Lectures

Abstract: This lecture explores the roles played by community radio stations in times of security crisis, using the concepts of fragility, resilience and reciprocity. Through a qualitative approach, we examine how the crisis fragilizes community radio stations in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso and their relationships with the “communities”. As an inherently reciprocal medium, community radios and their “communities” ... Read more

Abstract: Our era is defined by a deep sense of urgency, and a collective sense of despair, even hopelessness, among many young people. Africans and people of African descent have highly developed skills to cope with turbulence, pain and trauma—slavery, colonialism, the effects of our neo-liberal and capitalist world. Yet we have not had to ... Read more

Abstract: The recent changes of government in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, brought about by military coups, have been accompanied by a significant geopolitical shift in the central Sahel region. The three states have withdrawn from ECOWAS and set up a new alliance, the Confederation of Sahel States. Whereas the dominant framing of Western mainstream media is a geopolitical one, classifying African politics into the current remake of the East-West conflict, in Africa, the diaspora, and among the internationalist left it is argued about whether the recent developments in the Sahel represent a new Pan-Africanism. The current president ofBurkina Faso, Ibrahim Traoré, plays a key role in this regard. He is frequently compared to one of his predecessors, Thomas Sankara, an icon of Pan-Africanism. This lecture reflects on the extent to which this comparison makes sense. Are we witnessing are revival of Sankara’s legacy? And do the recent geopolitics in theregion represent a new form of Pan-Africanism? Bettina Engels is Guest Professor for Peace and Conflict Studies at the Department of Political and Social Sciences at Freie Universität Berlin. Her research and teaching focuses on agrarian change, class and labor, social movements and popular struggles, recent conflicts in the Sahel, and conflicts over land and mining. She is editor of the Handbook of Critical Agrarian Studies and the Review of African Political Economy. This lecture is open to the public. For virtual participation via Zoom, please use the following ... Read more

Abstract: With global warming on the rise, the use of air conditioners is steadily increasing in Yaoundé, the capital of Cameroon. Only, these cooling devices have to be maintained and repaired by youngs local technician-contractors who face various obstacles in accomplishing their work. Drawing on the biographical accounts of these emerging actors in a precarious ... Read more

Academic publishing practices play a gatekeeping role in determining what counts as “academic knowledge,” shaping both what scholars read and what they are able to publish. They operate within a global context in which epistemologies are shaped by asymmetrical power relations, material conditions, and patterns of (neo)coloniality. For example, research on citation patterns shows that ... Read more