News & Events

Guinea-Bissau is one of the poorest countries in the world. Due to the poor education system parents often try to set up schools themselves. Roel Burgler made a photo reportage of education in Guinea-Bissau, together with SOS Children’s Villages. The photos are currently on show in the corridors of the African Studies Centre Leiden. Roel Burgler and Mieke Hartveld (programme officer Africa at SOS Kinderdorpen) will give an introduction to the exhibition on 25 January.

The final results of the research project 'Ethnographic Study on Mobile Money in Africa' have just been published. The project is a comparative ethnographic study into the usage, perceptions and attitudes towards digital financial services (DFS) in four selected countries: Cameroon, DRC, Senegal and Zambia. The results give insight into why people are motivated to use DFS and why they might not be using specific mobile phone-related monetary transfer systems.

Dr Camino Kavanagh (Dept. of War Studies, Kings College London) gave an insightful Stephen Ellis Annual Lecture on the impact of Cyberspace and ICTs in Africa. Dr Kavanagh presented an overview of the benefits of cyberspace, such as greater connectivity thanks to the Internet, and of the challenges, e.g. cost of security, cybercrime, the use of African states as launch pads for illicit activity in other states and human rights challenges. You can now watch or read the presentation online.

ASCL director Prof. Jan-Bart Gewald gave the Cleveringa Lecture at Stellenbosch University, South Africa, on 25 November. Title of his lecture: 'The Morality of Truth: The Importance of Facts in History'. In this lecture, Prof. Gewald  discussed alternative facts and alternative histories, arguing that historical facts actually do exist and that historians can approach the truth of the past. You can now read the Cleveringa lecture online.

Prof. Ton Dietz was knighted as an Officer in the Order of Orange-Nassau at the end of the Annual Meeting of the Leiden African Studies Assembly on 7 December. Prof. Dietz, who retired as the director of the African Studies Centre Leiden on 1 September, was taken by surprise when the mayor of his hometown entered the stage in Museum Volkenkunde Leiden, where the Annual Meeting took place. Read more about this special event.