News & Events
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Posted: 17 September 2013
Film screening and seminar: 'Dangerous flowers'
'Dangerous Flowers' is a seventy-minute investigative documentary about the cut-flower industry in Kenya. It was shot in Kenya and the Netherlands over a period of seven years. The film takes the viewer through the flower-industry to discover the environmental, health, gender and cultural implications of this multi-million-euro sector. Film maker Khamis Ramadhan will be present at the screening of 'Dangerous Flowers' on Tuesday 29 October, and will participate in the subsequent discussion.
Posted: 09 September 2013
Seminar: Artisanal Mining & Youth in Tanzania
Artisanal Mining & Youth. Livelihoods, leisure and love in Tanzanian urbanizing mine settlements. Over the last three decades, artisanal gold mining has increasingly provided a source of employment for hundreds of thousands of miners in Tanzania. Gold strikes in the country’s ‘ring of gold’ have catalyzed widespread labour migration. Many of the migrants are youthful, having hopes of economic improvement. Dr Deborah Bryceson of the University of Glasgow will speak about this Wednesday 2 October.
Posted: 09 September 2013
Seminar: 'Making it in Nairobi: Matatu Culture and Political Economy in the New Africa'
Matatus (mini buses) provide transport for about 70 percent of Nairobi’s population. The sector is one of the largest in Kenya and has been thriving since the 1950s. In this seminar on 21 November Kenda Mutongi, Professor of History at Williams College (USA), focuses on the social, economic, cultural and political history of matatus and how they have become so deeply rooted in Kenyan life.
Posted: 04 September 2013
Liberia bijeenkomst en boekpresentatie 'Liberia: van Vrijheidsideaal naar Verloren Paradijs'
Fred van der Kraaij’s boek ‘Liberia: van Vrijheidsideaal naar Verloren Paradijs’ wordt vrijdag 18 oktober tijdens een speciale Liberia-bijeenkomst gepresenteerd. Het boek is Van der Kraaij's persoonlijke relaas van het veelbelovende land waar hij in de jaren 70 werkte, en dat veertig jaar later bezig is te herstellen van twee gruwelijke burgeroorlogen. Bijdragen deze middag komen o.a. van de consul van Liberia in Nederland, van de NABC over de handelsmissie naar Liberia en van Stephen Ellis over verzoening.
Posted: 28 August 2013
Seminar: Corporate Social Responsibility and the New South African Dream
Transnational corporations are increasingly important players in the development arena under the banner of corporate social responsibility (CSR). The CSR movement promises to use the global resources of corporations to the benefit of local development. In today’s seminar, Dinah Rajak of the University of Sussex argues that CSR generates new processes of exclusion and inequality, inspiring deference and dependence, rather than autonomy and empowerment. Rajak takes the world’s third biggest mining company, from their headquarters in London to the platinum mines of South Africa, as an example.
Posted: 26 August 2013
Wetenschappers in het nauw. Muzikaal theater en debat
In een muzikale monoloog vertelt acteur Raymi Sambo het verhaal van de Congolese professor Kanouté, die zijn studenten tot kritisch nadenken stimuleerde. Hij vluchtte na een periode in de gevangenis naar het Westen. De monoloog is gebaseerd op het leven van de Congolese onderzoeker Felix Kaputu, verbonden aan het Afrika-Studiecentrum en eveneens spreker op deze bijzondere avond, 16 oktober in Leiden. Language: Dutch/English. Let op! Nieuwe locatie / Please note! Change of location: Burumazaal, LUMC-onderwijsgebouw, Gebouw 3, Hippocratespad 21, 2333 ZD, Leiden.
Posted: 21 August 2013
PhD defence Henrietta Nyamnjoh: 'Bridging mobilities'
On 28 November Henrietta Mambo Nyamnjoh will defend her PhD thesis 'Bridging Mobilities: ICT's appropriation by Cameroonians in South Africa and The Netherlands' at Leiden University. Her research seeks to understand migrants’ appropriation of new information and communication technologies to link home and host country and the wider migrant community. How does this change existing social structures and reconfigure new ones?
Posted: 21 August 2013
PhD defence Karin Nijenhuis: 'Farmers on the Move'
On Monday 25 November Karin Nijenhuis will defend her PhD thesis 'Farmers on the Move: Mobility, Access to Land and Conflict in Central and South Mali' at Wageningen University. In contrast to their sedentary image, farmers in Central and South Mali are surprisingly mobile.This mobility is, however, not just a reaction to changing farming conditions but also part of local political processes, including conflict, that mediate farmers’ access to land.
Posted: 07 August 2013
Seminar: Kalahari Capers: Researching the Bushmen
The Rethinking Indigeneity Project, led by Keyan Tomaselli of the University of Kwazulu-Natal, has conducted research amongst indigenous populations in Southern Africa for twenty years now. At this seminar on 24 October, Tomaselli will focus on the Bushmen (San): what has been and is the perception of the Bushmen by Westerners, notably tourists? What about the perception the other way round? And what methods of research do ethnographers have at their disposal?
Posted: 07 August 2013
Seminar: Kenya in 2013: the Elections, the Constitution and the Jubilee Government
This seminar will examine the 2013 general elections in Kenya. Charles Hornsby will present a comparative analysis of five of the six simultaneous elections. How viable is the underlying basis of support for the Jubilee coalition? Hornsby will discuss events since April, focussing on the transfer of power to local authorities, the new 'non-political' ministerial structure and developments at the International Criminal Court. Why do the results of the election remain contested? Find out at our seminar on 14 November. (Photo: Stephen Wanjau)