News & Events

Since most colonial territories in Africa acquired independence, bureaucratic states have interacted with techniques of governance in which oracles, rituals and other aspects of religion played a prominent role. This workshop on 4 December, organized by the ASC Collaborative Research Group 'Rethinking contemporary African history and historiography', groups a number of researchers from the ASC joined by scholars from other institutions.

Doris Lessing, Nobel-prize winning author, died on 17 November aged 94. Lessing was born in Kermanshah, Iran, then called Persia, on 22 October 1919. In 1925, the family moved to the British colony of Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). Her first novel,  The Grass is Singing (1950), takes place in Southern Rhodesia during the 1940s and deals with the racial politics between whites and blacks in that country (which was then a British colony). The novel created a sensation when it was first published and became an instant success in Europe and the United States.

NGOs and state actors increasingly involve religious leaders in interventions that try to eradicate ‘Female Genital Mutilation’ (FGM). According to reports, the inclusion of religious leaders has led to the abandonment of the practice in a number of areas. Based on her research in Ethiopia, Marit Tolo Østebø of the University of Florida and University of Bergen will talk about the role of these religious leaders on 28 November, followed by a roundtable discussion.

Asian Tigers, African Lions is an anthology of contributions by scholars and diplomats about the ‘Tracking Development’ research project. This project, coordinated by the African Studies Centre and KITLV in Leiden, compared the performance of growth and development of countries in Southeast Asia and Sub-Sahara Africa during the last sixty years. How could two regions with comparable levels of income per capita in the 1950s diverge so rapidly? Why are there so many Asian tigers and not yet so many African lions?

Curious about the experiences of our new Research Masters students so far? One of them, Njeri Mwaura, wrote the first blog of this academic year: 'An activist approach to African Studies'. If you want to know more about the African Studies Masters and the African Studies Research Masters, visit the 'Masters Information day' at Leiden University, 8 November!

Hans Muller and Arie Sonneveld have been selected as 'Wikipedians in Special Residence' at twelve scientific libraries in the Netherlands. Participating libraries vary from the African Studies Centre Library to the Rijksmuseum Library and the Peace Palace Library. From November 2013 until December 2014 the two Wikipedians hope to raise the diversity and quality of Wikipedia through the collections and knowledge present at these institutions, and enhance Wikipedia skills of the staff.

Swahili, Somali, Xhosa, Zulu, Berber, Hausa… het zijn slechts een paar van de tweeduizend talen die in Afrika gesproken worden. Voor het Nederlandse publiek is er een website over die talenrijkdom, stemmenvanafrika.nl, opgezet door een team onder leiding van Maarten Mous, hoogleraar Afrikaanse Taalkunde aan de Universiteit Leiden, en Pieter Muysken, hoogleraar Taalwetenschap aan de Radboud Universiteit. Stemmenvanafrika wil mensen aan het denken zetten en waardering wekken voor de diversiteit van Afrika.

Roger Nord, Deputy Director of the IMF’s African Department, spoke about Africa's strong economic performance at the ASC seminar on 22 November. He cited the latest IMF's Regional Economic Outlook: Sub-Saharan Africa (Oct 2013), which you can now read on our website, as well as his lecture.

Due to the scarcity of rental property in South Africa’s rural areas, real-estate entrepreneurship has become a highly lucrative enterprise. While for many South African entrepreneurs the high rents are a struggle, they do not deter migrants, in particular from China. This ASC seminar by Nkululeko Mabandla from the University of Cape Town will show how these processes are leading to forms of class realignment and changing patterns of consumption in South Africa’s rural towns.

In line with many West African nations, Niger’s democratization process in the early 1990s led to the spread of Orthodox Sunni Islam (Salafism). However, in contrast to neighbouring countries, Niger has not experienced large-scale Islamic violence nor have the various governments given in to Islamic demands to abandon the secular state. Salafism remained ‘quietist’. The seminar by Dr. Sebastian Elischer on Thursday 12 December will try to identify the causes that have led to the rise of quietist Salafism.