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Public Lecture: Anton Wilhelm Amo: In-between Life Worlds; Speaker: Stefanie Bognitz
MIASA Seminar RoomAbstract: This lecture revisits the scholarship on Anton Wilhelm Amo, the first and only philosopher in early Enlightenment Europe born on the continent of Africa. It dwells on a selection of his network of interlocutors, mentors, and history of ideas that informed Amo’s life and thought. By returning to the worlds that shaped his intellectual ... Read more
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Symposium: Towards gender equality: transforming leadership and career development in higher education
VirtualThis two day symposium explores the barriers and facilitators of women’s leadership and career development in higher education across the global south and north. It includes a special two hour training session for early career scholars run by 64MillionArtists. Participants at all career stages will also have the opportunity, if they wish, to take part ... Read more
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Public Lecture: “Women, slavery and social mobility in Eastern Congo since the 1870s”; Speaker: Margot Luyckfasseel
Abstract: This lecture focuses on the experiences of women who became part of the East African trade caravan system in the late 19th century in what is today the Eastern DRCongo, whether it was through enslavement or marriage. While this history has been mostly narrated as explicitly male – not least because of colonial biases –, ... Read more
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Public Lecture: “Urban Market Dynamics and Conflicts over Marketplaces in Bamako, Accra, and Kumasi”; Speakers: Dr. Mahamadou Bassirou Tangara & Dr. Lamine Doumbia
MIASA Seminar RoomAbstract: This lecture examines urban markets in Bamako, Accra, and Kumasi through an interdisciplinary analytical lens. It focuses on the tensions surrounding the governance and usage of market spaces, especially under urban development agendas that are often framed by neoliberal logics of modernization, which can marginalize local actors and practices. Through comparative case studies, this project reveals how market users negotiate ... Read more
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Conference: Travelling Comparison Approach – launching a new framework for research, policy and practice for peace and security (IFG 13 Conference)
ISSER Conference Centre, University of GhanaAbstract: Scholars from across Africa and Europe are coming together at the University of Ghana on 3 December 2025 to establish a new way of doing and thinking comparison in peace and conflict studies. We discuss two key innovations: First, valuing decolonial practices through the centering of African voices in practice, methods and theory. Second, ... Read more
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Public lecture: Community Radio, Conflict and Peacebuilding in the Sahel; Speakers: Lassané Yaméogo & Viviane Schönbächler
MIASA Seminar RoomAbstract: 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
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Anton Wilhelm Amo Lecture 2025: Where are the therapeutic intellectuals? Popular culture and autobiographical narratives for justice and healing; Invited Speaker: Akosua Adomako Ampofo (Professor of African and Gender Studies, CEO & Director 715 House Media)
Great Hall, University of GhanaAbstract: 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
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Call for Applications: MIASA Publishing Workshop on 9-10 March 2026 at the University of Ghana (Application deadline: 19 December 2025)
Call for Applications The Merian Institute for Advanced Studies in Africa (MIASA) Publishing Workshop The MIASA Publishing Workshop for African scholars, jointly organised by Africa Spectrum (published by the GIGA Institute for African Affairs) and the Contemporary Journal of African Studies (published by the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana), will take place on 9 and ... Read more
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Call for Applications: Writing Workshop 2026 “Peace, Democracy and Green Energy” on 20-24 April 2026 at the University of Ghana (Application deadline: 5 January 2026)
The Merian Institute for Advanced Studies in Africa (MIASA) seeks to provide Africa-based early career researchers working on the themes of peace, democracy and green energy on the continent with the space and intellectual community to transform a draft paper into a publishable journal piece. The 5-day writing workshop is designed to provide early career ... Read more
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Call for Applications for Thematic Conference on “Rethinking Forced Displacement in Africa” from 26-28 March 2026 at LASPAD, St. Louis, Senegal (Application deadline: 15 January 2026)
Although Northern countries often claim to be struggling with migration crises, the majority of forced displacement occurs in the Global South. When analysed in this context, migration from the Global South is viewed as a 'problem' requiring an urgent and exceptional policy response (Brachet, 2009; Boyer & Mounkaila, 2020). Displaced people fleeing conflicts and natural ... Read more
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Coaching for success: transforming women’s leadership and career development in higher education (interactive training session)
Virtual EventThis two-hour creative and reflective online session invites early career researchers to explore coaching, mentoring, and leadership in academic life. Participants will reflect on how they give and receive support, develop listening and questioning skills, and consider how coaching and mentoring approaches can foster inclusive, equitable, and effective leadership. The session emphasises confidence, curiosity, and ... Read more
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Public Lecture: New Pan-Africanism in the Sahel? Speaker: Bettina Engels
MIASA Seminar RoomAbstract: 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
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