AFRI 3100/5100: African Studies Abroad
The study abroad course enables students to study a selected topic in African Studies with a Carleton professor in an African country (or countries) in which the professor carries out research. The students also learn from experts on the topic in the African country (or countries). The course is offered at both the undergraduate (AFRI 3100) and graduate (AFRI 5100) levels.
(Procession by Mildred Banda, http://thenjiwenkosi.com/border-farm/)
May 2017: Migration Lives and Livelihoods in South Africa
Professor Blair Rutherford (Sociology/Anthropology & African Studies), Johannesburg/Bushbuckridge/Musina, South Africa
This three week course will explore the various social, economic and political dynamics associated with migration in South Africa. As international debates, events and politics increasingly focus on issues surrounding immigration in Europe, North America, Australia and the Middle East, this course will examine how they have played out and have mattered in various and contentious ways in South Africa; a key political and economic state in Africa, yet one that has had a strong tradition of seeing itself as an exception to the rest of the continent. From its colonial founding in the seventeenth century to the massive scale of labour migration from within southern Africa to the expanding South African mining and agricultural industries in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, from the governing logics of its apartheid period (1948-1994) based on racialized and ethnicized population control to increased immigration from across Africa, xenophobic violence, and visceral debates around citizenship, jobs, and international relations in the post-apartheid period, migration has been a central component to the cultural politics of the economies, institutions, and politics of South Africa. This course will explore some of these histories and their traces and contours in the lives, economic livelihoods and social geographies of contemporary South Africa, including the impact of African migration on national identity formation and the politics of belonging within South Africa, particularly in terms of South Africa as an African nation. Through lectures by the professor and South African and South African-based academics, policy experts, artists, activists and practitioners as well as site visits, the students will richly learn about economic, historical, policy and social dimensions of issues surrounding migration.
This course will be based at the African Centre for Migration & Society (ACMS) at University of the Witwatersrand (commonly known as “Wits”) in Johannesburg, the leading research and policy centre on international migration in southern Africa. Trips to South African border zones with Mozambique and Zimbabwe are also planned. It is intended for this course to join with students of an ACMS course, allowing the Carleton and Wits students to jointly share in this learning experience.
Information sessions:
Tuesday, September 27th, 11:30am-1pm, 433 Paterson Hall (the History Lounge)
Monday, October 3rd, 6pm – 7:30pm, 436 Paterson Hall (the History Seminar room)
AFRI 3100/5100 Study Abroad Application Form (May 2017)
Powerpoint presentation from Information Session for 2017 course.
Contacts: African.studies@carleton.ca OR Blair.Rutherford@carleton.ca
The Institute of African Studies would like to express its deep appreciation to the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Carleton University, to all its financial and other support for this course over the years.
Photos From Past Trips
