News & Events

How much influence does the ambassador of the Netherlands in Mali have? How does he keep contact with a government that is constantly burdened by coups? On 21 September 2021 Amsterdam debating centre De Balie invited Marchel Gerrmann, Netherlands ambassador to Mali, and Mirjam de Bruijn, ASCL researcher and Mali expert, to reflect on current and future developments in the country. You can now watch the video.

In the year when the world became familiar with ‘zoonotic diseases’, and a photo of the locusts invasion in East Africa won a prize in the World Press Photo contest, the ‘animal turn’ in the social sciences is here to stay. Catering for this relatively new research theme, the ASCL Library does not need to revise its collection profile drastically, but it needs to address a potential information need, and direct students to relatively new research areas. Find out more in our latest Library Highlight!

The authors of this article, published open access in Health Systems & Reform, use three years of household panel data to analyse the effects of ill-health on household economic outcomes in rural Ethiopia. They examine the immediate effects of various ill-health measures on health expenditure and labour supply, the subsequent coping responses, and finally the effect on income and consumption. The need for health financing reforms and safety nets that reduce the financial consequences of ill-health is underlined.

The stakes of longitudinal ethnographic research come to the fore particularly starkly in relation to studies of violence. More specifically, longitudinality potentially both enhances certain risks inherent to carrying out research on violence, while also offering unique opportunities for better understanding the phenomenon more reflexively. Lidewyde Berckmoes, Marie Rosenkrantz Lindegaard and Dennis Rodgers wrote an introduction to a special volume of Conflict and Society. Open access!

The 2021-2022 Master and Research Master in African Studies, as well as the LDE minors African Dynamics and Frugal Innovation for Sustainable Global Development have kicked off! Students of these programmes, that are (co-)organised by the ASCL, were welcomed in Leiden in the first weeks of September. 

Mayke Kaag has been named professor by special appointment of the Anthropology of Islam in Africa and its Diaspora at the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences of the University of Amsterdam (UvA). The chair has been established on behalf of the African Studies Centre Leiden. As a political anthropologist, Mayke Kaag conducts research on contemporary Islam in Africa and the African diaspora from the perspective of Africa's global connections. 

Ethiopia held its parliamentary and regional state council elections on 21 June 2021 under tense conditions of the armed conflict in Tigray Region, threats of instability and insurgent attacks in western parts of the country, and the ongoing health threats due to COVID-19. Despite the current unrest, the electoral process was appreciated by a large majority of the voters and proceeded relatively well, Jon Abbink writes in the ASCL Africanist Blog.

This seminar on 17 September is organised in the framework of 'Africa 2020' and coincides with Bert van Pinxteren's PhD Defence (16 September). In his dissertation, Van Pinxteren shows that maintaining former colonial languages as sole medium of instruction in higher education will become impossible to sustain. Over the next decade, more and more African countries will have to move towards increased use of African languages. Discussion with Maarten Mous, Kwesi Kwaa Prah, Azeb Amha, Mandipa Ndlovu, Akinyinka Akinyoade, and many others.

For the Stephen Ellis Chair for the Governance of Finance and Integrity in Africa, Professor Chibuike Uche, the ASCL is looking for a student assistant (four hours a week, 9-10 months). The duties will include online research and data gathering, questionnaire distribution and collation, library search, data analysis, and taking minutes during meetings. The ideal candidate should be a second or third-year Honours student with excellent academic grades and a genuine interest in Africa. Application deadline: 26 July.

Do socio-economic cleavages shape electoral dynamics in African countries? Individual-level and party systems research since the 1990s has suggested that the answer is "no." Focusing on a number of countries in East and West Africa, this online seminar on 28 October by Prof. Catherine Boone (London School of Economics) will offer a spatial analysis of geographic patterns in constituency-level voting over three decades.