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'Connections and transformations in Africa' |  |
| A workshop at the African Studies Centre, Leiden, the Netherlands, Tuesday 21 November, 2006 |
return to: Index page 'Connections and transformations in Africa'
PURPOSE OF THIS WORKSHOP
Initiated in 2002, the ASC theme
group Agency in Africa (AiA) has now reached the end of its
allotted life span of four years. The present workshop is
intended to finalise our preparations towards a new theme group
in which we can bundle our research and further develop the
questions, insights, and intellectual and personnel resources of
our outgoing theme group ‘Agency in Africa’. Since
early 2005, our internal discussions and external consultations
have led to the adoption of the theme of ‘Connections and
Transformations in Africa’. What unites the several
constituent research projects to be bundled under this
denominator, is the emphasis on technology
– but technology conceived is such a broad way as to
encompass, not only, e.g., the impact of the motor car on African
society, the social ramifications of present-day gold mining, and
the African appropriation of the cell phone, but also the
management of space (especially in the sense of mobility), social
organisation, religion, law, and knowledge production – as
social technologies implied in, and reinforcing, technologies in
the narrower sense. An overall research programme has been
provisionally formulated, as well as a number of constituent
projects; other projects are now being proposed.
The specific purpose of this workshop
is
·
to bring together the prospective members of the new theme group
‘Connections and Transformations in Africa’,
·
and a small group of sympathetic but critical colleagues from
outside (who, we hope may develop into a permanent core of
external associates of our theme group),
·
in order to take the discussion of the overall programme one
decisive step further,
·
setting our research agenda for the next four years,
·
not so much by finalising the overall programme, but by exploring
how the individual sub-programmes (and their constituent
projects) link together within that programme, and with one
another.
In the proposed theme group, we
intend to emphasise the methodological problems and challenges of
our research, and these will also be highlighted at our workshop.
Methodological issues are conceived here in a broad manner,
including not only the procedures of data collection and
processing, but also the extent to which individual projects
address specific ongoing debates (or, equally interesting, may
initiate new debates), and the surplus value of the
interdisciplinary complementarity that characterises our theme
group. The latter point will also be explored in team research,
ideally involving all members of the programme, though for a
limited portion of their research time available.
return to: Index page 'Connections and transformations in Africa'
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