Public Lecture: Cultural intermediation and the mediation of culture: The issue of cultural hegemonies in social gatherings Speaker: Dr. Laure Carbonnel
MIASA Conference Room, 18th April 2023 Abstract: Different people, groups, social worlds, and experiences, even when opposed, may be connectedin cultural centres, art schools , on musical platforms or at dance gatherings. They are places ofsociability where people meet, share and discover, but are also places where certain social imagery, habits, andworld views, impose themselves ... Read more
MIASA Writing Workshop 2023: “Peace, Democracy 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 peace, democracy and climate change on the continent with the space and intellectual community to transform a draft paper into a publishable journal piece. The 5-day writing workshop was designed to provide early career ... Read more
Public Lecture: Mapping Rubondo Island: Knowledge and Ignorance in the Construction of ‘Natural Space’ in Interlacustrine Africa since 1875, Speaker: Felix Schürmann
Abstract: National parks and other nature reserves are not remnants of »untouched wilderness« somewhere outside civilisation. In general, they have been transformed into ostensibly authentic natural spaces by persons and institutions who considered nature as to be protected. Media play an important role in such transformations. Using the case of Rubondo, the oldest and largest ... Read more
Conference: Increasing Women’s Political Presence in West Africa
Organizers: Interdisciplinary Fellow Group on "Increasing Women's Political Presence in West Africa" (IFG 8) Keynote address by Ayisha Osori (Open Society Foundation) on Women’s Political Power in West Africa and the Global Context of Democracy and its Discontents: The Nigeria Case Programm Abstract: In Africa, significant regional disparities in women’s presence in political office exist, with West Africa ... Read more
Public Lecture: The People’s “Calls” and “Counter-calls” For Paul Biya’s Candidature: Pre-election Confrontation, Hegemonic Tensions and the Struggle for Political Change in Cameroon; Speaker: Dr. Jean-Marcellin Manga Lebongo
Abstract: This paper questions the “calls” and “counter-calls” for Paul Biya’s candidature as a means to participate in political life. The calls for the candidature of the incumbent President show the construction of political allegiances that underlie various clientelist negotiations initiated by political leaders to maintain their hegemonic positions. However, the counter-calls highlight how, through ... Read more
Public Lecture: Responsibilizing parents to overcome blindness: Changing intergenerational relations through education for all in Northern Benin; Speaker: Prof. Erdmute Alber (University of Bayreuth)
Abstract: The lecture traces how the large Education for All campaigns transformed parental responsibilities, not only in terms ofthe costs of enrolment and the maintenance of schools, but also in terms of other changes in children’s life courses, whichare related to their schooling trajectories under difficult conditions. Alongside parental responsibilities for schooling, responsibilities for marriage, ... Read more
Conference: Restitution, Museums and Cultural Policies in West Africa
Auditorium of the Centre for Biodiversity Conservation Research, University of Ghana, June 22, 2023 Organizers: Kodzo Gavua (University of Ghana) & Hans Peter Hahn (Goethe University Frankfurt) Abstract: While restitution has increasingly become a concretely experienced practice in many countries of West Africa, urgent questions about future cultural policies in this region emerge. The factor that ... Read more
Public Lecture: “Our Mothers are Not Free” The Ndi’ishi Tradition and Social Control among the Nsukka Igbo, Southeastern Nigeria, Speaker: Ngozika Obi-Ani (University of Nigeria, Nsukka)
Abstract: African writers normally romanticize the past ontologies of African women contending that they held considerable social power. This overarching narrative obscures the gender imbalances in precolonial and post-contact Africa. The nd’ishi tradition of northernmost Igbo communities–generally called Nsukka–is a paradox that all pre-contact Africa had a fair deal for women.Among them, married women that engage ... Read more
Public Lecture: Women and Survivability: Ecofeminist Representation of Oil Pollution and Environmental Degradation in Niger Delta Poetry, Speaker: Chinasa Abonyi (University of Nigeria, Nsukka)
Abstract: Environmental Degradation is a global phenomenon that affects all life forms including plants, animals, humans and especially women and children. One major cause of environmental pollution and degradation is oil exploration and this has been a major problem in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. In contemporary Nigerian literature, ecological writings are dominated by ... Read more
Public Lecture: The Politics of the Punchline: Elections, Ebola and the Power of Laughter in Goma, DR Congo; Speaker: Silke Oldenburg (University of Basel)
Abstract In Goma, a provincial capital in Eastern DR Congo, the urban and the catastrophic have long been intertwined purveying analytical power to punchlines as indicative of everyday absurdity. Based on ethnographic fieldwork and social media analysis, this lecture reveals the 'Power of Laughter' by illustrating how Goma’s comedians turn the incongruity of expectation and ... Read more
Public Lecture: Akonedi, An African Deity and Her Shrines in Larteh: A Field Report, Speaker: Dr. Benedikt Pontzen
Abstract This presentation is a field report on my ongoing research about the deity Akonedi and her shrines in the Akuapem town Larteh. Doing ethnographic fieldwork at her shrines, I trace the multiple ways in which Akonedi is present in people’s lives in Ghana. Based on my findings, I tell a history of thisdeity. I ... Read more
