Events
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Art Exhibition: ‘Fragments’
Museum of Science and Technology Barnes Road, Accra -
Public Lecture: Hybrid governance and shadow economies: violent networks and community responses in Northern Benin; Speaker: Kamal Donko
MIASA Seminar RoomAbstract: Taking the border town of Malanville as a case study, in this presentation I examine the linkages between shadow economies and networks of violent actors and how people navigate this environment. Northern Benin is marked by persistent socio-economic precarity, limited state presence, and rising insecurity. Based on a qualitative approach, the analysis draws on ... Read more
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Book Launch: “Prospects of Regional Integration in Africa”
In 2021, MIASA's first thematic conference on "Prospects of Regional Integration in Africa: A Comparative Perspective" was held at the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study (STIAS) in South Africa from 13-15 September 2021. The conference was funded by MIASA and convened by Prof Abena Oduro, then Acting Director Ghana of MIASA, together with Prof Andreas ... Read more
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Public Lecture: Ghana’s Inland Ocean: The Infrastructuresand Technopoliticsof Volta Lake; Speaker: Professor Stephan F. Miescher
MIASA Seminar RoomAbstract: Ghana’s hydroelectric Akosombo Dam created a vast lake extending 250 miles to the north. Although the planners promoted Akosombo as a multi-purpose scheme, lake transport was an afterthought. When the dam was completed in 1965, no decisions had been made of how Ghana would use the lake’s resources, deal with its challenges, and cope ... Read more
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Writing Workshop 2025: Democracy, Conflict Resolution and Climate Change
The Merian Institute for Advanced Studies in Africa (MIASA) seeks to provide Africa-based early career researchers working on the themes of democracy, conflict resolution 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 ... Read more
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Public Lecture: Costumes and kin: the (un)making of female togetherness in Accra’s zongos; Speaker: Ann Cassiman
MIASA Seminar RoomAbstract: A common practice in West-Africa, especially among women, is to sew matching outfits made from the same fabric to wear on large public occasions, as an expression of solidarity and unity, but also as a spectacle of cosmopolitanism and self-making. The larger and more visible the groups wearing these 'uniforms', the more grandiose and ... Read more
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Public Lecture: Keeping the flame alive: Commemorating martyrs in the Sudanese revolution; Speaker: Valerie Haensch
MIASA Seminar RoomAbstract: Since the start of Sudan’s December 2018 revolution and the overthrow of President al-Bashir in April 2019, competing struggles have been going on between supporters of the ousted Islamist regime and those of the revolutionary movement. Following the fall of the regime, a transitional government consisting of military and civilian members was established in ... Read more
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Conference: Cash in Crisis in Africa: Navigating Financial Realities in Times of Disruption
Financial technology advancements have drastically transformed Africa’s payment ecosystem and relationships with money. Yet physical cash (notes and coins) remains an enduring feature of Africa’s formal and informal economies. This conference explores the often conflicting dynamics between policy and governance frameworks, and crises, in shaping—and being shaped by—the circulation, accessibility, and utilization of cash in ... Read more
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Public Lecture: (Un)silencing women in the colonial archive; Speaker: Stephanie Lämmert
MIASA Seminar RoomAbstract: This talk concerns women’s protest in colonial Tanzania. Specifically, I look at how the role of Usambara women in the protest against agrarian change after the Second World War has been silenced. Drawing on gender and labour scholar Lyn Ossome, I am thinking of this silencing of women’s activism as a form of structural ... Read more
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Film Screening: “Man’s Greatest Lake” and “Who is Free?” by R. Lane Clark and Stephan F. Miescher
MIASA Seminar Room“Man’s Greatest Lake,” an episode of the documentary series GHANA’S ELECTRIC DREAMS,explores unanticipated consequences from the creation of the world’s largest man-made lake behind Akosombo Dam. The film takes viewers across the water to meet people whose lives were forever altered. Volta Lake flooded forests and fertile grasslands, creating a vast aquatic environment for a bountiful fishing ... Read more
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MIASA-PAPA Conference 2025: Sustainable Governance in Africa: The Usefulness of the Concept of Crisis
University Houphouët Boigny in Abidjan, Côte d'IvoireThe Merian Institute for Advanced Studies in Africa (MIASA) at the University of Ghana in Accra and the Pilot African Postgraduate Academy (PAPA) at Point Sud, are organizing, in collaboration with the Goethe University in Frankfurt (Germany), an international colloquium on the concept of crisis, widely used in African studies, from 12 to 14 June ... Read more
