Institute of African Studies - Carleton University

April 29 2016

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African Studies Newsletter

Event @ Carleton: “Resource Politics and Advocacy Struggles in Zimbabwe”

  • When: May 18, 2016
  • Time: 4:00 PM
  • Location: Dunton Tower
  • Room: 2017 (Arts Lounge)
  • Cost: Free
  • Intended Audience: Anyone
  • Email contact: African.Studies@carleton.ca

The Institute of African Studies presents

"Resource Politics and Advocacy Struggles in Zimbabwe: Encountering Power at Multiple Scales"

with

Sam Spiegel, University of Edinburgh

As the mining sector in Africa continues to expand, questions are being asked about how power relations are changing in mining economies as well as the extent to which global discourses engage with local advocacies on the ground. This talk will discuss global representations of power and politics in Zimbabwe's gold and diamond mining sectors. Drawing on the author's fieldwork in Zimbabwe between 2005 and 2015, it will explore gaps between the analytic focus points of global mining sector analysts and the advocacies of artisanal and small-scale miners' associations, as economic struggles have driven large numbers of people to depend on rudimentary mineral extraction. The talk with examine how global discourses of modern order and regulation have been politically instrumentalised and how associations of artisanal and small-scale miners have sought to contest controversial national policies and rebuild livelihoods in the aftermath of widespread police crackdowns, with uneven results.

Dr. Sam Spiegel is a Lecturer in International Development at the University of Edinburgh and Director of the MSc Programme in Global Challenges and the Postgraduate Certificate Programme in Africa and International Development. His research engages multiple themes in the study of international development, human geography, environmental governance, public health and political ecology, with a focus on extractive sector issues and debates.

"Crossing borders to find common ground” with Leymah Gbowee

Friday, May 6, 2016
6 p.m.
Shaw Centre, Trillium Ballroom, 55 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa
Join alumnus Alex Trebek as he welcomes 2011 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Leymah Gbowee to speak on the topic of "Crossing borders to find common ground.”
Leymah Gbowee is a Liberian peace activist, author and women's rights advocate. Her leadership of the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace brought together Christian and Muslim women in a nonviolent movement that played a pivotal role in ending Liberia's fourteen-year civil war in 2003. This historic achievement paved the way for the election of Africa’s first female head of state, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. Purchase tickets here:
http://www.uottawa.ca/alumni-week/content/alex-trebek-distinguished-lecture-series?utm_source=mailoutinteractive&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=A%20Nobel%20Peace%20Prize%20Laureate%20speaks%20at%20uOttawa

REMINDER-Event @ Carleton: "From Climate Change to Environmental Sustainability: Challenges and Opportunities for Africa and Canada"

  • When: May 04, 2016
  • Time: All day
  • Location: River Building
  • Room: 2220-2280
  • Cost: Free

2016 Conference

The Institute of African Studies In conjunction with The Group of African Heads of Mission in Ottawa & NPSIA, BGINS, ASG, Pan-Africa Affairs Division, GAC Present:From Climate Change to Environmental Sustainability: Challenges and Opportunities for Africa and Canada

 

 Panel 1: Assessing the Effects of Climate Change in Africa: The Unique Impact on Women

Panel 2: Supporting African Innovation: Renewable Energy, Agriculture and Women's Empowerment

Panel 3: Strengthening Canada-Africa Partnerships: Policy Solutions to Building Climate Resilience

Please register on eventbrite .

Call for Papers: Revisiting Capitalism and Africa

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

Call for Papers: Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies PhD Symposium 2016

 

The London School of Economics and Political Science,

Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE

Thursday 30th June & Friday 1st July, 2016

 

You are invited to participate in the seventh annual Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies (REPS) PhD symposium. Building on the success of recent years, the REPS symposium provides an intimate forum for PhD research students to exchange ideas, present new work, receive constructive feedback from scholars and work collaboratively with peers across disciplines and institutions. Leading academics in the field will chair sessions. Past chairs include: Claire Alexander, Les Back, Chetan Bhatt, Caroline Knowles, Anshuman Mondal, Paul Gilroy, Yasmin Gunaratnam, Michael Keith, Nirmal Puwar, Liza Schuster and John Solomos, among others. Panel chairs already confirmed for this year's symposium include Suki Ali and Coretta Phillips.

Presentations may be based on recently completed, in progress or planned research broadly related to issues and debates in race, ethnicity and post-colonial studies, including (but not limited to) migration, race and science, subaltern studies, black feminism, post-socialist challenges, and multiculturalism. This year's symposium will be hosted by Centre for Study of Human Rights, Departments of Sociology and Social Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science. It will take place over two full days: Thursday 30th June and Friday 1st July 2016. Participants are expected to attend both days.
Participants will each be given 12-15 minutes to present their work. Eligible formats include: Sole-authored papers; Co-authored papers; Dialogues between two or more participants around a ‘REPS’-themed paper or discussion topic; Film; Art work; Posters. Inputs will be clustered into sessions chaired by academics with opportunities for questions, answers and discussion in a supportive environment.

The deadline for title, abstracts and short bio (maximum 250 words) is midnight May 18th, 2016. Please ensure that the abstract highlights both the content and format of your input and be sure to include the name of your university affiliation and indicate your year of study. There are limited travel bursaries for students traveling from other parts of the UK to London, however, we are unable to offer financial assistance to students traveling from outside the UK. Applicants will be notified about acceptance by May 20th, 2016. For students applying from outside the UK, please flag this in your application and submit it early so that the committee can expedite the review of your proposal and notify international participants with time to make appropriate travel arrangements.
To submit titles and abstracts, or for further information, please contact the organising committee at mailto:reps.phd@gmail.com

 
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