Gemdev
ASCL Newsletter April 2021
Education
Register for the Leiden-Delft-Erasmus minors!
Registration for the two Leiden-Delft-Erasmus (LDE) minors that the ASCL co-organises will be open until 15 April. The minors ‘African Dynamics’ and ‘Frugal Innovation for Sustainable Global Development’ are accessible for third-year bachelor students from Leiden University, TU Delft and Erasmus University Rotterdam. NB On registering, a message may pop up indicating that the course is full. Please ignore this message and continue with your registration!
Africa Knows!
Out now: print magazine
During the Africa Knows! conference an online magazine was made and continuously updated with new panel reports, keynote speeches, columns and interviews. To mark the conference, we have decided to publish a print version of the magazine, which you can now order. All the other resources that were produced during the conference, like the podcasts of interviews with conference participants, the blogs, papers, country profiles and (video) reports of the panels, can be found on the Africa Knows! website.
Read more [https://www.ascleiden.nl/news/out-now-africa-knows-conference-magazine]
Research news
Documentary: Art in the ghettos of Luanda
For his research project focusing on the governance of security in informal urban settlements in Luanda, Angola, PhD candidate Antonio Frank travelled to Luanda to make a documentary. In the slums he met young artists who make a living from selling their art and in other innovative ways, thereby influencing the slums and youth in a positive way.
Read more [https://www.ascleiden.nl/news/documentary-antonio-frank-art-ghettos-luanda] DigiDogon book launch in Mali
On 20 February a book launch in Mali celebrated the first major result of the project DigiDogon. At the National Museum in Bamako the book Chanter le Baja Ni: Abirè le Voyant Dogon by Walter van Beek, Atimè Saye and Oumarou Ongoiba, was presented to the general secretary of the Ministry of Culture.
Read more [https://www.ascleiden.nl/news/digidogon-book-launch-mali] What is a decent job according to Africa’s youth?
This 10-part webinar series by INCLUDE, in conjunction with Restless Development, asks young Africans to reflect on how well common definitions of decent work align with their lived experiences and aspirations. The webinars explore how ideas around decent work differ between the formal and informal sectors, men and women, and how COVID-19 has altered narratives and perspectives around decent work and its core components.
Read more [https://includeplatform.net/news/a-fair-income-better-prospects-and-economic-and-social-progression-what-is-a-decent-job-according-to-ghanain-youth/] An innovative way to break down waste into a useful resource
The Centre for Frugal Innovation in Africa presents a case study of bottom-up frugal innovation in a small enterprise in Kenya, to understand how frugality drives the product development process and the market creation process. Ecosave Africa Limited has developed a way to break down waste into a useful resource.
Read more [https://www.cfia.nl/news/an-innovative-way-to-break-down-waste-into-a-useful-resource]
Library news
Library Highlight: [https://www.ascleiden.nl/news/new-library-highlight-collection-republished-historical-newspapers-somalia-1961-1987]New films on Congolese society by Dieudo Hamadi
Dieudo Hamadi belongs to a new generation of contemporary African filmmakers. Born in 1984 in Kisangani, the Democratic Republic of Congo is still his home. Initially studying medicine, he later learned filmmaking through various documentary and editing workshops in Brussels and Paris. Hamadi now has his own production company, Kiripifilms. The ASCL Library recently acquired his two most recent documentary films.
Read more [https://www.ascleiden.nl/content/library-highlights/new-films-congolese-society-dieudo-hamadi] Library Weekly [https://www.ascleiden.nl/news/new-library-highlight-collection-republished-historical-newspapers-somalia-1961-1987]
In the last few weeks, the Library Weekly spotlighted these African people and events: Nigerian women’s rights activist Chief Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti; the assassination of the late Rwandan president Habyarimana and Burundian president Ntaryamira; Kenyan social, environmental and political activist Wangarĩ Muta Maathai; and Cameroonian musician and songwriter Manu Dibango, who died of COVID-19 last year.
Read more [https://www.ascleiden.nl/content/library-weekly-archive]
PhD defences
Is it one Nile? Civic engagement and hydropolitics in the Eastern Nile Basin: The case of Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia
Abeer Abazeed, guest PhD at the ASCL, will defend her dissertation, Is It one Nile? Civic Engagement and Hydropolitics in the Eastern Nile Basin: The Case of Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia, on 21 April at 3 pm. The ceremony will be livestreamed.
Read more [https://www.ascleiden.nl/news/phd-defence-it-one-nile-civic-engagement-and-hydropolitics-eastern-nile-basin-case-egypt-sudan] Beyond institutional blueprints: Hybrid security provision and democratic practice in Mali
Martin van Vliet will defend his dissertation Beyond Institutional Blueprints: Hybrid security provision and democratic practice in Mali on 21 April at 4.15 pm. The ceremony will be livestreamed.
ASCL Seminar
Migration in a Soap Operatic Key: the work of Malagasy world expansion
Since the late 1970s, education-based migration from Madagascar to France has been joined by another form of migration: that of Malagasy women who largely come from the coastal regions of Madagascar and have migrated to France in the context of marriage. During the online ASCL Seminar on 22 April Prof. Jennifer Cole (University of Chicago) will talk about how these women find French husbands and get to France.
Read more [https://www.ascleiden.nl/news/ascl-seminar-migration-soap-operatic-key-work-malagasy-world-expansion]
ASCL Publication
Femmes du Mali-Sud: Changements de vie entre la tradition et la développement
In 2012 the four Dutch authors of this book returned to Southern Mali, where they had worked in the Women and Development programme of the Malian cotton company between 1987 and 1995. They were curious to find out what had changed for women in the cotton area since 1980. Have women been able to improve their economic position? This book is in French.
Publications by ASCL researchers
European memoirs and colonialism in Equatorial Africa: Reflections on the reminiscences of Alfons Vermeulen (1877-1965) [https://www.ascleiden.nl/news/european-memoirs-and-colonialism-equatorial-africa-reflections-reminiscences-alfons-vermeulen], by Klaas van Walraven
The Atlantic Community mistake on Ethiopia: counter-productive statements and data-poor policies of the EU and the USA on the Tigray conflict [https://www.ascleiden.nl/news/atlantic-community-mistake-ethiopia-counter-productive-statements-and-data-poor-policies-eu-and], by Jon Abbink
‘Hot water’ [https://www.ascleiden.nl/news/hot-water-blog-post-london-review-books-blog] (post about civilian dictatorships in Francophone West Africa, for the London Review of Books Blog), by Rahmane Idrissa
‘When it is Too Hot, it Will Rain’: Responding to Sexual Violence Through Slam Poetry [https://www.ascleiden.nl/news/when-it-too-hot-it-will-rain-responding-sexual-violence-through-slam-poetry], by Amee (Aminata Bamba) and Loes Oudenhuijsen
ASCL Africanist Blog
Multispecies perspectives on African Studies: Suggestions for ‘species inclusivity’ in its curriculum and teaching
The COVID-19 pandemic and the way it is linked to the climate crisis underlines the necessity to decentre the human and embrace a multispecies approach, also to African Studies. What does a multispecies perspective mean for the discipline in terms of its curriculum and teaching? Harry Wels outlines three adaptations.
ASCL in the Media
Tycho van der Hoog in Kijk op Kennis about the inability to do fieldwork during the COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic is causing a lot of limitations, also in science. How do you do fieldwork if traveling abroad is made impossible? PhD candidate Tycho van der Hoog was forced to return home from fieldwork in Namibia almost one year ago. He shares his ongoing struggle with Kijk op Kennis.