Centre of African Studies - Annual Review Issue 9, Year 2017 - 2018

Centre of African Studies Annual Review Issue 9, 2017-2018

Contents Welcome

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Current Projects & Research

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CAS Events 2017 - 2018

12

Collaborations

30

Members’ Activities

36

African Studies Resources

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Welcome Welcome to the Centre of African Studies, University of London’s Annual Review for the academic year 2017-2018.

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 Mashood Baderin CAS Chair

Angelica Baschiera CAS Manager

Anna De Mutiis CAS Executive Officer

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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 Manager The Academic year 2017/18 was a very busy one yet again for the Centre of African studies at SOAS University of London.

We started the year with an incredible event, on 1st September 2017, with leading international writer Zadie Smith who came to SOAS to present her latest book ‘Swing Time’. Interestingly, the research for the book was inspired by our SOAS Anthropologist Dr Marloes Janson and her research in The Gambia. It was a memorable evening and Zadie Smith was happy to chat to our students and staff.

Following on, we were lucky to be able to host the writer and Nobel prize winner Professor Wole Soyinka who was the keynote speaker at our SOAS African Literature Conference - 55 years after the first Makerere Conference on 28 October 2018. It was a very successful conference that brought together literary experts from Africa, US and UK. We hosted our annual events with the Baraza – Annual Swahili studies conference in October 2017, and the Annual Igbo studies conference in April 2018. We were thrilled to host worldreknown writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie as the keynote speaker at the Igbo studies conference. We also hosted for the second time the Caine Prize award dinner as well as the preevent with shortlisted authors in June 2018.

Angelica Baschiera Manager Centre of African studies SOAS University of London

Welcome

With regards to our Art programme, we successfully delivered two talks for the Artist talks series in partnership with Sotheby’s Institute of Art by Lydia Ourahmane and Alfredo Jaar. We also hosted a talk by Evans Mbugua (cover photo credit) supported by GAFRA (Gallery of African art, London), as well as collaborations with the October gallery and 1:54 Contemporary African Art fair.

Thank you for your continued support and stay in touch!

The Governance for Development in Africa initiative was renewed for another three years, till 2021, and we are extremely grateful to the Mo Ibrahim foundation for providing 2 PhD scholarships, one annual residential school in Africa, and a series of Webinars.

With regards to our collaboration and partnership, we secured an MoU with the Caine prize which will be hosted at SOAS for the next few years, and also a new collaboration with the National Museum of African Art Smithsonian for a series of Artist talks. We continued to work closely with the Royal African society, AFFORD, the Sudan Studies Society in the UK, the BritainTanzania society and the Anglo-Ethiopian society.

We hosted many seminars and events as part of our weekly seminar series as outlined in the review.

For more information, please read through the report and keep following us on social media.

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Current Projects and Research Schemes Governance for Development in Africa Initiative The Centre of African Studies at SOAS, University of London, s pleased to announce the extension of the Governance for Development in Africa Initiative, funded by the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, for another 3 three years, 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 (www.governanceinafrica.org).

Current Projects & Research Schemes

Whilst reading towards a Master of Philosophy in Justice and Transformation at the University of Cape Town, I decided to come to London in September 2017 to concurrently pursue a Master of Science in Violence, Conflict and Development at SOAS’ Department of Development Studies. I did this to further the knowledge and gain a different academic perspective in how my areas of interest which include gender, transitional justice, conflict as well as intergenerational legacies of trauma and memory studies affect prospects for good governance in Africa. Whilst at SOAS, my scholarship and perspective grew to understand the role of how pertinent issues such as borders and natural resource management, amongst others, shape the outcomes of the aforementioned areas of interest. This made my research more holistic and pushed me outside my regulated frame of thinking. My dissertation focused on the legacy of political settlements that led to the Mugabe regime’s downfall. For the first time, I was supervised by a scholar who specialises in political economy approaches and I was challenged to think outside my comfort zone. As a researcher on Zimbabwe, it has made me view the politics of my country from a whole new perspective which goes against the grain of common discourse and nuances the beliefs I had. Additionally, SOAS pushed me out of my love for desk-based research by allowing me the opportunity of sitting on panels with revered scholars of the academy on topical issues which elevated my voice and allowed meaningful interaction with likeminded people – often making me think a little harder. For this, I will forever be grateful.

It takes an open mind to step out of their comfort zone and travel across the hemisphere to immerse themselves in new social cultures for any purpose. It is difficult to place oneself in these spaces without a little support. As a 2017/18 Governance for Development in Africa Initiative Mo Ibrahim Scholar at SOAS, I am proud to report that my experience has been positively overwhelming. The staff at SOAS not only fully understood the range of diversity, but were always willing to help or lend a listening ear when I needed it. This is especially true for the staff at CAS and their support remains a truly an invaluable part of my SOAS experience. From making new friends from all over the world to solidifying meaningful networks that will last a lifetime; I enjoyed every moment of my time here and given another opportunity, I would do it all again.

Mandipa Ndlovu (Zimbabwe) - MSc Violence, Conflict and Development

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Our PhD award starting in the academic year of 2018-2019 has been awarded to: Hamisu Salihu (Nigeria) Politcal Economy of Industrial Policy in Nigeria: A case Study of Kaduna Textile Industry Supervisor: Mustaq Khan, Economics Department 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

Current Projects & Research Schemes

Mo Ibrahim Residential Alumni Network

In November 2017 the Mo Ibrahim Residential Alumni Network Facebook group was created.

This page aims to connect its alumni, who attended the annual governance school funded by the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, and provide a platform to network. You can also follow this page for regular updates with regards to news and events organised by the SOAS Centre for African Studies.

There are currently more than members and teh number grows every year.

To join the grouop visit: bit.ly/MoIbrahimResAlumniNetwork

www.facebook.com/groups/1743970429244159/

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The participants and staff at the beginning of the three days of GDAI Residential School

GDAI 2018 Residential School in Kigali, Rwanda 23rd - 26th April 2018, Radisson Convention Centre, Kigali Organised by the Centre of African Studies at SOAS University of London, the 2018 Residential School was held in Kigali, Rwanda, in the week leading to the Mo Ibrahim Governance Weekend, which was attended by all school’s participants. Between the 23rd and the 26th of April 2018 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 tenth 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, along with other invited speakers from Rwanda, South Africa, Kenya and the UK.

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‘The variety of presentations helped me broaden my understand of governance. I especially enjoyed the fact that it wasn’t only about theories, and the fact that we had practitioners and practical research outputs was wonderful’.

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 hree 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.governanceinafrica.org

Speakers Nyambura Ngugi, UN Women Kenya

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Christopher Cramer, Department of Development Studies, SOAS

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Cheryl Hendricks, University of Johannesburg

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Phil Clark, Department of Development Studies, SOAS

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Jonathan Di John, SOAS - Department of Development Studies, SOAS

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Jean-Paul Kimonyo, Sr Advisor on NEPAD, Office of the President of Rwanda

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Carlos Oya - Department of Development Studies, SOAS

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Yannick Vuylsteke, Mo Ibrahim foundation

Current Projects & Research Schemes

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Participants and staff of the Residential School 2018

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Kigali Residential School 2018 - videos and resources available on www.governanceinafrica.org Women Peace and Security in Africa Prof Cheryl Hendrix 75 mins

When the grass is not as green as promised: confronting the myths and facts about women’s political participation Dr Nyambura Ngugi 83 mins You can download all the speakers’ Powerpoint Presentations here: www.governanceinafrica.org/category/residential-schools/rwanda/resources/

Elections, good governance, development and the crisis of legitimacy in Africa.

A view from the Rwandan expericence 26 April 2018 Jean-Paul Kimonyo (Sr Advisor on NEPAD, Office of the President of Rwanda) delivered a keynote lecture entitled: Elections, good governance, development and the crisis o legitimacy in Africa. A view from the Rwandan expericence Chair: Phil Clark (SOAS) You can watch the full length video here: www.governanceinafrica.org/elections-good-governancedevelopment-and-the-crisis-of-legitimacy-in-africa-jean-paul-kimonyo/

Jean-Paul Kimonyo (Sr Advisor on NEPAD, Office of the President of Rwanda) during the Keynote Lecture

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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: Aleida Mendes Borges PhD student at King’s College London Cabo Verde

Kokou Hodenou Aklavon Program Director, CRESED Togo

Hilina Berhanu Addis Ababa & Mekelle University, Ethiopia

Maggy Ndinda Munyasya Kitui County Assembly Kenya

Nomahlubi Nkume DTI, Government of South Africa South Africa

Omonigho Oyoma Brown Legal Department, Schlumberger Nigeria

Patrick Zacharia Riruyo Tsinghua University-China South Sudan

Rosina Badwi Ghana Christian University College Ghana

Ruwadzano Patience Makumbe Masters in Human Rights Policy and Lawyer Zimbabwe

Taimi Itembu Judiciary of Namibia Namibia

Tebello Anna Ralebitso Women’s Rights Programme Officer, Graça Machel Trust Lesotho

Valerie Rumbidzai Jeche University of Zimbabwe Zimbabwe

Victor Moinina University of Yaounde II Sierra Leone

Graca Manjate Center for Socio Economic Studies (CESE) Mozambique

Jamal Farah Omer Save the Children Somaliland

Guillaume Eboukela Mila Inspector of Treasury at Supreme State Audit Cameroon Umar Kabanda Managing Director KALUBE Consults Limited Uganda

Current Projects & Research Schemes

Abrham Alihonay Ayele Mekelle University Ethiopia

Jacques Thierry Massengue UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission Central African Republic Watch all the videos here:

www.governanceinafrica.org/category/ residential-schools/rwanda/profiles/

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Leventis Fellowship

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 2019

2017-2018 Fellows Dr. Abiodun Ajayi Adeyemi University of Education, Ondo

Topic: The Develompent of Wheeled Transportation in Osun Division of Southwestern Nigeria, 1900-1960

area of research development of Nigeria’s early and middle career researchers. The fellowship had really exposed me to the European research system and acquainted me with the pros and cons of the research in the field of humanities.

I am indeed very grateful to the management of the Centre of African Studies (CAS) SOAS University of London, who found me worthy of the fellowship award. The centre is blessed with a good array of personnel under the chairmanship of Professor Murray Last who offered to be my host and mentor. His guides regarding the choice of relevant literature for my study were highly commendable. Professor Mashood Baderin, the centre chair, was another notable personality whose encounter with really provided an enabling environment for me in SOAS. He really made me feel at home. Angelica Bashiera, the amiable centre manager was always there for me, she was so caring and always ready to ensure that fellows lacks nothing. Doctors Charlie Gore and Barry Burgess had the credit of shaping my thought and perspective academically by their suggestions and advise in the course of my interactions with them. Particularly I owe my little knowledge of London and its environ to the untiring efforts of Dr. Charlie who took me to many places of my interest. I really appreciate him.

My interactions with erudite scholars in CAS such as Professor Richard Fardon, Professor Paul Basu, Dr. Marloe Janson, Stephanie Kitchen, Anna De Mutiis and the staff of the Department of African Studies in the Universities of Birmingham and Oxford such as Professor Karin Barber, Professor Insa Nolte, Dr. Rebecca Jones and Professor David Pratten were highly rewarding in shaping the focus of my study during the fellowship. These are wonderful people that one will like to be meeting again and again, I appreciate them all.

Moreover, my experience in the library of SOAS which was my office during the fellowship was also a good one, such that, without hesitation, I can easily rate the library as one of the best in the world and a must visit for serious minded scholars. The friendly and cheerful staff of the library who are approachable and always ready to help any user also made the library appealing.

I want to appreciate the management of the Leventis Foundation for their initiative in the

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

Dr IChukwuezugo Krydz Ikwuemesi University of Nigeria, Nsukka

Topic: Problems and Prospects of the Igbo Uli Art Idiom in the Igbo Heritage Crisis

My research theme was on “Problems and Prospects of the Igbo Uli Art Idiom in the Igbo Heritage Crisis�. Many people have wondered why I had to go to London to research on such a locally viable topic. Uli is something I have researched since 1992. So I did not go to SOAS to begin research on uli, but to seek further insight into particular aspects, using the vast resources and expertise that populate SOAS. I must confess that the library offered so much in terms of resources and a conducive environment for study.

Important relevant books and journals readily available; e-resources were easily accessible; scanning and photocopy facilities were free and always functional; library staff were friendly and highly efficient. Beyond these facilities, interacting with faculty and students at SOAS was also helpful. The many seminars and conference that I attended always provoked new thought both in my research and other areas of interest. It was at one of such conferences on African writing that I met Wole Soyinka for the first time, having read his works from my secondary school days in the 1980s. My own seminar presentation on November 27 was also very interesting, given the useful discussion and interventions that followed.

Generally my stay at SOAS was very productive.

Besides my SOAS research and seminar and the seminar at Birmingham, I developed final draft for other papers. I also made useful contacts that may impact positively on my career in the near future.

2018 -2019 Fellows Dr. Mustapha Adebayo Bello

Current Projects & Research Schemes

I arrived London in the morning of October 11, 2017 and made my way to Goodenough College where accommodation has been reserved for me in one of the sabbatical suites. All this while, I was in touch with Angelica Baschiera, the very efficient manager of the Centre of African Studies, SOAS and Dr. Charles Gore, the Nigerian art specialist there. As soon as I dropped off my luggage in the apartment, I headed to SOAS. Ms Baschiera and Anna welcomed me very warmly in their office, providing more details about the fellowship, and the facilities available to fellows.

My meetings with my supervisor, Dr Charles Gore, was also very helpful as he offered very insightful critique and advice on issues pertaining to my work and about Nigeria generally. Dr Gore was also an efficient host and tour guide, as he showed me interesting bookshops, art shops, museums, galleries, restaurants, ICT Centres and important places such as Evesham where we met an old friend, Emeritus Professor John Picton, and Oxford where we toured the university town and visited the museum with Prof. David Pratten. Interactions with Prof Paul Basu in the Anthropology and Sociology Department was also valuable.

Beyond my main research purpose for going to SOAS, I also wrote a paper on Igbo Mmanwu as a basis for a seminar I presented at University of Birmingham on November 29.

The seminar at Birmingham was well received and has opened a new vista of relationship and exchange with some faculty in the Department of African Studies and Anthropology there.

Head of Islamic Studies Department of Religions and Peace studies Lagos State University, Nigeria Topic: Gendering Spiritual Husbandry: Female Church Overseers and Female Muslim Deputies and Alfas in Yoruba Land

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

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Innovative Approaches to Assessment & Feedback

ALEXIS PESKINE - POWER FIGURES Friday 6 October 2017 | 1:00 - 2:30 pm Room T102 | 21/22 Russell Square

The mind of Mandela Tue 1 May | 6-8pm | BGLT | SOAS The South African High Commission, in collaboration with SOAS, in commemoration of the Nelson Mandela Centenary is hosting a Public Lecture entitled “The mind of Mandela”.

This will be commemorated on the day that celebrates workers rights in South Africa.

Speakers: Lord Peter Hain, Ms Pumela Salela (Brand South Africa), Mr John Battersby The event will be followed by a reception.

Alexis Peskine will discuss his exhibition ‘Power Figures’, hosted at October Gallery. This will be his first solo exhibition in London.

Early on Peskine was exposed to questions of identity with his mother coming from Bahia, Brazil, an area with a predominantly black population who struggle under a system designed to keep them from power, and his father the son of a Jewish refugee who fled from Russian persecution during the Second World War. Channelling this rich background through his work, he explores both the Black Experience and the world of the refugee, forced to exist between fixed boundaries of state and identity.

Speaker: Alexis Peskine Chair: Polly Savage (SOAS) All Welcome. Please RSVP at cas@soas.ac.uk

Find out more at: bit.ly/TheMindOfMandela

Image credit: Alexis Peskine, Power, 2017. Moon gold leaf on nails, earth, coffee water and acrylic on wood. 195 x 250cm. Image courtesy October Gallery, London

Book Discussion: The Political Economy of Everyday Life in Africa Mon 30 Oct | 5.15pm - 7pm | Room 4429 | SOAS The book is a multi-disciplinary examination of the role of ordinary African people as agents in the generation and distribution of well-being in modern Africa. The contributors - experts in anthropology, history, political science, economics, conflict and peace studies, philosophy and language - examine the opportunities and constraints placed on living, livelihoods and sustainable life on the continent.

Speakers: Wale Adebanwi (University of Oxford), David Pratten (University of Oxford), Jane Guyer (Johns Hopkins University), Laura Mann (LSE)

Find out more at: www.soas.ac.uk/cas/events

Innovative Approaches to Assessment & Feedback

IN CONVERSATION WITH

Problems and Prospects of the Igbo Uli Art Idiom in the Igbo Heritage Crisis Mon 27 Nov | 5.15 -7 pm | Room 4429 | SOAS If art is one major index for expressing and assessing the culture of a people, the Igbo uli art offers a basis on which Igbo culture and heritage can be appreciated and appraised against the issues of receptivity, resurgence and self-hate. Relying on the works of the uli women classicists, the Nsukka artists, and the outcomes of the Art Republic workshops, the paper argues that traditions do not die in a finalist sense, but can degenerate-regenerate as manure that nourish new ideas and paradigms which extend the history and experience of the old.

01 SEPTEMBER 2017 | 6PM -7.30PM SWLT | PAUL WEBLEY WING (SENATE HOUSE) Zadie Smith will discuss her latest book ‘Swing Time’, which was influenced by the reading of SOAS scholar Marloes Janson’s monograph ‘Islam, Youth, and Modernity in the Gambia: The Tablighi Jama`at.

Book your place here: bit.ly/SwingTimeSOAS

Speaker: Dr Chuu Krydz Ikwuemesi

Find out more at: www.soas.ac.uk/cas/events/

Events 2018 - 2019 13

CAS Events 2017-2018: 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

SOAS AFRICAN LITERATURES CONFERENCE 55 years after the first Makerere African Writers Conference 28 October 2017

CAS Events Nobel Prize Wole Soyinka during the Keynote Lecture

This event marked the celebration of the historical ‘Makerere University African Writers Conference’ where leading figures such as Wole Soyinka, JP Clarke, Ngugi wa Th’iongo were present, and for the first time since the end of colonialism, African writings was properly recognised and celebrated. SOAS academics specialising in literary criticism, translation and African literatures more broadly, hosted the conference on 28th October 2017 at the SOAS Brunei Gallery Lecture Theatre, with the support of the SOAS Centre of African studies.

The event also hosted the launch of the Anthology: ‘The Gods Who Send Us Gifts- An Anthology of African Short Stories’, edited by Dr Ivor Agyeman-Duah, with foreword by SOAS Director Valerie Amos CH.

www.soas.ac.uk/cas/events

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SOAS African Literature Conference panels and discussions’ videos Introduction & Keynote Speaker: Wole Soyinka

Panel 1 - ‘Reflecting on the legacy of the 1962 Makerere conference: African Literatures in the 21st century’ PANELLISTS: Dr Sefi Atta, Professor Mpalive Msisk, Dr James Gibbs, Dr Louisa Egbunike DISCUSSANT: Professor Sikhumbuzo CHAIR: Dr Wangui Wa Goro Panel 2 - ‘African Languages and Translations: past and present’ PANELLISTS: Dr Wangui wa Goro, Mr Richard Oduor, Dr Martin Orwin, Ms Sophie Alal, Dr Kwadwo Osei-Nyame Jnr DISCUSSANT: Dr Chege Githiora CHAIR: Dr Alena Rettova

CAS Events

Poetry readings - Dr Matin Orwin reads GALIILYO/CATASTROPHE by . Mr Hassan Dahir Ismail ‘Weedhsame’ in Somali language - Dr Ida Hadjivayanis reads a poem by Alamin Mazrui ‘NIGUSE‘ in Swahili language - Prof Atukwei Okai reads the poem “ THE BOND-OATH OF UBUNTU’ in English language

Watch all the videos here: bit.ly/SOASAfricanLiteraturesVideos

The Gods Who Send Us Gifts

An Anthology of African short stories Words: Baroness Valerie Amos, Director of SOAS University of London This anthology marks the 55th anniversary of the 1962 historic Makerere Conference on African Literature in Uganda - an event which brought together postindependence writers, many of whom would play major roles in defining Africa’s literary history. And to mark that significant milestone with an anthology of the next generation of African writers from seventeen countries -Anglophone and Francophone and from countries often absent in such celebrations such as : Botswana, Burundi, Rwanda, Senegal, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia, is worhty of history.

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African Seminar Series

Detail from: ‘Emotions’ by Evans Mbugua, courtesy of GAFRA

‘Modern Swahili Poems – Ushairi wa Kiswahili wa Kisasa 16th October 2017 Speaker: Ahmed Rajab Ahmed Rajab read and discussed some of the 81 poems from two competitions for the 2016 Prize for Swahili Poetry which were published last year.

This event was organised in collaboration with the Britain Tanzania Society.

The development of Wheeled Transportation in Osun Division of Southwestern Nigeria, 1900-1960 13th November 2017 Dr Abiodun Ajayi The 2017-18 Leventis Fellow Dr Abiodun Ajayi presented his on-going research on ‘The development of Wheeled Transportation in Osun Division of Southwestern Nigeria, 1900-1960’.

Informal Housing in Dar es Salaam: A Tale of Three Cities 20th November 2017 Stephanie Burcher and Tim Wickson (Bartlett Development Planning Unit, UCL)

Book Discussion: ‘The Political Economy of Everyday Life in Africa, Beyond the Margins’ 30th October 2017 Wale Adebanwi (Oxford University)

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Wale Adebanwi and other distiguished speakers introduced and lead a discussion about the contribution of this new collection of essays edited

by Prof. Wale Adebanwi, ‘The Political Economy of Everyday Life in Africa, Beyond the Margins’ (James Currey/Boydell & Brewer). Organised in collaboration with The International African Istitute

This seminar discussed the everyday realities and challenges faced by residents of different types of low-income neighborhoods in Dar es Salaam, as well as the opportunities for action already being undertaken by the residents themselves.

This event was organised in collaboration with the Britain Tanzania Society.

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/

Book Discussion: Akiga Sai’s History of the Tiv Problems and Prospects of the Igbo Uli Art Idiom in the Igbo Heritage Crisis 27th November 2017 Ichukwuezugo Krydz Ikwuemesi (University of Nigeria, Nsukka)

Akiga Sai witnessed first-hand the incursions of British colonial power into the Tiv-speaking area of Nigeria and began to write down the history, customs, memories and experiences of Tiv communities. He produced an extraordinary document: 380 pages of typescript in the Tiv language. Parts of this were translated and published by the International African Institute as Akiga’s Story in 1939. This event was organised in collaboration with the International African Institute.

African Students and Quranic Schools in Northern Nigeria

CAS Events

Leventis Fellow Ichukwuezugo Krydz Ikwuemesi (University of Nigeria, Nsukka) presented his on-going research on ‘Problems and Prospects of the Igbo Uli Art Idiom in the Igbo Heritage Crisis’.

20th April 2018 Martin Akiga, Bankole Olayebi, Richard Fardon, Olly Owen

30th May 2018 Hannah Hoechner

Artist talk: Evans Mbugua at SOAS 22nd January 2017 Evans Mbugua Evans Mbugua, Paris based Kenyan artist and designer, discussed ‘DIALOGUE’, his first solo exhibition in London, hosted by GAFRA from the 1st of December 2017 until the 27th of January 2018.

Hannah Hoechner discussed her latest book ‘Quranic Schools in Northern Nigeria - Everyday Experiences of Youth, Faith, and Poverty’, published by the Internatioanl African Library.

This event was organised in collaboration with the International African Institute.

Tippu Tip: Ivory, Slavery and Discovery in the Scramble for Africa 19 March 2018 Join Stuart Laing Join Stuart Laing in conversation with Angelica Baschiera as Stuart Laing reveals the notorious life of the Zanibari Arab ivory and slave trader Tippu Tip.

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

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Baraza: Swahili Conference at SOAS

memory and how it intersects with justice, and the task of reconciliation in a nation where a legacy of ethnic suspicion continues to reverberate.

14 Oct 2017, SOAS Organisers: Chege Githiora and Ida Hadjivayanis (SOAS), Angelica Baschiera (CAS) The third annual ‘Baraza’ Conference explored 3 panels on Language and linguistics, Cultural perspective and modernity and Culture and society. The aim of the annual meeting is to foster academic interaction and exchange about new or emerging research, developing ideas and interests for mutual benefit among Swahili scholars and students.

Baraza

Swahili Conference at SOAS Saturday 14th October 2017 |9.30am - 6.30pm Brunei Gallery Lecture Theatre| SOAS University of London Registration – 9.30am-10am

World Radio Day London: Has media forgotten the social value of sports?

Welcome introduction - 9.55-10.00 - Dr Chege Githiora (SOAS), conference convenor

Panel 1 – 10am-12 – Swahili language and Linguistics Lutz Marten (SOAS) - Morphosyntactic variation in Old Swahili Maya Abe (Osaka University, Japan) - Grammatical change in the ethnic languages induced by contact with Swahili: A case of Mbugu (Ma’a) Martin Walsh (Cambridge University,UK) - Evidence for early Malay and Malagasy loanwords in Swahili Nico Nassenstein (Mainz University, Germany)– Kiswahili in West Nile (Uganda): Notes on its function and Realization Chair: Chege Githiora (SOAS)

Lunch Break – 12.00-1.30pm in Brunei Suite

7th February 2018, SOAS

Organised by SOAS Radio in association with CAS and the Communication for Development Network

Panel 2 – 1.30-3.30pm – Cultural perspectives and Modernity Ida Hadjivayanis (SOAS)– Virtually Local : Social Media among Zanzibari women in London Felicitas Becker (Gent University/Cambridge University) - The personal is political: Islamic preachers and their audiences in Tanzania Thembi Mutch (Sussex University, UK)- Politics of the Porch; or why mobile phones allow Islamic women to have a voice Jamie Thomas (Swarthmore College, US) - Contesting Wazungu in Tanzania: Chinese nationals joke in Swahili Chair: Angelica Baschiera (SOAS)

Tea Break – 3.30pm-4pm 4.00 – 4.15 Ibrahim Hussein prize – short presentation

Panel 3 – 4.15pm-6.15pm - Culture and Society Nathalie Arnold (Hampshire college, US) - Abeid Subi Ate the Drum: wizardly language and power in Pemba, Zanzibar Chege Githiora (SOAS)- On Translating ‘Kaburi bila Msalaba’ Helle Goldman (Norwegian Polar Institute)- Using colonial agricultural records in anthropological fieldwork in rural Pemba Mai Omar (African research and studies, Cairo University)- The Role of Swahili in the African American Thought: Kwanzaa Chair: Ida Hadjivayanis (SOAS) This conference is organised by the School of the Languages, Cultures and Linguistics in collaboration with the Centre of African Studies, SOAS University of London

Book Discussion: The Asaba Massacre: Trauma, Memory and the Nigerian Civil War’ 12th October 2017, SOAS Bird and Ottanelli (University of South Florida), discussed their lates book, “The Asaba Massacre: Trauma, Memory and the Nigerian Civil War”.

In the book, these two authors offer a new interpretation of the slaughter of thousands of civilians by Nigerian Federal troops in October 1967, redefining the event as a pivotal point in the Nigerian Civil War. Their work is based on interviews with survivors, and with military and political leaders, as well as previously unstudied archival sources. They also explore the long afterlife of trauma, the reconstruction of

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The 7th annual World Radio Day London took place on 7th February, 2018 at SOAS University of London and was hosted by SOAS Radio together with ConnectSport and the Centre of Africa Studies. With the theme “Sports & Radio” the focus of the event lay on sports representation in media. In the UK, mainstream media overwhelmingly focuses on elite sport, meaning that under-represented groups often receive little coverage. Therefore the event asked how sports journalism might better reflect the diversity of sport culture across the UK and in doing so help to challenge some of the stereotypes and cultural divides which persist in sport and society.

World Radio Day London featured a trade fair with sports, media and development organisations and industry professionals, plus radio workshops and a main panel discussion on the question, “Has the media forgotten about the social value of sports?”

Panelists were Michelle Moore (former athlete, consultant, educator), Leon Mann (ITV and BBC sports broadcaster, Black Collective of Media of Sports, Football’s Blacklist), Emma Wright (Proud and Palace, H+K Strategies Sports)and Jason Bourne (Talksport, BBC Asian Network and BBC Leicester).

Swing Time: Zadie Smith in conversation with Marloes Janson 1st September 2017, SOAS Zadie Smith, Marloes Janson (SOAS)

This event brought together the two authors to discuss the book from both the academic and the fiction writing perspective and to engage in a deep exchange of ideas around the topics raised in the book.

CAS Events

Whilst writing Swing Time, Zadie Smith studied Dr Janson’s work Islam, Youth, and Modernity in the Gambia: The Tablighi Jama’at for research. Smith also wrote that the monograph provided much of the cultural underpinnings of the story, which helped her create the feel and texture of certain scenes in the novel.

Islam, Youth, and Modernity in the Gambia: The Tablighi Jama’at is a study of how a transnational Islamic missionary movement that originated in India has spread, largely as a youth movement in the Gambia. It examines the way Gambian youths have adopted the movement to carve out a space for themselves in Gambian society in the absence of alternative means of reaching social maturity and a fulfilling life. The monograph was awarded the RAI Amaury Talbot prize for African Anthropology 2014.

IN CONVERSATION WITH

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Thomas Sankara, World Bank and CFA Franc: the tyranny of African debt 6th March 2018, SOAS The seminar was dedicated to African hero Thomas Sankara, President of Burkina Faso from 1983 to 1987. In particular it addressed the issue of the role of CFA Franc, World Bank, IMF, money creation from Central Banks and how foreign aid are put into question for their role in creating endless poverty.

Shortly after giving an unforgettable speech at the African Union, where he urged all the other African Presidents to refuse to pay the odious debt, Sankara was assassinated.

He saved his country from famine and foreign aid dependency and he was one of the few Presidents to overtly accuse and challenge the powers behind the dictatorship of debt, which not only does enslave Africa, but First World too.

Incorruptible, unshakable feminist and emblem of Pan-Africanism, Thomas Sankara is still regarded as a symbol of hope for younger generations in Africa. His message is more relevant today than anytime in history.

Speakers:Becky Brandford (BBC News) Lamine Konkobo (BBC Afrique), Nick Dearden (Global Justice Now) Rachel Oliver (Positive Money UK) Chair: Seraphin Kamdem (SOAS) At the end of the seminar a monologue from the stage play “SANKARA” was performed.

The Mind of Mandela The South African High Commission, in collaboration with SOAS, in commemoration of the Nelson Mandela Centenary hosted a Public Lecture entitled “The mind of Mandela”.

Speakers: Lord Peter Hain, Ms Pumela Salela (Brand South Africa), Mr John Battersby Chair: Ms Sinenhlanhla Sithole (SAHC)

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Human Rights in Egypt and Tunisia after the Arab Spring 24th October 2018, SOAS During the so called “Arab Spring”, the demonstrators brought human rights references to the centre of their political struggles. On the one hand, the uprisings are framed as a demand for human rights. On the other, the Arab Spring is believed to have provided a context for the re-articulation of the human rights situation in the MENA region. Seven years after the revolution, Egypt is witnessing an unprecedented rate of human rights abuses whereas Tunisia is celebrated as the only successful transitional country with a flourishing human rights record. The panel will address issues of human rights in two major “Arab Spring” countries namely Egypt and Tunisia. The speakers of the panel will highlight the current political and civil rights situation in these countries, and give an insight into future perspectives.

Speakers: Maha Azzam (Egyptian Revolutionary Council), Nicola Pratt (University of Warwick), Ian Pattel (LSE), Melek Saral (SOAS) Chair: Mashood Baderin (SOAS)

CAS Events

Lydia Ourahmane in conversation with Natasha Hoare 1st February 2018, SOAS Lydia Ourahmane (b. 1992, Saϊda, Algeria) lives and works between London and Oran.

Exhibitions include: a good neighbour, 15th Istanbul Biennial (2017), How to Disappear Completely, Garage Rotterdam, Netherlands (2017), The end of the World, Luigi Pecci Center for Contemporary Art, Italy (2016), Social Calligraphies, Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw (2016), that a body knows regardless, Interstate Projects, New York (2016), The Third Choir, Art Berlin Contemporary, Berlin (2015), Territoires Arabes, Palais de La Culture, Algeria (2015), and Bloomberg New Contemporaries, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (2014).

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The 7th Annual Igbo Conference ‘Memory, Culture and Community: Remembering the past, Imagining the future’ 21st April 2018, SOAS Organised by The Igbo Conference

The one-day international conference, ‘Memory, Culture and Community: Remembering the past, Imagining the future’, was held on 21 April and provided a platform to discuss Igbo heritage studies and modes of documenting the past. The conference featured keynotes from internationally renowned Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Professor Osita Okagbue, Goldsmiths (‘Playing With Our Ancestors: Culture and Communal Memory in Igbo Masquerade Theatre’).

Other speakers included: SOAS’s Professor Paul Basu, Ego Ahaiwe , Nathan Richards (Sussex), Kelly Foster, Brian Ezeike , Vivian Ogbonna and Emeka Ed Keazor.

The conference seeked to promote the creation, management and use of records and archives, highlighting the need to preserve the archival heritage of people of Igbo descent around the world, through the sharing of experiences, research and ideas. During the course of the day, the conference put on a series of workshops providing members of the public the skills to compile and collate content on Igbo culture and heritage through the medium of film, photography, oral history and writing.

Award winning filmmaker Ujuaku Akukwe-Nwakalor also screened her latest film: Harvest of Pride: Iri Ji.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie received her Honorary Doctorate from SOAS Internationally acclaimed and award-winning novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie accepted her Honorary Doctorate from fellow Honorary, the highly regarded international cookery writer Claudia Roden.

Professor Fareda Banda, upcoming CAS’ Chair, introduced her noting that: “Reading Chimamanda as a black woman is particularly moving and affirming. There we stand fully realised, not ciphers, not waiting for salvation from a male or other protagonist. We are not there to add grit and colour to someone else’s story. No, we are the story.”

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www.igboconference.com

‘Rethinking the Role of African National Courts in Arbitration’ 24th July 2018 Words: Dr Emilia Onyema

CAS Events

Dr Emilia Onyema’s recently published edited collection, Rethinking the Role of African National Courts in Arbitration, Kluwer Law International, 2018, was launched at SOAS on 23 July 2018 by the School of Law (SoL) and the Centre of African Studies (CAS), SOAS. The Launch was chaired by Prof Mashood Baderin of SoL and CAS. Dr Onyema opened discussions with a summary of the SOAS Arbitration in conference series which led to the publication of the book. This was followed by Dr Nagla Nassar Partner at NassarLaw, Cairo, on the chapter she contributed to the book. Dr Nassar wrote the chapter on the attitude of the Egyptian courts from her research into 375 arbitrationrelated decisions from the Egyptian courts. She conducted the research while defending a large arbitration award challenge matter in Cairo. She spoke on the difficulties and exhilaration of searching through the archives for the cases. A panel of arbitration practitioners then discussed the utility of the book to their arbitral practice with reference to Africa. Mr Christoph von Krause, Partner and Head of Africa Dispute Practice at White & Case, Paris, noted that the book, in similar fashion to the SOAS Arbitration in Africa survey 2018, moves the discourse on arbitration in Africa from perception to evidence based. He concluded his review with the observation that the book will be invaluable for practitioners who may even use the book to base their arguments before a national court. Mr Kamal Shah, Partner and Head of the Africa and India Groups at Stephenson Harwood, London, noted that the book’s focus on national courts is very useful to practitioners and their clients; in-house counsel and investors, who are becoming increasingly sophisticated; and for judges who can read what their counterparts are doing in other parts of Africa. Finally, he raised the issue of law reporting in most African countries. Mr Tsegaye Laurendeau of Shearman & Sterling, London, noted that the practical benefit of the book is its focus on judges in Africa and the central role they play in supporting the arbitral process. He opined that the book provides a tool of reference for practitioners and predicted that the book will birth more editions. Steven Finizio, Partner at Wilmer Hale, London, on his part, noted that the book creates a two-way education on why non-African companies should not be afraid to arbitrate in Africa. He also noted that the book takes on the big questions on the attitude of the courts in Africa towards arbitration and supported Kamal’s call for improved law reporting. He finally noted that there is an increasing momentum on publications and exchanges of ideas at conferences which all help in developing familiarisation with arbitration in Africa. Other contributors who were present were: Mr Duncan Bagshaw of Stephenson Harwood who advised hat future editions of the book should include more African jurisdictions, including the OHADA region; Mr Ahmed Bannaga, Partner at Bannaga & Fadlabi, Khartoum; and Dr Prince Olokotor, Post-doctoral fellow, SOAS.

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Artist’s Talk: Alfredo Jaar 10th May 2018, SOAS The New York-based Chilean artist Alfredo Jaar, whose work has consistently addressed urgent social and political questions, discussed his recent projects.

In the widely shown and discussed Rwanda Project, a sequence of works made over a six year period, Jaar examined the Rwandan genocide of 1994 in a range of different formats, dwelling on the locations where the killings were carried out and on the experiences of survivors. In other works, he has considered the use of secret detention facilities by US intelligence in the “War on Terror,” detailed the perils of open cast mining and highlighted the human cost of current migration policies. In his work, the focus is not only on instances of political and economic violence but also on their representation—on the ethics of photo reportage and the blind spots of the news media. Jaar has worked on political developments around the globe but has returned repeatedly to central and southern Africa in projects that are often probing, occasionally brutal—and at other times startlingly poetic.

This event has been organised by Dr Emilia Terracciano withSOAS & Sotheby’s Institute of Art. It is part of the SOAS & Sotheby’s Institute of Art Artist Talk series.

Victor Ehikhamenor in conversation with Dr Charles Gore 22th November 2018, SOAS Hailing from Edo State, the historic seat of the Benin Empire, Ehikhamenor is a multi-disciplinary artist whose signature patterning, a mélange of gestural abstraction and stylised forms, adorns everything from paintings to photographs to immersive installations, producing a hypnotic experience, a sense of both meditative repetition and an ongoing narrative being told.

In his new work, Ehikhamenor thinks critically about his descent from the Benin Empire, whose sophisticated political culture and artistic tradition has inspired a renewed appreciation of precolonial African civilisations.

And yet, the mythical nature of all empires makes it possible for the fictional to exist concurrently with the rational, the magical with the realist. Examining the narratives of inferiority used by the British to coerce the Edo people into adopting ideals of Euro-Christian civilization, Ehikhamenor, born after independence, considers the complex relationship between the traditional and the modern.

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

The shortlisted authors: (L-R) Wole Talabi, Stacy Hardy, Makena Onjerika, Olufunke Ogundimu (Courtesy of Caine Prize)

The discussion was chaired by Dr Louisa Egbunike (City University).

This year’s shortlisted authors were: Nonyelum Ekwempu (Nigeria) for ‘American Dream’, published in Red Rock Review (2016), and republished in The Anthem. Nonyelum is a Nigerian writer and visual artist. She grew up in the bustling city of Lagos and in small villages in southwestern and southeastern Nigeria.

Stacy Hardy (South Africa) for ‘Involution’, published in Migrations: New Short Fiction from Africa, co-published by Short Story Day Africa and New Internationalist (2017). Stacy Hardy is a writer and an editor at the pan African journal

Chimurenga, a founder of Black Ghost Books, and a teacher at Rhodes University, South Africa.

Olufunke Ogundimu (Nigeria) for ‘The Armed Letter Writers’, published in The African Literary Hustle (2017). Olufunke Ogundimu was born in Lagos, Nigeria. She has an MFA from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Makena Onjerika (Kenya) for ‘Fanta Blackcurrant’, published in Wasafiri (2017).

Makena is a graduate of the MFA Creative Writing programme at New York University, and has been published in Urban Confustions and Wasafiri. She lives in Nairobi, Kenya, and is currently working on a fantasy novel.

CAS Events

For the third year, the Centre for African Studies hosted an evening in conversation with the 2018 Caine Prize for African Writing shortlisted authors.The Caine Prize for African Writing is a literature prize awarded to an African writer of a short story published in English.

Wole Talabi (Nigeria) for ‘Wednesday’s Story’, published in Lightspeed Magazine (2016). Wole is a Nigerian full-time engineer, part-time writer and some-time editor with a fondness for science fiction and fantasy.

For more info visit: caineprize.com

2018 Winner - Makena Onjerika (Kenya) The Chair of the Caine Prize judging panel, award winning Ethiopian-American novelist and writer, Dinaw Mengestu, announced Makena as the winner of the £10,000 prize at an award dinner the evening of Monday the 2nd of July). The ceremony was held for the second time in Senate House, in partnership with SOAS and the Centre for African Studies.

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International Mother Language Day special event: Colours of the Alphabet Screening and Discussion 21st February 2018, SOAS Colours of the Alphabet (2016, Zambia/UK/ NZ, dir. Alastair Cole) is a feature documentary film on language and childhood in Africa, telling the story of three Zambian children and their families over two school terms, and asking the question: does the future have to be in English?

The film will soon be available with subtitles in 27 African Languages as part of a unique continent wide release with the Afridocs platform.

In this event the academic producer and director of the film engaged in a postscreening discussion on the theme of mothertongue education.

Speakers: Professor Nick Higgins (University of the West of Scotland) - also producer of the film Dr Alastair Cole (University of Newcastle) director Chair: Dr Seraphin Kamdem (SOAS)

Criminal Justice and Accountability in Africa - National and regional developments 26-27th October 2017, Queen Mary University This conference brought together insights from across disciplines to engage with emerging trends in regional justice mechanisms in the quest to strengthen justice and accountability for international crimes.

The two-days conference looked into the strengths and weaknesses of international criminal law as it has been applied and the potential of regional mechanisms and responses. The discussion focused on regional initiatives and efforts to address criminal liability and end impunity, including reflecting on the trials, courts and mechanisms - both proposed and established at the national, sub-regional and regional levels.

This conference was organised in collaboration with the Queen Mary University of London’s Criminal Justice Centre.

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Asixoxe – Let’s Talk! Conferences on African Philosophy

‘Africa in a Polycentric World: Cosmopolitanism and the Local’ 3rd-4th May 2018 SOAS University of London

CAS Events

This conference, now in it’s 5th year, explored questions that cut across wide spectrum of meanings surrounding the term cosmopolitanism.

Questions related to cultural and geo-political identity. What is the role of language and culture in the expression of political identity? How is “world citizenship” defined in terms of race, language, gender, or socio-economic status? Is Afropolitanism a cosmopolitanism? How can migrants, in particular those from underprivileged regions, claim rights in the globalized world? How is migration linked to colonialism? What is the relationship between language and decolonization?

When should politicians use interpreters? We also question the role of philosophy in politics. Can we preserve a moral ethos in politics? How can we, and should we, aspire to “truth” in the “post-truth era”? Is the figure of the “president-philosopher” a viable model for a politician of the “post-factual times”? Finally, it explored the relationships and interdependencies between globalized cultural manifestations and national, grassroots cultural initiatives. How does the “multilingual local” (Orsini) interact with “world literature”?

Where does African literature in English, French or Portuguese position itself with respect to the global literary market, on the one hand, and to literatures in African languages, on the other? How are genres of speculative fiction, such as magical realism, sci-fi, or Afrofuturism, embedded in historical, economic and political conditions? What are philosophical discourses in African languages? Is “mainstream” African philosophy decolonized?

Alexis Peskine - Power Figures 6th October 2017, SOAS Alexis Peskine discussed his exhibition ‘Power Figures’, hosted at October Gallery.

Early on Peskine was exposed to questions of identity with his mother coming from Bahia, Brazil, an area with a predominantly black population who struggle under a system designed to keep them from power, and his father the son of a Jewish refugee who fled from Russian persecution during the Second World War. Channelling this rich background through his work, he explores both the Black Experience and the world of the refugee, forced to exist between fixed boundaries of state and identity.

Speaker: Alexis Peskine Chair: Polly Savage (SOAS)

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-African Development Forum 2018Transitions: Migrating, Integrating, Innovating 2nd & 3rd March 2018, SOAS University of London

Words: GBOPE ONIGBANJO

Photos: Musa Bwanali

The 7th SOAS African Development Forum, themed ‘Transitions’, took place on the 2nd and 3rd of March 2018. The forum generated conversation on the changing political, economic, and sociocultural structures that are currently shaping Africa’s transition both externally and from within.

The panels, Ghosts from the Past: Migration and Slavery, The New African: Roots and Resistance, and Agenda 2063: Now, What Next? generated debate from both the audience and panellists.

This year the forum hosted, Samia Nkrumah, Ghanaian politician and humanitarian, and daughter of Dr Kwame Nkrumah, she reiterated the importance of applying local knowledge to solve local problems. Our other speakers included Eliza Anyangwe, founder of the Nzinga Effect, who gave the opening keynote; Trevor Williams, former chief economist at Lloyds Bank, Onyekachi Wambu executive director at the African Foundation for Development, AFFORD, Nanjala Nyabola, writer and political analyst, and SOAS’ own Dr. Awino Okech, who masterfully chaired a heated debate on the economic transitions panel, Agenda 2063, now, what next?

One of the highlights of the forum was the inclusion of a youth panel, The New African, it highlighted the nature of resistance on the continent, against physical and systematic oppression, on the continent and in the diaspora. Taking on an unorthodox panel structure punctuated by poetry performances by Femi Nylander and Nana Asaase, it was one of the most memorable of the day.

The Forum concluded with a lively networking session amidst an art exhibition, curated by our partners, indelibl.

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ourselves + others: african feminist re-CREATIONS at SOAS

Words: Ifeanyi Awachie

soas.hubbub.net/p/ourselvesandothers/

CAS Events

ourselves + others: african feminist re-CREATIONS was a playground for African feminism. Young women debated the poetry of Young People’s Laureate for London Momtaza Mehri. Nonbinary live loop musician Xana freestyled about ‘azonto-ing into work.’ You could stroll through a ‘creative market’ where instead of buying artisan wares, you could sample independent magazines, explore a curated library of African literature and practice pitching your creative platform. Minna Salami, AKA ‘Ms Afropolitan’ of internet fame, and SOAS’ own Dr Awino Okech relayed the history of African feminisms and the relationship between feminism and governance in Africa and responded to audience questions, including one about feminism’s connection to the experiences of queer black men. You could tune in to an exhibition on negotiation whose works considered, instrumentalised and reclaimed black female forms. You could treat yourself to a diasporic afternoon tea, loading your plate with yam fish cakes, sweet potato bites and plantain brownies. Then, you could sit in a cushy nook equipped with printed pillows, African art books and plants, digest and connect with someone. The lively, collective experience captured what Dr Obioma Nnaemeka, who inspired the festival theme, describes as African feminism - a kind of feminism practiced ‘for ourselves and others.’

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Collaborations

Report launch: ‘Criminalisation of Women in Sudan - A need for Fundamental Reform.’

4th December 2017 The Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa (SIHA) and the Redress Trust released a joint publication entitled ‘Criminalisation of Women in Sudan - A need for Fundamental Reform.’

Expertsand contributors discussed the report.

Speakers: Najlaa Ahmed, Dr. Carla Ferstman, Osman Mubarak, Dr. Mohamed Abdelsalam Babiker, Lutz Oette

Society for the Study of the Sudans UK SSSUK promotes learning and provides resources for anyone with an interest in South Sudan and/ or Sudan.

Collaboration

SSSUK Annual Symposium and Annual General Meeting 16th September 2017, SOAS This year annual symposium explored the theme of “Sudans in the region”. Sudanese Professor Abdel Salam Noureldin, formerly of Exeter University, will speak on “Why the Red Sea should be at the centre of Sudan studies”. A British former Ambassador to Sudan, Ian Cliff, will talk on “Sudan Politics: Single Track or Multiple Track? Internal or Regional?” South Sudanese researcher Sieta Adhieu Majok will focus on “The region and South Sudan”, including discussion of the country’s recent peace agreements.

Postgraduates Radina Elsahib and Laura Attwell talked about their impressions of Sudan from the perspective of young people coming from the UK. Sudanese educationalist Ali Abdelatif discussed the encounter between national and cultural identity. Former BBC journalist Fergus Nicoll told us about the Irish journalist Frank Power and the Siege of Khartoum.

Language teacher Imogen Thurbon discussed an exhibition on a literacy project in Sudan.

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www.sssuk.org

Britain Tanzania Society CRIMINALISATION OF WOMEN IN SUDAN A need for Fundamental Reform A joint publication of the Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa (SIHA) and The Redress Trust

The Britain-Tanzania Society aims to increase mutual knowledge, understanding and respect between the peoples of Britain and Tanzania through seminars, events and publications, and through the development of education, health, water and sanitation and other self-help community development activities as well as the promotion of gender equality.

All the events organised in collaboration with BTSwere part of our African Seminar Series. Please see page 16.

www.britaintanzaniasociety.co.uk

powerfully demonstrating across the book the relationship between the macro and the micro level, placing economic, social and political histories against everyday lives and journeys.

Speaker: Caroline Knowles (Goldsmiths)

Anglo-Ethiopian Society The Anglo-Ethiopian Society was formed in 1948. The object of the Society is to foster knowledge of Ethiopian culture, history and way of life and to encourage friendship between the British and Ethiopian peoples.

The Society is a non political organisation.

The British Council Addis Ababa: 75 Years of History in Ethiopia 5 December 2017

A 75-day series of celebrations to commemorate the 75 years of work just finished when Peter Brown, the current Director of the British Council in Ethiopia, ame to SOAS to reflect on the long history of educational and information projects in the country.

Speaker: Peter Brown (Director of the British Council in Ethiopia)

Globalisation from the Vantage Point of Ethiopia 31st January 2018 Caroline Knowles’ latest book ‘Flip-flop: A Journey through Globalization’s Backroads’ is a collaboration with artist Michael Tan, based on 6 years of ethnographic research following the biography of a pair of flip-flops, from China to Ethiopia. Beginning in the oil wells of Kuwait and ending at a landfill site in Ethiopia the journey carefully details the considerable ground that one pair of flip-flops covers from its production to its transportation, use and disposal. Knowles passes through five countries,

Enset, Animals, and People in the Southern Highlands of Ethiopia

Collaborations

The British Council has been working in Ethiopia since the early 1940s and their office in Addis Ababa was established in 1943. Since that time the Council has engaged with generations of young people through a diverse range of educational and cultural programmes.

The Council works with partners, both Ethiopian and from the UK, to showcase excellence, innovation and creativity.

8th February 2018 Dr Taddesse Wolde and Dr Elizabeth Ewart of Oxford University presented new findings from the research that they are conducting on Enset (Ensete ventricosum; Abyssinian banana).

This plant is uniquely domesticated in Ethiopia and sustains upwards of 20 million people in southern Ethiopia. It also feeds a sizeable animal population and is in turn nurtured by both animals and people. The talk traced some of the relations of co-dependence and mutual sustenance that characterize enset within Ethiopian highland agricultural systems.

Speakers: Dr Taddesse Wolde (Oxford), Dr Elizabeth Ewart (Oxford)

www. anglo-ethiopian.org

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Royal African Society

The Royal African Society is a membership organisation that provides opportunities for people to connect, celebrate and engage critically with a wide range of topics and ideas about Africa today. Through events, publications and digital channels it shares insight, instigates debate and facilitates mutual understanding between the UK and Africa. The society amplifies African voices and interests in academia, business, politics, the arts and education, reaching a network of more than one million people globally. The Centre of African Studies collaborates with Royal African Society on public events and other projects.

Film Africa 2017

Film Africa is an annual London film festival celebrating the best African cinema from across the continent and diaspora brought to you by The Royal African Society. Established in 2011, every year Film Africa brings diverse London audiences a high quality and wide-ranging film programme accompanied by a vibrant series of events, including director Q&As, talks and discussions; professional workshops and master classes; school screenings and family activities; and Film Africa LIVE! music nights. Film Africa also recognises and supports new filmmaking talent through the Baobab Award for Best Short Film and the Audience Award for Best Feature Film.

Through the festival, UK audiences are exposed to a plethora of filmmaking styles, as well as contemporary socio-economic and political issues as explored by our guest African filmmakers and writers, including women’s and LGBTI rights, freedom of expression, heritage and identity, and many more. It provides an open platform for audiences to engage, and provide a corrective to the reductionist stereotypes of Africa often presented elsewhere In 2017, the festival presented 38 films, covering 21 African countries, 19 premieres, and including 12 special guests. This programme gave particular focus to women’s stories and new debut features, a testament to the continued proliferation of African cinema. The festival opened to a sold-out screening in NFT1 at BFI Southbank, of South African director John Trengove’s debut feature The Wound, a daring exploration of sexuality and masculinity in modern-day South Africa. Lead actor and award-winning musician Nakhane - one of South Africa’s most exciting new talents - attended for a Q&A and also performed live for the first time in the UK at Rich Mix for Film Africa LIVE! The closing gala at Ciné Lumière was the London premiere of Foreign Body, Tunisian director Raja Amari’s audacious and visceral fourth feature. There were Q&As for the groundbreaking documentary Winnie’; Ghanaian film ‘Keteke’; South African debut ‘Call Me Thief’; and panel discussions on female sexuality alongside the Rwandan documentary ‘Sacred Water’; and on spirituality and martial arts alongside the Gabonese documentary ‘The African Who Wanted to Fly’.

Link to programme: http://www.filmafrica.org.uk/category/film-africa-2017/#

www.royalafricansociety.org

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www.filmafrica.org.uk

Africa Writes 2018

Collaborations

2018 was the seventh edition of the Royal African Society’s annual literature festival promoting contemporary literature from Africa and the diaspora, taking place over an exciting summer weekend at the British Library in London. The programme highlighted history, memory and spirituality, and brought together over 60 of the most influential voices in contemporary writing from Africa and its diaspora, featuring writers from Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, Somalia, Somaliland, Uganda, South Africa, UK, USA and Zimbabwe. The festival was attended by nearly 1,800 people, and audience members came from as far as Singapore, Senegal and Brazil to attend. Womxn and queer writers led the programme, and there was a special series of diaspora poetry headliners: celebrated British-Somali poet Warsan Shire (postponed to January 2019); British-Nigerian poet Yomi Ṣode with his one-man show, and a poetry party presented by the Octavia Poetry Collective for womxn of colour.

Through a series of workshops and panels, audiences were invited to discover writing from often under-represented countries, including Cameroon, Somaliland and Equatorial Guinea.

The exhumation of hidden stories of the past was a cross-cutting theme, highlighted in the work of Zimbabwean writers Panashe Chigumadzi and Novuyo Rosa Tshuma, and books on the history of African literary figures in Georgian and Edwardian London.

To discuss themes of identity, migration and displacement, the festival welcomed awardwinning Sudanese writer Leila Aboulela, hit pop-culture podcast Mostly Lit and journalist Afua Hirsch. In an apparent new era of insularity and hardening borders, the programmers were keen to look at both the history and the present of what it means to belong in Britain, and through books, poetry and performance, to celebrate Africa and the diaspora in its fullest sense.

Link to programme: http://africawrites.org/featured/programme/ Save the date: Africa Writes 2019 – 5th-6th July at the British Library.

www.africawrites.org 33

Buchi Emecheta Foundation &Omenala Press The Buchi Emecheta Foundation is a charitable organisation which aims to maintain the literary and cultural heritage of the novelist Buchi Emecheta, and to promote writing and story telling from women, predominantly, of African heritage.

The Foundation partners with sister organisations to achieve its goals and is engaged in publishing, educational and heritage projects; awards and literacy access initiatives in the UK and in Africa.

Celebrating Buchi Emecheta A day of tributes and conversations to mark the life and work of the British Nigerain writer 3 February 2018 This was an all-day celebration of the life and work of the acclaimed Nigerian novelist Buchi Emecheta, who passed away in January 2017.

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As a novelist and story teller Buchi Emecheta touched the lives of many people, and continues to inspire a new generation through the example she set as an immigrant, single mother of five children who rose to became an international literary figure.

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This anniversary event will be a celebration Buchi Emecheta’s life and work as well as an opportunity to hold a public conversation about her legacy.

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The event will include a curated installation of The Life and Times of Buchi Emecheta, panel discussions, dramatisations of excerpts from two of her best know novels, music and dancing and of course Nigerian food. Also expect a colourful cultural tribute from members of the Ibusa community in London...

This event was presented by The Buchi Emecheta Foundation and Omenala Press, in partnership with the Royal African Society, Africa Writes, Centre of African Studies, University of London SABLE LitMag, Igbo Conference, City University & Afrikult. Supported by Arts Council England.

UK

Artwork by Marina Elphick

Celebrating Buchi Emecheta

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A day of tributes and conversations to mark the life & work of the British Nigerian writer Saturday 3 February 2018, SOAS, University of London

Firoz Lalji Centre for Africa - LSE Based at LSE, the Firoz Lalji Centre for Africa promotes independent academic research and teaching; open and issue-oriented debate; and evidence-based policy making. The Centre accomplishes this by connecting different social science disciplines and by working in partnership with Africa bringing African voices to the global debate.

For more info visit: www.lse.ac.uk/africa

The Girl Who Smiled Beads 11th June 2018

Collaborations

In The Girl Who Smiled Beads, Clemantine provokes us to look beyond the label of “victim” and recognize the power of imagination to transcend even the most profound injuries and aftershocks. Devastating yet beautiful, and bracingly original, it is a powerful testament to her commitment to constructing a life on her own terms.

Speaker: Clemantine Wamariya (in the photo above) Chair: Yovanka Paquete Perdigao

Partnerships

www.lse.ac.uk/africa

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

• Anglo-Ethiopian Society • Britain-Tanzania Society • Igbo Conference • International African Institute

• • • • • • • •

Leventis Foundation 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)

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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Members’ Activities Highlights Dr John R Campbell, SOAS

Dr Colette Harris

Publications

Publications

-2018. ‘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.

-Harris, Colette (2017) Some Gender Implications of the ‘Civilising Mission’ of the Anglican Church for the Acholi Peoples of Northern Uganda, Religions, 8 http://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/8/11/245

Professor Christopher Cramer

-Harris, Colette (2018) Men, masculinity and labourforce participation in Kaduna, Nigeria: Are there positive alternatives to the provider role?’ In Charlie Walker and Steven Roberts (eds.) Masculinities, Labour and Neoliberalism: Working-Class Men in International Perspective, Palgrave Macmillan, 2952.

Publications - John Sender, Christopher Cramer & Carlos Oya (2018) Identifying the most deprived in rural Ethiopia and Uganda: a simple measure of socio-economic deprivation, Journal of Eastern African Studies, 12:3, 594-612, DOI: 10.1080/17531055.2018.1474416

Members’ Activities

- CRAMER, C., J. DI JOHN and J. SENDER (2018), “Poinsettia Assembly and Selling Emotion: High Value Agricultural Exports in Ethiopia”, AFD Research Papers Series, No. 2018-78, August.

Publications -Haustein, Joerg (2017) ‹Strategic tangles: slavery, colonial policy, and religion in German East Africa, 1885–1918›. Atlantic Studies, (14) 4, pp 497-518.

Dr Lindiwe Dovey, SOAS

Chapters

Publications

-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.

- Dovey, Lindiwe (2018) ‹Towards Alternative Histories and Herstories of African Filmmaking: From Bricolage to the ‘Curatorial Turn’ in African Film Scholarship›. In: Harrow, Kenneth and Garritano, Carmela, (eds.), Companion to African Cinema. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

Professor Ben Fine, SOAS Publications “The Developmental State Paradigm in the Age of Financialisation”, with Gabriel Pollen, in Mary Hyland and Ronaldo Munck (eds), Handbook on Development and Social Change, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, pp. 211-27.

“The Continuing Enigmas of Social Policy”, in I. Ye, (ed) (2017) Towards Universal Health Care in Emerging Economies: Opportunities and Challenges, London: Palgrave MacMillan, pp. 2960.

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Dr Joerg Haustein

Haustein, Joerg and Tomalin, Emma (2017) ‹Religion and Development in Africa and Asia›. In: Amakasu Raposo, Pedro and Arase, David and Cornelissen, Scarlett, (eds.), Routledge Handbook of Africa–Asia Relations. London: Routledge, pp 76-93.

- Haustein, Joerg (2017) ‹Evangelikalismus in Afrika›. In: Elwert, Frederik and Radermacher, Martin and Schlamelcher, Jens, (eds.), Handbuch Evangelikalismus. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, pp 141-156.

Dr Elizabeth Hull, SOAS Publications - Hull, Elizabeth (2017) Contingent Citizens: Professional Aspiration in a South African Hospital.

London: Bloomsbury. [Winner of the London School of Economics first monograph competition (2016)]

Chapter

61-99.

- Hull, Elizabeth (2017) ‹The Renewal of Community Health Under the KwaZulu «Homeland» Government›. In: Ally, S. and Lissoni, A., (eds.), New Histories of South Africa›s Apartheid-Era Bantustans. Abingdon; New York: Routledge.

- Marten, Lutz and Maarten Mous.

2017. Valency and expectation in Bantu applicatives.

Linguistics Vanguard 3(1). https://doi.org/10.1515/lingvan-2016-0078

- Lüpke, Friederike (2017) ‹African(ist) perspectives on vitality: fluidity, small speaker numbers and adaptive multilingualism make vibrant ecologies›.

Language, (93) 4, pp e275-e279.

- Van der Spuy, Andrew, Kristina Riedel and Lutz Marten (eds.). 2017. Bantu Languages: Structure, function and use. Special issue of Nordic Journal of African Studies 26(4). http://www.njas.helsinki.fi/

- Montero-Melis, Guillermo and Eisenbeiss, Sonja and Narasimhan, Bhuvana and IbarretxeAntuñano, Iraide and Kita, Sotaro and Kopecka, Anetta and Lüpke, Friederike and Nikitina, Tatiana and Tragel, Ilona and Jaeger, T. Florian and Bohnemeyer, Juergen (2017) ‹Satellite- vs. verb-framing underpredicts nonverbal motion categorization: Insights from a large language sample and simulations›. Cognitive Semantics, (3) 1, pp 36-61.

Projects

Professor Friederike Lüpke, SOAS

Projects involved in Co-investigator for «Resilience in West African frontier communities», funded by ESRC-DfID. Dr Zoe Marriage Publications - Marriage, Zoe (2018) ‹The Elephant in the Room: Off-shore companies, liberalisation and extension of presidential power in DR Congo›.

Third World Quarterly, (39) 5, pp 889-905.

Professor Lutz Marten, SOAS Publications - Gibson, Hannah, Rozenn Guérois and Lutz Marten. 2017. Patterns and developments in the marking of diminutives in Bantu. Nordic Journal of African Studies 26(4): 344-383.

- Gibson, Hannah, Andriana Koumbarou, Lutz Marten and Jenneke van der Wal. 2017. Locating the Bantu conjoint/disjoint alternation in a typology of focus marking. In Larry Hyman and Jenneke van der Wal (eds.), The Bantu Conjoint/ Disjoint Distinction. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton,

- The Leverhulme-funded research project ‘Morphosyntactic variation in Bantu: Typology, contact and change’ is housed in the Linguistics Department at SOAS under the direction of Professor Lutz Marten as Principal Investigator Dr Meera Sabaratnam, SOAS Publications - Sabaratnam, Meera (2017) Decolonising Intervention: International Statebuilding in Mozambique. London: Rowman & Littlefield International.

Members’ Activities

Publications

- Van der Spuy, Andrew, Kristina Riedel and Lutz Marten. 2017. Introduction. Bantu Languages: Structure, function and use. Special issue of Nordic Journal of African Studies 26(4): 251-255.

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.

Paul Asquith 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

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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. 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 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) ec6@soas.ac.uk Professor Murray Last, Emeritus Professor of Anthropology, UCL Professor Murray Last (Emeritus Professor of Anthropology, UCL). Professor Last’s current research programme largely centres around publishing the various materials he and his

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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.

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. iaduah66@yahoo.com Dr Arkebe Oqubay Metiku 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 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.

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 Chedza Mogae 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. cmogae@gmail.com

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’. haroonabdullai@yahoo.com Dr Marco Jowell Marco Jowell runs a research and advisory body called the Africa Research Group. His main interests are related to civil military relations and military sociology in Africa as well as peacekeeping, peacebuilding and conflict management initiatives. He’s also interested in politics, political economy and security dynamics of East and Central Africa with a broad background in policy advice with governments, international organisations (including a range of UN agencies), international and local NGOS, and the private sector. Marco has held positions with the United Nations Group of Experts for the Democratic Republic of the Congo, was Senior Research Analyst covering the Great Lakes region of Africa at the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), was head of applied research at the International Peace Support Training Centre (IPSTC) in Kenya and was Director of Research for the Great Lakes Centre for Strategic Studies (GLCSS) in Rwanda. Marco has a PhD examining military and peacekeeping assistance to African defence forces from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London.

He’s currently working on two forthcoming publications: Jowell, Marco. The Rwanda Defence Force: Defence and Security in East Africa.

I.B.Tauris, London, 2019. (forthcoming) & Jowell, Marco. Peacekeeping, Politics and the Failure of Foreign Military Assistance in Africa. I.B.Tauris, London, 2017. . marcojowell@hotmail.com

Members’ Activities

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.

Dr Abdullai Haroon

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International African Institute publications African Arguments series publications

Women and the War on Boko Haram

Members’ Activities

Hilary Matfess

The Trial of Hissène Habré: How the People of Chad Brought a Tyrant to Justice

Published for the IAI by Zed Books.

ISBN: 9781786991454

Celeste Hicks

Published for the IAI by Zed Books.

ISBN: 9781786991836

November 2017

Pentecostal Republic: Religion and the Struggle for State Power in Nigeria Ebenezer Obadare

Published for the IAI by Zed Books IISBN: 9781786992376 October 2018

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April 2018

Taxing Africa: Coercion, Reform and Development

Mick Moore, Wilson Prichard, and Odd-Helge Fjeldstad Published for the IAI by Zed Books ISBN: 9781783604531 July 2018

History of the TIV Akiga Sai

Published by the International African Institute / Bookcraft, Nigeria

Books International African Library Series (IAI/Cambridge University Press)

Coastal Sierra Leone: Materiality and the Unseen in Maritime West Africa

Published for the IAI by Cambridge University Press ISBN: 9781108348270 March 2018

Published for the IAI by Cambridge University Press ISBN: 9781108555647 June 2018

Jennifer Diggins

Doing Business in Cameroon: An Anatomy of Economic Governance
 Jose Maria Munoz

Published for the IAI by Cambridge University Press ISBN: 9781108684477 September 2018

Journals/serial products

Members’ Activities

Quranic Schools in Northern Nigeria: Everyday Experiences of Youth, Faith, and PovertyHochner Hannah Hoechner

Journal of the International African Institute Published quarterly print and online: journals.cambridge.org/action/displayJournal?jid=AFR Volume 87 - Issue 4 - November 2017 www.cambridge.org/core/journals/africa/issue/6591F431544EBCF8F506465DD6C74F11 Volume 88 - Issue 1 - March 2018 www.cambridge.org/core/journals/africa/issue/B3F6ED1588C4A645E105969C1C759819 Volume 88 - Issue S1 - March 2018 www.cambridge.org/core/journals/africa/issue/04F5B8901712CFE7903EDAC37E5AE4B4 Volume 88 - Issue 2 - May 2018 www.cambridge.org/core/journals/africa/issue/D65F05449D8B43A0922A5CB27F9329B0 Volume 88 - Issue 3 - August 2018 www.cambridge.org/core/journals/africa/issue/5DE788987B5EB9DC2899D59051822775

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African Studies Resources at SOAS

African Studies Resources 42

SOAS Library is one of the world’s most important academic libraries for the study of Africa.

Material on and from Africa has been collected since the foundation of the School (as the School of Oriental Studies) in 1916, although Africa was not included in the name until much later and there was no separate Africa Section in Library until the 1960s.

The Africa collection includes publications on and from the whole continent of Africa, except for Egypt which is covered by the Middle East & Central Asia Section.

The collection covers the fields of languages and cultures, arts and humanities, and law and social sciences. The Library holds an extensive African language collection covering hundreds of languages from the whole continent. It also has an extensive collection of journals for African research, both in print and electronic format.

Society for Libyan Studies Collection The Library of this archaeological society is held on permanent loan on Level F (mobile stack area).

It covers mainly history and archaeology chiefly in Libya and North Africa and includes books, journals and pamphlets.

African Languages Collection SOAS Library is unique and unparalleled in that all African languages are collected. The range extends from linguistic studies through creative literature to works of scholarship in African vernacular languages.

Onitsha Market Literature Collection Collection of Nigerian popular pamphlets from the 1960s.

Hausa Popular Fiction: Furniss Collection Collection of popular Hausa language fiction donated by Prof. Graham Furniss.

The Library catalogue is available online at: lib.soas.ac.uk

Gifford African Christianity Collection Chiefly English-language local publications on African (especially West African) Christian sects donated by Prof. Paul Gifford.

Special Collections Library & Archives

SOAS

Swahili Manuscript Database The largest public collection of Swahili manuscripts in Britain

Hardyman Madagascar Collection A unique collection on Madagascar, donated in 1991 by Mr and Mrs J.T. Hardyman. While reflecting Mr Hardyman’s life and work as a missionary in Madagascar it covers a range of subjects and includes a large number of works in the Malagasy language.

The Special Collections Reading Room located on Level F holds important collections of archives, manuscripts and other primary source materials relating to Africa. Details can be found in the online catalogue: Archives and Special Collections: Africa

in

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 475 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