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Seminar 5 March: Cape Town: The Making of a Colonial City

Join us on 5 March for the Seminar by visiting fellow Wayne Dooling (SOAS) about the history of Cape Town. Dooling will examine how a city shaped by slavery and migration developed a cross-racial urban culture and how British colonial officials began the work of destroying the cosmopolitan city.

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Blog: Africa Cup of Nations: What it says about Africa

The Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON), held in Morocco last December and January, ended in a chaotic final between Senegal and Morocco. From its birth in 1957, AFCON provided recognition and a stage to imagine the continent differently. Those ideals are still tested today, Chaimaa Radouani writes in a new blog post.

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Roundtable: Swahili heritage in digital futures

On 28 January, inside the coral-stone walls of the Lamu Fort Library (Lamu island, Kenyan coast), Annachiara Raia convened a first roundtable dedicated to the question on how to collaborate in safeguarding and connecting enduring heritage along the Swahili coast.

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Off to Nairobi: LDE Thesis Lab on just urban transitions

Early February, a new cohort of master’s students will travel to Nairobi for an LDE Thesis Lab on Just and Sustainable Urban and Energy Transitions in Kenya. The lab brings together students, researchers and practitioners to explore how cities can move towards more sustainable and inclusive development.

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Conflict Continuities: Africa in Focus

In this special section of the journal Conflict and Society, the authors call for attention to 'conflict continuities' to understand contemporary violence. They argue that past violent conflict may serve to generate new conflict, in reworked forms. The special section was initiated by the CRG ‘Conflict continuities’.

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Looking back on the Master's Open Day

The session on the Master African Studies was well attended during the university’s Master’s Open Day on 6 February. Current students and alumni shared their experiences on the study programme and research project in Africa. Are you also interested in the Master African Studies? Apply now!

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Recent publications

Disastrous deductions?: Aid cuts and disaster governance in Malawi
George W. Foden, Tanja D. Hendriks
Frontline state security: Rebel movements and cover states in Southern Africa, 1970–1990
Tycho van der Hoog and John Burton Kegel
Conflict Continuities: Africa in Focus
Berckmoes, de Bruijn, Bruls, van der Hoog, a.o.
Afrika’s klimaatproblemen en -beleid in mondiaal perspectief
Jan Abbink
Gaping Holes: Towards Multispecies Histories and Ethnographies of Mining in Southern Africa
Jan-Bart Gewald, Sabine Luning and Harry Wels

Upcoming events

03 March 2026
Green Hydrogen South-South Dialogue from Below
05 March 2026
ASCL Seminar: Cape Town: The Making of a Colonial City
18 March 2026
CRG Seminar: Living With Toxic Extractivism: Women's Lifeworlds with Oil in Nigeria’s Niger Delta
01 April 2026
Call for Abstracts: Global Conference on Trade, Tariffs, and Development in Africa
25 August 2026
'Mines, Meat and Maize. The Environmental History of Mining in Southern Africa'

ASCL in the media

Anika Altaf on Radio 1 about the AU Summit
Rahmane Idrissa interviewed in podcast 'Africa Knows'
Asrat Asegie and Sara de Wit in Trouw about indigenous knowledge
Daphne Engel about Sudan on NPO Kennis
Mandipa Ndlovu on ADBN about constitutional engineering redefining democracy in Africa
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+31 (0)71 527 33 72/76
+31 (0)71 527 33 54 (Library)

asc@asc.leidenuniv.nl

The African Studies Centre Leiden is an interfaculty institute of Leiden University

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