News & Events

INCLUDE, the knowledge platform on inclusive development policies in Africa, co-hosted a side-panel at the African Development Bank Annual Meetings in Lusaka, 23 May, entitled ‘Jobs for women and young people – the transformative potential of agribusiness’. INCLUDE's Platform meeting takes place on 24 and 25 May, in which the results of INCLUDE's Research Groups so far are presented. Follow the events on Twitter and Facebook!

Malick Sidibé, one of Africa’s most influential photographers, died on 14 April at the age of 80. Sidibé was best known for his black-and-white portraits in his native Bamako, Mali, in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. The ASCL Library has a number of books by and about Sidibé. A newly acquired photobook by the ASCL Library is Sahara rocks!, by French photographer Arnaud Contreras. Both photographers feature in our latest Library Highlight.

Students in South Africa are trying to shape a new movement around an agenda of decolonization and a critique of transformation at universities. The student movement resists alignment with national political parties and charts new trajectories of popular politics and organizing change. New social action spaces are emerging globally: they are mass based, often organized around a specific issue and resist hierarchical structures. Caroline Suransky, University for Humanistic Studies Utrecht, will discuss the students' protests during the seminar on 30 June. All welcome!

The late Stephen Ellis' last book This Present Darkness: A History of Nigerian Organised Crime will be launched at the ASCL on 9 June. The book describes Nigerian organised crime from its origins in the last years of colonial rule, to the moment it went global. The launch will also be a commemorative meeting to honour our colleague, who died in July 2015. Various speakers, a.o. Christopher Clapham (University of Cambridge), Sanne Kaasjager (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) and Stephen's widow Gerrie ter Haar will give short presentations. You are all very welcome.

Leiden University launched an Africa Strategy at the beginning of 2016, connecting all Africanists in Leiden, and also connecting them to knowledge centres in Africa and to other Africa-oriented knowledge centres in the Netherlands. A delegation of Leiden University visited South Africa and Mozambique 14-22 April. Existing relationships were strengthened, new ones explored. 

With a mixture of pride and sadness we announce that the last book by our late colleague Stephen Ellis has just been published: This Present Darkness: A History of Nigerian Organised Crime. Nigerians have acquired an unfortunate reputation for involvement in drug-trafficking, fraud, cyber-crime and other types of criminal activity. Successful Nigerian criminal networks have a global reach, interacting with their Italian, Latin American and Russian counterparts. The book describes Nigerian organised crime from its origins in the last years of colonial rule, to the moment it went global.

Since the end of the Suharto regime in 1998, Indonesia has been increasingly confident of its abilities in the international system. As the largest economy in Southeast Asia and with the fourth largest population in the world, with over 255 million people in 2015, Indonesia has increasingly made its voice heard, in particular in issues connected to the Global South. Read the new Infosheet.

On the occasion of the lecture series on African arts and literatures with (a.o.) Studium Generale, the ASCL Library has compiled a web dossier on African art. The dossier is based on the Library's collection and contains authoritative works on African art as well as recent publications from the last five years. The dossier concludes with a selection of web resources on African art. Read the web dossier.

The African Studies Centre Leiden hosted a workshop on Enhancing Postgraduate Environments in South Africa from 14 to 16 March. This 3-year project, funded by the EU, aims to enhance institutional postgraduate environments of public universities in South Africa.

Artiesten Akwasi en Bokoesam onderzochten bij het Afrika-Studiecentrum en de Universiteit Leiden de historische relatie tussen Ghana en Nederland. Beide artiesten hebben (deels) Ghanese roots, maar zeggen op school niets over die geschiedenis te hebben geleerd. Top Notch, hun platenlabel, stuurde de artiesten op onderzoek uit. Jos Damen, hoofd bibliotheek ASCL, leidde Akwasi en Bokoesam rond.