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Posted: 16 February 2022
In Memoriam Bert Ingelaere (1979-2022)
It is with profound sadness that the African Studies Centre Leiden has learned that Prof. Dr Bert Ingelaere passed away on 4 February 2022. Bert, Associate Professor at Antwerp University, was a highly respected member of our academic community, a collaborator on many occasions, and a dear friend. He will be remembered for his profound knowledge of the long-term effects of conflict in the African Great Lakes region.
Posted: 14 February 2022
New blog: Photographing Africa: Lessons from the Hofstra collection
In the 1930s, sociologist and anthropologist Sjoerd Hofstra spent almost two years among Mende people in the small village of Panguma, Sierra Leone. Here he took hundreds of photos. The Hofstra photo collection, based at the ASCL library, was recently uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. Providing access to this collection does much to balance African imagery that is often dominated by negative representations, argues library intern Cameron Stone. Read his blog!
Posted: 14 February 2022
New Library Highlight: De koerier van Maputo (The Courier of Maputo)
This month’s Library Highlight focuses on ‘De koerier van Maputo’ (The Courier of Maputo) by Jenne Jan Holtland. In this recently acquired Dutch-language non-fiction work by journalist Jenne Jan Holtland, the writer explores the surreal yet true story of Klaas de Jonge, a Dutch citizen who became involved in the armed struggle against Apartheid in South Africa in the 1980s, and who ended up spending over two years in diplomatic asylum in the Dutch embassy in Pretoria. Read the Highlight!
Posted: 10 February 2022
Akinyinka Akinyoade new chair of the Researchers' Assembly
Dr Akinyinka Akinyoade is the new chair of the ASCL Researchers' Assembly. Akinyoade took over from Prof. Jan Abbink during the meeting of 19 January, where Prof. Abbink was thanked warmly for his exemplary leadership of and commitment to the Assembly for many years. Among other things, Dr Akinyoade wants to consolidate the continuous gains of the ASCL Collaborative Research Groups.
Posted: 08 February 2022
Femke van Zeijl nominated for Volkskrant IISG Thesis Award
African Studies MA alumna Femke van Zeijl has been nominated for the Volkskrant IISG Thesis Award 2021 for her thesis 'The Curious Case of Casa do Fernandez: Challenges of Heritage Management in Nigeria’. The thesis award of Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant and the International Institute of Social History is yearly presented to a student who has written an excellent thesis about a historical subject. Van Zeijl is one of three nominees; the winner will be announced on 24 March.
Posted: 19 January 2022
Report LeidenASA Annual Meeting: Decolonising academic education and research
Posted: 19 January 2022
Did you miss the Stephen Ellis Annual Lecture by Nanjala Nyabola? Watch the video!
Independent writer and researcher Nanjala Nyabola gave the 2021 Stephen Ellis Annual Research Lecture on 9 December 2021. The title of her lecture was: African Feminism as Method. In her presentation, she proposed a possible theoretical framework for African women’s work and African feminisms as political science method. You can now watch the video of the lecture!
Posted: 18 January 2022
Book launch 24 March: 'White Mineworkers on Zambia's Copperbelt, 1926-1974'
The ASCL is pleased to announce the launch of Duncan Money's new book 'White Mineworkers on Zambia's Copperbelt, 1926-1974: In a Class of Their Own' on Thursday 24 March. This book is the first that looks at the many thousands of white workers who migrated to Zambia's copper mines and became some of most affluent and wealthy groups of workers in the world. Money argues that this group was a highly mobile global workforce and constituted a racialised working class, a white working class.
Posted: 12 January 2022
7 April: ASCL Seminar: Subaltern Metropolitan Adventure and Colonial Mediation in Nigeria
How did colonised African elites who traveled to European colonial countries for sightseeing portray metropolitan cultures and peoples in their writings to African audiences? The focus in this seminar by Prof. Moses Ochonu (VanderBilt University) is on emirs and aristocrats from Northern Nigeria, who traveled to Britain between 1920 and 1960 for touristic adventures and returned with stories. Prof. Ochonu's book Emirs in London: Subaltern Travel and Nigeria’s Modernity has recently been published.
Posted: 11 January 2022
ASCL Seminar 24 February: Roadblock Politics - Predation and Resistance in Central Africa
There are so many roadblocks in Central Africa that it is hard to find a road that does not have one. Peer Schouten, senior researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies, has mapped over a thousand of them in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Central African Republic, and South Sudan. In this ASCL Seminar on 24 February, he will present the main findings of his latest book, which argues that roadblocks aren’t just a symptom of corruption or state failure but encapsulate a distinct and meaningful form of order-making.