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'Connections and transformations in Africa' |  |
| A workshop at the African Studies Centre, Leiden, the Netherlands, Tuesday 21 November, 2006 |
African
Studies Centre (ASC),
Leiden, The Netherlands
Theme group on Agency in Africa (AiA)
Workshop ‘Connections and transformations in Africa’
date:
Tuesday, 21 November 2006
venue:
Centre of Non-Western Studies (CNWS),
Nonnensteeg 3
2311 VJ Leiden, the Netherlands
The CNWS is situated at a 5 minutes’ walk from the Leiden
Central railway station, and at 10 minutes’ from the ASC; see detailed city plan
as attached
PURPOSE OF THIS
WORKSHOP: click here for a short text
setting out the purpose of this workshop
PROGRAMME Tuesday 21
November 2006
09.30
Arrival, coffee/tea
session
1 (chair Wim van Binsbergen)
10.00
Opening by the convenors
10.10
Mirjam de Bruijn, designated co-ordinator of the proposed Theme
Group, presents the
overall research programme ‘Connections and Transformations
in Africa’
10.25
External participants comment on the overall programme, followed
by general discussion
11.10
coffee/tea
session
2 (chair Rijk van Dijk)
11.30
Presentation and initial discussion of several sub-programmes
A)
TECHNOLOGies
of materiality
(discussants Wouter van Beek and Marja Spierenburg)
This
project is to comprise 5 sub projects, which are all discussed
in the above document:
·
Social history of the motor-vehicle in Zambia. (Jan-Bart Gewald)
·
The Drive for Money: ICE technology and the anthropological
aspects of money making in truck farming and gold mining in rural
Burkina Faso. (Sabine Luning)
·
The Impact of Motorized Transport on the Hajj from West Africa.
(Baz Lecocq)
·
Social history of the informal car mechanics of an African city.
(PhD candidate researcher)
·
Social history of a Bus rank in an African city. (PhD candidate
researcher)
B) technologies of RELIGION and IDEOLOGY (discussants Wim van Binsbergen and Mayke Kaag)
- Religion,
entrepreneurship and HIV/AIDS in Southern Africa (Rijk van Dijk (ASC), Susan R. Whyte (University
of Copenhagen, IA), Catrine Christiansen (University of
Copenhagen, IA)
-
Markets
of morality in Southern Africa (Rijk van Dijk (ASC), Marja Spierenburg and
Harry Wels (Free University Amsterdam))
-
Religion
as technology of locality (Wouter
van Beek (ASC))
13.00.
lunch
session
3 (chair Jan-Bart Gewald)
14.00
Presentation and initial discussion of remaining sub-programmes
C)
technologies of MOBILITY (discussants Rijk van Dijk and Lotte
Pelckmans)
- Mobile Africa
Revisited (Mirjam de
Bruijn, Inge Brinkman, Francis Nymanjoh (CODESRIA / ASC, Danielle
Delame (Royal Museum for Central Africa, Tervuren, Belgium))
-Mobile youth and children in Africa (Ria Reis, Mirjam de Bruijn, Rijk van Dijk)
-
Tourism (Wouter van Beek (ASC))
-
Mobile
law (Gerti
Hesseling (ASC))
-Transnational Islamic NGOs in West and West
Central Africa
-Women, Religion and
Collective Identities in African Communities in Europe (Mayke Kaag)
D) Connections in African knowledge (updated sub-programme proposal as per 21 December 2006) (discussants Mirjam de Bruyn and Inge Brinkman)
click here for an extensive background paper: technologies of connection IN KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION (long version) -
- The current South-North collaboration in the production of Africanist knowledge (Wim van Binsbergen and the editorial team of Quest: An African Journal of Philosophy).
- Old and new formats of connectedness in African knowledge : Wim van Binsbergen (ASC), Daniela Merolla (Leiden University), and Eric Venbrux (Radboud University Nijmegen),, in association with the Harvard Round Table on Comparative Mythology, and the International Society for Comparative Mythology
15.15 tea / coffee
session
4 (chair Wouter van Beek)
15.30
a. Focus on method
b. Team research (click here for a Note on Team Research: the
Gambia Project)
session 5 (chair
Mirjam de Bruijn)
16.15
Summing up: Towards a research programme on ‘Connections and
Transformations in Africa’ (general discussion)
17.30
Closure
18.00
Drinks and dinner
| contact persons: | Mirjam de Bruijn and Wim van Binsbergen (click on the links to send e-mail) | |
| theme group Agency in Africa/
Connections and Transformations in Africa African Studies Centre PO Box 9555 2300 RB Leiden the Netherlands tel. 00-31-71-5273372 fax 00-31-71-5273344 |
please note: this Workshop, the themes listed, and the papers presented, only give an impression of the work that is being done, or proposed, around the theme of the new theme group 'Connections and Transformations in Africa'. Of course, many of the researchers involved have long-standing expertise in related and different themes, and rather than relinquishing that intellectual capital they will make it come to fruition also in the context of the proposed new theme group
| provenance of the images used in the design of this website: the animation is based on a photograph courtesy © Reinout van den Bergh / N(O)VIB; Niger technicians: courtesy http://www.bazelet.com/Images/3n.jpg; girl with cellphone: courtesy http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Africa_girl_with_mobile_phone.jpg (public domain); electronics connections: courtesy http://www.electronics-lab.com/projects/power/003/pcb.gif ; motherboard: courtesy http://www.intel.com/products/motherboard/pix/d975xbx_lg.jpg ; the 'under construction' animation: courtesy http://www.akili.biz/images/under-construction.gif |  |
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