September in the Academy Building, Leiden. Here's an overview of all the news concerning Ton Dietz's farewell.
The Lecture
Read Ton Dietz’s lecture: Africa; still a silver lining (pdf). Read the thematic maps and the infosheet he used during his lecture:
- thematic map Education in Africa: recent dynamics and current situation (pdf),
- thematic map Africa’s international trade 2001-2016: boom and bust,
- infosheet Africa in the 21st century,
- thematic map No-go areas in Africa March 2017 (pdf), and
- thematic map Africa: International migration, emigration 2015.
Ton received the Order of Merit of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from Minister Bert Koenders after the lecture.
The lecture was live streamed on our Facebook page. The offical video registration of the lecture includes the speeches afterwards.
Festschrift
Ton received a Festschrift from his (former) colleagues: The Face of Africa. Essays in honour of Ton Dietz. The 19 essays in this volume range wide and address three broad themes, which the editors (Wouter van Beek, Jos Damen & Dick Foeken) suggested to the contributors: coping with Africa, the relation between people and environment, and development.
Web dossier Ton Dietz
On the occasion of Ton's retirement, the ASCL Library created a special web dossier, consisting of titles from the ASCL Library collection written by Ton Dietz and by others, but all related to subjects important in the work and private life of Ton Dietz.
Media interviews
We did an extensive farewell interview with Ton this summer. In particular his statements about more development in Africa leading to more migration were picked up by the media. He was subsequently interviewed by Belgian online magazine Knack.be, Leidsch Dagblad, de Volkskrant, Radio 1, Mare, Met het Oog op Morgen, de Volkskrant again, Belgian newspaper De Tijd and Leiden-based radio show Science071. He also wrote an article for OneWorld about how he became a migration expert.
Exhibition
Coinciding with his retirement, Ton has organized the exhibition Early postal services in East Africa at the ASCL. African postal heritage is one of Ton's many fields of interest, which is why he also initiated the African Postal Heritage Series.
Ton Dietz will remain co-chair of the Leiden African Studies Assembly, and still has PhD candidates to supervise. Likewise, he has not yet finished his research of his favourite spot in Africa: Pokot, in Kenya (the place that gave him his African name Ilat, or ‘thunder and lightning’). Many reasons why we will still - gladly! - see him at the ASCL.
Posted on 14 September 2017, last modified on 21 December 2017