News & Events

The Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies of the University of Amsterdam and the African Studies Center in Leiden are organizing the lecture series And Now Africa for students and professionals who are interested in understanding more about the continent. The course will provide a sense of context: Africa is rising, but for whom? Where and how does economic growth take place and can it be seen as real transformation? What about the rapid population growth and urbanization?

After almost 30 years of dedicated work, Katrien Polman is retiring from the ASC’s Library, Documentation and Information Department this month. Katrien started working at the African Studies Centre in 1986. She was part of the driving force behind some very succesful library services: abstracts, web dossiers (she even became known as ‘Ms Web Dossier’), the African Studies Thesaurus and the indexing of books and journal articles. The ASC is grateful for Katrien’s many contributions and will miss her as a colleague!

The ASC is saddened by the news that Professor Geertje Lycklama à Nijeholt died in the early hours of Tuesday 18 November 2014. Geertje was a member of the ASC Board of Governors from May 1997 – April 2005. Her commitment to women and gender equality was reflected in her professional career, through which she made a major contribution to women’s work, feminist organizations, gender policies and the institutional strengthening of research and teaching in women and gender studies.

This week, the sixth European Conference on African Studies (ECAS) will take place in Paris (8-10 July). The principal theme is Collective Mobilisations in Africa: Contestation, Resistance, Revolt. Many ASC researchers will host or contribute to a panel. Several books written by ASC researchers or published by the ASC are to be presented at the conference. Alongside ECAS, the weeklong cultural event AFRICA ACTS, dedicated to the arts of performance in Africa and the Diaspora, will take place.

This volume attempts to dig deeper into what is currently happening in Africa’s agricultural and rural sector. It seeks to convince policymakers and others that it is important to look at the current African rural dynamics in ways that connect metropolitan demands for food with value chain improvements and agro-food cluster innovations. The book has been published by Brill in the African Dynamics Series, the annual publication of the Africa Studies Centre in which a theme is discussed by scholars from all over the world. Editors this year: Yinka Akinyoade, Wijnand Klaver, Dick Foeken and Sebastiaan Soeters.

This is the first extensive empirical study of Zimbabwean orphans and other vulnerable children and young people. Chronically poor children and their carers can be corrupted or silenced by management systems which fail to recognise their basic human needs. Resilience in the face of such adversity is celebrated by the dominant project management ideology but is a major barrier to achieve  sustainable improvements in the lives of vulnerable children. Manasa Dzirikure and Garth Allen propose a new person-centred project management approach.

A  number of films about the ASC and the Africa Works conference were recently made: a film about the ASC that was broadcast on Dutch television (RTL7 Business Channel), a film about the Africa Works conference that took place on 16 & 17 October 2014, and interviews with several ASC researchers during this conference: Ton Dietz, Stephen Ellis, Mirjam de Bruijn and Akinyinka Akinyoade. Many more interviews with keynote speakers and conference visitors can be watched on the conference website.

During the Africa Works 2014 Conference in Leiden, a petition on the Ebola outbreak in West Africa was drawn up, asking for immediate action from the Netherlands government and the European Commission. The petition was handed over to Mr Hans Docter (the Netherlands envoy on Ebola), and was also addressed to Ms Lilianne Ploumen (the Netherlands Minister of Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation) and to Mr Fernando Frutuoso de Melo (the Director General of EuropeAid). Mr Fernando Frutuoso de Melo has recently responded to the petition.

The ASC Annual Public Event, a performance by poet Phillippa Yaa de Villiers from South Africa, was a big success. Phillippa Yaa de Villiers is the Commonwealth poet 2014. For the ASC Annual Event she performed Shades, in which she explores race, identity and politics in South Africa. After the performance she was recognized as 'ASC honorary artist', a special membership of the ASC Community. The event took place on 8 December at the Hogeschool Leiden. Have a look at the pictures!

Two new books out by ASC senior researcher Walter van Beek: Contes Kapsiki du Cameroun (Kapsiki Stories from Cameroon) and Sacred Spaces and Contested Identities: Space and Ritual Dynamics in Europe and Africa. For the first book, Van Beek and Henry Tourneux collected and edited stories from the Kapsiki in Cameroon. Animals, human beings and supernatural beings are the main characters. The second book, edited by Van Beek, Paul Post and Philip Nel, is a volume on the position of sacred space, within the broader context of ritual and religious dynamics. Both books can be borrowed from the Library!