Ano X, n.º 9, Setembro de 2009 Dirigido por Luís Carmo Reis Centro de Estudos Africanos da Universidade do Porto

The events of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century can be connected to more recent developments in continental Africa in a number of ways. In some cases, elements of pre-colonial practices have persisted to this day. Especially problematic here are countries such as Mauritania and Niger, where chattel slavery and descent based discrimination remains an ongoing problem. In a larger number of cases, contemporary forms of bondage involve an extension and reformulation of earlier historical models. In many parts of West Africa, human traffickers have been able to manipulate local traditions based upon the placement of poor children with friends and relatives. In countries such as Sudan and Uganda, recent histories of raiding parties and ‘abductions’ can be traced to earlier historical precedents. When modern human rights campaigners object to ‘slave chocolate’ sourced from parts of West Africa, they are following in the footsteps of earlier campaigns against the use of forced labour in cocoa production under colonial rule. When modern migrants find themselves in dangerous and exploitative conditions, their predicament shares a number of features in common with earlier victims of colonial exploitation. When African governments seek to restrict and regulate movement, their approaches routinely draw upon a series of colonial precedents and templates. In order to fully evaluate both current problems and future prospects, one must first understand historical practices.

(…)

Interested researchers are invited to submit paper proposals based on one or more of the following themes:

Each of these themes invite scholars who specialise in particular issues and events to reflect upon the broader significance of their field of expertise to both the broader history and contemporary prospects of Africa.

(…) Requests for information should be directed to either Joel Quirk at j.quirk@hull.ac.uk or Darshan Vigneswaran at darshan.vigneswaran@wits.ac.za. The organizers of the conference plan on publishing a selection of revised papers as a special issue of the journal Slavery and Abolition.”

“Provisional Programme:

Wednesday the 23^rd of September:

4.00 pm. Conference Registration Opens.

Session One: 6.00-7.30 pm, WISE Lecture Theatre. Introduction: Joel Quirk (Wilberforce Institute, University of Hull). Keynote Lecture: Paul Lovejoy (The Harriet Tubman Institute, York University).

Dr Paul Lovejoy is a Distinguished Research Professor in the Department of History at York University in Toronto. He holds the Canada Research Chair in African Diaspora History and is Director of the Harriet Tubman Institute for Research on the Global Migrations of African Peoples at York University. He is also Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and a member of the International Scientific Committee of the UNESCO Slave Route Project. Paul Lovejoy’s recent books include Slavery, Commerce and Production in West Africa: Slave Society in the Sokoto Caliphate and Ecology and Ecology and Ethnography of Muslim Trade in West Africa, along with co-edited works on Africa and Trans-Atlantic Memories: Literary and Aesthetic Manifestations of Diaspora and History, Repercussions of the Atlantic Slave Trade: The Interior of the Bight of Biafra and the African Diaspora, Enslaving Connections: Changing Cultures of Africa and Brazil during the Era of Slavery, and Pawnship, Slavery and Colonialism in Africa. His award winning book Transformations in Slavery: A History of Slavery in Africa has also been translated into Portuguese in the prestigious series, Civilização Brasileira, as A escravidão na África.

7.30-9.00 pm. Wine and Cheese Reception.

Thursday the 24^th of September:

Session Two: 9.00-10.30 am, WISE Lecture Theatre: Patterns of Migration and Settlement in Early Modern Africa. Filipa Ribeiro da Silva (African Studies Centre, Leiden, University of Leiden): African Labour and European Migration in Pre-Colonial West Africa: Dutch and Portuguese Migrants and African Slave and Free Workers (1580s-1670s); David Richardson (Wilberforce Institute, University of Hull): A Longue Durée History of Domestic Slaves in Mbundu Villages Chiefs’ ‘Archives’ (Angola). Tbc. Eva Sebestyen (The Centro de Estudos Africanos, Universidade do Porto).

Session Three: 9.00-10.30 am, WISE Video Conferencing Suite: The Boundaries of Freedom and Coercion. Jennifer Lofkrantz (Franklin and Marshall College): Strategies for the Prevention of Illegal Enslavement: The Sokoto Caliphate Example; Feisal Farah (The Harriet Tubman Institute, York University): Not yet Uhuru/ Not yet Cleansed: The Long Road of Emancipation for Slaves in Mombasa; Stacey Sommerdyk (Wilberforce Institute, University of Hull): Enslavement through Migration: Central African Pygmies and External Interlopers.

Morning Tea.

Session Four: 11.00-12.30 pm, WISE Lecture Theatre: Colonial Taxation and Labour Exploitation in West Central Africa. Maciel Santos (Centro de Estudos Africanos, Universidade do Porto): An Old Question as a New Answer: Native Taxation in Angola after 1907; Philip Havik (Centro de Estudos Africanos, Universidade do Porto): The Long Road from Hut to Personal Tax: Policies and Practices in Portuguese Guinea; Augustin Roland D’Almeida (The Harriet Tubman Institute, York University): Colonisation and Forced Labour in Africa: The Construction of the Railroad in Congo-Brazzaville (1921-1934).

Session Five: 11.00-12.30 pm, WISE Video Conference Suite: Migration and Labour Exploitation in Southern Africa. Nicholas Evans (Wilberforce Institute, University of Hull): Slavery, Migration and the Jewish Diaspora in Sub-Saharan Africa (1838-1994); Fredrik Lilja (Uppsala University): Child Labour in South Africa (c. 1870-1960); Francis Musoni (Emory University): Negotiating Colonial Travel Restrictions: Zimbabwean Migrants to South Africa (1912-1974).

Lunch.

Session Seven: 1.30-3.00 pm, WISE Video Conference Suite: Decolonisation and Labour Exploitation in Lusophone Africa. Alexander Keese (Centro de Estudos Africanos, Universidade do Porto): From Colonial Abuses to Post-Colonial Deception: Forced Labour, Decolonisation and the ‘Serviçal’ Population in São Tomé and Príncipe (1951-1981); Frank Luce (The Harriet Tubman Institute, York University): Armed Struggle, the ILO and Labour Inspection: The Abolition of Forced Labour in Angola; Tobias Drehsen (University of Trier): The San and the Portuguese Military Campaign in the Angolan Decolonisation Conflict (1961-1974): Continuities of Slavery and Forced Labour.

Afternoon Tea.

Session Eight: 3.30-5 pm, WISE Lecture Theatre. Introduction: David Richardson (Wilberforce Institute, University of Hull). Keynote Lecture: Toyin Falola (University of Texas, Austin).

Dr. Toyin Falola is the Frances Higginbotham Nalle Centennial Professor in History and a Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Texas at Austin. He is a Fellow of the Historical Society of Nigeria and a Fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Letters. He has received various awards and honours, including the Jean Holloway Award for Teaching Excellence, the Texas Exes Teaching Award, and the Ibn Khaldun Distinguished Award for Research Excellence, and the Distinguished Fellow, Ibadan Cultural Group. Toyin Falola has published numerous books, including Key Events in African History: A Reference Guide, Nationalism and African Intellectuals, and many edited books including Tradition and Change in Africa and African Writers and Readers. He is the co-editor of the Journal of African Economic History, Series Editor of Rochester Studies in African History and the Diaspora, and the Series Editor of the Culture and Customs of Africa by Greenwood Press.

Break.

Friday the 25^th of September:

Session Nine: 9.00-10.30 am, WISE Lecture Theatre: The Past in the Present: The Legacies of Slavery in Africa. Joël Noret (Centre d’Anthropologie Culturelle, Institut de Sociologie): Contrasts and Contestations in the Memory of Local Slavery in Southern Benin; Ella Keren (Open University of Israel): In the Chains of the Past: Slavery in the Collective Memory in Ghana; Nicodemus Fru Awasom and Ousman Bojang (University of the Gambia): Societal Sustenance of the Legacy of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade on the Gambia.

Session Ten: 9.00-10.30 am, WISE Video Conferencing Suite: The Past in the Present: Ending Slavery in Sudan? Elena Vezzadini (University of Bergen): ‘My Diggle belongs to those who haven’t read Plato’s Republic’: Colonial Administration and the Question of Slavery during the First 25 Years of Colonial Rule in the Sudan; Siddig Elzailaee (London Metropolitan University): Origin of Economic Marginalisation of the Nuba People of Sudan; Naomi Pendle (Wellington College, University of Oxford): Who Should Redeem Slaves: An Analysis of the Economics of Slave Redemption.

Morning Tea.

Session Eleven: 11.00 am-12.00 pm, WISE Lecture Theatre: Linking Past and Present in West Africa: Part One. Laura Murphy (Ithaca College): Slaves in the Family: African Domestic Slavery, Labour, and Kinship Past and Present; Benjamin Lawrance (University of California, Davis): Eradicating Shrine ‘Wives’ and Fishing ‘Boys’: Drafting Anti-Child Trafficking Legislation in West Africa (c. 1990-2007).

Session Twelve: 11.00 am-12.00 pm, WISE Video Conferencing Suite: Migration and Governance in Africa: Part One. O.A. K’Akumu and W.H.A Olima (University of Nairobi): Colonial and Modern Nairobi: A Tale of Two Eras and One Master-Servant City; Hanan Sabea (American University in Cairo): Discourses of Free Flow, Practices of Containment: Recruiting, Contracts and Labour Migration in Tanzania and Egypt.

Lunch.

Session Fourteen: 1.00 pm-2.00 pm, WISE Video Conferencing Suite: Linking Past and Present in West Africa: Part Two. Mariusz Krasniewski (Polish Academy of Sciences): Ritual Slavery in West Africa: The ‘Trokosi’ Institution; Isidore Lobnibe (Western Oregon University): From Unfree Labourers to Commercial Farm Operators: A Paradox of Post-Colonial Agrarian Decline among Northern Ghanaian Migrants.

Short Break.

Session Fifteen: 2.10-3.40 pm, WISE Lecture Theatre. Chouki El Hamel (Arizona State University): British and French Anti-Slavery Societies and the Abolition of Slavery in Morocco; Zekeria Ould Ahmed Salem (University of Nouakchott): ‘Bare-footed activists’ Against Chattel Slavery: Abolition, Bondage Vestiges and Politics in the Islamic Republic of Mauritania; Adam Mahamat (University of Ngaoundéré): Slaves Descendants in Northern Cameroon: Problem of Emancipation, Identity and Social Discrimination.

Session Sixteen 2.10-3.40 pm, WISE Video Conferencing Suite: Voices of Slaves: Past and Present. Jeffrey Gunn (The Harriet Tubman Institute, York University): The Power of the African Narrative and Fair Trade Movements: Parallel Between Late 18^th Century Freedom Narratives and 21^st Century Child Soldier Autobiographies; Pietro Deandrea (University of Torino): Ghostly Voices: Narratives of Contemporary Slavery in the UK; Karlee Sapoznik (The Harriet Tubman Institute, York University): ‘He didn’t give me a choice. I said okay because I didn’t want to die’: Servile Marriage in Modern Day Somalia.

Session Seventeen: 2.10-3.40 pm, Wilberforce House Education Room: Human Rights Activism and the ‘Lessons’ of History. David Wilkins (Wilberforce Institute, University of Hull): Repairing Historical Wrongs in Africa: The Need for Holistic Frankness; Richard Burchill (University of Hull): International Human Rights Law and Africa: A Tool for the Eradication of Slavery?; Joel Quirk (Wilberforce Institute, University of Hull): Historical Inquiry as Contemporary Instruction: The Abolition of Slavery in Africa and the Americas.

Afternoon Tea.

Session Eighteen: 4.10-5.20 pm, WISE Lecture Theatre. Concluding Plenary Session: Historical Practices and Contemporary Problems. Kevin Bales (Free the Slaves and Wilberforce Institute): Ending Modern Slavery in Africa.

Kevin Bales is President of Free the Slaves, the US sister organization of Anti-Slavery International, and Visiting Professor at the Wilberforce Institute for the Study of Slavery and Emancipation, University of Hull. His book Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, and published in ten languages. The film based on his book, which he co-wrote, won a Peabody Award and two Emmy Awards. He was awarded the Laura Smith Davenport Human Rights Award in 2005; the Judith Sargeant Murray Award for Human Rights in 2004; and the Human Rights Award of the University of Alberta in 2003. He has been a consultant to the UN Global Program on Human Trafficking, and has advised the US, British, Irish, Norwegian, and Nepali governments on slavery and human trafficking policy. Kevin Bales other recent works include Understanding Global Slavery, Ending Slavery: How We Will Free Today’s Slaves and The Slave Next Door: Human Trafficking and Slavery in America Today.

Rhoda Howard-Hassman (Wilfrid Laurier University): Reparations to Africa.

Dr Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann is Canada Research Chair in International Human Rights at Wilfrid Laurier University, where she holds a joint appointment in the Department of Global Studies and the Balsillie School of International Affairs. She is also a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation in Waterloo and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. In 2006 she was named the first Distinguished Scholar of Human Rights by the Human Rights Section, American Political Science Association. Rhoda Howard-Hassmann’s recent books include Compassionate Canadians: Civic Leaders Discuss Human Rights and Reparations to Africa, along with co-edited works on Economic Rights in Canada and the United States and The Age of Apology: Facing up to the Past. She is also a member of the editorial boards of the Canadian Journal of African Studies, Buffalo Human Rights Law Review, Citizenship Studies, Human Rights and the Global Economy, Human Rights and Human Welfare, Human Rights Quarterly, Human Rights Review, Journal of Human Rights, Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights, the Georgetown University Press Advancing Human Rights series, and the Oxford University Press Encyclopedia of Human Rights.

Session Nineteen: 5.20-5.30 pm, WISE Lecture Theatre. Summary and Concluding Remarks: Darshan Vigneswaran (Forced Migration Studies Programme, University of the Witwatersrand).”]

“The global financial crisis has lately been on everyone’s lips. It began in 2007 with a liquidity crisis and the bursting of the US housing bubble, before it deepened and widened until the media proclaimed that ‘the world as we know it is going down!’ Official forecasts still project a worsening worldwide recession. Earlier projections suggested that Africa would not be too adversely affected, but the IMF now predicts that the continent will be hard hit. The global downturn affects Africa through reduced capital inflows, lower demand for its exports, low commodity prices, and reduced remittances. These developments combine with other challenges on the continent, associated with transnational movements, maladapted structures, and failed policies and ideologies that extend beyond the African context.

However, recent years have been a period of unprecedented economic growth in many parts of Africa. Some countries experience more wealth and stability, as well as a stronger democratic trend that facilitate foreign investment and development. In turn, this spurs new debates regarding privatisation, diversification and the distribution and redistribution of wealth. Not the least, these debates concern energy consumption and resource management. Africa searches for alternatives: for new ways to foster development and claim its place in a global context, without destroying the natural environment.

At the same time, ordinary people have their concerns regarding how to survive, handle illness and inequality, and bring meaning to their lives. Local discourses struggle to sustain people’s experiences of post-colonial Africa, as they intertwine and are co-produced with global practices and discourses that challenge them in fundamental ways. These broader social trends are manifest in a variety of rich cultural expressions from language and ritual to fashion, film, and literature, including modern art and music.

What are we to make of all this? NAD 2009 challenges researchers to focus on these efforts and strivings for something better and more fruitful, in their discussions of different areas of nature, society, and culture in Africa. In the current situation, it is important to gain knowledge of the dynamic and creative potential of the processes and phenomena we study, in order to strengthen people’s capacity to cope with crisis and facilitate growth. This claim rests not only on a sympathetic reading of contemporary Africa, but is inspired by calls for ‘robust knowledge’ – a growing trend in the philosophy of science. We therefore welcome engaged and forward-looking perspectives that aim to make a difference in the world.

(… …) If you have any questions or enquiries, please contact Sigrid Damman – email sigridd@svt.ntnu.no – phone +47 73596342, or Ingrid Lehn – email Ingrid.lehn@svt.ntnu.no – phone +47 73596581”]

L’une des solutions envisagées, invariablement, par les structures gouvernementales de l’ensemble de ces pays, les hommes de culture ou les artistes, est le recours au mécénat ou au partenariat, d’attache locale ou internationale.

Ces actions sont déployées sous plusieurs modalités allant de dons ponctuels, aux achats de type «generosus» en passant par des subventions institutionnalisées ou des placements bancaires.

Quant aux formules de partenariat, elles sont aussi variées. Elles vont du marketing pur, échange contre publicité, a des interventions de caractère social, plus porteur, liées aux questions de santé publique, a l’élévation du genre, ou a de véritables programmes-package de découverte et de promotion de jeunes talents.

Certaines initiatives sont gérées, de commun accord, par des institutions mécènes et des associations d’écrivains ou d’artistes et artisans; d’autres projets sont administrés, directement, par les sociétés bienfaitrices, qui se réservent l’exclusivité de l’action culturelle menée.

La stratégie engagée dans la recherche de financements mécènes ou d’appuis partenaires débouche, souvent, a l’obtention de concours croisés.

Le panel des institutions et entreprises «amies des arts» s’est, ces dernières années, élargi, conséquence d’une plus grande ouverture, enregistrée sur le continent, a l’économie de marché, et a la fin des monopoles, c’est a dire, a la concurrence commerciale, a la fin des années 80.

Les apports financiers, matériels et autres viennent, aujourd’hui, encore, de personnalités politiques qui contribuent la créativité artistique, a titre personnel ou institutionnel.

Ceux-ceux proviennent, également, des organisations de coopération régionale africaine ou internationale, des organismes d’aide de type bilatéral ou multilatéral et des fondations.

Enfin, les accords de partenariat sont, généralement, scelles avec des banques, des compagnies d’assurances, de sociétés pétrolières ou minières, de consortiums de téléphonie mobile, etc.

L’ensemble de ces interventions est, globalement, assez substantiel et permet, aujourd’hui, d’enregistrer une vie culturelle relativement active dans plusieurs Etats africains avec une nette augmentation de publication d’oeuvres littéraires, de réalisation de films de fiction, d’expositions d’arts plastiques, d’édition de supports CD et DVD, de concerts musicaux, de spectacles de danse, de pièces de théâtre, etc.

Aspects essentiels dans la croissance de la production des biens culturels en Afrique, les affluences mécènes et celles issues de modalités de partenariat divers, incontournables aujourd’hui, conditionneront, sans nul, l’avènement, tant attendue, de la Renaissance de l’Afrique.”]

Pretendemos que esta sessão de posters seja um espaço onde os intervenientes possam trocar experiências sobre as diferentes problemáticas e desafios presentes nas várias áreas de trabalho e de interesse dos participantes, permitindo fazer um balanço sobre a investigação e a intervenção social.

Encorajamos a submissão de trabalhos em áreas como: legislação, racismo, justiça, género, educação, planeamento urbano, emprego, outras, ...

(...)

Scholarly writing and publishing among younger African researchers have been under considerable strain for some time now. The reasons for this state of affairs are multifaceted but are uniformly connected to the prolonged crises which the continent’s higher education system has been experiencing for the last two decades. Remedying the problem has become urgent in order to ensure that the presence of the African voice in the production of knowledge about the continent and other regions of the world is assured at the highest level of quality. As an institution with a long track record in scholarly publishing, and which has a mandate to project African voices through a variety of programmes, CODESRIA has increasingly been concerned with the deterioration of the quality of academic writing among the younger generation of scholars who have borne the brunt of the crises of the last two decades in African higher education. The Council has been particularly well-placed to track the magnitude of the problem through the regular assessment it carries out of contributions received from across Africa for consideration for publication in any one of the nine journals in its stable, the applications that are submitted for consideration for admission into its various training programmes, the regular feedback it solicits from sister institutions on the strengths and weaknesses of scholarly essays which they have occasion regularly to review, and the gaps in foundational training in the university system that currently affect capacities to muster a written argument, project an informed point of view, develop a presentational/analytic style, cite references correctly, and adequately prepare manuscripts for consideration for publication in scholarly outlets. It was with a view to remedying this situation that CODESRIA decided to launch its scholarly writing programme targeted at younger third and fourth generation African scholars.

The workshop will feature presentations and practical demonstrations by seasoned scholars under whose mentorship, groups of advanced postgraduate students and younger scholars who are admitted to participate in the programme will be supported to upgrade the quality of their writing and publishing. Exercises will be offered to demonstrate different approaches to scholarly writing and publishing as follows:

Scholarly Writing: 1. Presenting participants with the skills and requirements needed to write effectively taking full cognisance of the expectations of the scholarly community; 2. Familiarising participants with how to critically appraise the theoretical assumptions that underpin the related research on which they draw to inform their own research and writing; 3. Demonstrating familiarity with related scholarly literature and debates; 4. Determining and critically relating to methodologies employed in scholarly research and writing: 5. Determining and critically relating to the arguments of authors on whose work participants draw to make their own arguments; and 6. Determining the contribution to knowledge of a piece of scholarly writing.

Scholarly Publishing: 1. Building a proper understanding of the publishing process with a view to ensuring that manuscripts are prepared and presented in a manner that facilitates the publishing process and which, in so doing, improves their chances for selection in scholarly publishing outlets. Attention will be drawn to a variety of issues ranging from adherence to style guidelines to choosing which work is best fitted to a particular scholarly publishing format, as well as suggestions on how to revise theses and dissertations into publishable manuscripts; 2. Presentations on how to document a manuscript for publication, including especially different methods of referencing, the use of quotations, and the presentation of source materials used; and 3. Presentations on the interface between the style adopted for a written scholarly work and the audience that is targeted for its consumption. Here, attention will also be given to the best approaches to disseminating and promoting a scientific publication using both the author’s and publisher’s networks (review outlets, conferences, symposium and book dissemination forums, teaching curriculum, electronic and print forums etc.) in order to generate debate and promote sales.

Workshop Framework: The workshop will be organised over a period of five working (days) and will involve a series of lectures and practical work interspersed with open discussions on the key issues in scholarly publishing. The programme will be coordinated by a designated director assisted by invited resource persons with a track record in scholarly publishing. A post-workshop monitoring exercise will provide participants an opportunity to have their work reviewed and assessed by identified resource persons for a predetermined length of time after the workshop.

Target Population: (…) – Advanced postgraduates working on their dissertations or theses in an African university; – Researchers who completed their postgraduate studies at any time during the last five years and are presently pursuing a teaching and/or research career in an African university or research centre; and – Former laureates of CODESRIA institutes and methodological workshops interested in updating their skills.

(… …) Admission to participate in the workshop will be limited to 30 persons to allow for an intensive session.

(...) E-mail: Writing.Workshop@codesria.sn Web Site: www.codesria.org”]
– 15 e 16 de Outubro de 2009 – Colóquio Internacional Sociedades Rurais Africanas: Estruturas fundiárias e dinâmicas sociais. Lajedos, concelho de Porto Novo (Santo Antão, Cabo Verde). [“O debate sobre a evolução do ‘campo’ no mundo moderno começou há mais de três séculos. Da fisiocracia aos recentes pareceres do Banco Mundial, reabilitando a pastorícia em África, o espectro dos juízos de valor sobre o papel das sociedades tradicionais – agentes ou travões da acumulação de capital – percorreu todas as tonalidades.

Mas terão sido alguma vez as sociedades rurais verdadeiras sociedades tradicionais, tal como tantos historiadores e etnólogos frequentemente modelizaram? E existirão verdadeiramente sociedades rurais no mundo moderno, a ponto de justificar um outro tipo de modelos, os da ‘dualidade’?

A trajectória destas evoluções parece ainda mais confusa em regiões tocadas perversamente pela ‘modernidade’, como é o caso dos antigos territórios coloniais e periféricos. Em África e, em menor escala, na Ásia tropical os poderes coloniais introduziram frequentemente tecnologias, normas de propriedade e de organização fundiária que alteraram, sem o destruir totalmente, o anterior tecido rural. Ao contrário do que aconteceu maioritariamente na Europa e nas Américas, a integração no mercado mundial não fez tábua rasa das antigas classes agrárias. As noções de ‘reforma agrária’ ou ‘revolução verde’, tão popularizadas nas descrições históricas doutros continentes, ganham aqui evidentemente um outro conteúdo.

Conhecer um pouco melhor os resultados desta evolução nos territórios subsaarianos – relativamente à qual a sociologia foi obrigada a criar o neologismo bárbaro de ‘rurbanidade’, por exemplo – é o objectivo deste encontro. Nele se espera que as contribuições de diferentes ciências sociais possam ajudar a perspectivar o que a ‘bolha’ bolsista das matérias-primas do verão de 2008 teve pelo menos o mérito de tornar claro: que o futuro próximo da Terra passa, cada vez mais, pela terra.

Para mais informações contactar o CEAUP: Centro de Estudos Africanos U.P. – Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto – Via Panorâmica s/n – 4150-564 Porto. Telf./fax: +351 22 607 71 41. e-mail: ceaup@letras.up.pt

Ou Dr. José Évora – Instituto do Arquivo Histórico de Cabo Verde. Email: jose9953836@hotmail.com”]
– 18 a 20 de Outubro de 2009 – Writing the History of Women in Africa: Past, Present and Future. CODESRIA Conference. Nairobi. [“The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) is pleased to announce the second edition of its annual conference on critical themes in the history of Africa. The conference is part of CODESRIA’s initiative aimed at achieving the triple objective of promoting the study of the history of Africa, mobilising support for the discipline of history in African higher education, and networking African historians both for these purposes and also as a worthy cause in its own right. Packaged under the label ‘SOS African History’, the initiative is motivated by the strongly held view of the CODESRIA membership that the current conjuncture in the development of Africa marks a moment when the continent is, more than ever before, in need of history and historians. Given the fact that across Africa, engagement with the history of the continent, the financing of historical research, and the teaching of History are severely endangered, the CODESRIA SOS African History initiative is designed to galvanise local and continental responses that could add up to stem and reverse the tide of decline that has been underway for at least two decades.

The inaugural conference within the CODESRIA initiative on African History was held on the 27th-29th of October 2008 in Kampala, Uganda, on the theme: Re-Reading the History and Historiography of Domination and Resistance in Africa. The second conference scheduled for Nairobi, Kenya will have as its theme: Writing the History of Women in Africa: Past, Present and Future. The study of women in Africa has in recent years experienced a great leap forward in terms of output, theoretical development and visibility. The changes which can be principally attributed to the adoption of new frameworks such as life-histories, oral histories, genealogies, religious records, cultural lore and fables, and a focus on women’s resistance have challenged the silences on African women in African history. The new approaches, though not without their limitations, have stimulated a renewed interest in the study and writing of the history of African women; and are, more importantly, acting as a catalyst for the revitalisation of African history and historiography by stimulating a re-examination of familiar themes in African history, such as African labour history and class relations, colonialism, African economic history, African elites and African religions.

Despite the success of efforts to restore women to African history, African women’s history is still largely absent from mainstream African historiography and is consistently confronted with the possibility of disciplinary provincialism. Furthermore, limitations of scope to the 19th and 20th centuries, and the absence of studies on women before the 1800s, restrict efforts to integrate and properly situate women’s history into African history. However, African women are making their own history and writing it. They are also actors in the making of African history. Part of this has been captured in a number of publications including the “Women Writing Africa series”. The writing of the history of African women is also not the exclusive preserve of historians as contributions from anthropology, political science, gender studies and sociology have widened the scope and deepened the content of African women’s history.

The continued marginalisation of African women in African historiography, despite advances in theory and method, is a source of concern; especially at a time when African history itself is facing the threat of obscurity, giving the reduced significance of its research works on other historiographies and the severely endangered nature of popular and academic engagement with history on the continent, due to poor financing of historical research, which itself is a consequence of a devaluation of the discipline in favour of more ‘marketable’ ones.

One of the questions to be addressed by the conference is the extent to which members of resettled groups – both migrants/immigrants as well as their descendants – feel they are part of a larger community (as Canadians) in electoral participation as well as other aspects of exercising citizenship.

Furthermore, do those resettled in the GTA and other cities in Canada and elsewhere shape their identities and experience recognition as citizens in terms of a sense of ‘place’ and belonging or does a new form of global citizenship arise as a consequence of multicentred Diasporas and does it need to be integrated into our understanding of an emerging cosmopolitanism? What kinds of identities have been formed, how connected are they to each other within a community of origin and resettlement, and how do they perceive a larger community? Do ethnocultural groups feel they are recognized? Does settlement and life in the GTA and other large cities help them in terms of available ethnic spaces and places and do broader societal values of a cosmopolitan nature promote a sense of belonging and inclusion?

The conference will consider contemporary and historical aspects of the Diasporas of groups in the GTA and other cities who have migrated for a variety of reasons including economic opportunity and political persecution. Contributors to the conference are encouraged to submit their papers for publication in a volume that will be a unique contribution to the growing field of diversity studies and the challenges of building inclusive societies.

This will be a four day conference with events being held at Founders College, York University on October 22nd and 23rd, and off-campus events taking place in Toronto at the Italian Cultural Institute on October 21st and in the GTA on October 24th. The sessions to be held in venues in Toronto and the GTA will allow for participation of different community groups and the interaction between them and members of York University.

(…) The conference is part of the series of Diaspora, Citizenship, and Recognition. All papers (…) presented at the conference will be published online. Selected papers will be considered for publication in an edited volume (30-35 page chapters).

Please visit http://www.yorku.ca/founders/FoundersEvents.htm for more information on the conference and its organizers. Organizing Committee: Prof. Mauro Buccheri, Prof. Robert Kenedy, Prof. Fahim Quadir, Prof. Gabriele Scardellato.”]
– 24 de Outubro de 2009 – Interdisciplinary AiM Symposium on the Realities and Representations of Reconciliation in Africa. Hosted jointly by the Centre of African Studies (CAS) at the University of Edinburgh and the Africa in Motion (AiM) Film Festival. Edimburgo. [“Call for Papers: At Africa in Motion 2009 we plan to incorporate a number of screenings and events that confront issues of trauma, conflict and reconciliation. This symposium aims to foster discussion and understanding of old and new research dealing with the various realities and representations of reconciliation in Africa. A number of recent films, novels and other forms of art have sought to represent in varying ways the traumas of conflict and war of the postcolonial African states and the attempts of reconciliation commissions towards peace, truth, justice and forgiveness. We want to touch on the problems and challenges facing artistic representations of these complex topics as well as the different contexts and consequences of it in Africa and in its diasporas.

(… …)

For more information on the Africa in Motion film festival please visit www.africa-in-motion.org.uk. For further information on the Centre of African Studies at Edinburgh University please visit www.cas.ed.ac.uk.

AiM Symposium Organising Committee (Africa in Motion Film Festival – 22 Oct to 1 Nov 2009): www.africa-in-motion.org.uk”]
– 26 e 27 de Outubro de 2009 – Migrations, Traditions and Modernities: Comparing Ethnographies. Instituto de Ciências Sociais (ICS) da Universidade de Lisboa. Organização: ICS & CRIA; Ramon Sarró, José Mapril e Irene Rodrigues. [“Anthropology and modernity are old travel companions. Since the beginning of the discipline, anthropologists have been confronted with the several modes people adapt to, or resist, the worlds produced by the adoption of lifestyles called ‘modernity’ in the west. In the last twenty years, this ‘modernizing’ concern has become entangled with debates around cultural ‘globalization’, ‘authenticity’ and ‘development’. Along with this enlargement of scope came a new problematic not so much addressed at knowing how societies modernize, but rather how they understand and appropriate ‘modernity’. In whatever form it appears, the ‘indigenization’ of modernity produces a historical self-awareness that is often reflected in the question: ‘how can we be modern without losing our sense of ourselves?’ The question entails notions of ‘modernity’ and ‘tradition’, as well as contested images and beliefs regarding how life should ideally be. In whatever case, ‘modern life’ appears as a disruption vis-à-vis tradition, more often than not studied by anthropologists along the framework of temporality.

Today, however, it becomes clearer and clearer that this ‘disruption’ is produced not only by chronological transformations but also by topographic mobility. Both at the popular level of dreams about migration and at the institutional level do we find the notion that a progressive modernization of economies, domestic units, religion, nations and citizens may be achieved by fostering migration. At the same time, paradoxically, migrations are frequently thought of as a path for international dissemination of ‘traditional’ lives, sometimes in order to preserve, valorise and commoditize them. Thus, more than erase it, migrations seem to offer new meanings and contexts to the old dichotomy of ‘traditional’ vs. ‘modern’.

In the workshop ‘Migrations, Traditions and Modernities: Comparing Ethnographies’ we want to ethnographically explore the relationship between modernity and migratory phenomena, looking at the actors who create/ reproduce discourses and images about modernity and tradition along transnational lines, the channels of diffusion, the politization of these elements, and how they affect local lives in different parts of the world. We (…) hope to cover a wide range of ethnographic situations that should give rise to a very enriching anthropological dialogue.

The workshop will take place at the Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon, on 26 and 27 October 2009, and it will include the following keynotes: Fillipo Osella (University of Sussex), Joan D’Alisera (University of Arkansas) and Frank Pieke (University of Oxford). Speakers will have up to 20 minutes for presentation followed by an open discussion. The official language will be English.”]

Le Conseil pour le développement de la recherche en sciences sociales en Afrique a le plaisir d’annoncer une initiative destinée aux membres de la communauté africaine de recherche responsables dans leurs universités de l’enseignement des méthodes de recherche en sciences sociales. Pendant la dernière décennie et demie, en connaissance des crises aux aspects multiples auxquelles sont confrontées le système africain d’enseignement supérieur en général et les universités en particulier, le CODESRIA s’est investi en offrant aux étudiants et aux professionnels à mi-carrière des opportunités de formation dans les méthodes qualitatives et quantitatives de recherche. La première phase de ces opportunités de formation était centrée sur les méthodes de recherche quantitative. Au cours des dernières années, l’accent a été déplacé vers les méthodes de recherche qualitative. Ces formations étaient organisées en séminaires de recherche avancée pendant lesquels les participants étaient familiarisés avec différentes techniques méthodologiques, leurs origines et leur philosophie scientifique. Le CODESRIA organise sept séminaires méthodologiques sur la base d’un par sous-région, un spécialement dévolu au Nigéria, et un pour les pays sortant de situations de conflits. Dans le contexte de la décentralisation de la gestion des ateliers dans différentes universités et institutions de recherche avancée, le Conseil propose d’organiser un atelier méthodologique de formation des formateurs qui rassemble ceux qui sont chargés de familiariser d’autres avec les compétences de base dont ils ont besoin pour être de bons chercheurs.

La logique de tous les ateliers méthodologiques du CODESRIA reste la même. Comme terrain de connaissance, les méthodes quantitative et qualitative ont un statut de spécialité et il n’est pas acquis à tous les chercheurs en sciences sociales de maitriser entièrement à la fois les détails techniques et les bases philosophiques. Egalement, le domaine de méthodes de recherche en sciences sociales, à la fois quantitative et qualitative, a connu une grande évolution marquée par une amélioration dans les outils et techniques disponibles. Cependant, historiquement, c’est un domaine pédagogique relativement faible dans la recherche en sciences sociales africaine; la faiblesse est accentuée par la fuite massive des cerveaux qu’a connu le système universitaire à la suite des crises. Cette circonstance a constitué un désavantage majeur pour la jeune génération de chercheurs en sciences sociales et s’est reflétée dans la qualité de la recherche entreprise. La réduction de cet écart devint une préoccupation urgente; le programme de formation des formateurs représente la dernière dans la série d’interventions développées par le CODESRIA et il est lancé dans le contexte d’interconnexion organique des objectifs de recherche des universités et la mission et la stratégie programmatique du Conseil.

La session 2009 de l’atelier de formation des formateurs réunira jusqu’à 25 participants. Les langues de travail seront le français et l’anglais. En plus des présentations qui seront faites par des personnes ressources, l’atelier sera structuré comme un forum d’étroite interaction et de réseautage entre les participants de manière qu'au-delà de la session formelle de formation, ils soient capables de continuer de partager leurs expériences. Des exercices pratiques de lecture seront organisés. Chaque session sera dirigée par un responsable assisté par une personne ressource. La session durera cinq jours. Chaque participant aura accès aux outils les plus récents – électroniques et non électroniques – disponibles sur les méthodes de recherche; des présentations seront faites sur la philosophie de la science.”]

As edições anteriores permitiram manter a transversalidade não só de conhecimentos, mas também de contactos, interagindo com diferentes áreas de investigação, com pesquisadores, técnicos e estudantes tanto com teor específicos, como holísticos, unindo sinergias, com o aprender, o ensinar, o aprender a aprender, o construir, ou até mesmo o desconstruir para construir novamente. Portanto é um foro de debate, de exposição de ideias, resultados de investigação, através da utilização de metodologias qualitativas e quantitativas, com conteúdos teóricos, mas também práticos ou interventivos.

A proposta deste Congresso não se reduz, por isso, a um simples crescimento económico, uma vez que o desenvolvimento para ser autêntico tem que ser completo, ou seja, fomentar o bem-estar a todo o homem e mulher. Trata-se, por conseguinte, de associar os valores do desenvolvimento social e cultural com as necessidades básicas que integram a liberdade, a justiça, a equidade, a ética e a auto-estima.

Por último, refira-se que o VII Congresso de Investigação e Desenvolvimento Sócio-Cultural será estruturado com mesas de comunicações, debates e um programa cultural.

Envio do resumo por e-mail (em alternativa: disquete ou CD-Rom), até 20 de Setembro de 2009.

Apresentação dos textos (resumos e comunicações): Word 97/2000/XP; Times New Roman; tamanho 12; espaçamento entre linhas de 1,5 linhas.

Comunicações escritas: Título definitivo, nome do/a autor/a, instituição, palavras-chave, referências bibliográficas, até 30 páginas A4, em disquete/CD-Rom ou e-mail, Word 97/2000/XP, Times New Roman, tamanho 12, espaçamento entre linhas de 1,5 linhas, margens de 3 cm.

Envio das comunicações escritas por e-mail (em alternativa: disquete ou CD-Rom), até 29 de Outubro de 2009.

Comunicações orais: serão seleccionados para apresentações orais com duração mínima de 12 minutos, os resumos que obedeçam aos requisitos gerais enunciados para os mesmos e cujos/as participantes se encontrem inscritos/as no evento, apenas para esta modalidade, até 20 de Setembro de 2009.

Inscrição (até 15 de Setembro): – Associados/as: 20 euros; – Membros do Instituto de Sociologia (FLUP): 20 euros; – Participantes com comunicação: 40 euros; – Participantes sem comunicação: 20 euros; – Estudantes de licenciatura: 7,50 euros.

Inscrição (após 15 de Setembro): – Associados/as: 25 euros; – Membros do Instituto de Sociologia (FLUP): 25 euros; – Participantes com comunicação: 50 euros; – Participantes sem comunicação: 30 euros; – Estudantes de licenciatura: 12,50 euros.

Transferência bancária: AGIR – Associação para a Investigação e Desenvolvimento Sócio-Cultural – NIB: 0035 0666 000809 51030 20 – IBAN: PT50003506660008095103020 – BIC: CGDIPTPL – Banco: Caixa Geral de Depósitos

Correio postal ou vale postal: AGIR – Associação para a Investigação e Desenvolvimento Sócio-cultural – Apartado 4021 – 4000-101 Porto – Portugal

Formulário de inscrição (CIIDSC7): – Nome; – Morada; – Cód. Postal; – Localidade; – País; – Tel. n.º; – E-mail; – Data de Nascimento; – NIF; – Habilitações Literárias; – Profissão/ Ocupação; – Instituição Representada; – Estudante (Sim/ Não); – Curso/ Universidade; – Título Provisório da Comunicação; – Tema do Congresso; – Equipamento necessário; – Modo de pagamento; – Data de Inscrição; – Só apresentação oral (Sim/ Não); – Só comunicação escrita (Sim /Não); – Comunicação escrita e apresentação oral (Sim/ Não); – Associado/a da AGIR (Sim/ Não); – Novos/as associados/as: Desejo que a minha inscrição seja convertida automaticamente no pagamento das taxas de inscrição e anuidade de associado (total: 40 euros) na Associação AGIR (válida por 12 meses) (Sim/ Não)

Enviar: AGIR – Associação para a Investigação e Desenvolvimento Sócio-Cultural – Apartado 4021 – 4000-101 Porto – Portugal

ou agir.associacao@gmail.com”]

Concebida como uma estrutura de produção e de difusão cientifica, BL permitiu, graças a uma larga estratégia de divulgação, a publicação em dezenas de websites, de uma centena de trabalhos, em português, espanhol, francês e inglês, relativos a aspectos ligados à extraordinária história das migrações dos povos bantu, às afinidades e singularidades das suas línguas, às similitudes e particularidades do seu comportamento antropológico, e aos contactos civilizacionais intra- e extracontinentais que eles estabeleceram.

Esta acção, hoje animada a partir de Luanda, em Angola, cujo sucesso é largamente tributário das prodigiosas facilidades que oferece a Internet, permitiu de registar diversos resultados, tais como um nítido desenvolvimento de trocas documentárias e de informações, um aumento de discussões científicas, um incremento de pedidos de dados da parte de estudantes, um acrescentamento de publicação de artigos, na persistente declinação tradicional, em várias revistas e jornais, assim que a participação a numerosas reuniões e intervenções internacionais.

O balanço efectuado é, portanto, largamente, positivo e confirma a justeza do lançamento deste programa cujas perspectivas anunciam-se muito encorajantes.

O desenvolvimento de Bantulink atesta, incontestavelmente, o grande trunfo que constitua, hoje, o trabalho e a publicação em rede Internet, opção, a todos pontos de vista, mais racional, que revela essencial, pela afirmação da identidade, da diversidade dos diálogos culturais, conjunto de valores ligados que contribuirão, sem dúvida, a conter o choque das civilizações, cujos dramáticos primeiros efeitos foram registados logo no advento deste novo século.”]
– 23 e 24 de Novembro de 2009 – Mobility, Science and Culture. Centro de Investigação em Ciências Sociais do Instituto de Ciências Sociais da Universidade do Minho. Braga (Portugal). [“The international mobility of scientists has become one important object of research in the social sciences. Researchers from a variety of disciplines are showing a growing interest on this subject, which has also become a central issue for European institutions committed to implementing a European market for research.

Scientific mobility is not a new phenomenon. Indeed, migrations of qualified professionals have been the focus of scientific and political attention since the 1960s, this early interest being driven by fears of a potential ‘brain drain’. Nowadays the ‘brain drain’ rhetoric has been mostly abandoned, even though it still carries considerable weight in journalistic discourse. The mobility of scientists is accepted as a normal practice in a globalized world and is acknowledged as a multidimensional phenomenon that can longer sustain linear approaches that ignore its inherent complexity.

Organized under the auspices of the research project ‘Mobiscience’, the seminar ‘Mobility, Science and Culture’ aims to:

1.1. Act as a forum of discussion on topics that are relevant for a better understanding of the international mobility of scientists, as well as on the most appropriate methods to address it.

2.2. Bring together researchers, from different disciplinary fields, who are interested in scientific mobility, proposing the interaction between mobility and culture as a central theme for debate. This proposal is based on the recognition that, although this area is experiencing considerable growth, the dispersion of interests and approaches (may) result in the absence of focal research questions that can mobilize the concerted efforts of the interested community.

3.3. Contribute to the development of scientific mobility as a research area and, particularly, to a greater incorporation of contextual/cultural dimensions in mobility studies.

(… …)

Paper (…) publication (…). Concerning written texts we accept it in English, Portuguese, Spanish or French.

Use this contact for further information: mobiscience@gmail.com”] Este seminário insere-se no âmbito do projecto Mobiscience (www.mobiscienceportugal.com).

In the period since the beginning of the 1990s, CODESRIA has been at the forefront of the quest to harness the efforts of African scholars in both extending the frontiers of knowledge production around issues of gender, and doing so in a manner that ensures that for as many scholars as are active in its networks and at other African sites of scholarly work, gender is integrated into their frames of analyses and modes of intervention. This has been done in line with the Council’s institutional commitment, integral to its Charter mandate, to produce knowledge that is not only anchored in the realities of the African continent, but which also contributes to the progressive transformation of livelihoods; the conscious pursuit of gender equality and inter-generational dialogues; and the harnessing of multidisciplinary perspectives. The results which have been accumulated from the experience of the Council and other like-minded institutions have, at one level, culminated in an efflorescence of studies on various aspects of the gender dynamics of development, an expansion in the community of African scholars with an active interest in gender research, the networking of that community on a sub-regional and pan-African scale, and the projection of the voices of its members on a global scale.

At another level, however, few will doubt that for all the progress which has been made in promoting the idea of the centrality of gender to the robustness of any social research and the completeness of any project of social transformation, a considerable amount of work still remains to be done. The challenges that are posed are many but, in summary, could be said to centre around the need to consolidate the many critiques of development that have been made from various gender – and feminist – perspectives into a comprehensive, internally coherent and consistent set of alternatives on the basis of which further advances in theory, method and praxis could be achieved. Engendering African development requires close attention not only to the analytical tools of the researcher but also to the production of a gendered critique of development that questions the very foundations on which socio-economic and political processes in Africa rest. Such a critique is a pre-requisite for the advancement of new theoretical approaches and policy instruments. In sum, what is called for today is a complete paradigm shift for which new scholarship will be necessary.

Different authors have identified different entry points for the developmental project they have in mind for Africa but these differences need not detain us here for now. What is really important to note is that it is inconceivable that the project of democratic development, however defined, can ever be successfully built without a full integration of gender into the equation. And it is precisely here that the deficits have been most in evidence in spite of all official declarations committing governments to the promotion of the rights of women and the equality of men and women. The dawn of the contemporary processes of globalisation initially fuelled widespread optimism that promised new opportunities for the expansion of the frontiers of women’s rights; several years after, this optimism has been tempered and mitigated as much by the disempowering elements thrown up by the global age as by the uneven distribution of the opportunities that have been associated with it. Particularly worthy of note in this regard are the severe limits imposed on the expansion of social citizenship by the neo-liberal ideological and policy moorings of contemporary globalisation. The sporting fraternity as global playing field, has not been spared this chequered character. While sport presents an opportunity for the participation of Africa’s men and women in the development process, locally and with global implications, such participation is not without its own problems, however, that require us to apply the gender lens to the reading of the natural twin processes of play and development, and their applicability and place in the context of Africa.

Sports is an arena that is uniquely gendered, differentiating as it does between men and women, boys and girls, in ways that have largely come to be accepted by many societies. Not only are most sporting activities organised along dual terms, they also set the competitive standards differently according to biological sex, with the female standard usually lower than that of the male. Golf is a case in point; as are field sports such as high and long jump. Over time and with the commercialization of sports globally, this differentiation has translated into a hierarchy in the financial value ascribed to sports where female sports score lower on the financial scale. By the same token, remuneration in the sporting field tends to be lower for females while the males are paid more. Similarly, male sports arguably enjoy more attention and, therefore, reputation and national/ continental value than do female sports. And yet for all these differences, the sporting arena retains its attraction for the gendered democratic developmental project. Most sporting activities offer opportunities for inclusive participation irrespective of gender, class, race, literacy, and other otherwise marginalising attributes. A lot of sporting activities have also contributed to the development of individuals, communities, countries, and the African continent in various ways, in recent times. At a political level, sport in Africa has made possible the renewal and expression of a continental African identity, especially with the upcoming Soccer World Cup in 2010, the first Soccer World Cup to be held in Africa. Packaged as a continental event, it has been described as ‘an African journey of hope’ towards freedom from war, tyranny, divisions, hunger, and the denial of human dignity. The 2010 event is important not only because soccer, in some places referred to as football, is a popular sport in Africa and has become an integral part of the African cultural landscape; but also because it arguably enjoys the largest following worldwide, and is immensely economically lucrative. To what extent then, does soccer, and all other sports, present as real possibilities for an engendered African developmental project?

A lot of scholarship on sports has focused on its local/global business dimensions; its political importance; and as performance. Research into sports also offers interesting possibilities for exploring intricate gender dynamics in the evolution and development of societies. This is because sport is often played out beyond the confines of the playing fields. Sport, like most aspects of play, is an element of culture with a significant role in the gender socialisation process. As an institution, sport can be analysed and understood in terms of modern democratic societal participation and development, allowing us to reflect on crucial questions of governance, and pertaining to male/ female participation and reward accrual that goes beyond materialism; as well as to gendered identity expression, be it masculine or feminine as performed by either or both sexes. Lending sports research a historical dimension holds out interesting possibilities with respect to the socio-cultural adaptation of sport to African societies’ gender dynamics; the exploration of cultural patterns over time; and the possibility of insights into the relationship between children’s play and adult sports and the ramifications, therein, for citizen participation in developmental processes.

Participants in the 2009 CODESRIA Gender symposium would be invited to consider the various dimensions to the landscape of gender and the multifaceted sports arena including athletics, cricket, children’s games in Africa, and ball sports, with a view to reflecting on the possibilities and barriers that have emerged alongside the old obstacles that have persisted in the search for and process towards a gender-inclusive African development project. The symposium will, among other things, assess the:

i) Theories of play and development as viewed from a gendered perspective, including children’s versus adult forms of play;

ii) Gender, Sports and theories of Space in Development terms;

iii) Traditional and Modern Sporting Practices – and the interfaces between them – as viewed from a gendered perspective;

iv) Gender, Sports and questions of Audience and Participation;

v) Modes and patterns of the refraction of gender differentiation into local/ global sports governance and participation;

vi) The impact of global processes on local struggles for engendering sports;

vii) The Roles of local and/ or global civil society in the mobilisation of gendered development through sports;

viii) Sports, Gender and Work;

ix) Dialectics of multiple identities and citizenship in the practice of Sports in a global age;

x) Sports, Gender and Violence;

xi) The gendered aspects of Sports as Performance and Spectacle;

xii) Sports and the Articulation of gendered Identities – including national, cultural, sub-cultural, and literary articulations;

xiii) New forms of international commodification of players and their gender Implications;

xiv) New forms of trans-national commerce in players and potential players and their Development implications through the gender lens;

xv) Sports as Global Business and Implications for the Developing world in Gender terms;

xvi) Sports, the Media and Gender in Africa’s Development;

xvii) Re-thinking Gender and Development in a global Sporting age: Alternatives open to women and men in the quest for gender equality.

(… …)

Tel: +221 – 33 825 98.22/23 Fax:+221- 33 824 12.89 E-mail: gender.symposium@codesria.sn

Web Site: http://www.codesria.org”]
– 26 e 27 de Novembro de 2009 – “Navegações” nas ilhas da África e do Mediterrâneo. Centro de Estudos sobre Cabo Verde e Pequenas Ilhas, Universidade do Salento. Lecce (Itália). [“‘Islands are sites of innovative conceptualizations, whether of nature or human enterprise, whether virtual or real. The study of islands on their own terms today enjoys a growing and wide-ranging recognition.’ (J. Baldacchino.) Ponto de partida é o âmbito do estudo sobre as ilhas de acordo com os pressupostos teóricos e metodológicos das Islands Studies, a cujos problemas históricos e metodológicos será dedicada uma sessão.

Uma das temáticas estritamente relacionada com as áreas temáticas de estudo das ilhas é a viagem. Qual é a memória da viagem e as formas dessa memória?

Possíveis vestígios da memória dos lugares e do espaço das ilhas são mapas, memórias, cartas, descrições, histórias (reais ou imaginadas), contos e outros, nas viagens forçadas (comércio escravo e migração), nas viagens de exploração, nas viagens turísticas (crítica do turismo predatório para um turismo sustentável), nas viagens metafóricas (duma ideia, dum projecto, duma utopia…) As contribuições podem enfrentar as várias temáticas dentro de uma perspectiva ligada às ciências sociais e humanas e a qualquer período histórico.

Abertura do Colóquio: Prof. Elikia M’Bokolo; Ibrahima Thioub.

(... ...)

Línguas oficiais: inglês, italiano, francês e português.

Está prevista a publicação das contribuições do colóquio no número especial da revista Palaver: Africa e altre terre.

Organizadora: Maria R. Turano

Contacto: francesca@isolecentrostudi.org”]
– 26 e 27 de Novembro de 2009 – Colóquio Internacional Lutter dans les Afriques/ Africa’s Struggles. Paris. [“Armed rebellions, hunger riots, urban unrest, rural escapism, social movements, advocacy mobilizations, nationalist struggles and peasant movements, preachers, union activists and ‘African social movements’… Almost 50 years after independence, Africa is more than ever ‘indocile’. Nearly 30 years after the launch of the ‘politics from below’ research trend, the question of the struggles and forms of resistance on the African continent – as well as the theoretical tools mobilized to study them – are of the utmost relevance, both scientifically and politically.

Theorizing struggles in the Africa-s, amounts to resisting the overused image of an Africa deemed to have stepped out of history, a continent of endless consent (that of the dominated) and of immutable authority (that of leaders), an Africa of consensus that one should leave to the gaze of an a-historical anthropology. Opting for such a focus also means questioning and assessing the specificity of the forms and repertoires of dissent enacted on the continent. In turn, this entails exploring in further depth the diversity of the modes of protest. What about, for instance, the ideological logics of protest, not studied so much today whereas they were central in, the years of the independences? Can professionalized forms of protest crystallized around NGOs and violent groups with insurrectionary aims be analyzed together? This involves, finally, accounting for specific cases of protest in light of current transformations pervading African societies, be they related to mutations pertaining to the division between the urbane and the rural, tensions over land, or to religious repertoires of enunciation of the political. This colloquium thus aims at studying both the forms of dissent and the strategies of challengers (e.g. modalities of involvement, extraversion, of accumulation of resources…), but also the management of protest by governments through the State apparatus (repression, cooptation…).

Such a focus on political and social struggles does not mean, however, that the latter encompass the whole gamut of situations of dissent and protest against the dominants. One of the headways of the ‘politics from below’ approach is doubtlessly to have driven the focus out of the most obvious sites of observation of the political, and to have fostered research on the practices of enunciation of dissent: indeed, ‘silence does not always imply consent’, as demonstrated by songs, escapes and other threads of indocility.

What is the current state of theoretical work on such forms of dissent in Africa? One of the pioneer writings on protest was explicitly posited within nationalist historiography – to the extent that the second piece of work focusing on this question aimed precisely at opposing this positioning. While the ‘politics from below’ approach has largely contributed to the vibrancy of African studies, what are the current usages of central concepts such as ‘popular modes of political action’ or ‘moral economy’? While the critical historiography of resistances is now well engaged, one of the central aims of this colloquium is thus to open a conceptual discussion over theoretical renditions of the forms of dissent in Africa, so as to read them in light of other approaches on protest, by and large developed on Western objects of analysis. Does the opening up of African studies to other theoretical trends imply importing the tools developed by the sociology of social movements – even though the latter has entered a process of routinization, letting its key concepts calcify? This colloquium will pursue the theoretical aim of critically assessing the central paradigms mobilized to account for protest – and ‘non-consent’ – on the African continent, with the hope, among others, that this will contribute to emphasizing the extremely dated and historically situated character of the concept of social movement. How have the analytical tools of the sociology of social movements circulated and been applied to the African continent? With what gains? What is to be made of intersections or, on the contrary, of the differences in the application, or not, of these theoretical frameworks? What is their (more or less) added value, compared to approaches on popular modes of political action – which provide a grid of analysis whose relevance should also be questioned? How should one articulate recent writings in social movement sociology that purport to take into account the transnationalization of mobilizations and the new perspectives opened by a historical sociology of extraversion (J.-F. Bayart)? Should one think at once the circulation and internationalization of modes of protest and that of the theoretical tools purporting to account for them?

On the basis of this theoretical interrogation, the colloquium aims at fostering innovative empirical work on the question of struggles in the Africa-s. Paradoxically, during the decades of dictatorships and then ‘liberalization’, research on mobilizations, including on processes of delegitimization of authorities, have been set aside. Writings exploring forms of circulation between diverse strata of society have first obscured forms of dissent – culminating with a focus on ‘civil society’ that has ‘neutralized’ research on this theme. As the notion has definitely been cast away as non-operative, work on diverse forms of struggles can anew venture on slippery fields (religious, militia, peasant groups) and sound out the most relevant theoretical tools to address these phenomena.

Focus of the colloquium: This colloquium is open to all social sciences traditions: history, anthropology, sociology, political science, economy… The historical focus is not limited to the period ranging from the 19th to the 21st centuries (…). Discussions will not be based on a prior typology of struggles to be analyzed (social movements, riots, mobilizations), but rather on forms of dissent or protest, be they head-on or indirect, collective or individual, against given forms of authority. (… …)

Practical modalities: (…). Oral communications can be performed in French or in English.

For further information on the focus of the colloquium, please contact: jsimeant@univ-paris1.fr

Scientific committee: Richard Banégas (Université Paris I, CEMAF), Jean-François Bayart (CERI-CNRS), Jean Copans (EHESS), Miles Larmer (University of Sheffield), John Lonsdale (Trinity College, Cambridge), Marie-Emmanuelle Pommerolle (Université des Antilles Guyane – IESG- CRPLC), Johanna Siméant (Université Paris I, CRPS), Anne-Catherine Wagner (Université Paris I, CSE), Klaas van Walraven (African Studies Centre, Leiden)”]

Trocam-se olhares e, com eles, permutam-se ideias e imagens que concebemos do mundo e dos outros, construídas mediante informações – reais ou fantasiadas, abundantes ou escassas –; através de manifestações artísticas, simbólicas e culturais; e, também, pelos relatos, escritos ou orais, vestígios dos homens e do Mundo que pensamos conhecer. Figuras, formas, visões mais ou menos completas, elaboradas em cada época. Símbolos, narrativas, documentos que marcam as relações dos povos com os seus aparatos, exibições, manifestações de poder, conflitos e permutas culturais. Num jogo de reconhecimento, familiaridade, cumplicidades, que comporta, igualmente, tantas outras formas de dissimulação, equívocos, enganos e confrontos.

As representações erigidas resultam do conhecimento, interpretação e comparação da história, cultura, vida material e organização das diversas gentes em cada local, a começar, desde logo, pela imagem que fazem de si próprias e que exibem para os outros.

O passado lá está. Belo, enigmático, generoso, mas também horrível e cruel. Para os construtores de ilusões, ele pode ser simples, reconfortante, imaculado. Para o investigador, ele é, no entanto, o olhar em esforço de imparcialidade. A utopia de o penetrar, não pretendendo apagá-lo, diminuí-lo, esbatê-lo. Não há nada a mitificar, manipular. A esquecer. A distorcer.

O olhar sobre África e dela sobre o mundo, nos dias de hoje, exige um renovado esforço de compreensão. Este colóquio a múltiplas vozes, organizado pelo Centro de História de Além-Mar (CHAM) da Universidade dos Açores e da Universidade Nova de Lisboa, quer ser um contributo para este movimento.

(... ...)

Comissão Científica: – Isabel Castro Henriques; – João Paulo Borges Coelho; – João Paulo Oliveira e Costa; – José Damião Rodrigues; – Casimiro Rodrigues.

Comissão Organizadora: – Casimiro Rodrigues; – José Damião Rodrigues; – Ricardo Madruga da Costa.

Contactos: – casimiro@uac.pt; – damiao@uac.pt Webpage: www.coloquioafrica09.info”]
– 01 a 21 de Dezembro de 2009 – 3.º Festival Mundial das Artes Negras (FESMAN III), subordinado ao tema A Renascença Africana, em Dacar. Durante uma visita oficial a Cabo Verde, o coordenador geral do FESMAN III, o senegalês Alioune Badara Beye, assegurou que a edição deste ano conta com a participação de 82 países, o dobro dos que participaram na edição anterior (FESMAN II, Lagos, Nigéria, 1977, com o tema Civilização Negra e Educação).
– 07 a 09 de Dezembro de 2009 – States at Work in Sub-Saharan Africa. Conferência Internacional de Niamey (Níger). [“Call for Papers: This international conference is interested in the processes involved in the construction of the state and their everyday manifestation in African countries. For a long time, the state in Africa has been the privileged terrain of political science, which produced studies focussing, in the main, on the political institutions or the political elites and their behaviours. With a few exceptions, the ordinary functioning of state, public and parapublic institutions remained under-researched.

The analysis of the day-to-day functioning of the state calls for innovative approaches based on methods drawn from social anthropology, political and administrative science, sociology as well as historiography. A major consideration should be the fact that the construction of the state is not a process that can be completed once and for all, but is, instead, a continuous process of composition and re-composition. We invite contributions which are open to the different sectors in which the activities of the state unfold, i.e. beyond its openly normative dimensions. Similarly, they may take into account the different (central and local) levels of rootedness of the state. Finally, seen from this perspective, the state should also be considered as a complex organization that supplies goods and services. This is why an analytical process of this nature should not be limited to the strict framework of a single discipline. The aim is to make the state an ordinary object of study by different academic disciplines and with a strong empirical grounding.

This conference will provide an opportunity for the presentation and sharing of new research on the topic. It is open to comparative approaches and to different disciplinary perspectives. Different dimensions may be taken into account, such as the dynamic of African bureaucracies, policy development and implementation and the construction of the professional cultures of public officials. The conference is also open to more theoretical contributions.

The conference will be organized by LASDEL in Niamey in cooperation with the Department of Anthropology and African Studies of the Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz (Germany) as part of the ‘States at Work’ research programme (financed by the Volkswagen Foundation; cf.

The conference will take place in Niamey from 7 to 9 December 2009. The working languages are French and English.”] Contactos: LASDEL – BP 12901, Niamey, Niger.

Tel. + 227 20723780 E-mail: lasdel@lasdel.net URL: http://www.lasdel.net/
– 08 e 09 de Dezembro de 2009 – Colóquio Internacional Magreb & Ibéria: Do confronto à cooperação. Tetuão (Marrocos). [“A Faculté des Lettres et des Sciences Humaines de Tétouan/ Département d’Histoire e o CEAUP (Centro de Estudos Africanos da Universidade do Porto) organizam, em colaboração com a Revue SémiotiqueS, um Colóquio internacional (...).

O Magreb e os países ibéricos desenvolveram, desde a época moderna, relações muito complexas. Desde o século XV que a história destas duas regiões não pode ser escrita separadamente. Conquistas, intervenções em guerras civis, hegemonias coloniais e descolonizações foram-se sucedendo, deixando uma forte marca nestas duas sociedades. Este Colóquio pretende reavaliar um pouco desta história comum, sobretudo numa época em que outras potências (França, Alemanha, Inglaterra, Estados Unidos) se tornaram também parceiros mais importantes nesta região do Atlântico e do Mediterrâneo ocidental.

Para mais informações contactar o CEAUP: Centro de Estudos Africanos U.P. – Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto – Via Panorâmica s/n – 4150-564 Porto; telf./fax: +351 22 607 71 41; e-mail: ceaup@letras.up.pt; ou Prof. Nizar Tajditi – Révue SémiotiqueS, La Poste, Touabel, B.P. 4370, Tétouan – Maroc. E-mail: ntajditi@yahoo.fr”]