News, Events and Opportunities

Image: ECAS Conference in Leiden, Jos Damen 2007

The extent of the AEGIS network allows us to capture – and post – a wide range of news items, events and opportunities relevant to both our internal and external constituencies.  This includes postings from the AEGIS Board, from AEGIS members, and from the Collaborative Research Groups (CRGs). It also includes items of general relevance from non-AEGIS member institutions. 

Besides these pages, AEGIS hosts a closed curated Discussion List, where any individual attached to any of the AEGIS member institutions may post relevant news, events, opportunities, views, and so on. To subscribe (and contribute) to the Discussion List, please contact Jos Damen: jdamen@ascleiden.nl

News

Welcome to the new AEGIS website

We are thrilled to be launching our new-look AEGIS website. Aiming to enliven the interface itself, and substantially enhance both internal and external communication, the site has been restructured, important information updated, and a number of new features added. Visit our new pages on Teaching on Africa and African Studies, News and Events, and the monthly Spotlight feature on one of the AEGIS members - this month it's the Centre of African Studies, Copenhagen. Read more here. 

Events

ECAS9 Conference: African Futures

The 9th European Conference of African Studies will be held in Cologne (Germany) from 31 May - 3 June 2023. ECAS9 is organized by the Global South Studies Center (University of Cologne) and the IARA, Institute for Anthropological Research on Africa, University of Leuven, under the theme of African Futures. For more information see the ECAS 2023 website. 

“African Futures” aims to explore the continent’s critical engagements with the past, present, and future of Africa’s global entanglements. The continent has been characterized as a laboratory of the future, as the last frontier of capitalism, with living realities based on concepts and practices of multiplicity, circulation, and flexibility. While the West appears to be self-provincializing, Africa is expanding. Africa is on the move – it always has been.

Grand narratives about Africa have always been characterized by controversial visions of its future. The current optimistic outlook that celebrates “Africa rising,” and the emergence of new African middle-classes, is countered by warnings of a new scramble for Africa. Local modernist visions are presented as expressions of renewed African self-confidence, but also denounced as utopian dreamscapes that tend to ignore complex contemporary realities. Increasingly, the continent is perceived as an experimental field for global tomorrows.
 

International conference: Knowledge production, research ethics and authorship in African contexts

Conference organised by AEGIS member Africa Platform of Ghent University Association in collaboration with the University of the Western Cape. 13-14 November 2023, University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa. See more details and call for papers here. 

Intensive field research training in Kenya

AEGIS member ISCTE – University Institute of Lisbon, invites applications for an intensive two-week workshop in Kenya from 29 June – 10 July, focused on qualitative research methodologies applied to the afterlives of a Finnish-Kenyan water infrastructure project in Kakamega, western Kenya, known as Kefinco.  Application deadline 30 April 2023. Read more here. 

A post-doctoral research position (three years, 100%) for a case study in Sierra Leone, is available within the ERC-funded project ‘DigID – Doing Digital Identities’, based at the Centre for Digital Cultures at Leuphana University of Lüneburg in Northern Germany. Deadline 24 April 2023. Read more here.

Programme Point Sud 2024

The Goethe-University of Frankfurt/Main and the German Research Foundation (DFG) have established the ‘Programme Point Sud’ in order to fund Africa-related workshops and conferences in the humanities and social sciences, based on partnerships between German and African academic institutions.  Deadline for a 6-page proposal is 24th May 2023. Read more here.