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X-WR-CALDESC:Events for MIASA - Merian Institute for Advanced Studies in Africa
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DTSTART:20250101T000000
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Africa/Accra:20261027T150000
DTEND;TZID=Africa/Accra:20261027T163000
DTSTAMP:20261021T231856
CREATED:20261020T181653Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20261020T181656Z
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SUMMARY:Public Lecture: Beyond the Official Archive: Understanding Ngozi and Justice in Contemporary Zimbabwean Literature; Speaker: Yemurai Gwatirisa
DESCRIPTION:Abstract \n\n\n\nWhat happens when the dead refuse to remain in the past? How might African cosmologies of spiritual accountability illuminate the unresolved injustices of genocide and political violence? And what forms of justice become imaginable when the dead return as agents demanding confession\, reparation\, and moral redress? This lecture examines how contemporary Zimbabwean literary texts\, particularly Brian Chikwava’s Harare North (2009) and Novuyo Rosa Tshuma’s House of Stone (2019)\, grapple with how indigenous beliefs are used to understand questions of justice in the aftermath of traumatic historical experiences\, including the Gukurahundi genocide of the early 1980s and the violent political turmoil of the early 2000s. Situated at the intersection of literary anthropology and African Indigenous Knowledge Systems\, the lecture explores ngozi within Shona cosmology as a framework for understanding justice\, historical accountability\, and the enduring consequences of violence. Literary texts function as unofficial counter-archives capturing obscured historical experience. Harare North and House of Stone use spiritual presence and ancestral demands to narrate violence and confront unresolved injustice. Shona cosmology treats ngozi as a moral rupture requiring confession\, ritual\, and reparation. The dead act as metaphysical agents demanding redress\, challenging secular or state-centred justice. The lecture argues that attending to ngozi yields a culturally grounded justice where historical violence imposes ethical claims\, making restoration of relations inseparable from addressing past wrongs. \n\n\n\nYemurai Gwatirisa is an Adjunct Lecturer of German in the Department of Education and Language Skills\, Faculty of Health and Education at Botho University in Gaborone\, Botswana. She held a postdoctoral fellowship at Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule (RWTH) Aachen University in Germany and in 2023\, was awarded the African Peacebuilding Network Individual Research Fellowship by the Social Science Research Council. Her recent publications explore how fictional texts and poetry act as counter-archives that challenge official state narratives. \n\n\n\nThis lecture is open to the public. \n\n\n\nFor virtual participation via Zoom\, please use the following link: \n\n\n\nhttps://uni-freiburg.zoom-x.de/j/68432986862?pwd=sYvvqBCJ8r16dDKembVDsH65Rrxp94.1 \n\n\n\nMeeting-ID: 684 3298 6862Code: U1FFHe6vf \n\n     You are currently viewing a placeholder content from X. To access the actual content\, click the button below. Please note that doing so will share data with third-party providers.  More Information   Unblock content Accept required service and unblock content
URL:https://miasa.ug.edu.gh/event/public-lecture-gwatirisa/
CATEGORIES:Lectures
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Africa/Accra:20261118T090000
DTEND;TZID=Africa/Accra:20261120T170000
DTSTAMP:20261021T231856
CREATED:20260928T110809Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20261019T123114Z
UID:10000263-1794992400-1795194000@miasa.ug.edu.gh
SUMMARY:Conference: Militarization\, Coups and the Crisis of Constitutionalism in Africa – Democratic Regression and Constitutional Resilience
DESCRIPTION:Until recently not a prominent topic in comparative constitutional scholarship\, the role of the military is attracting more and more attention. Melissa Crouch for example has even argued for a “military turn in comparative constitutional law”\, observing however that “at present\, legal scholarship on constitutionalism in Africa makes little mention of the military” (Annual Review of Law and Social Science 2024\, at p. 59).  \n\n\n\nThe observation is surprising considering that direct and indirect involvement of the military in politics today presents a serious challenge to constitutional democracy in Africa. African militaries have\, at various times\, purported to act as arbiters of political crises\, guardians of the state\, protectors of democracy\, and agents of modernisation. However\, their involvement in politics has often undermined democratic processes\, prompting scholars to advocate for military disengagement from politics to facilitate democratic transition and consolidation.The relationship between civilian governments and the military in Africa has undergone significant transformations amidst a backdrop of militarisation and military coups\, influenced by a range of historical\, political\, socio-economic\, and institutional factors. Historically\, military involvement in politics can be traced to the colonial era\, when they were used by the colonialists to maintain law and order as well as protect the economic interests of the colonialists. This militarisation of internal security laid the groundwork for post-colonial military interventions\, as newly independent nations inherited militarised states\, resulting in the politicisation of African armies and a focus on internal security. \n\n\n\nSince independence\, military involvement in politics has created significant obstacles to constitutional democracy in Africa. The late 1980s and 1990s ushered in a wave of democratisation across Africa\, leading many countries to transition from military rule to democracy under new or revised constitutions\, some of which contain provisions that tried to regulate civil-military relations\, although the scope and content vary significantly from one constitution to another. The wave of democratisation and efforts to regulate civil-military relations contributed to a decrease in military coups compared to earlier decades\, military incursions into politics have persisted in post-1990s Africa. There is now a shift from traditional hard military coups\, characterised by violent power grabs\, to “soft coups\,” in which the military collaborates with politicians or leverages popular protests to share power. This transition has led to a politicised military that has effectively militarised political power\, gaining legitimacy through electoral processes. In many autocratic regimes\, the military remains the main actor for regime survival. Africa’s vulnerability to militarisation and coups is further exacerbated by weak civil societies that struggle to effectively challenge military actions. In some instances\, as was recently the case in Burkina Faso\, Guinea and Niger\, segments of civil society have even supported military interventions\, undermining efforts to promote democratic governance and reinforcing military influence in political affairs. The most recent coups in Madagascar and Guinea-Bissau\, and the “civilianisation” of the coup makers in Gabon and Guinea\, and the “self-coup” in Tunisia\, underscore the need to counter the increasing threats to Africa’s faltering democratic revival. \n\n\n\nThe purpose of the project is to analyse and better understand the impact of the military’s involvement in politics on constitutionalism in Africa by bringing together experts in a writing and publishing workshop. Under the theme “Militarisation\, Coups and the Crisis of Constitutionalism in Africa: Governance and Democratic Erosion”\, a group of 20 participants from across Africa and beyond will develop and present papers on different sub-themes: \n\n\n\n\nUnconstitutional Seizures of Power and the Evolution of Anti-Coup Norms\n\n\n\nMilitarisation Beyond Coups: The Expansion of Military Influence in Civilian Governance \n\n\n\nConstitutional Design and Military Power: Entrenchment\, Ambiguity and Loopholes\n\n\n\nJudicial Responses to Coups and Militarised Governance\n\n\n\nConstitutional Amendments\, Term Limits and “Soft Coups”\n\n\n\nThe Military\, Natural Resources and Political Economy of Power\n\n\n\nEmergency Powers\, Security Governance and Constitutional Erosion\n\n\n\nRegional and International Responses to Coups and Militarisation\n\n\n\nPopular Resistance\, Civil Society and Constitutional Resilience\n\n\n\nPathways to Reconstitutionalisation: Transitions from Military Rule\n\n\n\nRethinking Constitutionalism in Contexts of Militarisation\n\n\n\n\nAfter the conference\, participants will be invited to revise their drafts. Following an blind review process\, a selection of papers will be compiled to form an edited volume which could eventually be published as part of the Stellenbosch Handbooks in African Constitutional Law series of Oxford University Press\, the leading authority in the field of comparative constitutional law in Africa. \n\n\n\nThis conference is hosted by the Merian Institute for Advanced Studies in Africa (MIASA) at the University of Ghana\, and organized in collaboration with the Konrad Adenauer Foundation Abidjan\, the Institute for International and Comparative Law in Africa (ICLA)\, University of Pretoria\, South Africa\, and the RefLex Centre for Advanced Studies\, Faculty of Law\, Humboldt-University Berlin\, Germany. It is funded by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation Abidjan.
URL:https://miasa.ug.edu.gh/event/conference-militarization-coups-and-the-crisis-of-constitutionalism-in-africa/
LOCATION:J.H. Nketia Conference Hall\, Institute of African Studies (IAS)\, University of Ghana\, Legon
CATEGORIES:Workshops & Conferences
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Africa/Accra:20261118T170000
DTEND;TZID=Africa/Accra:20261118T190000
DTSTAMP:20261021T231856
CREATED:20260928T111519Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20261019T122954Z
UID:10000264-1795021200-1795028400@miasa.ug.edu.gh
SUMMARY:Public Lecture: Militarization\, Coups and the Crisis of Constitutionalism in Africa – Democratic Regression and Constitutional Resilience
DESCRIPTION:
URL:https://miasa.ug.edu.gh/event/public-lecture-militarization-coups-and-the-crisis-of-constitutionalism-in-africa/
LOCATION:J.H. Nketia Conference Hall\, Institute of African Studies (IAS)\, University of Ghana\, Legon
CATEGORIES:Lectures
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Africa/Accra:20261124T160000
DTEND;TZID=Africa/Accra:20261124T180000
DTSTAMP:20261021T231856
CREATED:20260928T120501Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260929T104304Z
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SUMMARY:Anton Wilhelm Amo Lecture 2026: The Genesis of Doubt: From Anton Wilhelm Amo to Ghana’s Democracy; Invited speaker: Prof. Ato Quayson\, Chair\, Department of African and African American Studies\, Stanford University
DESCRIPTION:Abstract \n\n\n\nThis lecture will adopt the life and work of Anton Wilhelm Amo as the take-off point for reflecting on the genesis of doubt and its uses in society and politics.  It will be shown through and interpretation of various sources from philosophy and literature that doubt has many modes of articulation\, partly in relation to established protocols of reasoning\, but also with respect to aesthetic objects and to shared communal values.  It will be shown that in philosophy doubt is elevated to a cardinal methodological principle regarding the interrogation of premises\, and that this interrogation forms the primary scaffolding for the construction of arguments in all branches of the discipline.  In literature\, on the other hand\, doubt is expressed in relation to affect and consciousness\, the primary mode relating to the rejection of dominant norms of being in society. Examples for the argument will be drawn from Aristotle’s Poetics  and NIcomachean Ethics\, the Book of Job\, Shakespeare’s Hamlet\, Chinua Achebe’s Arrow of God\, Ayi Kwei Armah’s The Beautyful Ones are Not Yet Born\, and Toni Morrison’s Beloved\, among various others.  Finally\, a foray will be made on speculations about the role of doubt in political discourse in Ghana.
URL:https://miasa.ug.edu.gh/event/anton-wilhelm-amo-lecture-2026/
LOCATION:Great Hall\, University of Ghana\, Legon
CATEGORIES:Lectures
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