News & Events

The basilicas in Ethiopia symbolize the history of Christianity in Ethiopia, the most famous being the Rock-hewn Churches of Lalibela, a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1978. This month’s Library Highlight, The basilicas of Ethiopia: an architectural history by architectural historian and architect Mario di Salvo, discusses the unique architectural features of these basilicas and explains how they developed over time. Read the Library Highlight!

Since the end of June, the hashtag #justicepourlouise has been circulating in Senegal. This is a large effort from the recently established Collectif des féministes du Sénégal to ensure that justice is done for Louise, the pseudonym given to a 15-year-old girl who accused a 19-year-old schoolmate of having raped her. Societal responses to pleas for justice in cases like these show how politicised gender and sexual rights are in Senegal, Loes Oudenhuijsen writes in the ASCL Africanist Blog.

On the occasion of the Africa 2020 year, the ASCL created Infosheets about the countries that became independent in 1960. One year later, Sierra Leone was the next in line: on 27 April 1961 it gained political independence from the United Kingdom. Read about the country's recent history, its demographic, social-economic and agricultural developments and regional inequality.

Are you interested in Africa and is your master's thesis on a related subject? If so, the African Studies Centre Leiden is offering you the chance to win € 500,-. Moreover, your thesis will be published in the ASCL's African Studies Collection. Final-year students who have completed their master's thesis at a university in Africa or the Netherlands can apply. The thesis must be based on independent empirical research related to Africa. Deadline for submitting your thesis: 31 August 2021.

Annachiara Raia has been awarded a grant of 50,000 US dollars to digitise the Ustadh Mau Swahili Muslim collection in Lamu, Kenya. The award has been granted by the Modern Endangered Archives Program of the UCLA Library. Mahmoud Ahmed Abdulkadir, locally known as Ustadh Mau, is an eminent poet and imam from Lamu island, Kenya. His private library houses Swahili Muslim manuscript poetry in ajami, booklets and memoirs from the Middle East and India. The digitisation project will enhance open accessibility to an important Islamic heritage hub of Swahili intellectual history and poetic production.

ASCL researcher Akinyinka Akinyoade participated as Nigeria expert during the launch of The Kleptocracy Project, a long-term investigative collaboration between a network of journalists from countries all over Africa and platform ZAM. The project looks into questions about how money intended for health, education, and safety ‘disappears’, or fills the pockets of corrupt leaders in African countries. The publication of the ZAM Kleptocracy Project investigations kicked off on 24 June 2021 in Pakhuis De Zwijger in Amsterdam, and was broadcast live.

A consortium of academic institutes, among which the ASCL, has been awarded a small grant for a project that will look at the role of new technologies in approaching the SDGs: what are the benefits for the South? Technical and medical innovations hold great promise for improving lives in the Global South. However, technologies developed in the West do not automatically function in other societies. Within this project, the ASCL will specifically collaborate with Delft University and the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) on the use of satellite data for African climate and development policy.

This volume, based on papers that were given at the conference 'Destination Africa' (held in March 2018), challenges received ideas of Africa as a marginal continent and place of exodus by considering the continent as a centre of global connectivity and confluence. Flows of people, goods, and investments towards Africa have increased and diversified over recent decades. In light of these changes, the contributions analyse new actors in such diverse fields as education, trade, infrastructure, and tourism.

Ethiopia is holding parliamentary elections on 21 June at a time of immense domestic turmoil and foreign pressure. This is due to, in particular, the Tigray conflict, the COVID-19 pandemic and other ethnic-based violence. Ethiopia has always been a complex and volatile country, but the confluence of these pressures in 2021 is unique, and dangerous. Still, the elections are better held than delayed again, Jan Abbink writes in The Conversation.

On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of Wikipedia in the Netherlands, Jos Damen, head of the ASCL Library, was interviewed by EenVandaag (TV and radio) about Wikipedia's added value. The ASCL Library has uploaded more than 4,000 images from its (donated) Africa photo collections to Wikimedia Commons.