Maria Sibylla Merian Institute for Advanced Studies in Africa (MIASA)
Welcome to the Merian Institute for Advanced Studies in Africa (MIASA)! MIASA was created in 2018 at the College of Humanities at the University of Ghana, Legon campus. It is based on a collaboration between the University of Ghana and a consortium of German partners – the University of Freiburg, Goethe University Frankfurt, the German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA), and the German Historical Institute Paris (DHIP).
MIASA is dedicated to the topic of ‘Sustainable Governance’. We define ‘governance’ as the interplay of informal and formal rules for steering public affairs, embedded in historically contextualized social, material and cultural practices of everyday life. MIASA’s three research foci are: sustainable environmental transformation, sustainable conflict management, and sustainable democracy. The Institute also covers intersectional topics like landownership and acquisition, migration and mobility, restitution of colonially acquired cultural objects, African cities, and human rights.
MIASA offers fellowships for senior and junior postdoctoral researchers from the Humanities and Social Sciences. MIASA’s programmes are funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), with cofunding from the University of Ghana.
Overarching aims of MIASA are working towards a reduction of global asymmetries in knowledge production and bridging the cultural divide between anglophone and francophone Africa. MIASA will serve as a hub for exchange, networking and collaboration amongst leading researchers from Ghana, Germany, the African and European continents and beyond.
Besides its fellowship programme MIASA organizes a broad range of events, including thematic conferences (in Ghana and other African countries), policy conferences, the Annual Anton Wilhelm Amo Lecture, as well as workshops for early career researchers from Africa such as Writing Workshops, Publishing Workshops and Female Academic Careers in Africa Workshops.
Key findings of MIASA’s research are published in the institute’s working paper series (available on UGSpace), on MIASA’s academic blog and as external papers in peer reviewed journals and books.
MIASA Events
Anton Wilhelm Amo Lecture 2024: Ancestral Knowledge for Contemporary Transformation; Invited Speaker: Toyin Falola (University of Texas at Austin)
Venue: Great Hall, University of Ghana This lecture focuses on the important role of ancestral knowledge in transformation in contemporary Africa. Drawing on traditional ecological knowledge, cultural knowledge, and community ... Read more
MIASA-PAPA Conference
Sustainable Governance in Africa: The Usefulness of the Concept of Crisis Point Sud, Bamako, Mali The Merian Institute for Advanced Studies in Africa (MIASA) at the University of Ghana in ... Read more
Call for Papers and Panels: MIASA Policy Conference on “Dealing with conflict, preparing for sustainable peace: Current research and its policy implications”
ISSER Conference HallSubmission deadline: 1 September 2024 This MIASA conference is jointly organised by the German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA), the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC) and ... Read more
News
Announcements
MIASA Blog
- Traditional forms of land use in West Africa often include the integration of useful indigenous trees into the farmscapes. Economically […]
- PDF version of this article Living and theorizing endogenous religions Religions are made by the people who live them. The […]
- Scholarship on the environmental history of Africa largely demonstrates that European colonial rule involved exercising power over nature. Moreover, as […]
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