Joint Conference of the “African Studies Association in Germany (VAD)” and the “Swiss Society for African Studies (SGAS)”
Please send your application including a short abstract (max. 500 words) and a short description of yourself (current position, research interest, max. 3 relevant publications) directly to the chair of the panel. The chair of the panel is in charge of the approval or refusal of the application. General conference languages are German, English and French. Please consult the chair of the panel about the language approved in your panel.
There is no guarantee to provide the participants with funds for travelling and accommodation. However, the organisers will try to arrange for travel subsidies on an individual bases.
Deadline for submission of paper abstracts is July 31 2007.
Please adress questions regarding orgaisational matters to Prof. Till Förster, Centre for African Studies Basel (zasb@uni-basel.de) or to Martin Adelmann, Arnold-Bergstraesser Institut Freiburg (martin.adelmann@gmx.de).
Theme I:
Environmental Change: global processes, local effects
Environmental change is a global phenomenon par excellence. There is hardly another field in which it is so obvious that local changes have global consequences, and vice versa. The scope of this change can only be grasped by bringing together the perspectives of the natural and the social sciences. The focus of the block is not only on a comprehensive understanding of humans’ role as perpetrators and victims, in our case the people of Africa; it is equally necessary to look at the natural basis of life in Africa and at the possibilities of active governance in the field of environmental change.
Panel 1: „Environmental change: the African challenge“
Panel chair: Prof. Peter Nagel, University of Basel
email: peter.nagel@unibas.ch
Panel 2: “Man – Nature relationships in the West African Sudan and Sahel: naturalist, historical and contemporaneous perspectives”
Panel chair: Dr. Anne Mayor, Université de Genève
email: anne.mayor@anthro.unige.ch
Panel 3: “Land Use Change as Response to Environmental and Socio-economic Change, its Effects on Desert Margin Ecosystems, and its Governance in Southern Africa”
Panel chair: Prof. Rainer Glawion, University of Freiburg
email: rainer.glawion@geographie.uni-freiburg.de
Panel 4: “Urbanization and the overlooked rural-urban continuum in Africa”
Panel chair: Prof. Axel Drescher, University of Freiburg
email: Axel.Drescher@geographie.uni-freiburg.de
Panel 5: „New Boundaries for Development? Adaptation to Climate Change in Southern Africa“
Panel chair: Dr. Steffen Bauer, German Development Institute
Dr. Imme Scholz, German Development Institute
email: steffen.bauer@die-gdi.de
Theme II:
Between times and spaces: the negotiation of culture Barriers are also erected between times and spaces. These barriers are the object of processes of cultural negotiation. Contemporary African societies are not the extrapolation of some past,
whether pre-colonial, colonial or post-colonial, but simply the expression of the new that is displacing the old. Hence, one core question is how to move beyond concepts of old versus new in describing cultural change in Africa. Cultural change embraces all fields and expressions of culture, i.e. artistic, literary, linguistic, ethical, religious and other processes and transitions. Panels on this topic deal with, among other subjects, forms of cultural interaction, participation and representation. This touches on the question of how such change influences possibilities and opportunities of social and individual participation in public life.
Panel 6: „Old and new religious movements in South Africa“
Panel chair: Dr. Helga Dickow, Arnold-Berstraesser-Institute Freiburg; Dr. Andreas Hauser, Profilstelle Mission, Ökumene, Bildung, Haus der Kirche, Limburg
email: HelgaDickow@web.de
heuserandreas@yahoo.de
Panel 7: „Dynamic Passages in African Cultures: Inermediality“
Panel chair: Prof. Susanne Gehrmann, Humboldt University Berlin; Viola Prüschenk, Montreal
email: susanne.gehrmann@rz.hu-berlin.de
violaprueschenk@gmx.de
Panel 8: „Visualising border areas and border experiences in colonial Namibia”
Panel chair: Prof. Gesine Krüger, University of Zürich
Lorena Rizzo, University of Zürich
email: g.krueger@access.unizh.ch
l.rizzo@access.unizh.ch
Panel 9: “Seeing the African City: Explorations in the Visual Culture of African Cityscapes”
Panel chair: René Egloff, University of Basel; Prof. Till Förster, University of Basel
email: reneegloff@gmx.ch
till.foerster@unibas.ch
Panel 10: “Managing Boundaries and Spheres of Transition”
Panel chair: Prof. Patrick Harries, University of Basel
Prof. Brigitte Reinwald, University of Hannover
Dr. Kirsten Rüther, University of Hannover
email: Kirsten.ruether@hist.uni-hannover.de
Brigitte.reinwald@hist.uni-hannover.de
Patrick.harries@unibas.ch
Panel 11: “Making the invisible visible: Mapping histories, traditions and spatial divide in Africa”
Panel chair: Dr. Guy Thomas, Universität Basel/Mission 21
Dr. Kai Kresse, University of St. Andrews/ Centre for Modern
Oriental Studies Berlin
email: guy.thomas@mission-21.org
Panel 12: “Negotiating cultural boundaries in the aftermath of conflict”
Panel chair: Dr. Anna-Maria Brandstetter, Universität Mainz
Heike Becker, University of Western Cape, South Africa
email: hbecker@uwc.ac.za
brandste@uni-mainz.de
Theme III:
Passages and transitions: the re-configuration of the social
Transformation processes in African societies are so far-reaching that it has become standard for actors and observers to view fractures and fissures in social organization as the norm rather than the exception. At the same time, continuities persist alongside the fractures and govern many areas of daily life even in societies forced to reform by constraints and violence. Panels on this topic focus on passages and transitions in social expression that trigger or have triggered fundamental changes in the configuration of societies. Conversely, an interesting question is how specific configurations of social expression generate such passages and transitions in the first place.
Panel 13: “Gender and the Paradoxes of Change and Persistence”
Panel chair: Dr. Stephan Mayer, University of Basel
email: stephan.meyer@unibas.ch
Panel 14: „Transformations in generation relationships in West Africa“
Panel chair: Dr. Lilo Roost Vischer, University of Basel
Dr. Claudia Roth, University of Zürich
lic.phil. Denise Efionayi-Mäder
Dr. Heike Drotbohm, University of Freiburg
email: lilo.roost-vischer@unibas.ch
heike.drotbohm@ethno.uni-freiburg.de
Panel 15: “Health without Borders: Illusion or reality”
Panel chair: Prof. Brigit Obrist, University of Basel
Dr. Flora Kessy, Ifakara Health Research and Dev. Centre,
Tanzania
Dr. Piet van Eeuwijk, University of Basel
email: Brigit.obrist@unibas.ch
Panel 16: “Middlemen Minorities - Vulnerable or dominant? The case of Asians in East & Central Africa, and Jews in Europe”
Panel chair: Dr. Nandini Patel, Institute for Policy Interaction (IPI), Blantyre
Dr. Veit Arlt, University of Basel
email: mansadini@yahoo.com
Veit.Arlt@unibas.ch
Panel 17: „Violence and Survival: The South West African War“
Panel chair: Dr. Dag Henrichsen, Basler Afrika Bibliographien
email: henrichsen.bab@bluewin.ch
Panel 18: „Memory Practices in the Aftermath of Mass Violence, War and Genocide”
Panelchair: Prof. Reinhart Kößler, Arnold-Bergstraesser-Institute Freiburg
email: r-koessler@gmx.de
Panel 19: „Critical Junctures of Globalization in Africa“
Panel chair: Prof. Ulf Engel, University of Leipzig
email: uengel@uni-leipzig.de
Panel 20: “Renegotiating and overcoming frontiers and constituting crosscutting and overlapping social spaces and institutions: conceptual and methodological issues in development”
Panel chair: Prof. Gudrun Lachenmann, University of Bielefeld
Dr. Salma Nageeb, University of Bielefeld
email: gudrun.lachenmann@uni-bielefeld.de
snageeb@yahoo.com
Panel 21: Borderline Biographies in Africa. Context and Text
Panel chair: Dr. Achim von Oppen, Centre for Modern Oriental Studies Berlin
Dr. Silke Strickrodt, Humboldt University Berlin
email: oppen@zedat.fu-berlin.de
strickrodt@staff.hu-berlin.de
Panel 22: Life cycles, moments of transitions and life courses in African societies
Panel chair: Astrid Bochow, University of Bayreuth
Dr. Jeannett Martin, University of Bayreuth
email: astrid.bochow@uni-bayreuth.de
jeannett.martin@uni-bayreuth.de
Theme IV:
Barriers and frontiers: the transformation of politics
Since the end of the Cold War, the political playing field in many African countries has been redefined. Migration within the borders of individual states and across national or continental borders, precarious statehood, and new political actors are as much expressions of these transformations as the gradual transcendence of national frontiers in the process of regional and continental integration. Panels on this topic focus on processes of political and social change and their manifold – i.e. also historical – causes. The debate about the various and often competing conceptual and methodological approaches is also addressed. How can we define change and specify its boundaries?
Panel 23: Beyond the Failed State: Statehood and self-organisation after crisis
Panel chair: Dr. Gregor Dobler, University of Basel
Prof. Till Förster, University of Basel
email: gregor.dobler@unibas.ch
till.foerster@unibas.ch
Panel 24: Social impacts of state borders: separation, survival, creativity
Panelchair: Prof. Reinhart Kößler, Arnold-Bergstraesser-Institute Freiburg
email: r-koessler@gmx.de
Panel 25: Passages to democracy? Africa’s diverse regime transitions revisited
Panel chair: Dr. Christian von Soest
Alexander Stroh
email: soest@giga-hamburg.de
stroh@giga-hamburg.de
Panel 26: Social Transformation and Social Capital in Africa
Panel chair: Helge Roxin, Arnold-Bergstraesser-Institute Freiburg
email: helge.roxin@politik.uni-freiburg.de
Panel 27: Overcoming Borders: Regional Co-operation in Africa
Panel chair: Martin Adelmann, Arnold-Bergstraesser-Institute Freiburg
email: martin.adelmann@gmx.de