Centre of African Studies - Annual Review Issue 10, Year 2018-2019

Centre of African Studies Annual Review Issue 10, 2018-2019

Contents Welcome

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Current Projects & Research Schemes

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Partnerships CAS Events Highlights 2018 - 2019

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Members’ Activities

32

Research Associates

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Welcome Welcome to the Centre of African Studies, SOAS University of London’s Annual Review for the academic year 2018-2019.

In this issue you will find information and articles about our activities, events, collaborations, awards and the research of the Centre members who are drawn from across the University of London and beyond.

CAS Team Fareda Banda CAS Chair

Angelica Baschiera CAS Manager

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About the Centre of African Studies The SOAS University of London’s Centre of African Studies is the largest centre of expertise on Africa outside Africa. Founded in 1965 at SOAS University where its administration is still based, the Centre has since 1991 assumed formal responsibility for co-ordinating, stimulating and promoting interdisciplinary study, research and discussion on Africa within the University; and promoting a wider awareness of African issues.

The Centre’s present membership comprises over 100 Members from the lecturing staff of the University of London, as well as Professorial Research Associates and Research Associates, drawn from academia, business, private and public sector.

Letter from the Chair Have you ever felt like standing up at the end of a tough year and singing: “I’m still standing!”

Well, this year is one such. We have had the interminable Brexit, the challenges facing African academics wanting to visit the UK for conferences but struggling with visas and, well, things have been a little tough in our house as well. SOAS has gone through a major restructuring exercise which we hope will put us all on a firmer footing.

We have managed to get a lot done -both facilitating and participating in a range of activities that are highlighted in the review.

We had brilliant speakers including - Prof Victor Murinde (SOAS), Nanjala Nyabola, Victoria Chisala (African Development Bank), Morten Jerven (Norwegian University of Life Sciences), Rhoda Limbani Mshana (African Development Bank among others.

At the joyous launch, Margaret surprised us with the wonderful news that the contributors had all agreed to forfeit their shares of the royalties to help to fund a scholarship for an MA in African Literature to be held by a woman from Africa. Imagine that! We were thrilled and remain ever so grateful to Margaret, Candida Lacey, the publisher at Myriad and International House here in London. International House have supplemented the value of the scholarship by promising to house our scholarship holder.

Recently a donor has supplemented the scholarship with a donation of 15,000. Please feel free to contribute to the scholarship, in cash, or by buying the magnificent book. It is 803 pages of excellent writing by daughters of Africa over the ages.

We welcomed Leventis Fellow, Dr Adebayo Bello- and look forward to welcoming our incoming fellows, Dr Asmau Gidae and Grace Morekeji as well as the Mo Ibrahim PhD students namely Arkmore Kori, Khadijat Nda Yakubu and Muna Mgenda.

Continuing on a literary theme, the Caine Prize came to SOAS. Our Director, Baroness Amos signed a ten year Memorandum of Agreement with the Chair of the Caine Prize, Ellah Wakatama Allfrey 0BE, which means we will host the prize giving ceremony here at SOAS. One of the first public outings of the finalists was here at SOAS. They had an engaging discussion with former CAS Chair, Dr Chege Githiora. The inaugural dinner was packed and the prize went to Lesley Nneka Arimah for her feminist story “Skinned.”

She had been a finalist twice before so her win reminds us that persistence pays.

We are lucky in our friendships. Our bond with the Royal Africa Society has been further strengthened and we look forward to continuing co-hosting and working together.

As Chair, I am lucky to have the support of the Centre manager, Angelica Baschiera.

Sadly, she was so good that she has been poached to manage also the other regional Centres and Institutes in the School so we now share her support, reluctantly. Helping Angelica have been the incomparable Zainab Korah, Stephanie Guirand and Anna De Mutiis. Anna is the editor of this annual review as well as the Mo Ibrahim webinar coordinator. Thank you all. The ship would not float without you and the many other student helpers who have given their time so generously and cheerfully.

We continue to be grateful to the Mo Ibrahim Foundation scholarships which have already started to yield fruit. We launched a webinar series and all our guests were PhD graduates sponsored by the Foundation. I had a really stimulating talk with Sehin Teferra from ethiopia.. Do watch them-they are available on our dedicated website www.governanceinafricasoas.org This year, in March 2019, we held our Governance School in Abidjan to coincide with the Foundation’s annual weekend. It was fantastic.

The past year has seen us continue relationships including helping to co-host the Igbo Conference, this year with UCL. Our annual (Swahili) Baraza was a resounding success. April this year saw us marking the sad anniversary of the kidnapping of the Chibok girls with a panel discussion. It is hard to believe that five years after their capture, most of the girls, now young women, are still missing.

Welcome

The two stand-out ones are the launch of the Margaret Busby edited New Daughters of Africa here at SOAS in March 2019. Those of you of a certain vintage may remember the first Daughters of Africa, also edited by Margaret and published in 1992.

Enjoy reading the Annual reviews and learn about all our activities!

Professor Fareda Banda Chair Centre of African studies

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Current Projects and Research Schemes Governance for Development in Africa Initiative The Governance for Development in Africa Initiative, funded by the Mo Ibrahim Foundation and managed by the Centre of African Studies at SOAS, University of London, has been last year extended until 2021. The focus of the project remains the same in terms of creating a dedicated environment to support African citizens to study the socio-economic, political, and legal links between governance and development.

The continuing support of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation aims to enable African citizens to improve the quality of governance in their countries by building their skills within an expert academic environment.

The Mo Ibrahim Foundation’s initiative will fund three dedicated programmes at SOAS: - 2 PhD scholarships annually; - 1 Residential School in Africa annually; - the Governance Webinar Series programme (governanceinafricasoas.org)

Current Projects & Research Schemes

For me, the past one year as a Mo Ibrahim PhD candidate here at SOAS has been an eye-opener. The department’s emphasis on inter-disciplinarity and heterodox economics approach has sat well with my long-held views of the need for fresh ideas on how to solve the socio-economic problems holding developing countries back; ideas that depart dramatically from neo-liberal paradigms that have not gotten developing countries out of their economic predicaments. I am therefore eternally grateful to be given the opportunity to come to SOAS which I believe has what it takes to equip me with the knowledge to contribute in solving many of Africa’s economic problems of poverty, unemployment etc.

I am very thankful to the Mo Ibrahim Foundation as well as the Center for African Studies (CAS) for their generosity of awarding me this scholarship to study in this great University, SOAS. The past one year has been educative and informative for me all courtesy of your generosity. I remain eternally grateful to Mo and CAS for this opportunity. I also have to acknowledge the amazing help, patience and guidance of the staff at CAS, the Chair, Angelica and Anna for their onerous task of making us to feel we are home. Thank you all!!!

Hamisu Salihu (Nigeria) - GDAI PhD Student

Governance for Development in Africa Initiative PhD Scholarships Our PhD award starting in the academic year of 2019-2020 has been awarded to: Arkmore Kori (Zimbabwe) “Strengthening the role of parliamentary committees in asserting citizen participation and state accountability: A comparative study of Zimbabwe and one other African country” Supervisor: Prof. Stephen Chan, Politics and International Studies Department

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www.soas.ac.uk/gdai/gdai-phd-scholarships.html

Khadija Nda Yakubu (Nigeria) “EVALUATION OF GOVERNANCE STRUCTURES AND PRACTICES IN AFRICAN CITIES FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT” Supervisor: Prof. Christopher Cramer, Development Studies Department Muna Ngenda (Zambia) “State and Society in Zambia, 1990-2020” Supervisor: Dr. Alastair Fraser For information about how to apply for the programmes contact: Angelica Baschiera, CAS Manager Email: ab17@soas.ac.uk or visit: www.soas.ac.uk/gdai

Rama Salla Dieng, PhD (International Development)

Contemporary Land Rush and Contradictions of Agrarian Change in Senegal (2007-2017) I am extremely grateful to the Mo Ibrahim Foundation for funding my three years of PhD at SOAS. Without your generous funding, I would never have been able to start the PhD in the first place.

My PhD thesis focused on the differentiated agrarian change outcomes of selected horticultural projects in Northern Senegal during what has been dubbed ‘the land rush’. I am grateful to my supervisors at SOAS: especially Carlos Oya, Leandro Vergara-Camus and Matteo Rizzo, for their guidance and words of encouragement. I am also thankful to Angelica Baschiera for her support during my time at the university.

Spending four years at SOAS for my MSc, then PhD in International Development, was a very enriching and rewarding experience. I am currently a Lecturer in Africa and International Development at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. I bring with me all the wonderful experiences, friendships, and life lessons acquired at SOAS.

Current Projects & Research Schemes

GDAI PhD completed in 2018-2019

Mohammed Mossallam, PhD (International Development) Exit, Voice and Loyalty: Options for Developing Countries in Dealing with their Existing Bilateral Investment Treaties Earlier this year I had my PhD viva which I successfully passed with minor corrections. This event marked a significant milestone that I reached after an enriching experience as a PhD candidate at SOAS University on a scholarship from the Mo Ibrahim Foundation. I am very grateful to the Foundation for granting me the opportunity to study at a remarkable institution like SOAS and for enabling me to make what in the words of my examiners was a ‘significant and original contribution’ to my field of study. My research project also entailed conducting fieldwork visits in three developing countries where I was able to meet and interview policymakers, academics and professionals.

In addition to publishing my findings in academic outlets my objective is to practically tackle the issues addressed in my studies by working with policy-making institutions and contributing to devising the policies necessary to resolve the challenges facing developing countries.

I would also like to express my appreciation and thanks to Angelica Baschiera who (in her capacity) has generously devoted a significant amount of time and effort to help alleviate any administrative obstacles I faced during my course.

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GDAI 2019 Residential School in Abidjan, Ivory Coast 1st - 4th April 2018, Novotel, Abidjan

Organised by the Centre of African Studies at SOAS University of London, the 2019 Residential School was held in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, in the week leading to the Mo Ibrahim Governance Weekend.

Between the first and fourth of April 2019 the participants and speakers met to discuss and debate the latest challenges regarding good governance in Africa with a focus on how to support civil service delivery on the continent.

Now in its eleventh year, the residential school initiative continues to explore issues of governance and development in Africa through an intensive programme of lectures, seminars and workshops. More than twenty participants from different African countries were in attendance – including policy makers, academics, government officials and civil society representatives. The programme was devised and delivered by the SOAS academic committee that oversees the programme,

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Prof Morten Jerven during his lecture ‘Africa by Numbers’

along with other invited speakers from Ivory Coast, South Africa, Kenya, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Norway and the UK. Adhering to the original aims of the initiative, the residential school programme continues to build skills, develop talent and enable citizens to improve the quality of governance in their countries. The selected participants benefitted from the knowledge and research presented by the speakers, and brought their own diverse experiences of development, civil service and academic study to contribute to the lively atmosphere of debate that characterised the three day event.

The Governance in Africa initiative aims to reach a wide range of people in Africa and Worldwide to raise awareness and debate on Governance issues, and therefore all our resources are free and accessible online from the dedicated website: www.governanceinafricasoas.org

Speakers Nanjala Nyabola

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Victoria Chisala, African Development Bank

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Morten Jerven, Norwegian University of Life Sciences

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Mick Moore, Institute of Development Studies

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Rhoda Limbani Mshana, African Development Bank

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Elvina Quaison, Afford

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Carlos Oya, SOAS

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Michael Jennings, SOAS

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Yannick Vuylsteke, Mo Ibrahim foundation

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Pallavi Roy, SOAS

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Victor Murinde, SOAS

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Fareda Banda, SOAS, CAS Chair

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Ponsiano Bimeny, SOAS

Current Projects & Research Schemes

Participants and staff of the Residential School 2019

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Abidjan Residential School 2019 - videos and resources available on www.governanceinafricasoas.org Pan-African banks on the rise: Do cross-border banks increase firms’ access to finance in WAEMU? Professor Victor Murinde 37 mins

You can download all the speakers’ Powerpoint Presentations here: governanceinafricasoas.org/category/residential-schools/cote-divoire/cote-divoire-resources/

Residential School participant’s perspective on Governance in Africa This GDAI initiative aims to contribute to and stimulate debate on governance, development, and the relationship between them. About 20 participants from a range of African countries, and representative of the academic, civil society and government sectors, are selected each year to take part in the residential school. We have collected 19 video feedback from this year’s residential school, which can all be watched on our youtube channel governanceinafrica, under the Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire Residential School Playlist: bit.ly/AbidjanResSchoolPlaylist

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GDAI Webinar Series - First Year The first year of the MIF GDAI Webinar series has reflected on issues of development and governance through the work and experience of past and present Mo Ibrahim Scholars. We decided to have a closer look at the impact of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation PhD scholarships on the careers of former scholars and the impact on their home countries. In this first year we decided to explore three different geographical areas on the African continent: Ethiopia, Sierra Leone and Angola. We were delighted to hear about the research and work of Mo Ibrahim Foundation PhD scholars at different stages in their careers. In February 2019 Dr Sehin Teferra, Mo Ibrahim Foundation PhD scholar in Gender Studies from 2010 to 2013, talked to CAS Chair Fareda Banda about ‘Setaweet’, a contemporary Ethiopian feminist movement she co-founded in Addis Ababa.

On the 30th April 2019 Felix Marco Conteh, who completed his PhD at SOAS University of London in 2014, outlined his recent research and findings on decentralisation in Sierra Leone, in conversation with Dr Alastair Fraser (Convenor, MSc African Politics at SOAS).

The next webinar, taking place on the 31st October 2019, will feature Fernandes Wanda, currently in the last year of his PhD, who will present an interesting reflection on the recent Angolan political transition and its challenges to find the right path for sustainable development.

19th February 2019

Dr Teferra is the co-founder of ‘Setaweet’, a contemporary Ethiopian feminist movement. Setaweet was formulated while Sehin was a PhD Candidate at SOAS (2015), and took root as an informal collective of Ethiopian feminists who gather monthly to co-learn and support one another. Setaweet has in the last four years emerged as a leading actor in the small but vibrant women’s rights movement in Ethiopia and has co-convened a series of sessions where women’s rights activists have formulated their demands of our government which is in the middle of a deep reform process. In this webinar, Dr Teferra reflected on her personal journey in feminist activism in Ethiopia, and the lessons that she has learnt in leading a growing movement, with its myriad of challenges and opportunities to effect change to a more equal Ethiopia.

Watch the video recorded webinar here: https://youtu.be/NoDY7JlUiOw

Current Projects & Research Schemes

Reflections on the Genesis of a Contemporary Ethiopian Feminist Movement with Dr Sehin Teferra

Twists and Turns: the unpredictable trajectory of decentralization in Sierra Leone with Dr Felix Marco Conteh 30th March 2019

Dr Felix Marco Conteh, who completed his PhD at SOAS University of London in 2014 under the Mo Ibrahim Foundation PhD Scholarship programme, discussed Sierra Leone in the second webinar in the series.

In 2004 the Government of Sierra Leone reactivated elected local councils through an ambitious post-war decentralization programme funded by the World Bank, after a hiatus of 32 years. Dr Conteh reflected on the Government’s justification for the programme, the unpredictable trajectory of decentralization and the implications on medium and longterm governance in the country. Dr Conteh’s webinar was chaired by Dr Alastair Fraser.

Watch the video recorded webinar here: https://youtu.be/RYq-VbrRoy0

governanceinafricasoas.org/category/webinar-series/

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Leventis Fellowship

2018-2019 Fellows Dr. Mustapha Adebayo Bello Head of Islamic Studies Department of Religions and Peace studies Lagos State University, Nigeria

The Centre of African Studies of the University of London invites applications from Nigerian academics to take part in a scheme of collaborative research funded by the Leventis Foundation.

The Leventis Research Co-operation Programme is devised to assist younger scholars develop their research interests in collaboration with their counterparts in London. Applicants are invited to apply to spend three months as visitors of the Centre of African Studies in order to pursue their research in libraries and archives and to participate in the intellectual life of the Centre. The scheme might be particularly appropriate for scholars working up a PhD thesis into publishable form.

For information about how to apply for the Leventis Fellowship contact Angelica Baschiera ab17@soas.ac.uk or visit www.soas.ac.uk/cas/sponsorship/leventis Deadline for applications: 31st March 2020

Topic: Gendering Spiritual Husbandry: Female Church Overseers and Female Muslim Deputies and Alfas in Yoruba Land The focal point of Dr Bello’s research work is the adaptability of Islam in its pristine principles to cultures of receiving peoples (converts and admirers) whose philosophy and orientation is clearly different; for example phenomenon such as Chrislam movements as well as the emerging visibility of female Spiritual Leadership in South West Nigeria.

Dr. Bello is currently working on a project entitled Permissiveness, syncretism and fundamentalism: dissecting the new face of religiosity in Lagos, Nigeria.

2019 -2020 Fellows Dr. Asma’u Ahmed Giade Department of Archaeology, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria Topic: The Western Frontier of Bornu Empire: the history, cultures and archaeological evidences from the Shira region of north-eastern Nigeria, ca 1500-1900

Dr. Morenikeji Grace Asaaju Department of History, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife Nigeria Topic: Gender, Marriage and the Colonial Native Courts in Southwestern, Nigeria, 1905-1960: A Project Description

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www.soas.ac.uk/cas/sponsorship/leventis/

Understanding Africa Summer School 1 July - 19 July 2019 July 2019 saw the return of our Summer School course ‘Understanding Africa’, convened by Dr. Seraphin Kamdem.

The course provides participants with an overall understanding of the history, politics and culture of Africa.

With a diverse range of sessions, from History, Pan-Africanism and Politics to Languages, Migration, and Music, the course gives an in-depth knowledge of the main academic areas of study regarding Africa. The course comprises a combination of lectures and interactive workshops, as well as museum visits and social events.

During this course, students were able to enjoy a guided visit to the Sainsbury Africa collection at the British Museum, and to the October Gallery, a renowned art gallery for contemporary African art.

Students also enjoyed a guided visit to the famous Swahili Manuscripts Archive in the SOAS Library and a practical music tutorial on Kora playing.

Current Projects & Research Schemes

This is a great opportunity given the prominence that Africa as a continent has gained over the past few years and the vision of Africa Rising, a continent with many job and investment opportunities. Also, within the Arts, we have seen an incredible rise of the presence of African artists in the international art circles which has been extremely stimulating and refreshing for an understanding of arts and cultures.

This year’s Understanding Africa class and staff First row, from l. to r.: Angelica Baschiera (CAS & Centres Manager, SOAS), Dr Seraphin Kamdem (Course Convenor, SOAS), Beatrix (Spain & Morocco); and behind them, from l. to r.: Mareika (Germany & Zimbabwe), Yihu ‘Tiger’ (China), Diana (Russia), Marco (Italy), Veronica (Czech Rep.), Hakim (Switzerland), Appoline (France), Scott (U.K.)

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Partnerships This past year the Centre has continued and forged new inspiring partnership across different fields and countries. To note in particular, the partnership on African art conversations with the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art in Washington D.C. and on the topic of leadership and the youth with the African Leadership University in Kigali, Rwanda.

Sotheby’s Institute of Art ‘Artist Talk Series’ The Centre of African Studies is delighted to announce the continued collaboration between SOAS, University of London Sotheby’s Institute of Art (SIA-London). Started in the 2018-2019 academic year, the two institutions will keep jointly organizing a series of events each year featuring established and emerging international artists.

“We want to give a platform to artists who are well established but have rarely or never spoken to London audiences—and we also hope to raise the visibility of younger artists, artists whose work deserves, we feel, to be better known internationally.”

Dr Marcus Verhagen

Partnerships

By collaborating, SIA and SOAS are stressing their joint commitment to an expansive understanding of contemporary art. In the words of Verhagen, the collaboration will continue to “foster new ways of thinking about cultural exchange, the nomadic ways of artists, and the cultural, economic, and political connections that have evolved between different parts of the world.”

The 2018-2019 year saw three Artist Talks, for which CAS was invoved in the organization.

Artists Talk series - Haegue Yang 4th October 2018

Haegue Yang (b. 1971, South Korea) lives and works in Berlin, Germany, and Seoul, South Korea. Yang’s practice spans a wide range of media, from paper collage to performative sculpture and large-scale multi-sensorial installation, often featuring everyday objects, in addition to labour-intensive woven sculptures. Articulated in her abstract visual vocabulary, her anthropomorphic sculptures often play with the notion of ‘the folk’ being a cultural idea, while also attempting to transcend it as being a mere tradition of specific cultures. Her multisensory environments suggest uncontrollable and fleeting connotations of time, place, figures, and experiences that connect us in this non-sharable field of perception.

Selected recent solo exhibitions were at La Triennale di Milano (2018); Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane (2018); Museum Ludwig, Cologne (2018); Kunsthaus Graz (2017) Hamburger Kunsthalle (2016); Centre Pompidou, Paris (2016); Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing (2015); Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul (2015); and Modern Art Oxford (2011).

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Artists Talk series - Hassan Musa 24th January 2019

The speaker delivered a seminar around the concept of the ‘Artist’ trauma.

Chair: Dr Charles Gore (SOAS, School of Arts) This event coincided with the exhibition of Hassan Musa’s Mail Art at the SOAS Brunei Gallery from 23 January till 23 March 2019.

Partnerships

When I was in Sudan I was an artist, but when I came to live in France I became an « African artist ». I witnessed the daily evolution of the European political dynamics that re-created the contemporary African art as the globalized version of « l’art Nègre ».

If you want, as an artist, to be part of the grand events celebrating African culture that take place every season in western cities, you have to satisfy a certain number of conditions. First, be born somewhere in Africa, preferably in black Africa.

Secondly, be accessible, indeed, live somewhere from which, geographically, it is easy to get to the event. Africa is just too far away! If you do not meet the two conditions mentioned above, you can still have a chance to participate, if your skin is black, as is the case with American, French or British blacks, the so-called blacks of the “African Diaspora.” So, in my role as an African creative person, black and “diasporized” in Europe, l was able to take part in several big European events devoted to the contemporary art of Africans. But, to tell the truth, I never found myself a comfortable place in the big ship of contemporary African art. I feel like a stowaway passenger.

Maybe because I never had a good trauma story to tell. All the good tales about identity, racism, diaspora, clash of civilizations or queer oppression were already taken. Finally I found the “artist” trauma. It is not a very efficient one but I am working on it.

Artists Talk series - Zarina Bhimji 19th February 2019

Renowned artist Zarina Bhimji works across a broad range of practices engaging with social politics, light and colour.

Along with it is a publication to go with the exhibition published by Heni and Tate. She talked about her work and practice. The event concided with her showing ‘Lead White’ on the occasion of Tate’s Spotlight display in London.

Zarina Bhimji was born in Uganda. She received a BA in Fine Art from Goldsmiths, University of London and an MA from the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London. Nominated for the Turner Prize in 2007, Bhimji has had major solo exhibitions in the UK and internationally.

Her work is held in many major international museums and private collections including the Tate, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, the Moderna Museet Stockholm and Kadist Art Foundation, Paris.

Chair: Professor Shane McCausland, School of Art, SOAS.

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Smithsonian National Museum of African Art SOAS University of London’s Centre of African studies and School of Arts have signed a three years intent to collaborate to develop an artist talk series. The artists talks is a series of conversations between the Director of Smithsonian Museum of African Art, Dr Gus CaselyHayford, and artists and curators, about issues in Contemporary African Art.

The first event took place on the 17th of September 2019 at the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, entitled ‘Navigating Change in Contemporay Arican Art’.

The event was conversation between the director of the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art Dr Gus Casely-Hayford and leading scholar and philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah.

Kwame Anthony Appiah is a British-Ghanaian philosopher, cultural theorist, and novelist whose interests include political and moral theory, the philosophy of language and mind, and African intellectual history. Appiah was the Laurance S. Rockefeller University Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University, before moving to New York University (NYU) in 2014. He currently holds an appointment at the NYU Department of Philosophy and NYU’s School of Law.

L to R: Scott Taylor (Georgetown University), Dr Gus Casely-Hayford, Angelica Baschiera (CASSOAS), Kwame Anthony Appiah, Nizam Uddin (SOAS Board of trustees)

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SOAS-ALU Summer School 2019 Words: SOAS-ALU Summer School participants

The SOAS-ALU Summer School was the sincerest introduction to re-establishing the A in SOAS. We, the participants, forged life-bonds, learned from experts, community leaders, and each other. Our presence on this campus, over the past two weeks, has subverted the purpose of this institution. We have begun to truly decolonise SOAS. Bringing together future Africa-based leaders and leaders from the African diaspora has cemented a working relationship, grounded in exchange and understanding. During this partnership we have sat in circle process to really and listen to one another. This process was the most informative experience in our educational careers. We hope for more summer schools for ourselves and others to come. Thank you SOAS, University of London and the African Leadership University for bringing this project to life and for breathing new life into us. Thank you for making the SOAS & ALU Summer School such a rewarding experience.

Partnerships

PROGRAMME Week 1

Week 2

• Decolonising Political Theory - An Interactive Seminar led by Manjeet Ramgotra • African Feminist Epistemology: The Politics of Citations led by Awino Okech • SOAS Library Tour led by Sunil Pun • African Rhythms in Emerging Genres around the Globe led by Kevin Rugamba • Leadership: A brief inspection on leadership’s relationship to power led by Keni Kariuki • The Trial of Winnie Mandela led by Isis Amlak • Marshmallow Challenge led by Khadija Sanusi • What does leadership mean to you? Using LEGO to explore led by Suzanne Faulkner • The Intricacies of a Lecture-free Way of Learning led by Dave Webster • Fictionalising Memories: Creative Writing Workshop led by Sindi Gordon

• Ladbroke Grove Social Movement Walking Tour led by Carol John • BINGO London led by SOAS & ALU Students • Black Cultural Archives led by Hannah Ishmael • Peckham Guided Tour led by Zainab Korah • Make your own podcast led by Fred Molin @ SOAS Radio • Commonwealth Youth Summit Panel including Peter Burdin, Desiree JouleAdams, & Fred Molin • Unraveling notions of leadership: Moving away from performativity led by Imran Jamal • Decolonising the Commonwealth: How to prepare for the Commonwealth Youth Summit in Rwanda 2020 including Karen Salt, Alex White, Peter Burdin, Desiree Joule Adams, & Daniel Selwyn • Conversation with the Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II

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Caine Prize Award Ceremony SOAS to host Caine Prize for African Writing for next ten years

The Caine Prize for African Writing and SOAS University of London, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), setting out the arrangements for SOAS to host the annual Caine Prize award dinner for the next ten years.

The agreement was signed by Ellah Wakatama Allfrey OBE, Chair of the Caine Prize for African Writing, and Baroness Valerie Amos, Director of SOAS, at a ceremony in London on Monday 13 May 2019 (pictured above).

Now in its twentieth year, the Caine Prize was first hosted by SOAS in 2016 as part of the university’s centenary celebrations. The MoU ensures that relationship will continue for at least for the next ten years.

In addition to the annual award ceremony, SOAS will also host a public event with each year’s shortlisted writers, providing an opportunity for anyone with an interest in African literature to get involved in the Caine Prize and hear directly from the authors themselves.

“The Caine Prize is grateful to SOAS for the support they have provided over the last two years, and I am delighted that this will continue for the foreseeable future.

Central to the ethos of both organisations is the commitment to foster greater awareness, appreciation and understanding of literature and culture from across the African continent, which underpins this historic agreement”.

Ellah Wakatama Allfrey OBE, Caine Prize Chair

The Caine Prize is awarded annually for a short story by an African writer published in English (indicative length 3,000 to 10,000 words). An African writer is taken to mean someone who was born in Africa, or who is a national of an African country, or who has a parent who is African by birth or nationality.

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[Re]Entanglements:

curating and conserving west African heritage in UK institutions through community engagement

Partnerships

As part of the project entitled ‘Museum Affordances’ funded by the UK’s Arts & Humanities Research Council, Paul Basu - in colllaboration with CAS - secured a 18 months grant from the heritage lottery fund to conduct a public engagement programme associated with the main project.

‘Museum Affordances’ aims at re-engaging with a remarkable ethnographic archive – including objects, photographs, sound recordings, botanical specimens, published work and fieldnotes – assembled by the colonial anthropologist, Northcote W. Thomas, in Southern Nigeria and Sierra Leone between 1909 and 1915. [Re]Entanglements is the website platform of such project: re-entanglements.net The main partners are: South London gallery, Art Assassins, Igbo studies initiative, UCL museum of Archeology

Partnerships Institutions that CAS collaborates with: • Aegis (Africa-Europe Group of Interdisciplinary Studies) • African Foundation for Development (AFFORD) • Afrikult.

• Britain-Tanzania Society • Igbo Studies Conference • International African Institute • A.G. Leventis Foundation

• • • • • • • • •

Royal African Society Mo Ibrahim Foundation October Gallery Royal African Society Sotheby’s Institute of Art Society for the Study of the Sudans UK Tyburn Gallery GAFRA (Gallery of African Art) Smithsonian National Museum of African Art

The Centre welcomes proposals for collaboration as well as donations from people and organisations wishing to support its activities. If you are interested, you may wish to consider funding MA or PhD studentships, or events hosted by the Centre such as workshops, lectures or conferences.

Please contact the Centre manager to discuss any possibilities further.

For more information on CAS’ partnerships, please visit www.soas.ac.uk/cas/partnership/

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CAS Events 2018-2019: Highlights The Centre’s activities are diverse and many. The majority of its members are lecturers of the University of London, contributing to the teaching of undergraduate and Masters degrees and the supervision of Doctoral research within the humanities, social sciences and sciences. One of the most important functions of the Centre is to act as a forum for regional and interdisciplinary cooperation within the University of London, which is predominantly organised through membership of disciplinary departments.

#BRINGBACK OURGIRLS - THE KIDNAPPING OF THE CHIBOK GIRLS: FIVE YEARS ON 19 March 2019

CAS Events Image © Tim Green

‘#BringBack OurGirls - The Kidnapping of the Chibok Girls: Five Years On’ was a panel discussion with leading academics and experts in the field of gender, conflict and international law. The event examined the gendered nature of the Boko Haram conflict to explore how and why they are using these tactics and how we can tackle them going forward.

Speakers included: Bulama Bukarti: Analyst at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, where he leads the team’s work on subSaharan Africa. Bulama has studied extreme groups in Africa, in particular Boko Haram, for over a decade.

He is also a PhD candidate at SOAS. Dr Elizabeth Pearson: Lecturer specialising in gender and extremism at the Hillary Rodham Clinton School of Law, Swansea University The event will be chaired by Professor Fareda Banda, Chair of the Centre for African Studies and Professor of Law at SOAS, specialising in the human rights of women, rights of children, alternative dispute resolution, law, society and development in Africa and legal systems of Asia and Africa.

The event was also moderated by Aisha Muhammed-Oyebode, co-founder of the Bring Back Our Girls Movement, CEO of the Murtala Muhammed Foundation and SOAS PhD scholar with a focus on genderbased violence in the Boko Haram conflict.

www.soas.ac.uk/cas/events

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Sheng – Rise of a Kenyan Swahili Vernacular

with Dr Chege Githiora (author) 21st January 2019

The city of Nairobi is a rich context for the study of sociolinguistic phenomena. The coexistence of speakers of many different languages, further differentiated by socioeconomic class, age and ethnicity provide conditions for the development of a mixed code such as Sheng, an urban variety of Kenyan Swahili which has morphed from a ‘youth language’ into a vernacular of wider use. Sheng is a unique phenomenon in the study of linguistic change and innovation in an African context, a reflection of the ethnolinguistic diversity of Kenya and language asymmetry created by socio-economic disparities. It also provides a window into understanding the processes of urban multilingualism, within the specific space structuring of Nairobi city. This book is a detailed account of the rise and development of Sheng, its linguistic structure, social functions, and possible future directions. The author’s analysis of its presence in newspapers, TV, radio and online, makes it clear that Sheng functions as a particularly useful lens through which to explore contemporary Kenya.)

8th-26th October 2018

This is the story of a world whose territories and own frontiers were built by the slave trade. A world where violence, subjugation and profit imposed their routes. The history of slavery did not begin in the cotton fields. It is a much older tragedy, that has been going on since the dawn of humanity.

From the VIIth century on, and for over 1,200 years, Africa was the epicenter of a gigantic traffic of human beings traversing the entire globe. Nubian, Fulani, Mandinka, Songhai, Susu, Akan, Yoruba, Igbo, Kongo, Yao, Somali… Over 20 million Africans were deported, sold and enslaved. This criminal system thrived, laying the foundations of empires around the world. Its scale was such that for a long time, it has been impossible to relate it comprehensively. And yet, it raises a fundamental question: how did Africa end up at the heart of the slavery routes?

CAS Events

Slavery Routes: 4 part Documentary Series

Series convened by Dr Marie Rodet (SOAS Department of History, School of History, Religions & Philosophies) and Dr Shihan de Silva (Institute of Commonwealth Studies) The series was divided in 4 parts: • Part 1: 476 – 1375: Beyond the desert • Part 2: 1375 – 1620: For all the gold of the world • Part 3: 1620 – 1789: From sugar to rebellion • Part 4: From 1789 to 1888: The new

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African Seminar Series

Cover Image for : ‘African Freedom: How Africa responded to Independence’ by Dr Phyllis Taoua

A Remembrance to Celebrate the life of Landeg White: Poet, Teacher, Scholar, Translator and Novelist 8th October 2018 Speaker: Hugh Macmillan, Jeanne Penvenne, Jack Mapanje Landeg White was born in South Wales in 1940, a preacher’s son, and named for his maternal grandfather. The first third of his professional life was played out in the University of the West Indies, Trinidad; the University of Malawi, from where he was deported in 1972; the University of Sierra Leone, where he wrote the detective novel Inspector Tucker & the Leopard men; and finally in the University of Zambia, where his first book V.S. Naipaul: a Critical Introduction, appeared.

The second third was at the University of York where he joined the Centre for Southern African Studies in 1980, becoming Director in 1984. Here, partly in collaboration with Leroy Vail, he wrote books based on his African experiences – two Mozambican histories, the history of a village in Malawi, a study of southern Africa praise poetry, an anthology of African oral poetry (co-authored with Jack Mapanje), and three collections of his own poetry.

Since 1994, he lived in Portugal where he taught at the Universidade Aberta (Open University), and published a prize-winning translation of Camões’ The Lusiads, further translations from Camões, many more collections of his own poetry, and two further novels. He died in December 2017.

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African Freedom: Languages, Contexts, History 22nd October 2018 Dr Phyllis Taoua (University of Arizona) In this seminar, Dr Phillis Taoua drew from her latest book ‘African Freedom: How Africa responded to Independence’.

In this seminar, she gave examples from the book showing how writers and filmmakers have used the idea of freedom in their narratives and then also raise an un-answered question—Is freedom a Western value?— which is part of a newly funded audio-visual project documenting the idea of freedom in African languages and contexts.

Sector by sector: Towards Feasible Anti-Corruption Strategies for Tanzania 29th October 2018 Antonio Andreoni (SOAS) Antonio Andreoni, Research Director of the SOAS Anti-Corruption Evidence Research Consortium, together with the British Tanzania Society and Centre for African Studies at SOAS organised a seminar to discuss corruption and feasible solutions to suit local contexts in Tanzania, drawing on evidence emerging from ACE research projects.

www.soas.ac.uk/cas/events/africanseminar

Visit our Media Gallery page to listen to or watch our previous talks and events: https://www.soas.ac.uk/cas/media-gallery/

The Middle Class in Mozambique: The State and the Politics of Transformation in Southern Africa

Gendering Spiritual Husbandry: Female Church Overseers and Female Muslim Deputies and Alfas in Yoruba Land 19th November 2018 Mustapha Adebayo Bello Leventis Post-Doctoral scholar Mustapha Adebayo Bello (PhD) discussed the emerging visibility of female spiritual leadership amongst the Yorubas of South West Nigeria. Dr Bello also explored the different areas of convergence and divergence in Christendom and Islam as well as the different reactions of the established religious authorities and the discerning public form the basis of the research.

12 November 2018 Jason Sumich (Author)

CAS Events

In recent years, the growth of a middle class has been a key feature of the ‘Africa Rising’ narrative.

Here, Sumich explores the formation of this middle class in Mozambique, answering questions about the basis of the class system and the social order that gives rise to it. Drawing extensively on his fieldwork, Sumich argues that power and status in dominant party states like Mozambique derives more from the ability to access resources, rather than from direct control of the means of production.

By considering the role of the state, he shows how the Mozambican middle class can both be bound to a system they benefit from and alienated from it at the same time, as well as exploring the ways in which the middle classes attempt to reproduce their positions of privilege and highlighting the deep uncertain future that they face. Published for the IAI by Cambridge University Press.

Book Launch: Regional Developmentalism through Law 26th November 2018 Dr. Jonathan Bashi The book offers a study of regionalism in Africa and investigates the ways in which law can be used to address the issues raised by regional processes on the continent. The book examines the African Economic Community, considering that it has been entrusted to coordinate and to harmonise policies between various Regional Economic Communities (RECs) across the continent, thereby influencing the continent’s approach towards regional integration.

In particular, it seeks to identify how law can be used to strengthen the African RECs while ensuring that they achieve their goal of promoting regional development across the continent.

www.soas.ac.uk/cas/events/africanseminar

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Baraza: Swahili Conference at SOAS 27th October 2018 Convenors: Ida Hadjivayanis (SOAS), Chege Githiora (SOAS) and Angelica Baschiera(SOAS) The fourth annual ‘Baraza’ Conference was dedicated to Dr Farouk Topan, leading Swahili scholar and writer who, with others, pioneered the study and teaching of Swahili Literature in Kiswahili at the University of Dar-es-Salaam and the University of Nairobi in the 1960s and 70s. He then taught at SOAS for many years until his retirement in 2006, and was one of the founder editors of the departmental Journal of African Cultural Studies (JACS). In more recent years, he has continued to provide leadership in Swahili studies at the Aga Khan University. This year we actively invited academic papers, oral performance, and other ways of reflecting on the life, writing and scholarship of this outstanding scholar, whose career has exemplified many trends in the development of scholarship, institutional histories and transnational connections.

Baraza

Swahili Conference at SOAS Saturday 27th October 2018| 10am - 5pm SWLT Room - Paul Webley Wing SOAS - University of London

This year’s Baraza is dedicated to Dr Farouk Topan, leading Swahili scholar and writer who, with others, pioneered the study and teaching of Swahili Literature in Kiswahili at the University of Dar-es-Salaam and the University of Nairobi in the 1960s and 70s. He then taught at SOAS for many years until his retirement in 2006, and was one of the founder editors of the departmental Journal of African Cultural Studies (JACS). In more recent years, he has continued to provide leadership in Swahili studies at the Aga Khan University. Although we welcome all papers or presentations, this year we are actively soliciting academic papers, oral performance, and other ways of reflecting on the life, writing and scholarship of this outstanding scholar, whose career has exemplified many trends in the development of scholarship, institutional histories and transnational connections. Former students and colleagues are particularly encouraged to pay tribute to this great East African scholar.

SOAS Somali Diaspora Conference: Challenges & Opportunities in UK

Convenors: Dr. Chege Githiora (SOAS) Dr. Ida Hadjivayanis (SOAS)

12th February 2019, SOAS

Register here: bit.ly/Baraza2018 For more info contact cas@soas.ac.uk This conference is organised by the Africa Section of the School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics in collaboration with the Centre of African Studies, SOAS University of London.

The Somali Diaspora is one of the largest black and ethnic minority communities in the UK. It is diverse and transnationally engaged but yet considered hard to reach by many public service providers and the wider public. This one-day conference aimed at dispelling issues at the heart of this misperception. It brought together Somali community leaders and members, academics, practitioners and public service providers to unpack broad ranging topics such as social integration, youth and identity, employment, education, security, entrepreneurship, transnational activities, health and well-being.

Speakers included: Government Officials, Mary Harper (African Editor, BBC), Cllr Dr Mohamed Hashi, Dr Idil Osman (SOAS), Dr Anna Lindley (SOAS), Issa Issa (CEO, Bright Education Centre), Onyekachi Wambu (Afford, CEO) Dr Muna Elmi (UCL), Dr Nur Hassan (North Kent College), Hanna Ali (PhD candidate, SOAS), Abdinasir Mohamed

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A Celebration of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart @60 5th November 2018, Dr Chuu Krydz Ikwuemesi (University of Nigeria, Nsuka)

CAS Events

Dr Chuu Krydz Ikwuemesi (University of Nigeria, Nsuka) discussed his project commemorating Chinua Achebe’s Things Apart.

Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe’s epic novel, is 60 years old. Centred on the cultural conflict that developed in the mill of the colonial project in Africa, the novel’s content and essence remain very relevant in the “hopes and impediments” and in the totalizing dissonance that are at the heart of postcolonial realities in the continent. Ridden with violence, corruption, war, hunger religious intolerance and largely travestied democracies, postcolonial Africa approximates a fantasyland where anything can happen. The situation continues to evoke that uncertain note on which Achebe ends the novel, that frozen moment when the authentic Africa yields to the glory and triumph of Empire, giving birth to a fleeting, but totalizing and conflicting hybridity that has no end. These are the issues celebrated by an exhibition by 16 artists to mark the occasions of the 60th anniversary of Things Fall Apart. Titled ‘And the Centre Refuses to Hold: Homage to Things Fall Apart @60’, the exhibition comprises works by Chuu Krydz Ikwuemesi, Tobenna Okwuosa, Ato Arinze, George Odoh, Tony Nsofor, Anthony Polo, Nathalie Djakou Kassi, Olisa Nwadiogbu, Akeem Muraina, Solomon Isikeije, Emma Mbanefo and Chinyere Odinukwe, Francis Ike, Nnaemezie Asogwa, Benjamin Akachukwu.

In this presentation featuring some of the exhibits, the organiser of the exhibition, Chuu Krydz Ikwuemesi, provides some insight into the interface between the novel and the exhibited works and how the exhibition mirrors the unending forces of the postcolonial which have their origin in the conflicts of colonisation.

Disarmament in Africa 26th March 2019 with Dr Eka Ikpe (Kings College London), Elli Kytomaki (Chatham House / EK Consulting) & Olamide Samuel (SOAS) Small arms and light weapons (SALW) have been persistent concerns for a number of African states. Indeed, African conflicts are often fed by the accessibility of illegal weapons, often deriving from conflicts where the army has been dismantled. This is the case in Libya, where Qaddafi’s light weapons stockpile has now spread throughout the region, causing violence and destruction throughout the region. More control of light weapons is a step towards achieving peace in many stats, as signified by the ECOWAS accord to forbid states selling weapons to rebel groups. Can the model of ECOWAS be extended to other countries; will it be efficient to reduce conflict; and how damaging can SALW be for African security?

The event was a partnership between SCRAP, CISD, CAS & the Centre for African Leadership at Kings College London.

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WILPF UK: Voices of African Women Campaign 10th Anniversary 23rd February 2019 Since 1915, WILPF has brought women from across the world together. They share a vision of peace by non-violent means, promoting justice for all. In the UK, WILPF members work in branches or as individuals offering a feminist perspective to building peace. We lobby and challenge government, explore root causes of conflict and mobilise women in preventing war and building peace.

Voices of African Women (VoAW) is a WILPF UK campaign which is led by diaspora African women which began in 2009. The work of VoAW developed from listening to the issues that diaspora, refugee and immigrant African women were raising in the UK, and joining together to raise our voices at the UK national and international levels.

VoAW diaspora African women members are settled in the UK from a dozen different countries. They are active in their communities in Sudanese Mothers for Peace, Voice of Somali Women’s Movement, Network of Eritrean Women, Voice of Darfur Women and Common Cause UK (a platform of D.R. Congolese Women). Marie Claire Faray has been working in Kinshasa with groups of men and women on a new approach promoting human rights for a Gender Cohesion which has been very well-received in a patriarchal society.

Human Rights in the MENA Region: Challenges and Opportunities 5th March 2019 with Mishana Hosseinioun (University of Oxford), Moataz El Fegiery (Front Line Defenders), Melek Saral (SOAS) Severe human rights violations have been central to the uprisings in the MENA region in 2011. The uprisings caused the ousting of dictator figures and raised hopes for institutional changes securing human rights. After seven years, questions of how the uprisings impacted human rights in the region remain. The panel will address human rights issue in the region, from a perspective of opportunities and challenges.

The speakers of the panel will discuss where the struggle for the human rights continues in the region, addressing current challenges and future prospects.

This event was part of the LMEI’s Tuesday Evening Lecture Programme on the Contemporary Middle East.

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The Oxford Handbook of the Ethiopian Economy Book launch 7th March 2019 with Professor Christopher Cramer (SOAS), Dr Tesfachew Taferre (UNCTAD), Dr Carlos Oya (SOAS), Dr Florian Schäfer (LSE) The Oxford Handbook focuses on structural transformation to understand Ethiopia’s unique model of development. From both academic and professional standpoints, this volume is a key reference work on the economy of Ethiopia and how the lessons learned can be applied to Africa more broadly.

Book Launches in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

CAS Events

It examines the economic policies of structural transformation through an extensive review of literature on the Ethiopian economy.

It covers both agricultural and rural transformation and the importance of industrial policy and the role of urbanization in facilitating industrialization.

It considers the social dimensions of structural transformation.

It applies the lessons learned from Ethiopia’s unique development model to Africa more broadly.

26th, 27th, 28th September 2019 Angelica Baschiera (CAS) attended the launch of three books edited by SOAS Alumn and CAS Research Assiociate Dr Arkebe Oqubay: • ‘The Oxford Handbook of the Ethiopian Economy’, Edited by Fantu Cheru, Christopher Cramer, and Arkebe Oqubay, Oxford Handbooks • ‘How Nations Learn: Technological Learning, Industrial Policy, and Catchup’, Edited by Arkebe Oqubay and Kenichi Ohno, Oxford University Press • ‘China-Africa and an Economic Transformation’, Edited by Arkebe Oqubay and Justin Yifu Lin, Oxford University Press The launches were well attended and involved panel discussions featuring: Christopher Cramer (SOAS), Dr Arkebe Oqubay, Adam Swallow (Oxford University Press) and Fantu Cheru (The American University, Washington DC)

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SOAS African Development Forum 2019: “in.security” 15-16th March 2019 with Dr. Ibrahim Mayaki (NEPAD), Olutimehin Adegbeye, Siyanda Mohutsiwa, Wale Lawal(The Republic), Yinka Adegoke(Quartz Africa), Said El Hachimi (WTO counsellor) and many others

The 2019 Forum explored ‘Insecurity’ as a condition associated with Africa. A series of political failures, conflicts, famines, and tensions between state and civil society, has proliferated the idea of Africa as a ‘Hopeless Continent’. But what is insecurity, who defines it and how should it be explored? Asking these questions provided the template for the 2019 SOAS African Development Forum.

Human security is not solely dependent on the elimination of threats to national sovereignty, but also on the elimination of wider vulnerabilities prevalent across the continent: unemployment, human rights, healthcare, drought and food insecurity are equally important to African development.

The SOAS African development Forum has curated a conference that brings together prominent figures from the continent and the diaspora in order to foster debate on issues surrounding African development.

This year’s event featured four panels entitled DISRUPTING AFRICA, GROWING AFRICA, DEFENDING AFRICA, PRESERVING AFRICA and three incredible Keynote Speakers: • Amina J. Mohammed - Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations (see photo above) • Dr. Ibrahim Mayaki - CEO of the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) • Amir M. Abdulla - Deputy Executive Director of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) The SOAS African Development Forum (ADF) is a studentdriven platform for championing African development, bringing together leading thinkers in the field to stimulate informed discussion, challenge orthodox narratives, and bridge gaps in understanding between various development stakeholders. Hosted by the University of London’s Centre of African Studies – the largest centre of expertise on Africa outside of the continent – the ADF organises an annual conference on different themes of interest, building on the ideas and expectations of those on the continent, and the contributions of the diaspora. Now in its 7th year, the ADF also runs a recently established blog dedicated to contemporary African affairs, which acts as a permanent space for debate, dialogue and conversation about Africa.

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www.soasadf.org

An evening in conversation with the 2019 Caine Prize shortlisted authors 26th June 2018, SOAS

From left to right: Kenyan author and poet Dr Peter Kimani; winner of the Caine Prize Lesley Nneka Arimah; President of the Council Baroness Nicholson and Chair of the Caine Prize and literary critic Ellah Wakatama Allfrey OBE

This year’s shortlisted authors were: Lesley Nneka Arimah (Nigeria) for ‘American for ‘Skinned’, published in McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Issue 53. Lesley Nneka Arimah was born in the UK and grew up in Nigeria and wherever else her father was stationed for work.

Her stories have been honored with a National Magazine Award, a Commonwealth Short Story Prize and an O. Henry Award.

Meron Hadero (Ethiopia) for ‘The Wall’, published in McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Issue 52. Meron Hadero is an EthiopianAmerican born in Addis Ababa who came to the U.S. as a refugee in her childhood via East and West Germany. Her stories appear in Best American Short Stories, McSweeney’s, Zyzzyva, The Iowa Review, and others.

Cherrie Kandie (Kenya) for ‘Sew My Mouth’ published in ID Identity: New Short Fiction From Africa. Cherrie Kandie is a Kenyan writer and a senior at college in the United States of America.

She also makes short films and enjoys dancing to Lingala (only in her room).

Ngwah-Mbo Nana Nkweti (Cameroon) for ‘It Takes A Village Some Say’, published in The Baffler. Ngwah-Mbo Nana Nkweti is a Cameroonian-American writer and graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Nana’s writing has been published in journals and magazines such as Brittle Paper, New Orleans Review, and The Baffler, amongst others.

CAS Events

For the fourth year, the Centre for African Studies hosted an evening in conversation with the 2019 Caine Prize for African Writing shortlisted authors. The discussion was chaired by Dr Chege Githiora (SOAS)

Tochukwu Emmanuel Okafor (Nigeria) for ‘All Our Lives’ published in ID Identity: New Short Fiction From Africa. Tochukwu Emmanuel Okafor is a Nigerian writer whose work has appeared in the 2018 Best of the Net, the 2019 Best Small Fictions, The Guardian, Harvard’s Transition Magazine, Columbia Journal, and elsewhere. He lives in Pittsburgh, USA, and is at work on a novel and a short story collection.

2019 Winner - Lesley Nneka Arimah (Nigeria) Dr. Peter Kimani, Chair of Judges announced Nigerian writer Lesley Nneka Arimah as the winner of the £10,000 prize at an award dinner this evening (Monday 8 July). The ceremony was held for the third time in Senate House, in partnership with SOAS and the Centre for African Studies.

caineprize.com

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New Daughters of Africa Launch The writer and broadcaster Margaret Busby’s landmark new anthology, New Daughters of Africa, published by Myriad, was launched at an event at SOAS on 7 March 2019.

Margaret Busby, who became Britain’s youngest and first black woman publisher when she co-founded Allison & Busby in the late 1960s - and published notable authors including Buchi Emecheta, Nuruddin Farah, Rosa Guy, C. L. R. James, Michael Moorcock and Jill Murphy – spoke at the event. She was joined by the Director of SOAS Baroness Valerie Amos.

Guests also included the legendary activist, writer and scholar Angela Davis and author of the critically acclaimed book Noughts and Crosses, Malorie Blackman, who also held the position of Children’s Laureate from 2013 to 2015.

Group picture of The New Daughters of Africa contributors - Photo credit: Arnet Tekabe Addis

New Daughters of Africa showcases the work of more than 200 women writers of African descent from across the globe and includes contributions from the internationally acclaimed authors Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Zadie Smith.

The new anthology coincides with the launch of The Margaret Busby New Daughters of Africa Award offering an award worth £20,000 for black, female students ordinarily resident in Africa to study at SOAS University of London.

Book Launch: ‘Race for Education. Gender, White Tone, and Schooling in South Africa’ 6th June 2019 Mark Hunter discussed his latest book ‘Race for Education. Gender, White Tone, and Schooling in South Africa’ in coversation with Jennifer Robinson (UCL) and Deborah Posel (UCT).

Chair: Harri Englund (University of Cambridge).

The book is published by The International African Library.

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www.internationalafricaninstitute.org

Vizazi Contemporary Visual Culture of Tanzania 23rd July 2019 Words: Elsbeth Court The Vizazi workshop presented and explored current research about Tanzania’s visual culture that is being carried out by emerging scholars and artists. Visual culture is inclusive of heritage/curatorial initiatives, conventional modernism and experimental art practices (also called ‘contemporary’ in global art circles).

The presenters have not met face-to-face but share concerns to shrink the lacuna in art studies and consequent lack of a synthetic or joined up narrative for the history of art in Tanzania.

The programme presentations were excellent, well-prepared and well-delivered.

Stolen Moments Namibian Music History Untold (1950-80s)

CAS Events

A still image from Mimi kama kanga

Outcomes: The events demonstrated what is possible when different sectors of SOAS work together. The quality of intersectional cooperation was high between colleagues in IFCELS, the Language Centre, African Studies, Anthropology, Multimedia, CAS and the Decolonising SOAS Group.

12th July - 21st Septmber 2019 The exhibition, Stolen Moments - Namibian Music History Untold, recovers Namibia’s popular music from the 1950s to the late 1980s - a period that marked some of the harshest years of racial discrimination under the South African apartheid regime, following German colonialism. Visitors could see an extensive photographic collection, a 120-min video projection that revisits the dance styles of the period, 14-listening stations featuring Namibia’s music legends, a sound installation that explores a selection of over 100-hours of interviews with musicians and contemporary witnesses, and a large collection of record covers and music memorabilia.

The exhibition makes known that music which was known to a small part of the population only, due to censorship and racial segregation. It recounts the story of those who, despite oppression, formed bands, followed global trends, experimented with traditional sounds, and danced their way through decades of racial injustice. www.soas.ac.uk/gallery/stolen-moments/

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Exploring Black Muslims’ History and Heritage in Britain and Beyond 9th February 2019 The Muslim Council of Britain, in collaboration with Everyday Muslims, SOAS and several other partners, held the first ever “Proudly Muslim & Black” symposium and exhibition at SOAS, University of London on 9th February 2019. Entitled: “Exploring Black Muslim History and Heritage in Britain and Beyond”, the event explored issues facing Black Muslim communities in Britain, as well as highlighting important contributions made to Islamic civilization and British society by prominent Black Muslims.

The day was set out in two parts, with a Symposium in the morning, with exhibitions and performances for the afternoon session.

The symposium brought together academics, scholars and community leaders to discuss important issues around the way Black Muslims are perceived and treated. It included discussions on issues such as: -Black Muslims and their role in Institutions and Communities, Black Muslims; – Identity Formation; -The role of Muslim women in African and Afro-Caribbean Communities.

The afternoon session included inspirational short talks, spoken words and poetry presentation, African and Afro-Caribbean fashion exhibition, as well as short presentations on selected African and Afro-Caribbean led Mosques and Muslim organisations in Britain today.

Everyday Muslims, a heritage and historical documentation initiative, featured some of their special collections on Black Muslims culture and heritage in an exhibition at the event.

Sudan’s Unfolding Revolution: A People’s Demand for Freedom, Peace and Justice 22nd February 2019 with Marwa Gibril (Sudan Doctors’ Union), Samah Bushra (Sudanese Community of London), Gilbert Achcar (SOAS) Sudan has seen repeated waves of social and political protests since 2011. In December last year, massive protests began again over the ever increasing cost of living. The government retaliated by arresting more than 800 opposition figures and protesters, leading to the death of approximately 50 people according to human rights groups. The protests have continued up to the present time.

Speakers: Dr Marwa Gibril is a Darfuri Sudanese human rights activist and advocate. She is a member of Sudan Doctors’ Union, UK branch, and is currently practicing as a GP in Kent.

Samah Bushra is a Sudanese social activist, SOAS alumna and member of the Executive Committee of the Sudanese Community of London, specialist in Refugees Resettlement and Integration.

Gilbert Achcar is professor of Development Studies at SOAS. He will be contributing to the event and chairing it.

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This event was organised in collaboration with the London Middle East Institute

International Justice in Africa 18th June 2019 with Justice Richard Goldstone, Dr Dan Plesch (CISD SOAS) After 17 years in operation, The International Criminal Court (ICC) has come under repeated criticism, including accusations of bias against African states and failure to prosecute against genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

This event was part of the Beyond the Nuremberg / ICC Model of Justice series, delivered in partnership with The Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy (CISD), The Centre on Conflict, Rights and Justice (CCRJ) and The University of London’s Centre of African Studies.

CAS Events

This event looked at on-going human rights issues across Africa with a particular focus on Ethiopia, Rwanda, Kenya, South Africa and Sudan. The discussion will highlight potential ways to reform the ICC and implement best-practice regarding integration with domestic judiciaries and institutions in order to protect fundamental human rights on the African continent.

The panel included Dr Dan Plesch, BBC World’s Robert Misigaro, and was chaired by Professor Fareda Banda. The talk’s focus was twofold: Dr Plesch’s research into Ethiopia’s case submitted against Italy as part of the UN War Crimes Commission; and Justice Goldstone’s reflections on a career working in international justice in Africa, particularly the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR).

Opposing a bankrupt regime: Civil society protests and the movement for democratic change in Sudan 25th January 2019

Speaker: Dr Suliman Baldo Chair: Dr Lutz Oette (Centre for Human Rights Law, SOAS) The event was part of the Sudan-South Sudan Series by the Centre for Human Rights Law, SOAS, the Centre of African Studies and the Society for the Study of the Sudans UK (SSSUK)

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Members’ Activities Highlights Professor Fareda Banda

Professor Stephen Chan, SOAS

Publications

Publications

Fareda Banda, The Impact of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women in Select African States, International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family, Volume 33, Issue 2, August 2019, Pages 252–275, https://doi.org/10.1093/lawfam/ebz006

Chan, Stephen(2019) “Mugabe: A Life of Power and Violence”, I.B. Tauris, DOI: 10.3998/mpub.11424894

co-authored, with John Eekelaar of Oxford University, a report on International Conception of the Family, commissioned by UN Women was used in their flagship report on Progress of the World›s Women, 2019-2020 on Families in a Changing World: http://www.unwomen.org/en/ digital-library/progress-of-the-worlds-women

Members’ Activities

Dr John R Campbell, SOAS Publications 2018. ‘Can law achieve happiness? Critical reflections on criminal justice’, Journal of Comparative Law vol. 13: 2 2018. ‘The world of Home Office Presenting Officers’ in N. Gill & A. Good. Eds. Asylum Determination in Europe: Ethnographic Perspectives. Palgrave: London & NY. Pp. 91-108.

2019. ‘Conflicting perspectives on the ‘migrant crisis’ in the Horn of Africa’, in C. Menjivar, & M. Ruis & I. Ness. Eds. The Oxford Handbook on Migration Crisis. Oxford University Press: NY. Pp. 229-243. And online at [DOI:10.1093/ oxfordhb/9780190856908.013.35] Forthcoming. ‘Accessing information v. analyzing policy: Using the FOI Act in the United Kingdom’, in Kevin Walby & A. Luscombe. Eds. Freedom of Information and Social Science Research Design.

Routledge: London.

Forthcoming. ‘Guilt by Association: Contrasting views on the fairness of ‘secret trials’ of ‘terrorists’, in J. Simeon. Ed. Terrorism and Asylum. Brill Njihoff.

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Emeritus Professor William G. Clarence-Smith Publications ‘Mules in the Indian Ocean World: breeding and trade in the long nineteenth century, 1780s to 1918,’ in Angela Schottenhammer, ed., Early global interconnectivity across the Indian Ocean World, volume II: exchange of ideas, religions, and technologies, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019, pp. 295-317.

‘Equids in Mozambican history: the role of zebras, donkeys, horses, and their hybrids,’ Africana Studia, 27, 2016 [2018], pp. 111-25.

Papers ‘How “raw” were the “raw materials” of modern empires? Export processing & its opponents,’ Keynote address, Workshop, ‘Empires and natural resources: contestation, exploitation and protection from the 1800s to the present,’ University of Warwick, Coventry, 28 June 2019.

‘From sail to steam: the maritime transport of equids and other animals,’ Keynote address, International Symposium, ‘Maritime animals: telling stories of animals at sea,’ National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, 25-27 April 2019.

‘Jainism and the pearling economy, nineteenth and twentieth centuries,’ Workshop, ‘21st Jaina Studies Workshop,’ SOAS University of London, 23 March 2019.

‘Rapports économiques luso-marocains, 1770s-1970s,’ Conference ‘Marrocos-Portugal: história, memória, património,’ Agadir, Morocco, 14-15 February 2019.

‘The Indian Ocean viewed by Beatrice Nicolini and Shihan de Silva Jayasuriya,’ Book launch, Senate House, University of London, 4 December 2018.

‘The shell trade of London in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries,’ Conference ‘London and Middlesex Archaeological Society, 53d Local History Conference,’ Museum of London, 17 November 2018.

Current research projects - Mules in the making of modernity - Equids in eastern Africa’s history - Samuel & Co and Magadi soda in Kenya, 1900s-1920s - Global pearling, 19th & 20th centuries - Global sponges, 19th & 20th centuries - Colonial manufacturing, 19th & 20th centuries

Music Album Durán, Lucy. 2018. (Music producer). ‹Foronto: Afroaxaca.› (Compact disc, Recorded on location in the Costa Chica, Oaxaca, Mexico, featuring local musicians together with Hawa Kassé Mady Diabaté (lead voice) and Lassana Diabaté (balafon) from Mali, Xquenda records, Mexico Documentary Film

Professor Wayne Dooling

Professor Ben Fine, SOAS

Publications

Publications

DOOLING, W. (2018).

POVERTY AND RESPECTABILITY IN EARLY TWENTIETH-CENTURY CAPE TOWN. The Journal of African History, 59(3), 411-435. doi:10.1017/S0021853718000786

“Introduction to the Special Section ‘Financialization in South Africa’”, with E. Karwowski and S. Ashman, Competition & Change, 2018, vol 22, no 4, pp. 383-87.

Wayne Dooling (2018) ‘Cape Town Knows, but She Forgets’: Segregation and the Making of a Housing Crisis during the First Half of the 20th Century, Journal of Southern African Studies, 44:6, 10571076, DOI: 10.1080/03057070.2018.1548135

“The Role and Influence of the IMF on Economic Policy in South Africa’s Transition to Democracy: The 1993 CCFF Revisited”, with Vishnu Padayachee, Review of African Political Economy, 2018, https://doi.org/10.1080/02692171.2019.15 24044

Professor Lucy Durán Publications Durán Lucy and Helen Penn. 2018. “Growing into Music”, Chapter 10, in Early Childhood and Development Work, edited A.T. Kjørholt, H. Penn (eds.) Palgrave Studies on Children and Development, 193-207 Durán Lucy & Marta Amico. 2018. “Grandir en musique chez les jelis du Mande (Mali). Un entretien avec Lucy Durán”. Cahiers d’Ethnomusicologievol 31, 269-86

Members’ Activities

In three-person directorate of the ‘Commodities of Empire’ project, funded by the British Academy, and centred in the School of Advanced Study, University of London.

Durán, Lucy & Moustapha Diallo. 2019.

Tegere Tulon: Handclapping Songs of Mali.

18-minute documentary film shot on location in Mali in November 2018 and directed by Lucy Durán. Uploaded to YouTube: www.youtube. com/watch?v=IzeVKYTMqww&t=9s Commissioned and published by Kronos Quartet Performing Arts, San Francisco, California, for their Fifty for The Future project. https:// kronosquartet.org/fifty-for-the-future

“Introduction: Revisiting Harold Wolpe in Postapartheid South Africa”, co-authored with John Reynolds, in Race, Class and the Post-Apartheid Democratic State, co-edited with John Reynolds and Robert van Niekerk, Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2019, ISBN 978-1-86914-419-7, pp. 1-28.

“Post-apartheid South Africa: It’s Neoliberalism, Stupid!”, in Race, Class and the Post-Apartheid Democratic State, co-edited with John Reynolds and Robert van Niekerk, Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2019, ISBN 978-1-86914-419-7, pp. 75-95.

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“Conclusion: Harold Wolpe: Towards the Politics of Liberation in a Democratic South Africa”, in Race, Class and the Post-Apartheid Democratic State, co-edited with John Reynolds and Robert van Niekerk, Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2019, ISBN 978-1-86914419-7, pp. 338-68.

“Joseph Stiglitz”, in D. Simon (ed) Fifty Key Thinkers on Development, London: Routledge, revised second edition, 2019, pp. 416-21.

Race, Class and the Post-Apartheid Democratic State, co-edited with John Reynolds and Robert van Niekerk, Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2019, ISBN 978-1-86914419-7.

See also a blog article here: www.lse. ac . uk / News / Latest-news-from-LSE / 2019 / gJuly-2019/New-way-of-measuring-inequality

Dr Julia Gallagher Publications Zimbabwe›s International Relations: fantasy, reality and the making of the state (Cambridge University Press, 2017) ‹Misrecognition in the making of a state: Ghana›s International Relations under Kwame Nkrumah› Review of International Studies, 44, Special Issue 5 (Special Issue on Misrecognition in World Politics: Revisiting Hegel), 2018 , pp.

882-901 Current research project “Understanding Statehood through Architecture :a comparative study of Africas buildings”, a five-year project funded by the European Research Council. The project involves a team of five researchers, based at SOAS: Daniel Gebrie Mulugeta, Joanne Tomkinson, Kuukuwa Manful and Innocent Batsani Ncube. We are exploring different aspects of the politics through and in architecture across sub-Saharan Africa. Details of the project can be found at www.africanstatearchitecture.co.uk

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Dr Colette Harris, SOAS Publications Forthcoming: “Young persons and gender-age relations in southern Tajikistan and North India” in Central Asian Survey.

Forthcoming: “Governmentality, Biopower and gender ” in Social Politics Current research project Gender identities in migration among Bangladeshis and potentially Somalis living in East London

Dr Joerg Haustein Publications Haustein, Joerg (2019) ‹Religion, Politics and an Apocryphal Admonition: The German East African “Mecca Letter” of 1908 in Historical-Critical Analysis›. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies. [Forthcoming] Haustein, Joerg (2019) ‹Religion, Rasse und Recht: Der ostafrikanische Islam in der deutschen Fiktion vom „Eingeborenenrecht“‹.

In: de Gemeaux, Christine and Noack, Stefan and Puschner, Uwe, (eds.), Deutsch-Ostafrika: Dynamiken europäischer Kulturkontakte und Erfahrungshorizonte im kolonialen Raum.

Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, pp 181-202.

Haustein, Joerg (2018) ‹Provincializing Representation: East African Islam in the German Colonial Press›. In: Becker, Felicitas and Cabrita, Joel and Rodet, Marie, (eds.), Religion, Media, and Marginality in Modern Africa. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, pp 70-92.

Dr Elizabeth Hull, SOAS Publications Waage, Jeff and Dangour, Alan and Haesler, Barbara and Shankar, Bhavani and Johnston, Deborah and Gohil, Ela and Gwan-Lim, Gek and Walls, Helen and Locke, Karen and Hull, Elizabeth and Smith, Richard and Green, Rosemary and Kadiyala, Suneetha (2019) ‹Integrating agriculture and health research for development: LCIRAH

as an interdisciplinary programme to address a global challenge.›. Global Challenges, (3) 4.

Johnston, Deborah and Stevano, Sara and Malapit, Hazel and Hull, Elizabeth and Kadiyala, Suneetha (2018) ‹Time-Use Analytics: An Improved Way of Understanding Gendered Agriculture-Nutrition Pathways›. Feminist Economics, (25) 3, pp 1-22.

Walls, Helen and Johnston, Deborah and Tak, Mehroosh and Dixon, Jane and Hanefeld, Johanna and Hull, Elizabeth and Smith, Richard D. (2018) ‹The impact of agricultural input subsidies on food and nutrition security: a systematic review›. Food Security, (10) 6, pp 1425-1436.

Johnston, Deborah and Stevano, Sara and Malapit, Hazel J and Hull, Elizabeth and Kadiyala, Suneetha (2018) ‹Review: Time Use as an Explanation for the Agri-Nutrition Disconnect? Evidence from Rural Areas in Low and Middle Income Countries›.

Food Policy, (76), pp 8-18.

Gibson, Hannah and Lutz Marten. 2019. Probing the interaction of language contact and internal innovation: four case studies of morphosyntactic change in Rangi. Studies in African Linguistics 48: 63-92.

Gibson, Hannah, Rozenn Guérois and Lutz Marten.

2019. Variation in Bantu copula constructions. In María Arche, Antonio Fábregas and Rafael Marín (eds.) The Grammar of Copulas Across Languages.

Oxford: Oxford University Press, 213-242.

Marten, Lutz. 2019. Preface. In Daisuke Shinagawa and Yuko Abe (eds.) Descriptive Materials of Morphosyntactic Microvariation in Bantu. Tokyo: Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, v-viii.

Dr Lutz Oette, SOAS

Dr Angela Impey Publications «Song Walking: Women, Music, and Environmental Justice in an African Borderland» (University of Chicago Press) https :// press . uchicago . edu / ucp / books / book / chicago/S/bo28828072.html

Dr Zoe Marriage, SOAS Publications Marriage, Z. (2019). Cultural Resistance and Security from Below. London: Routledge, https:// doi.org/10.4324/9780429399282

Professor Lutz Marten, SOAS Publications

Oette, L. (Ed.), Babiker, M. (Ed.). (2019).

Constitution-making and Human Rights in the Sudans. London: Routledge, https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315624075

Dr Emilia Onyema Publications

Members’ Activities

Publications

Emilia Onyema (ed) Rethinking the Role of African National Courts in Arbitration, Kluwer Law International, 2018, 417 pages.

Emilia Onyema, “African Participation in the ICSID System: Appointment and Disqualification of Arbitrators”, ICSID Review – Foreign Investment Law Journal (2019) pp 1-23.

Emilia Onyema, “Reimagining the Framework for resolving Intra-African Commercial Disputes in the Context of the African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement”, World Trade Review (2019), pp 1-25

Downing, Laura and Lutz Marten. 2019. Clausal morphosyntax and information structure. In Mark van de Velde, Koen Bostoen, Derek Nurse and Gérard Philippson (eds.) The Bantu Languages.

2nd ed. London and New York: Routledge, 270307.

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Research Associates

Research Associates

Research Associates of CAS are long-term collaborators in the Centre activities, pursuing common programmes of research or other activities with Centre Members. They are granted certain staff privileges at SOAS which are recognised at other London universities. Research associateship is granted for two years in the first instance.

carving movement and editing (and up-dating) the volume ‘Artists and Art Education in Africa’ in which African artists address the conditions and complexities of becoming an artist in and out of Africa; her most recent publications are catalogue essays for Peterson Kamwathi (2011, Ed Cross Fine Art) and Edward Njenga (2013, Nairobi National Museum). She drafted and maintains ‘’Art and Art Education in East Africa_ A Working Bibliography” (available from the CAS website)

Paul Asquith

ec6@soas.ac.uk

Paul is Engagement & Policy Manager at the African Foundation for Development (AFFORD), a leading diaspora development organisation, where he leads on diaspora policy and engagement in the EU and Africa, and advises policy-makers on migration and development issues. His background is in research and international development in North Africa and Ethiopia, as well as managing public health services in the UK for vulnerable groups such as street sex-workers and drug addicts. His research interests include diasporas, migration, and development; Islamic models of development; Islamic education and development in North Africa and the Horn; and culture and health.

Professor Murray Last, Emeritus Professor of Anthropology, UCL

paul@afford-uk.org Dr Augustus Casely-Hayford Gus Casely-Hayford is a curator and art historian.

He is the former Executive Director of Arts Strategy for Arts Council England. He was previously director of INIVA (Institute of International Visual Art), a London-based arts organization with a particular emphasis on international practice, which collaborates with partner venues throughout the UK and worldwide. Prior to this he was director of Africa 05, the largest African arts season ever hosted in Britain. He has worked for television and radio and was the presenter of the BBC ‘Lost Kingdoms of Africa’ series. gus.casely-hayford@soas.ac.uk Elsbeth Joyce Court, Subject Lecturer, SOAS IFCELS Elsbeth Court is a specialist in African art and art education, whose research focuses on eastern Africa, particularly Kenya, and more widely on the growth of modern and contemporary practices of art. Her ongoing projects involve the Akamba

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Professor Murray Last (Emeritus Professor of Anthropology, UCL). Professor Last’s current research programme largely centres around publishing the various materials he and his various Nigerian colleagues have collected on health and social issues in contemporary Kano over the last decade. But the major task is to write up the ethnographic data he has collected over the last thirty years on one large compound of Maguzawa (non-Muslim Hausa) (they have subsequently converted to Islam) in southern Katsina. Meanwhile there is also a work of filial piety to do - putting M G Smith’s 1000-page typescripts of Sokoto history onto disk and then into print (funding has been promised). But there are several other projects in mind, such as publishing obscure, short but key documents written in arabic in the 19th century jihadi history and contemporary northern Nigerian society. Professor Last expects to continue visiting northern Nigeria at least once a year. m.last@ucl.ac.uk Ivor Agyeman-Duah Director of the Centre for Intellectual Renewal in Ghana, he was special advisor from 2009 to 2014 to the Ghanaian President, John Agyekum Kufuor, on international development cooperation. He currently serves as a consulting fellow of the African Center for Economic Transformation.

He had previously worked in the diplomatic service as Head of Public Affairs at Ghana’s Embassy in Washington, DC and later as Culture and Communication Advisor at the Ghana High Commission in London.

He has held fellowships at the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University and a Hilary and

Trinity resident scholar at Exeter College, Oxford.

Chedza Mogae

He serves as Development Policy Advisor to The Lumina Foundation in Lagos, which awards The Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa and was the 2014-15 Chair of the Literature Jury of the Millennium Excellence Foundation. Two of his major literary works- All the Good Things Around Us- An Anthology of African Short Stories and May Their Shadows Never Shrink- Wole Soyinka and the Oxford Professorship of Poetry (with Prof. Lucy Newlyn) were launched in 2016 at the Houses of Parliament in Westminster.

Chedza Mogae’s particular area of scholarship rests within the domain of political science and international relations, in the developmental context. A graduate of the University of Botswana and Fudan University in the People’s Republic of China; she is best known for her political analysis and op-eds in Botswana’s Sunday Standard broadsheet, her work in the area of Sino-African relations, with a particular focus on technology transfer as a component of Chinese aid and infrastructure building in Africa and the complexities of sustainable development with an emphasis on the intricacies of trade and investment promotion, attraction and policy.

iaduah66@yahoo.com Dr Arkebe Oqubay Metiku

Steve Itugbu Steve Itugbu holds a PhD in Politics and International Studies from SOAS, the University of London in 2012. He is a well-travelled journalist, academic and was a presidential aide to Nigeria’s former president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo.

Itugbu is the author of America’s War on Terror and until the end of 2014 a Teaching Fellow with the Politics Department and also at the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy at SOAS, the University of London.

Steve Itugbu is presently involved in international consultancies through the World Service Briefings, London while at the same time working at publishing additional books. His research interest focuses on a myriad of contentious issues affecting Africa such as governance and leadership, foreign policy relations and analysis, civil wars and conflicts, peace processes and postconflict integration, political violence, terrorism and counterinsurgencies.

cmogae@gmail.com

Dr Abdullai Haroon Abdullai Haroon’s research focuses on chieftaincy and constitutional history, chieftaincy and democratic experiment in Ghana, as well as identity, political poetry and thought in Dagbon, Ghana. He also works on religion and political governance in Ghana – politics and spirituality, religion as enhancing democracy but not replacing it, churches and partisanship, prophecy, elections and politics, and what sustains its democratic experiment as well as interest in the youth groups as catalyst to Ghana’s democratic and political dispensation.

He is currently working on producing two new books: one on religion and political governance in Ghana; the second on youth as catalyst to Ghana’s democratic dispensation. He is currently revising his published book entitled ‘Pan-Africanism then and now and African Political Thought’.

Research Associates

Minister and Special Advisor to the Prime Minister of Ethiopia conducting research projects on industrialisation, political economy of infrastructure and development of technological capabilities and economic leadership.

Publication: ‘Made in Africa. Industrial Policy in Ethiopia.’ 2015, Oxford University Press

haroonabdullai@yahoo.com

He recently published the book ‘Foreign Policy and Leadership in Nigeria: Obasanjo and the Challenge of African Diplomacy’(2017, I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd.). si28@soas.ac.uk

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Africa News During term time, the Centre of African Studies sends out a fortnightly newsletter containing listings of Africarelated lectures and seminars held at SOAS and other colleges of the University of London. It also contains news and information on events around the world related to Africa, calls for papers, funding and job opportunities.

To sign up, please email cas@soas.ac.uk

Centre of African Studies SOAS University of London Room B404 Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square London WC1H 0XG Tel: (+44) (0)20 7898 4370 Fax: (+44) (0)20 7898 4369

email: cas@soas.ac.uk web: www.soas.ac.uk/cas facebook.com/ CentreofAfricanStudiesSOAS twitter.com/CAS_SOAS

Cover image: ‘In jail with my Dutch friends/En taule avec des amis hollandais’, Hassan Musa, 1993 © SOAS ‘Hassan Musa Mail Art Collection’