News & Events

The ASC has published three new thematic maps: Africa’s economic growth from a labour perspective; Sanitation in Africa; and Drinking water in Africa. The three maps visualize themes that are high on the development agenda. They can be viewed in Open Access on our website.

Read the column of ASC director Ton Dietz in the latest (December) issue of OneWorld Magazine. It's about the importance to keep in touch with African scientists in countries where working as a scientist is dangerous.

The ASC Library compiled a web dossier containing a list of publications on Nelson Mandela as well as publications by Nelson Mandela; it also contains a list of publications about Robben Island and a selection of web resources.

The African Studies Centre and ZAM Magazine invite you to commemorate Nelson Mandela on Wednesday 11 December. Several speakers will focus on the significance of Mandela and the roles he has played in a long liberation struggle. How does South Africa’s future look without Nelson Mandela? Ineke van Kessel (ASC) will illustrate the evolution of Mandela’s image. Harry Wels (ASC and VU) will address the question what happens after Mandela. ZAM editor-in-chief Bart Luirink will lead a roundtable discussion.

Nelson Mandela was the greatest statesman that Africa has produced. His reputation is based above all on the enormous dignity and magnanimity that he showed after he was released from prison, after 27 years behind bars, in 1990. He was able to reassure his countrymen and the wider world that looked on, entranced, there would be no race war in South Africa, as many people had feared. Among South Africans black and white, Mandela’s achievement endured throughout the years after he had stepped down as president in 1999, even though his dream of a rainbow nation began to look tattered. Worldwide, Mandela has become a revered figure in the mode of Gandhi and Martin Luther King.  

The emergence in the Gambia of the transnational Islamic missionary movement Tablighi Jama‘at is the focus of the ASC seminar by Marloes Janson on Monday 16 December. It explores how a movement originating in South Asia could appeal so tremendously to a West-African Muslim population, particularly women and youth. ‘Converts’ have been willing to abandon their youthful pursuits and transgress generational and gender boundaries for a life devoted to God. The seminar is organized together with the Department of Cultural Anthropology of Leiden University.

De 'Wikipedian-in-special-residence' bij het Afrika-Studiecentrum, Hans Muller, geeft op woensdag 11 december van 14:00-16:00 een korte cursus Inleiding Wikipedia. Wat zijn de regels voor het plaatsen van artikelen op Wikipedia? Hoe kunnen we Wikipedia verbeteren met correcties en aanvullingen? Experts, liefhebbers en geïnteresseerden op het gebied van Afrika en meer zijn van harte uitgenodigd voor deze bijeenkomst.

On Wednesday 27 November, the launch of LeidenGlobal will be celebrated in the Rijksmuseum Volkenkunde. LeidenGlobal is a platform for global expertise. Partners are: the African Studies Centre, the International Institute for Asian Studies, KITLV, the Netherlands Institute for the Near East, Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde, Roosevelt Study Centre and Leiden University.

Due to unforseen circumstances, the seminar on 3 December has been cancelled. The invited speaker, Dr. Abamfo Ofori Atiemo of the University of Ghana, will however be giving a presentation at Wednesday's (4 December) workshop: Modern State Administration and African Religious Cosmologies. The ASC apologizes for the inconvenience.

A South African soldier collected hundreds of postcards in German South West Africa (modern-day Namibia) during World War I but they lay in a shoe box in the bottom of a cupboard for two generations until they were presented to Andreas Vogt. The 670 postcards all hail from the period just before the outbreak of World War I and offer a unique and fascinating view of this era.