News & Events

During the ASC seminar on 8 June, Gregg Pascal Zachary from Arizona State University will describe the current shift from pure absorption of Euro-American digital technologies to the rise of home-grown, indigenous innovation activities in computing and communications in Africa. Drawing on case studies from Nairobi (mobile money) and Kampala (computer science research), Zachary will argue that the spread of Africanized digital technologies is having profoundly positive effects on African society, culture and material life. Please note: this seminar takes place next Monday!

ASC researcher Akinyinka Akinyoade was interviewed by EenVandaag television about Boko Haram on 13 April. It's been one year since Boko Haram kidnapped 200 girls. More than 1,5 million people have fled out of fear for the terrorist group's actions in northern Nigeria. The number of children that have fled has doubled to 800.000, as Unicef writes in a report.

Two PhD candidates that are closely related to the ASC, Angela Kronenburg García and Harrie Leyten, defended their PhD theses this week. Angela defended her thesis Contesting Control. Land and forest in the struggle for Loita Maasai self-government in Kenya at Wageningen University on 13 April. Harrie defended his thesis From idol to art. African 'objects with power': A challenge for missionaries, anthropologists and museum curators at Tilburg University on 15 April. His thesis has become a reflection of his long career.

During a joint lunch seminar on 13 May, organized by the ASC and the International Institute for Asian Studies, the relationship forged between states who follow a liberal economic model (mainly France, Japan and the US) and states directly involved in the investment of capital across their traditional borders (mainly China, Dubai and Malaysia) will be traced. Speaker is Samson A. Bezabeh, Visiting Fellow of the ASC and IIAS.