News & Events

De Bibliotheek van het Afrika-Studiecentrum zoekt m.i.v. 1november 2016 een bibliotheekmedewerker (0.5 fte). De werkzaamheden bestaan uit baliewerkzaamheden, informatievoorziening en rondleidingen, titelbeschrijvingen, en diverse andere voorkomende werkzaamheden, onder meer voor de digitale bibliotheek. Het accent in deze functie zal liggen op de algemene baliewerkzaamheden. Lees meer over de vacature.

The jury of the Africa Thesis Award 2016 has announced this year's final 4 nominees (in alphabetical order): Seun Abimbola, University of Ibadan, Nigeria: 'The legend of Ajala’s travels and transnational backpacking in Africa'; Leonor Faber-Jonker, Utrecht University: ‘More than just an object. A material analysis of the return and retention of Namibian Skulls from Germany'; Silvana Gamboa, University of Groningen: 'Assessment and Optimization of energy systems in rural health facilities: A case in Rwanda'; Tanja Hendriks, Leiden University: 'Home is always home. (Former) Street Youth in Blantyre Malawi and the Fluidity of Constructing Home'.

ASCL researcher Akinyinka Akinyoade was interviewed in Nieuwsuur about the famine in Northeastern Nigeria, where the land has been virtually completely destroyed under Boko Haram rule. According to UNICEF, that was recently able to reach the area, 400,000 children are acutely malnourished.

The NVAS Africa Day 2016 will take place on 15 October. This year’s theme is “Sport in Africa”. The programme highlights how sport is increasingly used as an instrument for positive social change. To mark this occasion, the ASCL Library has compiled a web dossier about Sport in Africa, containing titles from the ASCL Library catalogue published from 2010. Read the web dossier!

Why did so many people emigrate from the Netherlands in the fifties? Why did hundreds of them choose to settle in what was then called Rhodesia, today’s Zimbabwe? And why did so many of them stay after 1965, when the country was led by a white-minority regime, faced an international boycott and was engulfed in a bloody guerrilla war? Journalist Marnix de Bruyne will address these questions in the seminar on 24 November, that is loosely connected to his book We moeten gaan. Nederlandse boeren in Zimbabwe.

ASCL senior researcher Marcel Rutten will deliver the keynote at the 7th Annual CELEP meeting to be held in London 5-7 October. Title: “The Land-Water Nexus in Semi-Arid Kenya – How Kenya’s pastoralists lose land and see their water resources depleted as a result of horticulture, biofuel and conservation initiatives". CELEP is the Coalition of European Lobbies for Eastern African Pastoralism, of which the African Studies Centre Leiden is a member. 

On Thursday 29 September, Britta Frede from the Freie Universität Berlin, currently a visiting fellow at the ASCL, will shed light on the place of women within the realm of Islamic knowledge production in Nouakchott, Mauritania. She will trace Muslim women teachers’ writings and their teaching activities from a historical perspective. You are all very welcome!

As Ethiopia is experiencing a new round of turmoil, ASCL senior researcher Jan Abbink has been interviewed by several media and has written blogs and articles himself analysing the current situation and its historical background. Abbink emphasises two issues: inequities in the land system, and the fact that development consists not only of economic factors but of a social, cultural, and political context of inclusiveness, 'a point which remains poorly understood by donors to African countries'. We created an overview of Abbink's activity in the media.

The theme of this year’s Voice4Thought Festival is ‘People in motion’. On this occasion, the ASCL Library has compiled a selection of library items related to the theme. The selection highlights items on diverse art forms, such as film, music, and literature. It includes personal stories from ‘people on the move’ and offers background through various literary and social studies. Check out the ASCL Library selection!

On 12 September Muslims all over the world celebrated the Sacrificial Feast (Eid al-Adha). Every year the uncertainty of the lunar date to which this feast is linked, instigates religious disputes about the correct determination. The Nigerian book Moonsighting, by Abu ‘Aaishah Murtadha Salahuddeen al-Iwoowee, a reformist preacher hailing from Iwo, offers insight into these debates and sheds light on shifting perceptions on Muslim authority, the nation-state, and Christian-Muslim relations in Africa. It is the subject of our latest Library Highlight!