Capitalism permeates many aspects of social life and has developed into an analytical concept within the different disciplines of African Studies. It surpasses the economic dimension, and geographical and cultural borders. However capitalism has also been contested within local and national contexts. As a part of the biannual conference of the VAD, Vereinigung für Afrikawissenschaften in Deutschland e.V. (African Studies Association in Germany), we are inviting applications for the young scholars conference which will take place a day prior to the main conference in Berlin on July 20th, 2016.The VAD Nachwuchstagung welcomes young scholars of African Studies to submit abstracts for an interdisciplinary exchange revisiting capitalism and its respective representations, implications and appropriations in Africa.
Topics for possible papers can include, but are not limited to:
– Philosophy of Africapitalism and local entrepreneurship
– Knowledge production, networks and ideologies
– Representations of social transformation induced by capitalism (such as in legal/ intellectual discourse, cultivation patterns, in witchcraft idioms…)
– Legal change and capitalism (landownership, rights to labor, property rights)
– Capitalism and developmentalism and the role of international experts
– Public private partnerships (in medicine, education, …)
– Capitalism and work/labor (working ethics, parallel regimes and asymmetrical means of enforcement, labor representation…)
– Alternative discourses and practices countering capitalist transformations
– The role of the growing middle class
– Remittances and returning migrants as drivers of (neoliberal) capitalism
– Debt as social practice; governance and capitalism
– Small scale capitalization and the digital revolution
– Portrayals and representations of capitalism in literature, film and music
– Globalization and commercialization of the African art market
– New publishing, pricing, publicity and content strategies in African literature
– The impact of capitalism on oral literature and African languages
– Methodological challenges, biases and inequalities in African Studies
The format of our conference:
The conference will have a peer-review structure. We believe this structure to be of great value since every individual will have the opportunity to receive feedback and engage with each one another’s work. Participants will be asked to submit their papers ahead of time so that other participants may read them beforehand. Papers will be organized in interdisciplinary thematic panels. Furthermore, we will assign 'presenter tandems'. This means that participant A will present participant B's paper and comment on it, and participant B doing the reverse for partner A's paper. This has proven to be a productive format that guarantees each presenter receives well-founded feedback and typically initiates a constructive, non-hierarchical discussion among peers.
In addition, there will be workshops on topics such as publishing strategies in African Studies.
We will offer a number of free accommodation opportunities at the places of Berlin-based participants. If you are interested, please notify us in your application.
Timeline:
We invite you to submit an abstract of max. 250 words. Submissions are preferred in English, but we also accept proposals in German and French. After the notification of acceptance you will be requested to submit your complete paper, which should be 4,000-6,000 words in length.
Deadline for the abstract: May 15th 2016
Notification: June 1st 2016
Deadline paper: July 1st 2016
Please submit abstracts to: vad.nachwuchskonferenz@gmail.com