The African Studies Centre Leiden is the only multidisciplinary academic knowledge institute in the Netherlands devoted entirely to the study of Africa. It has an excellent library that is open to the general public. The ASCL is an interfaculty institute of Leiden University.
2020 is the year in which 17 countries on the African continent will celebrate 60 years of independence. The Africanists from Leiden University and its LDE-partners TU Delft and Erasmus University (united in ‘LeidenASA’, hosted by the ASCL) will organize 'Africa 2020', a year full of workshops, film screenings, peer coaching for PhD students, seminars and two large conferences: ‘Africa: 60 years of independence’ in January, and ‘Africa knows!’ in December 2020.
In July, Nigeria, which is the largest economy in Africa, signed the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA). With this development, Eritrea is now the only African country that has not acceded to the treaty. While signing the agreement, Nigeria’s President Buhari made it clear that the country was mainly concerned with ensuring that free trade should also be fair trade. Chibuike Uche was actually surprised by the speed with which most African countries endorsed AfCFTA. Read his latest blog post!
This book is based on Tycho van der Hoog’s master’s thesis ‘North Korean monuments in southern Africa: Legitimizing party rule through the National Heroes’ Acres in Zimbabwe and Namibia’, runner-up for the ASCL’s 2018 Africa Thesis Award. Scattered across southern Africa, impressive North Korean monuments celebrate the rise of young, independent nations. Freed from the shackles of colonialism or white settler rule, many southern African states are loyal customers of the North Korean state-owned enterprise Mansudae Art Studio, a firm responsible for the propaganda of the reigning Kim dynasty.
Her interest lies in the entanglement of African Studies and Arabic Studies from a literary perspective. Annachiara Raia works for both the ASCL and the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society (LUCAS). In the Leiden University Libraries she found a special collection of 900 printed books from Eastern Africa, mostly on Islamic doctrines. Originally written in e.g. Urdu or Arabic, they have been translated mainly into Swahili. 'This collection is a real gem’, she says. ‘Who wrote the original texts, how have these texts travelled?' Read the interview with Annachiara Raia!
This article in 'Children & Society' by Lidewyde Berckmoes and colleagues explores how children in conflict‐affected Burundi deal with violence in their everyday lives. Focusing on schools as a context in which children are prepared for further roles in society, research was conducted at 36 primary schools throughout Burundi. Findings reveal that children use a variety of strategies to deal with violence they encounter. These strategies are ultimately aimed at reducing vulnerability to (future) violence.
