New publications

The scoping study on regional trade & investment in West Africa conducted by the ASCL in cooperation with LEI Wageningen UR and the European Centre for Development Policy Management (ECDPM) has now been finalized and has generated a number of written outputs.

ASCL's Director Ton Dietz presented a paper at the 33rd International Geographical Congress in Beijing that took place from 21-25 August. The paper examines the evidence in Africa regarding the intentions of municipalities and their leadership to develop more sustainable cities, and to mobilise business and popular support for more sustainable futures in a continent that is likely to have the fastest urbanization trends in the decades ahead. Read the paper.

The African Studies Centre's Annual Report for 2015 is out now! In 2015 we finalized preparations to become part of Leiden University as an interfaculty institute. It was also the year in which we lost our most successful researcher, Professor Stephen Ellis. You can read the Annual Report online; printed copies will be available soon.

Commissioned by the Food & Business Knowledge Platform, this scoping report aims to contribute to a more contextualized comprehensive picture of The Netherlands’ government's ongoing cooperation with West Africa and the perspective in terms of policy options for strengthening its effectiveness and coherence by giving more emphasis to the promotion of intraregional trade and investment. 

A new cohort of Muslim youth has arisen since the attacks of 9/11, facilitated by the proliferation of recent communication technologies and the Internet. By focusing on these young people as a heterogeneous global cohort, the contributors to this volume - coedited by senior researcher Benjamin Soares - show how the study of Muslim youth at this particular historical juncture is relevant to thinking about the anthropology of youth, the anthropology of Islamic and Muslim societies, and the post-9/11 world more generally. 

The final book by the late Stephen Ellis, This Present Darkness: A History of Nigerian Organised Crime, was launched at the ASCL on 9 June. To mark this occasion, the ASCL Library has compiled a web dossier on Crime in Africa, with a special focus on Nigeria. The dossier is divided into four themes: Crime general; Illicit trade, drugs and human trafficking; Corruption and commercial crime; Police and Vigilante groups. It opens with a personal word on Stephen Ellis by ASCL director Ton Dietz, and a thematic introduction on crime and the quest for integrity by ASCL researcher Chibuike Uche. Read the web dossier.