Graduate Research Workshop 2014

GRADUATE RESEARCH WORKSHOP

Kansas African Studies Center

UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS

2014

March 7 10:00 AM - 3:00 PM Bailey 109 University of Kansas Engage. Network. Converse.

PROGRAM Morning Session Chair: Margaret Pearce, KU Department of Geography

10:00-11:00

The Set/Setal Youth Movement of Dakar, Senegal Noemi Tracy, Department of African and African American Studies, University of Kansas

11:00-12:00

Sino-African Relations: The Strategic Role of Confucius Institutes Priscilla Gomes College of International Studies, University of Oklahoma

12:00-1:00

WEST AFRICAN LUNCH

Afternoon Session Chair: Byron Caminero-Santangelo, KU Department of English

1:00-2:00

Remarks Unbecoming to Become Undone: Babamukuru’s Nervous Condition Sarah Ngoh Department of English, University of Kansas

2:00-3:00

The Construction and Reconstruction of Tradition: Political Authority in the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa Elene Cloete Department of Anthropology, University of Kansas

ABSTRACT The Set/Setal Youth Movement of Dakar, Senegal Noemi Tracy Department of African and African American Studies, University of Kansas In the late 1980s and early 1990s a remarkable youth movement originated in the streets of Dakar, Senegal. They were mostly marginalized youth and students. It was a sanitation effort to clean Dakar due to the neglect of the government. They painted murals, and songs emerged regarding cleaning up their neighborhoods; it was also a moral ‘wake-up’ call to not only clean their physical environment, but to get rid of political corruption, prostitution, immorality and delinquency. The need to clean up Dakar was also found in the style of clothing, they were ‘walking reinventions.’

Also it was the first time urban Wolof began to be visible in written form. The people that were painted on the murals varied from historical characters such as Gandhi, to Senegalese religious figures and politicians. In this poster presentation I will focus on the murals and songs and revisit remnants of the past and the reason for the disappearance of the movement.

ABSTRACT Sino-African Relations: The Strategic Role of Confucius Institutes Priscilla Gomes College of International Studies, University of Oklahoma While Sino-African relations date back to the tenth century, the international community and the media have only recently started to show interest in this topic. Over the past 10 years, the number of Confucius Institutes (CIs) in Africa increased from a handful to over 40. In this research, I combine quantitative and qualitative methods to analyse the long term objective behind the implementation of CIs in Africa. I find that whereas the location of the CIs exhibits no correlation with the presence of natural mineral resources, there is a strong link with the agricultural production within the country. Based on this finding, I hypothesized that this can be explained by the fact that agricultural production and cooperation relies more on mutual cultural cooperation than the exploitation of mineral resources does.

Indeed, agricultural negotiations require strong interactions with the local population and therefore a critical need for translators, especially due to the domination of vernacular languages in rural areas. To investigate further this linkage, I conducted a field study in Senegal, where one of the institutes is located. Discussions with the directors as well as a survey of students showed the growing interest for the Chinese alternative in Senegal is considered move effective than long-term partners such as France. Whereas scholars on SinoAfrican relations have focused more on the economic and natural resource dimension, this work points to cultural interactions as an important tool to achieve not only diplomatic goals but long-term strategic economic goals such as agricultural production and trade.

ABSTRACT Unbecoming to Become Undone: Babamukuru’s Nervous Condition Sarah Ngoh Department of English, University of Kansas Since its publication in 1988, Tsitsi Dangerembga’s Nervous Conditions, the first novel published in English by a Zimbabwean woman writer, has been widely accepted and critically analyzed as a feminist text addressing feminist concerns about gender inequity. The novel’s theme of ‘femaleness as opposed and inferior to maleness,’ has led to a vast body criticism focused on the novel’s female characters. My project acknowledges the productive benefits of using a feminist or female-focused framework for creating meaningful critical analyses of Nervous Conditions, and argues for an expansion of that framework that grapples with the novel’s male characters and their expressions of masculinity, a critically underdeveloped, yet essential component of any study of the novel. Because critical attention depicts male characters as agents of patriarchy, scholars have failed to address the role colonialism serves as a reinforcing agent in former traditional conceptions of gender and gender roles. This project focuses on the novel’s male characters, specifically the patriarch, Babamukuru, to underscore gender inequities by highlighting the role colonialism plays in the construction and (necessary) reconstruction of conceptions of gender. I offer an interpretation of Babamukuru’s character that seeks to complicate the notion that he is merely an agent of traditional patriarchy, a symbol of authority/power, or an extension of colonialism, and instead acknowledges the multiple, conflicting and overwhelming gender roles both colonialism and traditional Shona culture prescribe to him. This project explores these complexities in three ways: in Babamukuru’s response to his “god-like” status amongst his family, in an examination of his masculine characteristics, and in his interactions with his daughter Nyasha, and niece Tambudzai.

ABSTRACT The Construction and Reconstruction of Tradition: Political Authority in the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa Elene Cloete Department of Anthropology, University of Kansas My research concerns the socio-political landscape of South Africa’s rural Eastern Cape Province. I am particularly interested in the social and political dynamics of Herschel, a triangle-shaped district situated just south of the Kingdom of Lesotho. Despite its remote and distant geographical location, the district of Herschel fell under the jurisdiction and subsequent socio-economic hardships of the former Apartheid homelands of both the Ciskei and the Transkei. In 1994 with the country’s first democratic election, the Transkei was dissolved and districts such as Herschel were incorporated into the Eastern Cape province. Twenty Years later, however, Herschel still sees some of the province’s highest rates of illiteracy, poverty and unemployment. Additionally recent civil protests against local government signal a high degree of discontent amongst the Herschel population. Herschel’s history is one deeply affected by both the country’s colonial and Apartheid pasts. Arguably, such an historic investigation can shed a light on the district’s current socioeconomic and political predicament, in particular the problematic relation between the district’s traditional authorities and the current government’s ideals of democratic governance. With this paper, I trace Herschel’s historic trajectory from its missionary status in the early 1800s to its predicament in 1948 when the National Party and its Grand Apartheid scheme took control of the government.

I will focus on dynamics that directly impacted the district’s political identity, in particular the relation between traditional leadership and the “progressive black elites” of the early 1900s.

SPONSORED BY The Kansas African Studies Center University of Kansas

Cover Photo: Priscilla Gomes. Students with two Chinese professors in front of the Confucius Institute at Cheikh Anta Diop University (UCAD).

With Special thanks to the Center for East Asian Studies at KU!

KASC Bailey Hall, Rm #207 1440 Jayhawk Boulevard University of Kansas Lawrence, KS 66049 kasc@ku.edu

Engage. Network. Converse.

UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS

africa world

documentary film festival

april 10-12

EGARC, KU Libraries, Center for Global & International Studies, Economics, University Honors Program, Religious Studies, Center for East Asian Studies, Multicultural Affairs, Sociology, African & African American Studies, Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies, Film and Media Studies, Political Science, Black Student Union, African Student Union

university of kansas

visit kasc.ku.edu for full schedule

Kansas African Studies Center UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS

2014

Kansas African Studies Center

South Africa Week

Join us for a week-long celebration of South Africa March 26th, 6:30 PM, Film Screening: Amandla! A Revolution in Four Part Harmony, Lied Center Pavilion March 27th, 3-4:30 PM, Panel Discussion: Remembering Mandela: Legacies and Liberation Struggles, 116 MRC March 28th, 6:30 PM, Film Screening: Amandla! A Revolution in Four Part Harmony, Haskell University March 28th, 1:30 PM, South African Artist Andries Fourie, Kansas Union, Alderson Auditorium March 29th, 7:30 PM, Soweto Gospel Choir, Lied Center, tickets required