Rules
- All papers must be proposed via the online conference platform.
- A paper can have one or multiple authors (maximum 4). The person who submits the proposal is the corresponding author.
- One or more presenters can be specified among the authors. Participants may not present more than one paper.
- It is permitted to be a non-presenting co-author on multiple papers. One or more presenters can be specified among the authors
- Every person can have each conference role once: you can be
- a convenor/chair to one panel, and
- a discussant once, and
- a presenter once.
- Papers are proposed to a specific panel. A paper can only be presented in one panel. While it is technically possible to submit the same paper to several panels, we do not encourage that – all multiples will have to be withdrawn.
- The paper proposals will be reviewed by the panel convenors. The decision on acceptance or rejection is up to the panel convenors.
- Papers which are neither accepted nor rejected by the panel convenors, but marked for ‘transfer’, will be given the opportunity to be re-housed into other panels. The organizing committee will propose these papers to convenors of suitable panels that still have space.
- Each panel session slot of 90 minutes will accommodate up to four paper presentations. In order to leave time for discussion, we encourage presentations of 15 minutes. Ultimately, the convenors are responsible for organizing the meeting in such a way that all presenters have equal opportunity to present and discuss their research.
- While there is no general rule on the circulation of papers, convenors may invite authors to share the full paper ahead of the conference. To facilitate this and save on email traffic, authors can upload PDFs of their papers via the conference platform. The papers will then be accessible for all registered conference participants.
Panels
1) STUDYING AFRICA UNDERSTANDING THE WORLD
P.1.01
Conflicts, Cultural Heritage and Communal Healing: Performative and Material Responses in Post-Conflict African Communities
In many African societies, cultural heritage is not simply a repository of the past but a living framework for communal resilience, identity, and transformation. This panel explores how communities affected by violent conflict mobilize intangible heritage—rituals, performances, oral traditions—and material culture—sacred objects, monuments, and landscapes—as active tools for communal healing, resistance, and remembrance. Focusing on ethnographic and practice-based research, we welcome contributions that investigate how cultural forms are reimagined in response to displacement, trauma, political violence, or environmental destruction. What roles do traditional cleansing rituals, masquerades, memorials, and storytelling play in facilitating reconciliation and post-conflict rebuilding? How are these practices entangled with transnational discourses on restitution, decolonization, and epistemic justice? In what ways do objects and performances embody both healing and contestation, especially in contexts of fragmented nationhood or marginalization? This panel invites scholars from anthropology, cultural studies, performance studies, heritage and museum studies, and peacebuilding. We are particularly interested in perspectives from or about regions such as Nigeria, Cameroon, Tchad, Sudan, DRC, and Ethiopia, but welcome contributions from across the continent and the diaspora. The panel also seeks to critically engage with how African-centred knowledge systems and indigenous epistemologies offer alternatives to dominant frameworks of trauma, recovery, and justice.
Convenors:
Afutendem Lucas Nkwetta (University of Dschang)
Nkwetisama Carlous Muluh (University of Bamenda)
Ate Andrew Asan (Edo State University)
Ushuple Lucy Mishina (University of Calabar)
P.1.02
Outsetting: Figuring out the im/possibilities of contemporary epistemologies in Africa
The presence of multiple knowledge traditions in Africa is notable (A. Mazrui). To capitalise on this, intellectuals may free themselves from the colonial gaze (V. Y. Mudimbe), acquire epistemic freedom (S. J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni), and commit more seriously to their agency (O. Taiwo). If this claim is valid, intellectuals could produce knowledge from Africa (P. Hountondji; A. Mbembe) to help people understand contemporary multiscale transformations. However, such an endeavour necessitates robust epistemological and methodological interventions to determine what constitutes a knowledge tradition in Africa (E. Macamo). This panel explores this issue by addressing the following key questions: What is African epistemology, and what does it look like? How can knowledge in Africa be used, translated, interpreted, and validated without imposing a dominant Western canon, perpetuating colonial power dynamics, or purifying African experiences? To answer these questions, the panel invites submissions that explore knowledge traditions in Africa (including their libraries and archives) through space, time, and power structures. It deals with the work of African and non-African thinkers from different loci of enunciation, engaged in postcolonial criticism and decolonial reconstitution, at the intersection of multi-layered inequalities. Contributions may examine, in forward-looking ways, the epistemic preconditions, methodological potential, and dialogue promises of multiple knowledge traditions within the continent (and out of the North-South dichotomy). The aim is to engage with the im/possibilities relating to the existence or reinvention of an epistemology that affirms Africa’s contribution to understanding contemporary, multiscale concerns within an interconnected and interrelated world.
Convenors:
Saïkou Oumar Sagnane (University of Bayreuth)
Rüdiger Seesemann (University of Bayreuth)
Alpha Amadou Bano Barry (University of Sonfonia)
P.1.03
Education, Knowledge Production, and Epistemic Justice in Africa
This panel explores the evolving landscape of teacher education in African higher education institutions, focusing on how narrative practices, policy shifts, and pedagogical innovations are reshaping the preparation of educators across the continent. Amid global calls for decolonizing education and enhancing epistemic justice, African universities are increasingly challenged to rethink curricula, methodologies, and institutional cultures that shape teacher training. We will invite papers that critically examine how teacher education programs are responding to local and global demands for transformation. Topics may include: the integration of indigenous knowledge systems; the role of language and identity in teacher preparation; digital innovations in pedagogy; gender and inclusion in teacher education; and the impact of international partnerships and funding models. We are particularly interested in contributions that foreground lived experiences, institutional case studies, and narrative-based research methodologies. This panel aims to foster dialogue between scholars based in Africa and those working in transnational contexts, encouraging collaborative reflection on the future of teacher education. It aligns with the conference’s broader themes of inclusion, integrity, and knowledge production, and seeks to contribute to a more equitable and contextually grounded understanding of educational transformation in Africa.
Convenors:
Oluwatoyin Ajani (University of KwaZulu_Natal)
Kofi Mpuangnan (University of Zululand)
P.1.04
Decolonizing Knowledge from Within: African Epistemologies and the Future of Area Studies
This panel examines how African epistemologies can meaningfully transform the theory, methods, and ethics of knowledge production within African Studies and Area Studies. While calls for decolonizing knowledge have gained momentum, academic practice often remains tethered to Eurocentric frameworks that sideline African intellectual traditions. This panel asks: how might centering African philosophies, ethical systems, and methodologies reconfigure global scholarship from within? We invite papers that engage with concepts such as ubuntu, oral historiography, indigenous ecological knowledge, and communal epistemic practices, not merely as objects of study but as theoretical resources that can critique, complement, or even replace dominant models. By foregrounding African modes of knowing, we aim to move beyond extractive research paradigms toward genuinely reciprocal, co-creative approaches. The panel also considers how African epistemologies can illuminate pressing global concerns, from planetary health and environmental stewardship to democratic participation and restorative justice. In doing so, it challenges conventional hierarchies that position African knowledge as local or peripheral rather than integral to understanding worldwide transformations. We especially welcome contributions that blend critical reflection with empirical or case-based insights, illustrating how decolonizing knowledge is enacted in classrooms, archives, fieldwork, and community partnerships. Together, these papers will explore how African epistemologies not only enrich the study of Africa but also expand the horizons of Area Studies and global thought, fostering a more just and pluriversal intellectual future.
Convenors:
Danjuma Saidu (Federal University Lokoja)
Abdullateef Lanre Mbashir (Kogi State University)
Margaret Ngwuchukwu (University of Nigeria)
P.1.05
Reimagining global peace and security studies: Toward an extended travel transferability framework from an African context
In peace and security studies, predominant reliance on generalizable or case-specific theories results in a narrow, often Global North-centric view of global transformations. This, framed along the local/global dichotomy, limits the development of comparative frameworks that capture the complex dynamics of peace and conflict in diverse settings. This panel builds on the Global School – Globally Comparative Peace and Security Studies supported by the Merian Institute for Advanced Studies in Africa, University of Ghana, to reimagine peace and security research by shifting the focus to African perspectives, bridging the gap between global theory and local realities. At the heart of this panel is Burawoy’s Extended Travel Transferability Framework, which examines how theories, once transported across diverse contexts, evolve and adapt to their new socio-political and cultural landscapes. It challenges the dominance of Global North-centric models and calls for an epistemic shift that integrates African ways of knowing and interpreting the dynamics of peace and conflict. By examining how theories can be reshaped by their journey through different contexts, the framework offers a lens through which we explore the fluidity of knowledge and its transformative potential. This panel seeks empirical and theoretical contributions on these two questions: How can we study peace and security on a global scale without being constrained by Global North-centric comparisons? Why is it critical to foreground the African context in this process? Introducing extended travel transferability alongside conceptual and empirical generalizability proposes a nuanced methodology emphasizing the adaptability of theory as it encounters diverse socio-political realities.
Convenors:
Tim Glawion (Arnold Bergstraesser Institute)
Abdou Rahim Lema (UdeM)
P.1.06
Decolonising Higher Education Curricula in the Global South and Africa
This panel explores the urgent task of decolonising higher education and curricula across the Global South, with a specific focus on the African continent. While colonial legacies continue to shape the institutional architectures, epistemologies, and pedagogical practices of African universities, mounting calls for epistemic justice demand a radical reimagining of what constitutes knowledge, whose knowledge matters, and how it is taught. Through a Pan African and decolonial lens, this panel interrogates the persistence of Eurocentric paradigms in higher education, arguing that meaningful transformation requires not only reforming curricula but also disrupting the coloniality embedded in systems of accreditation, research valuation, and knowledge production. The panel welcomes contributions that engage with Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) as epistemologies, not merely as subjects of study or localised supplements to dominant paradigms. It invites critical reflections on how IKS can shape curriculum design, pedagogical practice, and institutional reform, and how they interact with contemporary challenges such as climate justice, gender equity, and digital transformation. Grounded in a policy analysis theoretical framework and different country case studies, the panel seeks to create a scholarly space for indigenising and rethinking higher education as a site of opportunity, struggle, resistance, and reconstitution. Ultimately, it asks the following questions: How can decolonising curricula contribute to broader global transformations towards epistemic justice on the one hand, and engender indigenous and autonomous knowledge production in the Global South and Africa, on the other? How would a truly decolonised African university look like, regarding its aims, knowledge base, and social functions?
Convenors:
Minenhle Matela (Stellenbosch University)
Isabelle Ihring (Protestant University for Applied Science Freiburg)
P.1.07
Afro-feminist approaches to research, policy and practice
Though decolonial and postcolonial approaches are becoming more visible in social science research, these are often androcentric and blind to gender. This is not just about thinking gender as a methodological approach – e.g. adding women to your case studies (“add and stir” ) – but considering what it means if we consider our research, but also policy and practice, from a theoretically afro-feminist perspective? So much of what we study or work on in Africa occurs in context of hegemonic postcolonial power relations and at the intersection of oppressions based on gender, poverty, sexuality, religion, global imperialism yet not enough sufficient collective attention has been given to how different theoretical approaches can reflect, theorize and transform this. This panel will include contributions that consider afro-feminist approaches in their research on Africa, simultaneously rejecting the objectification of global South women as ‘poor’, ‘uneducated’ and ‘powerless’. In doing so, we acknowledge that feminism on the African continent constitutes a myriad of heterogeneous experiences and points of departure in relation to various form of domination, as pointed out by scholars like Josephine Ahikire and Sylvia Tamale. The panel will highlight a collection of such experiences and highlight the strength and importance of Afro-feminist approaches for knowing the world. The panel is interested in both theoretical contributions as well as reflections from policy and practice, in reflection of The Charter of Feminist Principles for African Feminists (2006) which urges adherents to “develop tools for transformatory analysis and action”.
Convenors:
Franzisca Zanker (Arnold Bergstraesser Institut)
Mary Setrana (Centre for Migration Studies)
P.1.08
Re-thinking African Knowledge Production from a Gender Perspective: The Impact of Women in Global Transformations of Understanding the World
Global knowledge production is impacted by different layers of unequal power relations. Recent debates about the conditions of knowledge production from and on the African continent have considered the colonial legacy of education systems, African epistemologies as well as North-South imbalances. Feminist epistemologies have emphasized the situated nature of knowledge and the structural violence against women, specifically Black women, due to academic environments which limit their visibility and career promotion. Though the number of women in faculty has been increasing, at many universities, in particular in African countries, women are in minority when it comes to high-rank and power positions, and most have to negotiate their career between professional, social and family expectations. This raises the question of how the underrepresentation of women in key positions in higher education impacts global/African knowledge production. What does it mean for decolonising knowledge production and diversifying the plurality of knowledge when women do not have the same share in shaping, questioning and disseminating knowledge? The panel invites papers which consider the institutional settings in which women academics evolve, while connecting this to the broader question of how these academic environments influence knowledge production in general, African epistemologies, and North-South collaboration. What are the specific experiences of women in global/African knowledge production? How are networks established and institutional settings shaped in contexts where decisions over knowledge production are taken? And what kind of institutional changes would foster the creation a more inclusive transformation in global knowledge production?
Convenors:
Fatoumata Keita (Université des lettres et sciences humaines de Bamako)
Grace Diabah (University of Ghana)
Susann Baller (Centre Marc Bloch Berlin)
2) DIASPORA, COSMOPOLITANISM, AND AFRICAN IDENTITIES
P.2.01
Interpreting Global Transformations Through African Apparels
This panel invites scholars to conversations surrounding how cloth, textiles, clothing and fashion (apparels) in Africa has over the years reflected global transformations. We will interrogate the issues of materiality, aesthetics and semiotic meanings apparels in Africa embody and how these are responses to or contribution to global social, cultural and economic changes. Africa has a long history of economic and social-cultural exchanges with the East and the West through commerce and migration. These exchanges opened the continent up to foreign influences and local adaptations that shaped many societies. Discourses on global transformations in the African context have mostly projected African societies as passive actors, coercively incorporated into global schemes with limited agency and proactiveness. While the panel agrees that Africa indeed has featured in some global transformations coercively such as industrialisation through colonialism, we seek to highlight ways in which Africa has actively contributed to global transformations as agents of change. We do this by examining the designs, production, marketing and consumption of apparels on the continent. We welcome transdisciplinary contributions from history, sociology, anthropology, religion, art, politics and geography that speaks to this phenomenon, lending deeper understanding on how the function of apparels transcend adornment to serve as lens through which global transformations are mirrored at the local level from different perspectives.
Convenors:
Adwoa Owusuaa Bobie (Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology)
Malika Kraamer (University of Bonn)
Sela Kodjo Adjei (University of Media)
P.2.02
Religious Touristification in Africa
Touristification of religion in Africa refers to the process of transforming religious sites, practices, monuments, artifacts, and shrines into tourist attractions. This panel invites scholars, researchers, and practitioners to explore the phenomenon of religious touristification, where sacred sites and rituals are transformed into tourist attractions in Africa. This panel is puzzled with idea of sacred sites as touristic attractions, its community impact, authenticity and representation, but at the same time, some religious sites attract more international attention than others. Therefore, how do tourism and commercialization affect the spiritual significance and cultural heritage of sacred sites? How are religious rituals and practices adapted or commodified for tourist consumption? how are authenticity and representation negotiated in the context of religious touristification? What are the social, economic, and cultural impacts of religious touristification on local economies? The touristification of religion has both positive and negative effects on local economies and culture. The panel seeks presentations that examine the intersections of faith, tourism, and cultural heritage, and the implications for local communities, religious institutions, and the tourism industry.
Convenors:
Peter Ayoola Oderinde (Lead City University)
Oluwaseun Afolabi (Lead City University)
Francis O. Falako (University of Lagos)
Andreas Heuser (University of Basel)
P.2.03
Futures Beyond Boundaries: (Re)imagining African, Afropean and Afropolitan Identities in Navigating Cultures and Belongingness
This panel examines the diverse and evolving dimensions of ‘Afro’ identities, exploring how cultural identities, national affiliations, and notions of belonging intersect and at times conflict within a globalized world. It aims to trace the decolonial, socio-political, historical, theoretical, discursive epistemic justice and transformational frameworks that shape African migration and diasporic trajectories. Notably, Africans have long been framed as a Puzzle—a “Black Box” to be interpreted through shifting ideologies and methodologies (Gates 2024; Janz, 2002). Cultural hybridity has, for decades, become a primary mode of belonging for Africans, even as such constructions are often shaped by Western modernity. Achille Mbembe’s Necropolitics (2019) and On the Postcolony (2001) question the possibility of an autonomous African subject, free from the colonial legacy of ‘otherness.’ Taiye Selasi’s essay “What is an Afropolitan?” (2005) further ignited debate among Afrocentric scholars, exposing the tensions between affirming African identity and negotiating global belonging. Appiah (2007) and Wainaina (2012) critique the “Utopian Vision”, “Euro-American Dream” and “Denial of Self” as cultural commodification imposed by the West, intensifying calls to reevaluate Cosmopolitanism or Afropolitanism as a critical framework. These debates reflect Africa’s position at a crossroads, pulled between Western inheritances and enduring local traditions, while economic, political, and historical forces continue to drive emigration. This panel interrogates African futures through multidisciplinary lenses, addressing issues central to the global diaspora polemics on migration, Africanness, politics, religion, belonging, displacement, hybridity, trauma, human rights, Pan-Africanism, Afrocentrism, transnationalism, cosmopolitanism, and discursive approaches laced with “Critical Afroism” (Odinye 2025).
Convenors:
Ifeoma Odinye (Nnamdi Azikiwe University)
Cyrine Kortas (University of Gabes /Postdoctoral Fellow of Meriam Centre for Advanced Studies in Maghreb)
P.2.04
Intimate Mobilities and Exceptional Pursuits
Across African and diasporic contexts, mobilities in the pursuit of respectability have often taken the unexpected turn of the exceptional: subversive or illicit means deployed to achieve otherwise normative ends. From strategic partnerships in migration to transgressive intimacies and unconventional care arrangements, people stretch the limits of the possible to access durable value and social worth. Paradoxically, such exceptional pursuits are often premised on precisely a desire for an imagined return to normative ideals of personhood or belonging that are inaccessible through conventional routes. Ironically, various social actors and institutions may simultaneously devalue, deride and desire what they recognize as an ‘exception’.
This panel invites contributions that explore how people across Africa and its diasporas engage with intimate forms of mobility – romantic, sexual, affective or care-based – and how these reshape prevailing ideas of gender, kinship, morality, and legitimacy. We particularly welcome approaches that de-essentialise migration by situating it within wider, intersecting mobilities, including other bodily movements (e.g., humanitarianism, tourism) and circulations of ideas, affects, objects, and desires. We are especially interested in the unexpected outcomes of this paradoxical turn to the exceptional: how intimate mobilities and desires for belonging open new frontiers of experimentation; and how new dynamics and dilemmas emerge over money, wealth, and wellbeing; personhood, morality, and respectability; gendered and generational belonging; as well as immobility, loneliness, and death.
This panel invites contributions that explore how people across Africa and its diasporas engage with intimate forms of mobility – romantic, sexual, affective or care-based – and how these reshape prevailing ideas of gender, kinship, morality, and legitimacy. We particularly welcome approaches that de-essentialise migration by situating it within wider, intersecting mobilities, including other bodily movements (e.g., humanitarianism, tourism) and circulations of ideas, affects, objects, and desires. We are especially interested in the unexpected outcomes of this paradoxical turn to the exceptional: how intimate mobilities and desires for belonging open new frontiers of experimentation; and how new dynamics and dilemmas emerge over money, wealth, and wellbeing; personhood, morality, and respectability; gendered and generational belonging; as well as immobility, loneliness, and death.
Convenors:
Michael Stasik (University of Basel)
George Paul Meiu (University of Basel)
Serena Owusua Dankwa (University of Basel)
Constance Awinpoka Akurugu (SDD University of Business and Integrated Development Studies)
P.2.05
The Continent Is Not Enough: Centering “Diaspora” in African Knowledge Production
The contemporary diasporic condition, with its unique dynamics and complexities, offers a space for rethinking Africa’s intellectual, cultural, and political roles beyond its borders. While African Diaspora Studies often focus on historical memory and cultural heritage, this panel aims to highlight the “New African Diaspora”, shaped by voluntary migration and transnational mobility, as a site for theorising Africa’s global connections. Unlike earlier diasporas shaped by slavery and colonialism, the New African Diaspora operates from a non-contingent conceptual framework (Ademoyo, 2009: 505) that enables Africa-centred contributions to global processes, particularly in changing cultural, material, political, and religious practices in countries away from their homelands. This shift prompts a return to a core question in diaspora studies about how Africa is imagined and produced in global knowledge systems.
We invite papers that examine how Africans in the diaspora maintain cultural, religious, linguistic, or political practices from their homelands, and how these practices influence diasporic knowledge production, including migrant and expatriate identity negotiation. Contributions from scholars in African Studies, diaspora theory, cultural studies, and migration research are welcome. Key questions include:
• How does the New African Diaspora contribute to reshaping narratives of Africa in global knowledge systems?
• In what ways do diasporic intellectuals and communities exercise epistemic agency and advance Africa-centred critique?
• How do cultural, linguistic, or religious frameworks from the African homeland shape diasporic identity and (un)belonging?
• How does the New African Diaspora leverage diasporic social capital to influence homeland politics and development?
We invite papers that examine how Africans in the diaspora maintain cultural, religious, linguistic, or political practices from their homelands, and how these practices influence diasporic knowledge production, including migrant and expatriate identity negotiation. Contributions from scholars in African Studies, diaspora theory, cultural studies, and migration research are welcome. Key questions include:
• How does the New African Diaspora contribute to reshaping narratives of Africa in global knowledge systems?
• In what ways do diasporic intellectuals and communities exercise epistemic agency and advance Africa-centred critique?
• How do cultural, linguistic, or religious frameworks from the African homeland shape diasporic identity and (un)belonging?
• How does the New African Diaspora leverage diasporic social capital to influence homeland politics and development?
Convenors:
Samsondeen Ajagbe (Albert-Ludwigs-Universität)
Fidelis Etah Ewane (European External Action Service)
P.2.06
Insider Outsider Tensions in the Field: Researching Africa and African Communities from Diasporic and Hybrid Positionalities
Recent scholarship has highlighted the complex positionalities African researchers must navigate when conducting fieldwork on the continent or within African diaspora communities (Bandauko, 2024; Adu Ampong and Adams, 2019, Ademolu, 2024). African scholars in diaspora often face tensions between being perceived as “insiders” given their identity and origin, and as outsiders due to institutional affiliation, location or lived experience. These hybrid positionalities raise important methodological and ethical questions that are often underexplored in mainstream methods literature.
Such challenges are heightened in politically repressive environments, where participants may be hesitant to engage due to concerns about surveillance or state retaliation. In diasporic contexts, researchers may face issues of access, mistrust, or contested notions of belonging and authenticity depending on their positionalities and that of their interlocutors. In both cases, scholars must carefully balance familiarity with critical distance, authority with humility, and empathy with analytical rigour while remaining reflexive and ethically grounded.
This panel invites contributions that critically explore insider and outsider dynamics as shifting and lived aspects of research practice. We welcome reflections from diaspora scholars studying African societies and African diasporic communities whose work engage with issues of positionality, identity, trust, power dynamics and ethics. Submissions from different disciplines are encouraged to ensure diverse perspectives that unpacks the methodological and ethical complexities of studying Africa or Africans from the “outside” while being an “insider”.
Such challenges are heightened in politically repressive environments, where participants may be hesitant to engage due to concerns about surveillance or state retaliation. In diasporic contexts, researchers may face issues of access, mistrust, or contested notions of belonging and authenticity depending on their positionalities and that of their interlocutors. In both cases, scholars must carefully balance familiarity with critical distance, authority with humility, and empathy with analytical rigour while remaining reflexive and ethically grounded.
This panel invites contributions that critically explore insider and outsider dynamics as shifting and lived aspects of research practice. We welcome reflections from diaspora scholars studying African societies and African diasporic communities whose work engage with issues of positionality, identity, trust, power dynamics and ethics. Submissions from different disciplines are encouraged to ensure diverse perspectives that unpacks the methodological and ethical complexities of studying Africa or Africans from the “outside” while being an “insider”.
Convenors:
Tobechukwu Nneli (Kings College London)
Nicholas Anakwue (Queen Mary University of London)
P.2.07
Critical reflections on the transformation of Dis/Orientation through space and time
This panel critically reflects on empirical findings and theoretical assumptions surrounding Dis/Orientation in methodological and epistemological approaches to migration, diaspora, and refuge—especially within the contexts of the Global South (Africa, Asia, Latin America). Starting from the concepts of orientation and disorientation, we address multi-layered spatial and temporal challenges shaped by precolonial, colonial, and postcolonial entanglements.
The postcolonial state's crisis—including informal governance, vernacular languages, and logistical improvisation—complicates how space is symbolically and practically navigated. Migrants must perform complex spatial literacies influenced by race, class, and origin. A ‘Black’ or ‘white’ migrant, or someone from a local diaspora, may move through the same physical geography but navigate entirely different symbolic, historical, and social spaces.
Dis/orientation manifests in both visible and invisible ways. It can be shared, contested, or monopolized. As such, it becomes a site of social interaction or exclusion, political control, and resistance. These markings shape how space is used, experienced, and remembered.
This panel approaches dis/orientation in diasporic contexts by drawing on current debates such as Sara Ahmed’s bodies moving in space (2006), exploring how movement shapes African and diasporic identities and senses of belonging. We ask: What empirical insights reveal transformative meanings of dis/orientation in the Global South? What methodological innovations are needed?
We invite interdisciplinary contributions—especially from scholars in the Global South—that critically and creatively explore these fields and engage with decolonial methods including participatory formats, forum theater, videography, cinema, and artistic practices.
Keywords: Epistemologies, Methods, Dis/Orientation, identities, place-based belonging
The postcolonial state's crisis—including informal governance, vernacular languages, and logistical improvisation—complicates how space is symbolically and practically navigated. Migrants must perform complex spatial literacies influenced by race, class, and origin. A ‘Black’ or ‘white’ migrant, or someone from a local diaspora, may move through the same physical geography but navigate entirely different symbolic, historical, and social spaces.
Dis/orientation manifests in both visible and invisible ways. It can be shared, contested, or monopolized. As such, it becomes a site of social interaction or exclusion, political control, and resistance. These markings shape how space is used, experienced, and remembered.
This panel approaches dis/orientation in diasporic contexts by drawing on current debates such as Sara Ahmed’s bodies moving in space (2006), exploring how movement shapes African and diasporic identities and senses of belonging. We ask: What empirical insights reveal transformative meanings of dis/orientation in the Global South? What methodological innovations are needed?
We invite interdisciplinary contributions—especially from scholars in the Global South—that critically and creatively explore these fields and engage with decolonial methods including participatory formats, forum theater, videography, cinema, and artistic practices.
Keywords: Epistemologies, Methods, Dis/Orientation, identities, place-based belonging
Convenors:
Claudia Ba (Technische Universität Darmstadt (Germany))
Abdourahmane Seck (Groupe d’action et d’études critiques – africa (Gaec-Africa))
P.2.08
Dressing the Diaspora: African Fashion, Youth, and Digital Culture in Motion
The movement of people, ideas, and cultural artefacts to and from Africa continues to generate profound transformations in lived experiences across the continent and in global diasporic communities. African identities, far from static, are continually reshaped in dynamic and situated ways. One predominantly expressive medium through which these identity negotiations take place is dress. African dress and dressing traditions, being rich in symbolic meaning, history, and innovation, have long served as powerful markers of origin, status, celebration, resistance, and belonging. Historically, clothing in many African cultures has never simply functioned as a means to cover the body; it has spoken volumes about the wearer’s ethnic roots, social roles, and ritual contexts. Today, this sartorial language continues to evolve, especially under the influence of youth culture, digital platforms, and transnational migration. This panel explores how African dress and fashion operate as cultural texts and tools of identity formation in contemporary contexts. It invites scholars working within and beyond Africa to critically engage with the aesthetics, politics, and performativity of African dress, particularly through the prism of youth creativity and digital circulation.
We welcome papers that examine, but are not limited to, the following sub-themes:
i). Self-presentation and sartorial agency
ii). Challenging Eurocentric fashion narratives
iii). Fashion in motion
iv). Africa as a fashion innovator
We welcome papers that examine, but are not limited to, the following sub-themes:
i). Self-presentation and sartorial agency
ii). Challenging Eurocentric fashion narratives
iii). Fashion in motion
iv). Africa as a fashion innovator
Convenors:
Etuwe Epochi-Olise (Alex Ekwueme Federal University)
Mary Okocha (Wenzhou-Kean University)
P.2.09
Children at the center of West-African transnational families’ global (re)production of symbolic and economic capital
The Trajectoire et Origine I and II statistical surveys, based on data gathered in France, provide a precise understanding of the impact of social reproduction projects of transnational families of West African cultural heritage. Over time, second- and third-generation members residing in France tend to achieve a level of socio-economic success equivalent to that of the majority population. West African families are more likely than other immigrant families to send children to their country of origin, for a given time and multiple educational and economic reasons.
Coe (2013), Grysole (2018; 2020) and Mabillard (2024) suggest that this tendency represents a variation on the already well documented practice of child fostering. Placement strategies for children and teenagers of first-generation migrant parents do not stop at reproducing symbolic and economic capital in their country of origin in West Africa (Yount, 2020). In some cases, these strategies involve sending several children to several countries beyond the duality of host country and country of origin.
This panel invites the exploration of the ways in which these families (re)produce family as well as economic and symbolic capital. It aims to detect and analyze the complexity of the educational tactics implemented, while highlighting care strategies, the mobilization of kinship, alliance and affinity networks, intergenerational issues and the technological means used to articulate them.
Coe (2013), Grysole (2018; 2020) and Mabillard (2024) suggest that this tendency represents a variation on the already well documented practice of child fostering. Placement strategies for children and teenagers of first-generation migrant parents do not stop at reproducing symbolic and economic capital in their country of origin in West Africa (Yount, 2020). In some cases, these strategies involve sending several children to several countries beyond the duality of host country and country of origin.
This panel invites the exploration of the ways in which these families (re)produce family as well as economic and symbolic capital. It aims to detect and analyze the complexity of the educational tactics implemented, while highlighting care strategies, the mobilization of kinship, alliance and affinity networks, intergenerational issues and the technological means used to articulate them.
Convenors:
Nicolas Mabillard (Universität Basel)
Amélie Grysole (Le Havre University)
Chelsie Yount (Leiden University)
3) POLITICS AND GOVERNANCE
P.3.01
Digital Faithscapes and Epistemic Sovereignty: Reimagining African Knowledge Traditions in the Age of Global Technoculture
This panel explores the intersection of digital transformation and epistemic sovereignty within African Muslim societies, with a focus on how faith-based epistemologies engage, resist, and reshape global technocultures. As digital infrastructures increasingly mediate education, religious practice, and community interaction, African Muslim scholars and institutions are deploying spiritual and ethical frameworks to navigate globalized knowledge systems. From the use of AI in Qur’anic pedagogy to mobile-mediated fatwa services and digital calligraphy movements, the contributions will interrogate how digital technologies are repurposed to affirm indigenous religious knowledge traditions while resisting epistemic subordination. The panel invites papers that foreground African perspectives on technological modernity, examine the role of Islamic ethics in digital engagement, and critically analyze how digital publics are formed around questions of authority, authenticity, and cultural continuity. By situating these inquiries within broader debates on epistemic justice, the panel seeks to illuminate the tensions and possibilities of reclaiming knowledge production in postcolonial, digitally mediated Africa. We welcome interdisciplinary contributions from scholars of digital religion, Islamic studies, African studies, and media anthropology that reflect critically on these emergent "faithscapes" and their implications for cosmopolitan flourishing and planetary justice.
Convenors:
Abdul Gafar Olawale Fahm (University of Ilorin)
Aisha U. Umar (Federal University)
P.3.02
Rethinking Electoral Technologies and Political Conflict in Africa: Transformations, Resistances, and Regulations in the Age of Global Technopolitics
In a context marked by the rapid expansion of digital governance tools across multiple sectors, this panel proposes to explore electoral technologies as instruments not only of democratic transformation, but also of political conflict generation and the reinvention of regulatory frameworks on the African continent. Far from being mere technical devices imported to enhance electoral transparency, these technologies, whether biometric registration, centralised electoral databases, electronic result transmission systems, or digital participation platforms, operate as technologies of power, redefining the boundaries of political legitimacy and suffrage.
Adopting a transnational approach, the panel will highlight and debate the conflictual logics triggered by these technopolitical innovations: social exclusion, institutional mistrust, contestation of the reliability of political processes, and partisan instrumentalisation. The panel will also examine the diverse forms of resistance developed by political and civic actors, from the creation of counter-expertise and independent observatories to social media mobilisation, as well as boycotts and creative, militant reappropriations enabled by these instruments.
Particular attention will be given to regulatory mechanisms and endogenous conflict management practices, whether legal, institutional, or community-based, which are mobilised to address the new tensions provoked by digital electoral tools. By placing these dynamics within a global technopolitical era, the panel invites social science researchers to critically rethink electoral governance transformations in Africa as the outcome of complex interactions between transnational technology flows, local resistances, and emerging democratic innovations. Paper proposals may adopt empirical, methodological, or theoretical perspectives within any of these three core axes.
Adopting a transnational approach, the panel will highlight and debate the conflictual logics triggered by these technopolitical innovations: social exclusion, institutional mistrust, contestation of the reliability of political processes, and partisan instrumentalisation. The panel will also examine the diverse forms of resistance developed by political and civic actors, from the creation of counter-expertise and independent observatories to social media mobilisation, as well as boycotts and creative, militant reappropriations enabled by these instruments.
Particular attention will be given to regulatory mechanisms and endogenous conflict management practices, whether legal, institutional, or community-based, which are mobilised to address the new tensions provoked by digital electoral tools. By placing these dynamics within a global technopolitical era, the panel invites social science researchers to critically rethink electoral governance transformations in Africa as the outcome of complex interactions between transnational technology flows, local resistances, and emerging democratic innovations. Paper proposals may adopt empirical, methodological, or theoretical perspectives within any of these three core axes.
Convenors:
Yves Valéry OBAME (The University of Bertoua/CERESC/GSI/GAL)
Salomon ESSAGA ETEME (The University of Ngaoundéré/RESSAC/CIFOR-GDA)
P.3.03
Reinventing Authoritarianism : Power Dynamics in Large-Scale Infrastructure Projects
While the wave of democratization that swept across Africa in the 1990s was initially heralded as a break from post-independence authoritarian regimes (1960s–1980s), it has become increasingly clear that authoritarianism did not simply fade away. Rather than marking a clean rupture, the democratic transition has often been characterized by what a growing body of literature terms authoritarian reconversion, captured in notions such as hybrid regimes and democraduras. Although productive, this literature tends to frame authoritarianism as a residual or evolving form, suggesting a mere slippage of practices from past regimes, blending democratic institutions (elections, multipartyism) with authoritarian practices.
This panel proposes a shift in analytical perspective. Instead of focusing solely on continuity or hybridization, we interrogate the active and inventive dimensions of contemporary authoritarianism in Africa through the lens of large-scale infrastructure projects (trade corridors, ports, SEZs, waste infrastructures, social housing, energy grids, digital systems,…). We argue for understanding these as spaces of authoritarian renewal where regimes not only perpetuate past authoritarian practices but also generate new forms of control, coercion, and legitimacy.
A key dimension of this analysis lies in the renewed embrace of developmental state narratives that position infrastructure as central to modernization and national progress. Yet beneath this discourse lies a complex political economy in which state-led development becomes a vector for reconfiguring authoritarian power. This panel thus invites contributions that examine how such infrastructures underpin the reinvention of authoritarian rule – through everyday practices, center-periphery relations, or the forging of hegemonic alliances.
This panel proposes a shift in analytical perspective. Instead of focusing solely on continuity or hybridization, we interrogate the active and inventive dimensions of contemporary authoritarianism in Africa through the lens of large-scale infrastructure projects (trade corridors, ports, SEZs, waste infrastructures, social housing, energy grids, digital systems,…). We argue for understanding these as spaces of authoritarian renewal where regimes not only perpetuate past authoritarian practices but also generate new forms of control, coercion, and legitimacy.
A key dimension of this analysis lies in the renewed embrace of developmental state narratives that position infrastructure as central to modernization and national progress. Yet beneath this discourse lies a complex political economy in which state-led development becomes a vector for reconfiguring authoritarian power. This panel thus invites contributions that examine how such infrastructures underpin the reinvention of authoritarian rule – through everyday practices, center-periphery relations, or the forging of hegemonic alliances.
Convenors:
Patrick Belinga (Sciences Po Paris)
Alice Carchereux (University of Geneva)
P.3.04
Digital Citizenship, Political Belonging and Statehood in Contemporary Africa
Digital connectivity in Africa has grown significantly over the past decade. Although gaps in access and usage remain (GSMA, 2025), technology and social media are already reshaping how citizens engage with the state (Srinivasan et al, 2019). These tools reveal and intensify longstanding tensions around social contract, state legitimacy and civic participation.
This panel explores how digital technologies influence political belonging and the evolving nature of statehood in Africa. In many contexts, citizenship is contested and negotiated online. Digital platforms offer new spaces for inclusion and mobilisation (for and against the state) but also reinforce exclusion along social and political lines.
Existing research has addressed digital identification systems, algorithmic sovereignties, activism, and new forms of state-society relations (Banégas and Cutolo, 2024; Garbe et al, 2024; Mueller, 2018). However, there is a need for more focused engagement with digital citizenship as a lived and contested experience in African settings.
We invite papers that consider questions such as:
• How do digital platforms shape identity and belonging for African citizens?
• How is state and its legitimacy challenged or reinforced through digital engagement?
• How are governments and citizens using digital tools to define or resist state authority?
This panel welcomes theoretical and empirical contributions that examine how digital technologies are reconfiguring citizenship, participation, and political life across Africa. We encourage submissions from a range of disciplines, including political science, anthropology, media studies and African studies.
This panel explores how digital technologies influence political belonging and the evolving nature of statehood in Africa. In many contexts, citizenship is contested and negotiated online. Digital platforms offer new spaces for inclusion and mobilisation (for and against the state) but also reinforce exclusion along social and political lines.
Existing research has addressed digital identification systems, algorithmic sovereignties, activism, and new forms of state-society relations (Banégas and Cutolo, 2024; Garbe et al, 2024; Mueller, 2018). However, there is a need for more focused engagement with digital citizenship as a lived and contested experience in African settings.
We invite papers that consider questions such as:
• How do digital platforms shape identity and belonging for African citizens?
• How is state and its legitimacy challenged or reinforced through digital engagement?
• How are governments and citizens using digital tools to define or resist state authority?
This panel welcomes theoretical and empirical contributions that examine how digital technologies are reconfiguring citizenship, participation, and political life across Africa. We encourage submissions from a range of disciplines, including political science, anthropology, media studies and African studies.
Convenors:
Nicholas Anakwue (Queen Mary University of London)
Tobechukwu Nneli (King's College London)
P.3.05
Infrastructures of Conspiracy
This panel explores the entangled worlds of infrastructure and conspiracy, not as distinct fields of study, but as mutually constitutive terrains of social and political tension. The term ‘infrastructure’ emerged in everyday parlance in the context of NATO’s expansion of integrated transport and logistics facilities. The concept has been broadened significantly and intricately (Larkin 2013; Simone 2004), and we are interested here in two main perspectives. The first is on infrastructures as para-political assemblages. The dual use for civilian and military/intelligence purposes, their opaque financing structures based on private and public capital, as well as their uncertain geopolitical motivations raise suspicions as to who or what is ‘behind’ them. A parapolitical approach (Wilson 2009) takes such suspicions of conspiracy seriously; it acknowledges collusion and covert agencies as integral parts of transnational governance and politics. At the same time, conspiracy remains an ambiguous terrain: what is a ‘real’ and what is an ‘imaginary’ conspiracy (Boltanski 2014:201)? As deliberations about this question are equally structured by infrastructures, our second perspective focuses on how suspicion and information circulate, and how they are barred from circulating. How are media technologies, money transfers, sociopolitical networks, emotional energies and affects mobilized and harnessed? How do infrastructural assemblages, notably by the state, determine what is considered a conspiracy in the first place? Through empirical case studies from the African continent and conceptual provocations, this panel zooms in on how politics play out when infrastructures harbor secrets and conspiracies become tangible.
Convenors:
Biruk Terrefe (University of Bayreuth)
Joschka Philipps (University of Bayreuth)
Liza Cirolia (University of Cape Town)
P.3.06
Reconfiguring Wealth and Welfare: Social Protection and the Political Economies of Redistribution in Contemporary Africa
This explores the complex interrelations between social protection policies and wealth redistribution in contemporary Africa. Across the continent states face the challenge of addressing deep-seated economic inequalities, persistent poverty, and social vulnerabilities. These challenges have become more pronounced in the aftermath of COVID-19 and under the intensifying pressures of climate change, technological disruption, and shifting labour markets. While many African governments have implemented innovative social protection initiatives, often supported by international development agencies (Rottenburg, 2009), the complex interplay between state policy, their bureaucracies (Bierschenk & Olivier de Sardan, 2020; Blundo, 2006), donor agendas (Rottenburg & al., 2015), and local socio-economic realities continues to shape uneven outcomes.
This panel invites contributions focusing on how social protection policies intersect with local political economies of wealth redistribution. It invites submissions that analyze these aspects critically, with key themes including:
• The reconceptualization of social protection systems to enhance resilience, inclusivity, and long-term sustainability.
• The role of traditional institutions, community networks, and informal mechanisms in sustaining livelihoods.
• The intersection of social protection reforms with existing gender, class, and other structural inequalities.
• Innovative strategies for integrating informal workers while maintaining fiscal viability.
• Adaptation of social protection frameworks to post-COVID realities, including transformed work patterns, digital transformation, and climate risks.
• The need for context-specific, inclusive, and resilient social protection frameworks that respond to local challenges while aligning with global development agendas.
Contributions engaging with questions of power, agency, and institutional change within Africa’s diverse political settings will be especially welcome.
This panel invites contributions focusing on how social protection policies intersect with local political economies of wealth redistribution. It invites submissions that analyze these aspects critically, with key themes including:
• The reconceptualization of social protection systems to enhance resilience, inclusivity, and long-term sustainability.
• The role of traditional institutions, community networks, and informal mechanisms in sustaining livelihoods.
• The intersection of social protection reforms with existing gender, class, and other structural inequalities.
• Innovative strategies for integrating informal workers while maintaining fiscal viability.
• Adaptation of social protection frameworks to post-COVID realities, including transformed work patterns, digital transformation, and climate risks.
• The need for context-specific, inclusive, and resilient social protection frameworks that respond to local challenges while aligning with global development agendas.
Contributions engaging with questions of power, agency, and institutional change within Africa’s diverse political settings will be especially welcome.
Convenors:
Ndeshi Namupala (University of Namibia)
Ronan Jacquin (Geneva Graduate Institute)
P.3.07
Reimagining the Countryside: The Politics of Rural Development in Africa
Rural development in Africa has long been shaped by contested political visions and shifting governance priorities. From colonial administrations framing rural populations as backward and in need of uplift, to post-independence states promoting agricultural modernisation, to the neoliberal rollbacks of the 1980s, rural areas have repeatedly been positioned as sites to be developed, managed, or extracted from—often with limited input from the communities themselves.
In recent years, rural development has re-emerged as a policy priority. Governments and international organisations have invested in smallholder support, social protection, and climate resilience. Yet these interventions are far from politically neutral. They raise fundamental questions: Who defines rural development goals? What power dynamics shape policy design and delivery? How are competing interests—between local communities, national governments, and international donors—negotiated?
This panel explores the politics and governance of rural development across Africa. It asks how rural areas are being reimagined in the face of environmental change, demographic shifts, and renewed state interest. We are particularly interested in how rural populations engage with, resist, or reshape development interventions—and what alternative, locally rooted visions for rural futures may exist.
We invite contributions that critically examine rural development policies, programmes, and discourses, past or present, and that reflect on how governance structures and political contestation shape the possibilities for equitable and sustainable rural futures in Africa.
In recent years, rural development has re-emerged as a policy priority. Governments and international organisations have invested in smallholder support, social protection, and climate resilience. Yet these interventions are far from politically neutral. They raise fundamental questions: Who defines rural development goals? What power dynamics shape policy design and delivery? How are competing interests—between local communities, national governments, and international donors—negotiated?
This panel explores the politics and governance of rural development across Africa. It asks how rural areas are being reimagined in the face of environmental change, demographic shifts, and renewed state interest. We are particularly interested in how rural populations engage with, resist, or reshape development interventions—and what alternative, locally rooted visions for rural futures may exist.
We invite contributions that critically examine rural development policies, programmes, and discourses, past or present, and that reflect on how governance structures and political contestation shape the possibilities for equitable and sustainable rural futures in Africa.
Convenors:
Hangala Siachiwena (University of Cape Town)
Anna Wolkenhauer (University of Bremen)
P.3.08
Homegrown Narratives and Public Action in Africa: Beyond Rhetoric?
Indigenous institutional frameworks have a significant influence on current debates on governance and social change in Africa. Through the more contemporary ‘homegrown’ label, indigenous narratives forcefully shape how governments design policies, how civil society mobilizes, and how researchers engage with communities and data.
Yet, such narratives remain contentious. Critics argue they romanticize precolonial institutions as harmonious, static, and egalitarian, while overlooking postcolonial transformations. Other scholars see in them an assertion of agency: a means to renegotiate power, legitimacy, and participation in both formal and informal structures of governance. These dynamics raise critical questions about how such narratives redefine authority, access, and inequality.
Despite their growing influence, there is still no coherent framework for understanding the theoretical and empirical implications of indigenous and homegrown narratives. Whether used to legitimize ideas and practices from within a society, or as a local strategy of resisting geopolitical control, homegrown narratives remain undertheorized. This panel explores how such ideas are mobilized in contesting and reconfiguring social, political, and economic life in Africa.
We invite contributions that examine how indigenous narratives:
• Challenge or reinforce governance structures and legal norms;
• Reshape citizen-state relations;
• Legitimize new forms of authority or resistance;
• Operate across digital, bureaucratic, and informal domains
We particularly welcome papers on topics such as public service delivery, land governance, civil society activism, and development cooperation. Contributions that critically assess how homegrown narratives mitigate or deepen inequality, as well as innovative methodological or ethical reflections on how to study these dynamics, are also highly welcome.
Yet, such narratives remain contentious. Critics argue they romanticize precolonial institutions as harmonious, static, and egalitarian, while overlooking postcolonial transformations. Other scholars see in them an assertion of agency: a means to renegotiate power, legitimacy, and participation in both formal and informal structures of governance. These dynamics raise critical questions about how such narratives redefine authority, access, and inequality.
Despite their growing influence, there is still no coherent framework for understanding the theoretical and empirical implications of indigenous and homegrown narratives. Whether used to legitimize ideas and practices from within a society, or as a local strategy of resisting geopolitical control, homegrown narratives remain undertheorized. This panel explores how such ideas are mobilized in contesting and reconfiguring social, political, and economic life in Africa.
We invite contributions that examine how indigenous narratives:
• Challenge or reinforce governance structures and legal norms;
• Reshape citizen-state relations;
• Legitimize new forms of authority or resistance;
• Operate across digital, bureaucratic, and informal domains
We particularly welcome papers on topics such as public service delivery, land governance, civil society activism, and development cooperation. Contributions that critically assess how homegrown narratives mitigate or deepen inequality, as well as innovative methodological or ethical reflections on how to study these dynamics, are also highly welcome.
Convenors:
Matthew Sabbi (Freie Universität Berlin)
Jean-Baptiste Ndikubwimana (University of Rwanda)
P.3.09
Promoting Academic and Collaborative Spaces in the Sahel
Universities and research institutions in the Sahel are among the poorest the world. Current global geopolitical transformations risk further marginalizing knowledge produced in this part of the world despite the fact that a great deal of scientific work of global relevance is produced in Sahelian institutions, and by Sahelian academics. Such transformations are characterized by ruptures that threaten the continuity of empirical research and collaborations between researchers located in countries like Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, and Niger, oftentimes in collaboration with researchers in other parts of the world. In sum, today there are many challenges in conducting critical empirical research, and promote collaboration in the Sahel.
In light of these challenges, this panel invites critical reflections on the ways in which current transformations complicate field research, and research collaboration. These challenges may range from issues related to ethics, and security and safety in research methodologies, academic freedom of expression, conditions of collaborations in a context where funding and visa issues prevent these, enduring coloniality that may prevent formulating the relevance of Sahelian perspectives for better understanding the world, or renewed polarization that encourage isolationism and thwart collaboration. Panelists are encouraged to develop reflections on empirical cases, censorship, ethical concerns, or conceptual developments. Moreover, we welcome papers that explore creative ways of strengthening academic and collaborative spaces in the Sahel. Beyond the focus on the situation in Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, and Niger, we furthermore encourage papers addressing similar concerns (historically and/or geographically) that resonate with dynamics in the Sahel.
In light of these challenges, this panel invites critical reflections on the ways in which current transformations complicate field research, and research collaboration. These challenges may range from issues related to ethics, and security and safety in research methodologies, academic freedom of expression, conditions of collaborations in a context where funding and visa issues prevent these, enduring coloniality that may prevent formulating the relevance of Sahelian perspectives for better understanding the world, or renewed polarization that encourage isolationism and thwart collaboration. Panelists are encouraged to develop reflections on empirical cases, censorship, ethical concerns, or conceptual developments. Moreover, we welcome papers that explore creative ways of strengthening academic and collaborative spaces in the Sahel. Beyond the focus on the situation in Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, and Niger, we furthermore encourage papers addressing similar concerns (historically and/or geographically) that resonate with dynamics in the Sahel.
Convenors:
Sten Hagberg (Uppsala University)
Muriel Côte (Lund University)
Éric Komlavi Hahonou (Roskilde University)
P.3.10
Transformations of local conflict resolution mechanisms in the contemporary dynamics of violence in the central Sahel
In the wake of the Malian crisis that erupted in 2012, the central Sahel—particularly Mali, Burkina Faso, and to a lesser extent Niger—has been facing a multidimensional crisis of unprecedented intensity. Initially focused on political and military demands, the conflict has gradually evolved to incorporate ethnic, religious, economic, and political dimensions, to the point where it has become difficult to categorize it unequivocally. In Mali and Burkina Faso in particular, violence has reached extreme levels, often involving or specifically targeting certain ethnic groups.
field surveys conducted by our team, particularly in Mali, reveal deep skepticism among local communities about the prospects for peaceful settlement. This disillusionment is particularly puzzling in contexts historically recognized for the effectiveness of their endogenous conflict resolution mechanisms. The deterioration of these mechanisms, their partial adaptation, or their competition with exogenous approaches raises crucial questions about their relevance in the face of new forms of violence.
This panel invites contributions that examine, based on empirical surveys or theoretical analyses, how citizens of the central Sahel manage the violent conflicts they face. Proposals may focus on the reconfiguration of endogenous mechanisms, the integration of imported approaches, or the implementation of hybrid mechanisms. The aim is to gain a better understanding of the actors involved, their interactions, and the conditions under which renewed resolution practices could contribute to a sustainable reduction in violence.
field surveys conducted by our team, particularly in Mali, reveal deep skepticism among local communities about the prospects for peaceful settlement. This disillusionment is particularly puzzling in contexts historically recognized for the effectiveness of their endogenous conflict resolution mechanisms. The deterioration of these mechanisms, their partial adaptation, or their competition with exogenous approaches raises crucial questions about their relevance in the face of new forms of violence.
This panel invites contributions that examine, based on empirical surveys or theoretical analyses, how citizens of the central Sahel manage the violent conflicts they face. Proposals may focus on the reconfiguration of endogenous mechanisms, the integration of imported approaches, or the implementation of hybrid mechanisms. The aim is to gain a better understanding of the actors involved, their interactions, and the conditions under which renewed resolution practices could contribute to a sustainable reduction in violence.
Convenors:
Boubacar Haidara (BICC)
Lamine Savané (University of Ségou)
4) AFRICAN POSITIONS IN CHANGING WORLD ORDERS
P.4.01
African Women Organising Across the Globe
This panel shines a spotlight on the African pioneers of women's rights. Active before the UN Decade for Women (1976–1985), they established women-led associations across the continent and travelled the world to advocate for their rights. The panel will document and analyse how some African women navigated, contributed to, and shaped women-led and mixed international organisations, including the International Council of Women, the World Young Women's Christian Association, or the United Nations (Rupp, 1996; Ohene-Nyako, 2019; Russo, 2023). Drawing on recent literature concerning the transnational activism of African women (Barthélémy & Panata, 2023; Blain, 2018; Boittin & Couti, 2023; Florvil, 2017), we will focus on two areas of interest: transnational biographies and political discourse. Firstly, we aim to shed light on the lives of women who travelled around Africa and beyond to promote women's rights, oppose colonial violence, and advocate for African unity. From this perspective, the panel will analyse how these women challenged the logic of colonial empires, nation-states and Cold War blocs (Ghodsee, 2014; Lewis & Osei-Opare, 2024). Thus, we will study the relationships forged by and between women, such as friendships, alliances, comradeship and rivalries, at home or abroad. Secondly, the panel will focus on political discourse within or against international organisations. From this perspective, the panel will consider the positions of African global activists in relation to debates on education, labour, family planning, anti-colonialism, prostitution and religion.
Convenors:
Claire Nicolas (University of Basel)
Sara Panata (CNRS)
P.4.02
Weathering the Storm? African Regional Organisations in a Time of Global Upheaval
Exploring collective African responses to a changing world order, the panel examines how African regional organisations and multilateral coalitions, including the African Union and Regional Economic Communities, adjust to the present global upheaval in different domains of governance. Over the past three decades, African regional organisations, with the assistance of international development partners and in coordination with the United Nations, assumed an important role in governing international trade, economic cooperation, finance, democratic governance, peace and security, social development, humanitarian affairs, the environment, and gender and youth empowerment. The African Union in particular plays a critical part in safeguarding African nations’ collective interests on the global stage. The conditions for African organisations to fulfil ambitious regional governance goals are greatly affected by the present global upheaval, which is characterised by a renewed East-West conflict, protectionism and trade war, discord over climate change, waning regard for multilateral institutions, and a blatant disregard of international law by its purported advocates. As western donors have come to prioritise national defence spending over an agenda of promoting democracy, human rights, sustainable development, public health and peace in Africa, relevant programmes of African regional organisations hang in the balance. The upheaval may likewise provide opportunities to African organisations to reconfigure North-South relations, adopt alternative funding models, and assert their authority. The panel presents novel research by early career and senior scholars from African and European universities, who examine responses to global upheaval by various African multilateral actors in different policy domains and from several disciplinary perspectives.
Convenors:
Jamie Pring (Geneva Graduate Institute)
Michael Aeby (University of Cape Town)
Ulf Engel (University of Leipzig)
P.4.03
New approaches to resource politics and extractivism in Africa
From Rodney (1972) to Mavhunga (2023), critical scholarship has long connected European scrambles for resources to African ‘underdevelopment’ and ‘dependency’, linking the transatlantic slave trade, exploitative practices of colonialism, and present-day neo-colonial extractivism. While dependency theories elucidate African economies’ entrenched reliance on raw material export to the global north, they fail to account for the inverse reality: industrialised states’ deep dependence on African materials for their manufacturing and defence capabilities, including for realising their coveted Green Transition. Amid ongoing reorientations in diplomacy, global trade and security, it is imperative to scrutinise Africa’s position in the global politics of resource extraction.
This panel invites contributions from across the disciplinary spectrum of African Studies which map out historical and contemporary connections, contestations and complexities surrounding African raw materials, legacies of extractivism, and global resource politics. Inspired by recent studies of uranium (Hecht 2012), bauxite (Hove 2015), asbestos (Le Roux 2021), and copper (Kesselring 2025), this panel proposes a forum for developing innovative and critical approaches to studying African minerals and the industries, structures and everyday experiences they animate. We welcome contributions which historicise the present and highlight the intersection of social, political, economic and environmental issues. Particularly, we are eager to explore integrative methodologies relating to scale and agency: How can we account for local, national, regional, imperial and global processes impacting African resource industries, landscapes and communities? How can we adequately attend to the multiverse of actors involved in extractivism – state, commerce, producers, workers, communities, intermediaries, tech, and black-market actors?
This panel invites contributions from across the disciplinary spectrum of African Studies which map out historical and contemporary connections, contestations and complexities surrounding African raw materials, legacies of extractivism, and global resource politics. Inspired by recent studies of uranium (Hecht 2012), bauxite (Hove 2015), asbestos (Le Roux 2021), and copper (Kesselring 2025), this panel proposes a forum for developing innovative and critical approaches to studying African minerals and the industries, structures and everyday experiences they animate. We welcome contributions which historicise the present and highlight the intersection of social, political, economic and environmental issues. Particularly, we are eager to explore integrative methodologies relating to scale and agency: How can we account for local, national, regional, imperial and global processes impacting African resource industries, landscapes and communities? How can we adequately attend to the multiverse of actors involved in extractivism – state, commerce, producers, workers, communities, intermediaries, tech, and black-market actors?
Convenors:
Danelle van Zyl-Hermann (University of Basel)
Jabulani Shaba (University of Groningen)
P.4.04
Beyond Neo-Colonial Ties: Geostrategic Realignments and African Futures
The end of the unipolar world order has opened new spaces for African states to assert agency in reshaping global power relations and advancing a comprehensive decolonisation agenda. Across the continent, governments are reconfiguring diplomatic, security, and economic strategies to dismantle neo-colonial structures while forging new alliances. These transformations present a critical opportunity for Africa to unite around a Continental Sustainable Development Plan that prioritises indigenous knowledge systems, resource sovereignty, and collectively determined development pathways. However, these geopolitical realignments bring both opportunities and risks: while they offer possibilities for enhanced policy autonomy, diversified trade, and deeper regional integration, they may also reproduce extractivist patterns and new forms of dependency under different hegemonies if not approached through a decolonial lens that centres African agency and continental solidarity. This panel invites interdisciplinary contributions examining how African actors are navigating these transformations while advancing decolonisation and continental integration. We seek analyses that critically engage with the implications of changing global orders for domestic governance, rural and urban development, environmental justice, and socio-economic equity through frameworks that prioritise African epistemologies and collective self-determination. We particularly welcome papers exploring decolonial diplomacy in reshaping international legal arenas, pan-African security frameworks that prioritise African solutions, continental integration in trade and infrastructure, indigenous knowledge systems in sustainable futures, resource sovereignty strategies, and mechanisms for coordinating development policies across African states. By moving beyond binaries of dependency and independence toward frameworks of interdependence and collective sovereignty, this panel aims to advance nuanced understandings of Africa's evolving geopolitical positions and
Convenors:
Jackson Sebola-Samanyanga (University of Pretoria)
Tšepang Leuta (University of the Witwatersrand)
Vuyiswa Letsoko (University of Johannesburg)
Lerato Motshabi (University of Pretoria)
P.4.05
Restitution , Sovereignty and Geostrategic realignments: African approaches to cultural heritage in a Changing world order
Restitution of African cultural heritage disputes now serves as an arena where states, communities, and diaspora actors assert sovereignty, challenge neocolonial dependencies, and negotiate geopolitical positions, having historically been framed within Eurocentric legal and diplomatic frameworks. Drawing on Achille Mbembe’s (2021) critique of “universal museums” as enduring colonial structures and Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s (1986) call to decolonise the mind, this panel explores how African-led approaches to cultural heritage restitution embed restorative justice rooted in African traditional sages and community-based mediation within global heritage governance. It further engages Mahmood Mamdani’s (1996) analysis of citizen–subject relations to illuminate domestic political transformations, alongside Walter Rodney’s (1972) critique of underdevelopment as a structural legacy of extraction. These perspectives converge in articulating a pan-African vision of sovereignty (Olowu, Oladejo J. ica "2017"; Ajayi, Adeyinka Theresa, et al. 2014; Murithi, Tim 2008) capable of confronting and overcoming the persistent strategies of neo-colonial domination. The panel explores restitution as both a site of conflict and platform for peacebuilding, situating it within the broader transformations of international relations, South-South cooperation, and regional integration. Case studies will examine recent claims of African sovereignty in conjunction with the emergence of Southern initiatives for conflict resolution strategies that focus on African epistemologies and diplomatic practices. The panel reframes restitution not as a peripheral cultural issue, but as a strategic arena in which Africa shapes the rules of a transforming global order.
Convenors:
Gracia Lwanzo Kasongo (UCLouvain)
Deogratias Maruhukiro (Uni Fribourg)
5) PLANETARY HEALTH, URBANIZATION AND NATURAL RESOURCES
P.5.01
Curated Escapes and Derelict Landscapes between Environmental Collapse and Elite Control
As the climate crisis deepens, landscapes across the globe are being redefined as either derelict and uninhabitable, or as refuge for the wealthy — whether through abandonment, conservation, or elite transformation. This panel explores how environmental change and climate discourse contribute to the framing of certain places as “derelict” while others are curated as escapes for the rich or as sites of refuge. We ask how racialised, colonial, and capitalist legacies shape these spatial hierarchies and what imaginaries of survival emerge from them.
From sinking islands to overheated hinterlands transformed into luxury retreats, dereliction and curation appear as two sides of the same process: determining which lives and lands are worth preserving—and which are left behind. The panel welcomes historically grounded and contemporary case studies from all parts of Africa and beyond, particularly those exploring rural and and/or maritime spaces. We invite contributions from diverse disciplines and fields that examine how (rural) landscapes are abandoned, cleared of its inhabitants, reclassified or repurposed in light of environmental change. By tracing how past and present visions of environmental value intersect with inequalities and territorial reordering, the panel seeks to open space for critical reflection on what it means to inhabit—or be excluded from—imagined or real rural African futures.
From sinking islands to overheated hinterlands transformed into luxury retreats, dereliction and curation appear as two sides of the same process: determining which lives and lands are worth preserving—and which are left behind. The panel welcomes historically grounded and contemporary case studies from all parts of Africa and beyond, particularly those exploring rural and and/or maritime spaces. We invite contributions from diverse disciplines and fields that examine how (rural) landscapes are abandoned, cleared of its inhabitants, reclassified or repurposed in light of environmental change. By tracing how past and present visions of environmental value intersect with inequalities and territorial reordering, the panel seeks to open space for critical reflection on what it means to inhabit—or be excluded from—imagined or real rural African futures.
Convenors:
Luregn Lenggenhager (Univeristy of Basel)
Kolosa Ntombini (University of Cape Town)
Romie Nghitevelekwa (University of Namibia)
P.5.02
One planet, many African worlds
The notion of the “planetary” has usefully moved our thinking beyond concepts such as the “global” by calling for perspectives that decenter the human as the primary actor in the world’s ecological systems, instead favouring notions of “life” that do not exist exclusively in human form. Yet, the ostensible “oneness” of the planet stands in contrast to the many different human worlds that exist within it, as well as the fact that the unfolding climate crisis stands to be solved by humans alone. Moreover, the notion of the planetary has readily been coopted by projects that seek to leave our planet behind, which have intriguing roots in histories of colonialism in Africa, while also provoking efforts to reimagine our earthly existence. What is more, all of these debates have notably focused on Euro-American contexts and ignored African ones. What would it mean, then, to take African worlds as points of departure for thinking about planetary futures? How would we map our more-than-one, arguably less-than-many existences from African vistas? This panel invites contributors to think through planetary futures from the perspective of African worlds (and the connections between them, as well as with “outside” worlds). How does such a perspective allow us to rethink planetary visions of health, urbanization and natural resources as encapsulated in tropes such as “sustainable global development”, “just transitions”, “planetary urbanization” or “multi-planetary” species-being? What alternative viewpoints and paradoxes of the planetary and related figures does it illuminate?
Convenors:
Sylvia Croese (University of California)
Tyler Zoanni (Universität Bremen)
P.5.03
Ecolinguistics in Africa: Environmental and Ecological Discourses and Practices in African Societies
As climate crises intensify and the calls for the protection of the environment and ecological justice become more urgent, the role of language in shaping environmental discourses has come into sharper focus. This panel invites papers that explore ecolinguistics in African contexts, examining how language use, discourse, and linguistic structures relate to environmental issues and ecological knowledge.
We invite contributions that examine the concept of Linguistic Environmental Justice, understood as the effort to ensure that the language and communicative practices used in addressing environmental issues promote equity and facilitate effective, inclusive solutions, especially for communities most vulnerable to ecological disruptions. We also welcome papers that explore how African languages, oral traditions, and communicative practices reflect, resist, or reimagine human nature relationships within the context of ongoing global environmental transformations. Among other things, we pose questions like: How are discourses of environmental protection, ecological justice, and extractive capitalism encoded in African languages, and realized in African societies. What can be learned from endangered languages and their environmental knowledge systems? How do discourses of climate change or conservation circulate across African publics?
We welcome interdisciplinary approaches that engage language, ecology, and justice from linguistic, literary, anthropological, media, and activist perspectives.
Suggested Topics Include (but are not limited to):
Indigenous ecological knowledge in African languages
Discursive representations of climate change and ecological harm
Language loss, biodiversity loss, and cultural resilience
Environmental metaphors in oral and written traditions
Linguistic activism and eco-justice movements
Keywords: ecolinguistics, African languages, environmental justice, planetary health, indigenous knowledge
We invite contributions that examine the concept of Linguistic Environmental Justice, understood as the effort to ensure that the language and communicative practices used in addressing environmental issues promote equity and facilitate effective, inclusive solutions, especially for communities most vulnerable to ecological disruptions. We also welcome papers that explore how African languages, oral traditions, and communicative practices reflect, resist, or reimagine human nature relationships within the context of ongoing global environmental transformations. Among other things, we pose questions like: How are discourses of environmental protection, ecological justice, and extractive capitalism encoded in African languages, and realized in African societies. What can be learned from endangered languages and their environmental knowledge systems? How do discourses of climate change or conservation circulate across African publics?
We welcome interdisciplinary approaches that engage language, ecology, and justice from linguistic, literary, anthropological, media, and activist perspectives.
Suggested Topics Include (but are not limited to):
Indigenous ecological knowledge in African languages
Discursive representations of climate change and ecological harm
Language loss, biodiversity loss, and cultural resilience
Environmental metaphors in oral and written traditions
Linguistic activism and eco-justice movements
Keywords: ecolinguistics, African languages, environmental justice, planetary health, indigenous knowledge
Convenors:
FEYI ADEOYE (University of Lagos)
Eric A. Anchimbe (University of Bayreuth)
P.5.04
Planetary Health in Crisis: Armed Conflict and the Environment in the Congo Basin
Home to approximately 150 million people across multiple countries, the Congo Basin sustains both local and Indigenous communities. As the world’s second-largest rainforest, it simultaneously plays a vital role in global biodiversity conservation and climate regulation, representing a critical frontier for planetary health. However, the region also contends with protracted armed conflicts—including, inter alia, insurgencies in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), civil war in the Central African Republic (CAR), and the Anglophone separatist crisis in Cameroon. While the humanitarian consequences of these conflicts are well-documented, their ecological impacts remain significantly understudied. This panel explores the complex relationships between armed conflict and environmental change in the Congo Basin, bridging disciplinary perspectives to examine their implications for planetary health. We invite empirically grounded contributions in three key areas: (1) the ecological impacts of armed conflict, including deforestation, wildlife loss, and disruptions to carbon sinks; (2) the feedback loops between environmental degradation, climate variability, and conflict dynamics; and (3) the outcomes of conservation initiatives in mitigating—and/or exacerbating—these challenges. We welcome individual case studies, comparative analyses (including large-N studies), and policy-relevant insights to advance understanding of planetary health in this ecologically rich, crisis-affected African region.
Convenors:
Fergus Simpson (University of Antwerp)
Richard Sufo (CIFOR-ICRAF)
Abdon Awono (CIFOR-ICRAF)
Lara Collart (University of Antwerp)
P.5.05
Towards a Spirited Environmental History
For several decades, environmental history has been a vibrant and productive field within African studies. Among its key contributions has been a rethinking of agency—foregrounding how plants, animals, and other non-human forces have shaped historical trajectories. Yet, spiritual agency has proven more difficult to incorporate. Most environmental histories adopt a secular framework: the spiritual is sometimes mentioned, sometimes dismissed, often rationalized—but rarely taken seriously on its own terms.
This absence may be the result of ignorance or scholarly detachment rooted in Western Enlightenment traditions. In many cases, it probably also reflects a deliberate choice. Given colonial anthropology’s obsession with the occult, spirits, and ritual—often to construct notions of African otherness—many contemporary scholars have chosen to quarantine the metaphysical rather than confront it directly.
This “de-spiriting” of environmental history resonates with broader debates about decolonizing academic knowledge production. Several thinkers argue that the binary between secular and “religion” is a European imposition (Yountae, Coloniality of the Secular, 2024). By framing African history within Western ideas of science and rationality, spirits have been excluded as legitimate historical actors.
If decolonizing environmental history means letting the sacred back in, how do we do so? What counts as evidence? What new questions does this raise about agency? And how can we engage spiritual realities without slipping into exoticization or epistemological relativism?
This absence may be the result of ignorance or scholarly detachment rooted in Western Enlightenment traditions. In many cases, it probably also reflects a deliberate choice. Given colonial anthropology’s obsession with the occult, spirits, and ritual—often to construct notions of African otherness—many contemporary scholars have chosen to quarantine the metaphysical rather than confront it directly.
This “de-spiriting” of environmental history resonates with broader debates about decolonizing academic knowledge production. Several thinkers argue that the binary between secular and “religion” is a European imposition (Yountae, Coloniality of the Secular, 2024). By framing African history within Western ideas of science and rationality, spirits have been excluded as legitimate historical actors.
If decolonizing environmental history means letting the sacred back in, how do we do so? What counts as evidence? What new questions does this raise about agency? And how can we engage spiritual realities without slipping into exoticization or epistemological relativism?
Convenors:
Julia Tischler (University of Basel)
Iva Peša (University of Groningen)
Mucha Musemwa (University of the Witwatersrand)
P.5.06
Climate-Induced Mobility in African Countries: Exploring Shifting Livelihoods and Rural Urban Migration Under Increasing Impacts of Climate Change.
Many African countries are characterized by high urbanization rates and extensive mobility between rural and urban areas, which is amplified by increasing impacts of the climate crisis. The impacts of climate change are huge and increasing, altering agricultural systems, exacerbating food and water scarcity, and intensifying the prevalence of diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis. Livelihoods are shifting under its impacts, with health of people being affected and public health coming under pressure. Migrants and inhabitants of informal urban settlements or low-income areas are among the groups most vulnerable. Public perception and policy formulation often depict these vulnerable groups as helpless victims while neglecting their agency and expertise in tackling challenges. However, they are actors, subjects of their life and experts on their situation and wellbeing, making use of different inventories of knowledge, and applying coping mechanisms to tackle challenges and adapting their livelihoods.
The panel wants to discuss the relationship between climate change impacts, changing livelihoods, and rural-urban mobility. A focus will be on community responses to the observed phenomena and how coping mechanisms they can be translated into climate change adaption policies.
We invite case studies and papers from different disciplines, particularly elaborating the intersection of social, political, economic, and ecological aspects of the topic.
We encourage papers applying interdisciplinary and/or transdisciplinary approaches.
The panel wants to discuss the relationship between climate change impacts, changing livelihoods, and rural-urban mobility. A focus will be on community responses to the observed phenomena and how coping mechanisms they can be translated into climate change adaption policies.
We invite case studies and papers from different disciplines, particularly elaborating the intersection of social, political, economic, and ecological aspects of the topic.
We encourage papers applying interdisciplinary and/or transdisciplinary approaches.
Convenors:
Matthias Rompel (Justus-Liebig-University Giessen)
Adamson Muula (Kamuzu University of Health Sciences Malawi)
Mtafu Manda (Mzuzu University)
P.5.07
Extractivism and the Ecology of Care: Rethinking Health, Economics, and Environment in a Changing Africa
In the context of accelerating environmental change and economic transformation, Africa stands at a critical crossroads. The continent’s development trajectory has long been shaped by extractivist models centered on the intensive exploitation of natural resources for global markets, often at the expense of ecological sustainability and public health. This panel explores how extractivism, as both an economic system and political ecology, intersects with health outcomes, biodiversity loss, and socio-environmental inequalities across African societies. We ask: what does it mean to build an “ecology of care” in contexts shaped by environmental degradation, climate volatility, and under-resourced health systems? Drawing on interdisciplinary perspectives from global health, ecological economics, urban studies, and environmental justice, this panel interrogates the structural relationships between resource extraction, ecological health, and care infrastructures. It considers how mining, oil exploitation, and agribusiness reshape land use, displace communities, and create chronic health burdens, while also examining alternative frameworks—such as Indigenous knowledge systems, feminist political ecology, and care-based economies—that foreground health, reciprocity, and environmental stewardship. We invite contributions that examine the lived experiences of extractivism, the politics of health information systems, and the possibilities for reimagining development in ways that restore ecological integrity and support collective well-being. Through case studies, critical theory, and empirical research, the panel aims to foster dialogue on how Africa can move beyond extractive paradigms toward sustainable futures that center both planetary and human health.
Convenors:
Florence Ngozi Uchendu (National Open University of Nigeria)
Kayode Ibrahim Adenuga (University of Law)
Kamaldeen A. Lawal (National Open University of Nigeria)
Chukwunoso Francis Onoh (National Open University of Nigeria)
P.5.08
Decolonisation of Healthcare in African Cultural Productions
The ongoing conversations on decolonisation have shown that colonialism impacted all aspects of the African cultural experience, and its manifestations continue to sustain Africans’ dependence on Euro-modern practices, including healthcare and medicalisation. African cultural productions like written literature, oral narratives, festival drama, skits and films have consistently interrogated the denigration of African healthcare philosophy, whose viability predated colonial incursion on the continent. In the process of decolonizing healthcare, a viable and independent healthcare system may be sustained in different African communities. The effectiveness of African indigenous medicine and healthcare has been expressed in African cultural productions, including written literature, oral narratives, festival drama, films, skits, etc. Scholars like David Okpako (2011; 2014 & 2019), Alex Asakitikpi (2020) and Stephen Kekeghe (2022; 2023) draw from sociological, anthropological and literary ideas to examine the viability of indigenous medicines in African cultural productions. We have proposed to call for panelists who may be interested in the conversation on how African artistic and cultural expressions communicate the effectiveness and viability of African indigenous medicine and medicalisation philosophy. Participants are to examine either of the following themes: War and fortification medicines in African Traditional Festivals; Herbalism as African indigenous medicine; African health philosophy and medicalization; Trauma and psychiatric management in Africa; dementia in African cultural productions; Bioethical concerns in African Literature and Theorising health in African literature cultural productions.
Convenors:
Stephen Kekeghe (Delta State University)
Opeyemi Ajibola (National Open University of Nigeria)
Ayokunmi Ojebode (University of Surrey)
P.5.09
African Feminist Ethics, Care Ecologies, and the Politics of Planetary Healing
Despite growing interest in care ethics and environmental justice, dominant academic discourses remain shaped by Euro-American paradigms, often overlooking the lived experiences, relational ontologies, and intergenerational ethics of non-Euro-American worldviews. Recent ecological crises have exposed the inadequacies of existing solutions, as Richardson et al. (2023) note that six of nine planetary boundaries have already been transgressed. For Africans, especially women, who depend heavily on natural resources, climate change, extractivism, anthropocentrism, and ecological degradation present urgent threats. And as Wangari Maathai states, “the condition of Africa is bound to that of the world… there is no escaping this reality” (2009, 4).
Yet African narratives that emphasize interconnectedness between human and non-human entities and promote sustainable ecological practices remain marginalized. The exclusion of African feminist perspectives neglects the roles of women as caregivers, activists, and knowledge bearers in environmental stewardship and community resilience. This gap weakens inclusive frameworks for ecological response.
This panel invites contributions that explore planetary healing through care ecologies and African feminist ethics, examining how they challenge dominant narratives and center localized knowledge. Contributors will engage theorists such as Maathai, Molewa, Jubrell, McFadden, and Tamale to engender discussions on: How can African feminist ethics reshape environmental care? How do relational ontologies inform African ecological practices? What is the role of women in local environmental stewardship? How can intergenerational ethics sustain ecological management? What are the global implications of integrating non-Euro-American perspectives? How do case studies reflect the effectiveness of care ecologies? What strategies amplify marginalized voices in environmental decision-making?
Yet African narratives that emphasize interconnectedness between human and non-human entities and promote sustainable ecological practices remain marginalized. The exclusion of African feminist perspectives neglects the roles of women as caregivers, activists, and knowledge bearers in environmental stewardship and community resilience. This gap weakens inclusive frameworks for ecological response.
This panel invites contributions that explore planetary healing through care ecologies and African feminist ethics, examining how they challenge dominant narratives and center localized knowledge. Contributors will engage theorists such as Maathai, Molewa, Jubrell, McFadden, and Tamale to engender discussions on: How can African feminist ethics reshape environmental care? How do relational ontologies inform African ecological practices? What is the role of women in local environmental stewardship? How can intergenerational ethics sustain ecological management? What are the global implications of integrating non-Euro-American perspectives? How do case studies reflect the effectiveness of care ecologies? What strategies amplify marginalized voices in environmental decision-making?
Convenors:
Victoria Openifoluwa Akoleowo (University of Ibadan)
Abosede Priscilla Ipadeola (University of Hildesheim)
P.5.10
Transforming HIV Responses: Africas health institutions and ART
This panel invites contributions that discuss African health institutions' transformations in the context of treating HIV under biomedical and pharmaceutical therapeutic regimes (Anti-Retroviral-Treatment ART). On the continent, and in other resource-restricted settings, ART was built in a context of local innovations and care responses by African health carers and institutions and the capacity of these institutions to roll out drug-based HIV-treatments.
Today the massive effort and successes that were achieved in this period risk to vanish. Whilst untreated HIV becomes a possibility because of failing health systems support, it also becomes obvious that historical research has paid suprisingly little attention to the recent develoments of HiV treatment practices and their social context since the pharmaceutic therapies seemed to have brought a global health ‚victory’ over HIV in the 2010s.
This panel will provide a much needed platform for research and historical reflection that helps to understand the transformations in the global health space that took place since the 2000s, from the perspective of African health institutions.
Beyond the history of HIV-treatment, the panel can debate what enables which kind of global health responses to disease burdens and epidemics, and how local and international policy bodies and NGO’s have been reshaped by ART roll out, and it may help thinking about what local alternatives for programming and funding could look like. Not least, the panel also offers space to discuss Africa-centered historiographical aspects of the history of HiV and its treatment.
Today the massive effort and successes that were achieved in this period risk to vanish. Whilst untreated HIV becomes a possibility because of failing health systems support, it also becomes obvious that historical research has paid suprisingly little attention to the recent develoments of HiV treatment practices and their social context since the pharmaceutic therapies seemed to have brought a global health ‚victory’ over HIV in the 2010s.
This panel will provide a much needed platform for research and historical reflection that helps to understand the transformations in the global health space that took place since the 2000s, from the perspective of African health institutions.
Beyond the history of HIV-treatment, the panel can debate what enables which kind of global health responses to disease burdens and epidemics, and how local and international policy bodies and NGO’s have been reshaped by ART roll out, and it may help thinking about what local alternatives for programming and funding could look like. Not least, the panel also offers space to discuss Africa-centered historiographical aspects of the history of HiV and its treatment.
Convenors:
Marcel Dreier (deep-facts.ch)
Glen Ncube (University of Bristol)
Lukas Meier (Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute)
P.5.11
Reimagining the Digital and Green Transitions in Contemporary African Development
This panel interrogates how the twin digital and green transformations are reshaping contemporary African development. We invite contributions that examine both benefits and externalities of transition projects across cities and hinterlands, such as renewable energy roll-outs and nature-based solutions; AI-enabled sensing, forecasting and early warning; as well as e-waste, critical-minerals extraction, land/water pressures, digital divides and displacement in the name of conservation. We particularly welcome analyses that track distributional effects and governance trade-offs, i.e., who gains, who is surveilled, who pays, across domains such as energy access, climate adaptation, food systems, and urban infrastructure. Interdisciplinary approaches and mixed methods are encouraged. The panel centres on African agency, particularly policy experimentation, community innovation, and place-based knowledge moving towards just transition pathways that are ecologically viable.
Keywords: African Development, Digital & Green Transitions, Climate Adaptation, AI-Enabled Sensing, Critical Minerals, E-waste, Just Transition Pathways
Keywords: African Development, Digital & Green Transitions, Climate Adaptation, AI-Enabled Sensing, Critical Minerals, E-waste, Just Transition Pathways
Convenors:
Evans Tindana Awuni (Universität Erfurt)
Andrew Crawford (GIGA Hamburg)
P.5.12
African Development and One Health: Juxtaposing Resource Extraction and Sustainability
Africa’s development trajectory presents a critical paradox: how to harness the continent’s abundant natural resources for economic advancement while preserving ecological diversity and public health. This panel invites scholars to examine the complex intersections between resource extraction, environmental sustainability and public health across African contexts. The One Health approach—recognising the interconnectedness of human, animal, and environmental health—offers a vital lens for understanding Africa’s development challenges. As the continent experiences unprecedented urban sprawl, agricultural intensification, and extractive industry expansion, the delicate balance between economic growth and ecological preservation becomes increasingly precarious. From mining operations disrupting traditional pastoralist systems to deforestation affecting zoonotic disease patterns, African communities navigate competing demands for immediate economic benefits and long-term sustainability. We seek papers that explore how African perspectives challenge conventional development models, highlighting indigenous knowledge systems, community-based resource management practices, and innovative governance approaches that prioritize holistic well-being. Potential topics include: extractive industries and health outcomes, agricultural transformation and ecosystem services, wildlife conservation and community livelihoods, climate change adaptation strategies, and traditional ecological knowledge in modern policy frameworks. This panel aims to centre African voices in global conversations about sustainable development, moving beyond external prescriptions to showcase endogenous solutions that balance economic aspirations with environmental stewardship. Contributions from scholars and practitioners working at the intersection of medical humanities, environmental health, development studies, and policy innovation are particularly welcomed.
Convenors:
Oluwaṣeun Otọsedẹ Williams (University College Dublin)
Adewale Onagbesan (University of Lagos)
P.5.13
African Perspectives on the Ownership of Healthcare in Colonial and Post-colonial Africa
Healthcare in Africa has many dimensions: physical and spiritual practices, knowledge production, infrastructure, and political and social contention, to name but a few. These dimensions have historically been highly disputed by African societies themselves, but also by external forces such as colonial states, regimes of development, multinational healthcare initiatives, and actors of post-colonial globalised capitalism. As such, lasting struggles have emerged surrounding questions of who can claim ownership of these dimensions, who can control their use, and who can shape their future. Furthermore, questions arise regarding what ownership means, the forms it can take, and whether it is a useful concept at all. With this panel, we would like to invite scholars to critically evaluate these struggles and questions from African perspectives.
The proposed panel focuses on these questions of ownerships in various forms and regarding various dimensions, understanding healthcare in the broadest sense. We invite researchers from different disciplines and fields to contribute both historical and contemporary perspectives. Possible contributions can range from studies on the ownership of healthcare infrastructure, such as hospitals and other institutions, to research on healthcare practices in various local settings. They can also include considerations of research agendas and pharmacological production, as well as debates surrounding political concepts such as Primary Health Care, and discourses around ideas and practices of development, global health, and the NGO-isation of healthcare.
The proposed panel focuses on these questions of ownerships in various forms and regarding various dimensions, understanding healthcare in the broadest sense. We invite researchers from different disciplines and fields to contribute both historical and contemporary perspectives. Possible contributions can range from studies on the ownership of healthcare infrastructure, such as hospitals and other institutions, to research on healthcare practices in various local settings. They can also include considerations of research agendas and pharmacological production, as well as debates surrounding political concepts such as Primary Health Care, and discourses around ideas and practices of development, global health, and the NGO-isation of healthcare.
Convenors:
Max Hufschmidt (University Basel)
Andrea Graf (University Basel)
Mohau Leqabanyo (National University Lesotho)
P.5.14
(In)formality and (Im)mobilities in African cities: exploring environmental imaginaries of vulnerability and resilience to climate change
African cities are at the frontline of planetary health challenges, facing intensifying environmental hazards amid rapid urbanization and socio-economic pressures. Recurring flood and drought events reveal not only infrastructural weaknesses but also informalities and spatial mobilities as well as immobilities that shape vulnerability and resilience. Building on work on informality in the Global South and the idea of (im)mobilities, this panel foregrounds how formal and informal institutions, land tenure regimes, and mobility patterns mediate rights, services, and protection, and how these dynamics generate both tensions, risks and innovative responses. Drawing on studies of how environmental challenges shape collective identities, the panel examines how African urban communities navigate, resist, and adapt to environmental changes while maintaining or transforming their cultural practices and identities. As climate change reshapes urban landscapes, cities become sites where vulnerabilities are produced and negotiated, but also where new forms of resilience and identity emerge. We invite papers that examine: • Intersection of climate-induced mobility, spatial (im)mobilities, and cultural identities in urban adaptation • Intersectional dimensions of (in)formality, (im)mobility, and vulnerability in urban contexts • Production of social, spatial, and institutional vulnerabilities through (in)formal urban processes • Role of cultural memory/identities and narrative in building community resilience • Indigenous and local knowledge systems in urban climate adaptation • Comparative analyses of identity formation in vulnerable urban communities • Cultural politics of planned urban relocations and resettlements This panel aims to bring together interdisciplinary perspectives from anthropology, geography, and related fields to understand how (in)formalities, (im)mobilities, and collective identity
Convenors:
Fafali Roy Ziga-Abortta (University of Freiburg)
Sylvia Kruse (University of Freiburg)
Joshua Ntajal (University of Bonn)
Peter Bilson Obour (University of Ghana)
P.5.15
Climate change policies impacting conservation and land access: Conservation admits the climate crisis in Africa
Given negative impacts of climate change, various actors aim to contain global warming. Voluntary Carbon Markets (VCMs) are one solution, allowing companies and governments to abate their excessive emissions by investing in “carbon credits” from carbon offsetting initiatives. Alongside, conservation organisations increasingly rely on VCMs to finance their activities. Recent criticism about credits and unintended consequences of VCMs have led to a drastic drop in VCM trading and calls for higher standards of environmental integrity. Nevertheless, the 2022 Africa Carbon Markets Initiative and the 2023 African Climate Summit point to strong interest in VCMs in Africa, including from conservation organisations.
This panel invites scholars to present papers critically examining opportunities and risks of VCMs in Africa, with focus on carbon credits supplied by conservation organisations. The panel especially welcomes contributions exploring how nature-based carbon credit projects affect land and conservation policies, land governance and land tenure practices, and the rights of land users in Sub-Saharan Africa. We are interested in papers interrogating recent changes in land legislation and regulation, the governance of protected areas, and conservation practices, as well as the economic, social, gendered and human security impacts of such changes.
Guiding questions are: How do VCMs impact policies and governance applied to protected areas and affect related land use and community dynamics? How does the development of nature-based carbon credits funding conservation projects impact existing land and/or land user rights? What are positive and negative implications of changes to land and/or land-user rights for local communities and local authorities?
This panel invites scholars to present papers critically examining opportunities and risks of VCMs in Africa, with focus on carbon credits supplied by conservation organisations. The panel especially welcomes contributions exploring how nature-based carbon credit projects affect land and conservation policies, land governance and land tenure practices, and the rights of land users in Sub-Saharan Africa. We are interested in papers interrogating recent changes in land legislation and regulation, the governance of protected areas, and conservation practices, as well as the economic, social, gendered and human security impacts of such changes.
Guiding questions are: How do VCMs impact policies and governance applied to protected areas and affect related land use and community dynamics? How does the development of nature-based carbon credits funding conservation projects impact existing land and/or land user rights? What are positive and negative implications of changes to land and/or land-user rights for local communities and local authorities?
Convenors:
Martina Santschi (University of Basel/swisspeace)
Mathew Bukhi Mabele (University of Dodoma)
Evelyn Dietsche (University of Basel/swisspeace)
P.5.16
Mapping African approaches to urban planning: a critical overall effort
The panel aims to draw a critical map of emergent schools, artists, architects, and research centers, focusing on the contemporary processes of "urbanity in the making." To sketch these perspectives, we propose three interpretive metaphors inspired by the literature on African cities: the black swan, the grey rhino, and the elephant in the room. The black swan captures the shock of alterity and the emergence of unexpected events; the grey rhino emphasizes the underlying and often ignored risks of existing systems; and the elephant in the room exposes the denials and blind spots embedded within dominant governance and planning frameworks. Taken together, these metaphors provide a critical lens for understanding complex challenges and the distinct contributions of African urbanism. We propose them as a framework to critically analyze urban practices, planning cultures, and higher education approaches that interact in vital ways within contemporary African contexts. The panel welcomes proposals that contribute to this effort, especially those that focus on proactive and contextually relevant strategies for the future role of African perspectives on a global level. This panel is part of the development of the forthcoming Routledge volume: African Approaches to Urban Planning: Towards Novel Alignments of Urban Practice, Planning Cultures, and Higher Education.
Convenors:
elvira pietrobon (IUAV-Venezia)
domenico patassini (IUAV-Venezia)
alessandra manzini (Cergy Paris University)
P.5.17
Transformations in more-than-human worlds: interdisciplinary dialogue and lived experiences
“One Health” and other inter-/and transdisciplinary health concepts such as “Planetary Health” that highlight the interdependence of human-animal-and environmental health have gained popularity in science and beyond, since COVID-19 and the many manifestations of the climate crisis. The relationship humans have with nature in general, but also with their companion, farm, working or wild animals have been transformed or cast into new light – highlighting mutual vulnerability and companionship.
In recent years, medical anthropology has made significant contributions to the study of health and well-being within the context of multispecies livelihoods. By critically engaging with concepts such as One Health, concerns have been raised at epistemic, ethical and methodological levels. How have other disciplines, such as veterinary sciences, reacted to such criticism and how can we enter into fruitful dialogue across disciplines for multispecies well-being?
In this panel we would like to draw on these important debates and criticisms by bringing them into dialogue with (in-depth) insights of recent transformations in more-than-human worlds in Africa and beyond. The panel invites contributions from various (inter-)disciplinary perspectives on practices, interventions and transformations in the human-animal-environment interface, exploring both zoonotic aspects of contamination as well as zooeyia, the benefits of animals in human lives. Papers that explore more-than-human perspectives, including knowledge production that combine bio-medical sciences, Indigenous knowledge and critical reflections of lived experiences are equally welcome.
In recent years, medical anthropology has made significant contributions to the study of health and well-being within the context of multispecies livelihoods. By critically engaging with concepts such as One Health, concerns have been raised at epistemic, ethical and methodological levels. How have other disciplines, such as veterinary sciences, reacted to such criticism and how can we enter into fruitful dialogue across disciplines for multispecies well-being?
In this panel we would like to draw on these important debates and criticisms by bringing them into dialogue with (in-depth) insights of recent transformations in more-than-human worlds in Africa and beyond. The panel invites contributions from various (inter-)disciplinary perspectives on practices, interventions and transformations in the human-animal-environment interface, exploring both zoonotic aspects of contamination as well as zooeyia, the benefits of animals in human lives. Papers that explore more-than-human perspectives, including knowledge production that combine bio-medical sciences, Indigenous knowledge and critical reflections of lived experiences are equally welcome.
Convenors:
Kathrin Heitz-Tokpa (Centre Suisse de Recherches Scientifiques en Côte d'Ivoire)
Andrea Kaiser-Grolimund (Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH))
Bassirou Bonfoh (Centre Suisse de Recherches Scientifiques en Côte d'Ivoire)
6) TECHNOLOGY AND DIGITALIZATION
P.6.01
Sounds of technicization. Lifeworld and musical capitalism in Africa
This panel explores contemporary transformations in African musical worlds at the intersection of two major dynamics: technicization and musical capitalism. Drawing on insights from anthropology, sociology, and Science and Technology Studies (STS), we examine how digital technologies and platform-based infrastructures (e.g., Spotify, YouTube, Boomplay, or Africa-based streaming applications) are reshaping the modes of production, circulation, and consumption of music across the continent. The technicization of lifeworlds refers not only to the proliferation of digital tools – such as home studios, algorithmic recommendation systems, streaming platforms, and AI-driven software – but also to a deeper transformation in how music is produced, evaluated, and disseminated. This panel is based on the premise that these global transformations are not uniform and unidirectional; on the contrary, technicization and musical capitalism are shaped by locally existing infrastructures, systems of exchange, religious practices, or power relationships related to the production or consumption of music and sound. This panel will examine how music digital technologies and economies are translated and reconfigured through situated practices, vernacular forms of creativity, and dynamics of subjectivation that reveal the capacity of African actors to negotiate, subvert, or reinvent the norms imposed by global technological infrastructures. We welcome theoretically informed and empirically grounded contributions that approach music as a privileged site for analyzing the socio-technical reconfiguration of everyday life. Possible topics include: platformization, algorithmic visibility, virality, musical labor and its precarization, sonic infrastructures, symbolic or religious agency of digital technologies, and the entanglements of aesthetic forms and geopolitical power in postcolonial contexts.
Convenors:
Alice Aterianus-Owanga (University of Neuchâtel)
Georges Macaire Eyenga (University of Dschang)
P.6.02
African articulations of energy storage: Ongoing transitions, multiscalar arrangements, and infrastructural futures
In times of accelerated change and growing uncertainty, energy storage is playing an increasingly crucial role worldwide; e.g., as household- and grid-scale batteries, hydrogen storage, geothermal heat, hydroelectric pumping, gaseous energy stored in tanks and cylinders, and more. Furthermore, the transition to ‘green solutions’ raises questions about the socio-ecological consequences of energy storage, particularly in areas with a history of energy injustice, i.e. much of (urban) Africa. As variegated storage technologies become integrated into people’s intimate spheres and are embedded in formalized and informalized economies, government policies and plans, they not only enable energy transitions in Africa but are shaped by, and shape, place-specific social, political, economic, ecological, and infrastructural conditions. Considering the multiplicity, interconnectedness, and dynamism of storage technologies, this panel aims to explore their spatial, temporal, labor, social, symbolic, and material dimensions. To further challenge binary dialectics (e.g., formal/informal or networked/non-networked), we invite contributions – preferably based on empirical research – that critically explore situated yet multiscalar articulations of energy storage and their role in reconfiguring current energy landscapes and impacting infrastructural futures in Africa. Lines of inquiry may include energy justice, community actions and innovations, infrastructural plans and imaginaries, wider technology landscapes and technological differentiation (e.g., various battery types), governance arrangements and alternatives, the micro- and geo-politics of energy storage, and its role in other sectors (e.g., mobility and ICT). Ultimately, with a sensibility for different forms of coloniality, the panel compiles African insights on the present and future of energy storage worldwide.
Convenors:
Amarilli Varesio (University of Milan-Bicocca)
Kareem Buyana (Makerere University)
Moritz Kasper (affiliation to be confirmed)
P.6.03
African languages in a globalized and digitalized World: challenges and perspectives
Colonization led to the imposition of European administrative, economic, health and education systems on the African continent. This situation has favored the hegemony of European languages within these systems and has been responsible in part for the decline of African languages and endangerment of many of them.
The globalization of economies, favoring waves of migration across the world, has added to the pressures. A subset of the threat from globalization is the threat from technology and Artificial Intelligence. This represents a major factor of risk when one considers that Africa lags behind in digitization in general (known as the ‘digital divide’), and in the digitization of indigenous languages on the continent.
However, it has also been argued that continued expansion of higher education in Africa will require a re-thinking and a new reliance on indigenous languages, both in order to make education systems more effective and in order to harness new forms of creativity, rooted in the unique cultures of the continent. Africa’s educated youth form a huge potential in the continent’s ability to ‘think globally, act locally’.
To address these complex issues, our panel mainly focuses on the following questions: How do new technologies and the expansion of education decrease or enhance the chances of African languages surviving into the future? Panelists are expected to examine policy orientations and practices regarding African languages in specific countries, with a focus on local, global and technological futures of these languages.
The globalization of economies, favoring waves of migration across the world, has added to the pressures. A subset of the threat from globalization is the threat from technology and Artificial Intelligence. This represents a major factor of risk when one considers that Africa lags behind in digitization in general (known as the ‘digital divide’), and in the digitization of indigenous languages on the continent.
However, it has also been argued that continued expansion of higher education in Africa will require a re-thinking and a new reliance on indigenous languages, both in order to make education systems more effective and in order to harness new forms of creativity, rooted in the unique cultures of the continent. Africa’s educated youth form a huge potential in the continent’s ability to ‘think globally, act locally’.
To address these complex issues, our panel mainly focuses on the following questions: How do new technologies and the expansion of education decrease or enhance the chances of African languages surviving into the future? Panelists are expected to examine policy orientations and practices regarding African languages in specific countries, with a focus on local, global and technological futures of these languages.
Convenors:
Bert van Pinxteren (Leiden University)
Djouroukoro Diallo (Bern universität)
Taiwo Oloruntoba-Oju (University of Ilorin)
Sarita Monjane-Henriksen (Universidade Pedagógica de Maputo)
P.6.04
A Technical Divergence: Knowledge, Technology, and Decolonisation in Africa after Independence
In the 20th century, the world witnessed dramatic technological change. Post-independence Africa played a central yet often overlooked role in this development. Technical objects such as motor vehicles, radios, and medical equipment, alongside new forms of knowledge, training, and infrastructure, shaped African societies profoundly. Modern technologies not only altered how people moved, worked, and interacted, but also how they imagined themselves and the world. Far from being passive recipients of innovation from the Global North, Africans actively used, remoulded, and invented technologies to suit local ideas and needs. Yet as decolonisation progressed, African technological agency declined. Increasingly, material designs favoured international producers over African users, while knowledge exchange often remained unidirectional. Contributions by African actors were overlooked or excluded, reinforcing new hierarchies and dependencies.
This panel examines Africa’s technical divergence in the post-independence era, discussing its causes and consequences. It shifts attention from conventional sites of decolonisation struggles to focus on African engagements with technology in the second half of the 20th century. The panel asks why and under what conditions African technological agency diminished, how individuals and communities responded, and what the broader social, political, and epistemic implications were. We invite contributions that address these issues empirically, reflect on methodological challenges, reconceptualise what technology is, and/or rethink processes of innovation and production. The panel ultimately seeks to illuminate how Africans shaped—and were shaped by—the global technological transformations of the 20th century, shedding new light on power dynamics and asymmetries in the wake of decolonisation.
This panel examines Africa’s technical divergence in the post-independence era, discussing its causes and consequences. It shifts attention from conventional sites of decolonisation struggles to focus on African engagements with technology in the second half of the 20th century. The panel asks why and under what conditions African technological agency diminished, how individuals and communities responded, and what the broader social, political, and epistemic implications were. We invite contributions that address these issues empirically, reflect on methodological challenges, reconceptualise what technology is, and/or rethink processes of innovation and production. The panel ultimately seeks to illuminate how Africans shaped—and were shaped by—the global technological transformations of the 20th century, shedding new light on power dynamics and asymmetries in the wake of decolonisation.
Convenors:
Kai Herzog (Helmut Schmidt University Hamburg)
Andrea Azizi Kifyasi (University of Dar es Salaam)
P.6.05
Moral Economies of Data in African Technosciences
The African continent is fully immersed in the hype of digitally-driven development and a much-anticipated ‘data revolution’. High hopes are surrounding ‘open data’ as a solution for imparting knowledge and stimulating innovation that will foster global inclusion in a techno-determinist fashion. But what are the consequences of these promises of abundant information, openness, accessibility and inclusion for those whose job it is to produce technoscientific knowledge? This panel invites empirically grounded case studies that examine the moral economies of data production, management and sharing in various technosciences (e.g., meteorology, climate science, ecology, AI, data science, astronomy, genomics, biotechnology). We welcome papers investigating the ways in which scientists and engineers on the continent work with (or without) data, in academia, industry, the government and the nonprofit sector, often in contexts characterized by infrastructural precarity, lack of resources, and external financial dependency. The notion of a moral economy draws attention to the epistemological, organizational and ethical dimensions of data work. The contributions may, for example, explore how data sparsity and unreliable connectivity complicate access to technological systems and participation in global science; how data ownership, intellectual property, and scientific authorship are reconfigured through new research infrastructures, legal frameworks, and ethical guidelines; how scientists and engineers negotiate asymmetric relations to pursue local relevance and international recognition; how local actors try to reform moral economies of data predetermined by global norms. The panel will aim to move beyond the critique of structural inequalities to provide thick descriptions of concrete practices and their normative expectations.
Convenors:
Véra Ehrenstein (Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS))
James Merron (University of Basel)
Siri Lamoureaux (EM Lyon Business School)
Georges Macaire Eyenga (Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS))
P.6.06
Digitalization, Labour, and Governance: African Agency in Platform and AI Futures
This panel examines how digitalization is remaking work, welfare, rights and governance across contemporary Africa, and how African actors shape, contest, and redirect these transformations. Through digitalization alternative imaginaries are reconfiguring the public good and access to public goods to citizens. We invite papers on platform economies (e.g., ride-hailing, logistics, care, microwork), AI and data infrastructures (ID systems, credit scoring, predictive policing, climate-risk modelling), digital technologies (Internet of things, telehealth, drones, electronic health records, wearable devices,) and the policy regimes that govern them (competition, labour, tax, data privacy, content moderation). Submissions may address multisectoral digitalization agendas, labour rights and freedoms organisation; gendered and linguistic inequalities; digital extractivism and value capture; dataveillance, informal-formal intersections; SME digitisation; and the geopolitical economy of standards and critical supply chains management. We particularly welcome research that links firm- and platform-level dynamics to household livelihoods and public goods (e.g., social protection, urban services). By bringing scholars and practitioners into conversation, the panel asks: What forms of regulation and institutional design can secure fair work, accountability, and inclusive innovation? What aspirations, expectations and hopes are elevated through alternative imaginaries of digitalization agendas? How are street level bureaucrats, workers, civic groups, startups and regulators experimenting to bend digital futures toward equity? We aim to curate a set of empirics and theory to move debates toward evidence-based, Africa-led digital futures and desired pursuits to translate global sustainable development orders into attainable state specific goals to enhance citizens access to public goods.
Convenors:
Edwin Ambani Ameso (Universität Leipzig)
Gift Mwonzora (Universität Erfurt)
P.6.07
Africa Plays in a Digital Age: Leisure in Africa Under the Conditions of Contemporary Globalization
One of the most significant global transformations is the influx of digital technology, globalized ways of life and aesthetics. This panel addresses how the digital informs leisure in Africa. With the rise of smartphones, social media, online broadcasting and gaming in the last decades, recreational activities have changed significantly in the last decade. Yet, this global development meets local conditions and established behaviors. How do people play, and how is their relationship to the digital world? Which digital activities are significant for which age group and income class? How does the digital sphere change leisure activities? Are there new games or games that have changed through social media and the ubiquity of cameras? Are there certain games that oppose the new digital technologies? How does digitalization inform inclusion and exclusion in leisure activities? Do certain digital influences gain a lower or higher traction in Africa than in other parts of the world?
The panel asks for contributions that will highlight the significance of digitalization and leisure in African settings. It addresses the challenge of how we can study digitalization as a main force of social change and leisure in Africa from different disciplinary perspectives, especially those with a strong empirical foundation. In particular, the conveners ask for contributions that are not limited to local case studies but combine field research with a theoretical argument and innovative methods. With regard to the different backgrounds of the convenors (Literary Studies and Sociology), we welcome interdisciplinary work.
The panel asks for contributions that will highlight the significance of digitalization and leisure in African settings. It addresses the challenge of how we can study digitalization as a main force of social change and leisure in Africa from different disciplinary perspectives, especially those with a strong empirical foundation. In particular, the conveners ask for contributions that are not limited to local case studies but combine field research with a theoretical argument and innovative methods. With regard to the different backgrounds of the convenors (Literary Studies and Sociology), we welcome interdisciplinary work.
Convenors:
Florian Stoll (University of Bayreuth)
Tom Michael Mboya (Moi University)
7) LIFEWORLDS AND SOCIALITY
P.7.01
Long-Term Labour Transformations and its Influences on West African Lifeworlds
This panel explores long-term transformations in labour and work in post-independence Africa, with Ghana as a central case for exploring broader continental dynamics. Many African countries, including Ghana, underwent structural adjustment in the 1980s, marking a pivotal shift from state-led to market-based development policies. This transition profoundly altered labour relations, contributing to the decline of formal wage labour and the rise of informal and precarious work; transformations that continue to shape livelihoods across urban and rural contexts.
Drawing on the Ghanaian experience (where the term ‘informal sector’ was first coined by Keith Hart (1973)), panelists will examine how shifts in policy, global economic realignments, and development agendas have influenced labour markets through agricultural reforms, public sector employment, approaches to unemployment, informal sector engagement, and responses to international financial institutions.
By tracing both change and continuity in the governance of labour from the post-independence era to the present, the panel asks: how have African experiences contributed to transformations in employment structures and the political economy of work? How do local realities interact with global pressures to shape working lives over time?
This panel invites papers from senior researchers, emerging scholars, and practitioners with a focus on Africa to contribute to broader debates on African perspectives in global transformations that highlight the importance of labour in understanding long-term social and economic change.
Drawing on the Ghanaian experience (where the term ‘informal sector’ was first coined by Keith Hart (1973)), panelists will examine how shifts in policy, global economic realignments, and development agendas have influenced labour markets through agricultural reforms, public sector employment, approaches to unemployment, informal sector engagement, and responses to international financial institutions.
By tracing both change and continuity in the governance of labour from the post-independence era to the present, the panel asks: how have African experiences contributed to transformations in employment structures and the political economy of work? How do local realities interact with global pressures to shape working lives over time?
This panel invites papers from senior researchers, emerging scholars, and practitioners with a focus on Africa to contribute to broader debates on African perspectives in global transformations that highlight the importance of labour in understanding long-term social and economic change.
Convenors:
Felix Yao Amenorhu (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)
Hedvig Lagercrantz (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)
Nana Yaw Boampong Sapong (University of Ghana)
Lamine Doumbia (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)
P.7.02
Forging belonging and weaving knowledge: the relationship between social belonging, imagined futures and craft knowledge of children and youth in Africa.
Craft production continues to be an important part of domestic and regional rural economies and socialities in Africa, despite the falling economic viability of craft markets competing with global industrial production and little interest from international art markets in African textiles, ceramics and creative metalwork. In West Africa, for example, many crafts are deeply implicated in the formation of gender, religion and ethnic belonging. Craftsmen and craftswomen continue to transfer their skills and knowledge to their children, and children and youth may themselves imagine futures in which they become crafters or, at least, continue to deploy crafting as a touchstone of their social belonging. In addition, despite falling demand for artisanal products for everyday use, there is increasing demand from African middle classes for textiles, ceramics, leather and metal work through which they can express their own cultural nationalism. Art markets too are increasingly, and not least because of global demands for epistemic and aesthetic decolonization, recognising the artistic value of African arts and crafts. Indeed, a new class or new strata of young African ‘cultural workers’ (curators, artists, producers) is being born. To address these issues, we invite papers that explore one or more of the following:
1. How craft cultures are connected to social belonging.
2. How the value of artisanal craft has changed.
3. How children/youth learn crafting.
4. How the children of crafters imagine their futures.
1. How craft cultures are connected to social belonging.
2. How the value of artisanal craft has changed.
3. How children/youth learn crafting.
4. How the children of crafters imagine their futures.
Convenors:
Erdmute Alber (Universität Bayreuth)
Karen Wells (University of London)
P.7.03
Contested Spaces and Gendered Lifeworlds: Decolonising Representation in African Media
This panel explores how African media—widely construed to include conventional and new media forms as well as commonplace communication practices—act as essential arenas for the representation, negotiation, and transformation of gendered lifeworlds. Politics, rapid population shifts, urbanisation, technology advancements, and cultural change are reshaping everyday life in African nations, especially for women and marginalised groups. These changes have a profound impact on how individuals relate to one another across gender, class, and generation, and have an impact on work, education, culture, and faith. This panel emphasises daily existence as a ‘political arena’ where memory, resistance, and power are exercised. It urges a critical examination of the ways in which media in African contexts construct and express or obfuscate gendered participation in and experiences of migration, informal and formal economies, politics, religion and spirituality, and generational transition. By this, we read the media as a space of knowledge construction through reflecting and creating sociality, serving as a medium for the consolidation and contestation of ideologies and gendered processes. The panel critiques and confronts colonial legacies and residues in the narration, categorisation, and comprehension of lifeworlds by emphasising African epistemologies and decolonial philosophy. We welcome contributions from various disciplinary, interdisciplinary, and non-academic perspectives that engage with both decolonial and postcolonial philosophies of media representation of African lifeworlds in isolation and in relation to others, and theories of media culture and practice. We also encourage contributions on rethinking and decolonising African media systems shaped by colonial legacies.
Convenors:
Edidiong Ibanga (University of Bayreuth)
Tracey Muradzikwa (University of Johannesburg)
Albert Sharra (University of Edinburgh)
P.7.04
Living within Limits: Minor Gestures under Late Capitalism
As hierarchies and injustices seem ever more fixed and insurmountable and aspirations ever more difficult to realize, the question arises: how does one live a life that is as agentive as it is minor and limited? And what are the minor gestures that make such life possible and worth living?
Across the globe people who are subalternally positioned and face myriad forms of marginalization experience gaps to a dignified life imagined – and yet find ways to navigate within and across imposed positions and circumstances. Moving beyond both victimization and romanticization and by taking up the notion of “minor realities“ by Deleuze and Guattari and the “(black) undercommons“ by Harney and Moten, this panel inquires: what are the everyday practices, discourses, imaginations etc. that enable minor realities? What does the minor (have to) adopt or borrow from the major (as the dominant), what does or can it refuse and where does it become something of its own? But also where does the minor reconfirm, conform to or become appropriated and exploitable by the major, and where does it decentre or become a threat to it? And what is the larger socio-political implication of such “living within limits” (Jackson) in respect to its potential for change, justice, well-being or survival? This panel invites ethnographically grounded and theoretically evocative contributions that creatively engage with the tropes “minor” and “limit” and focus e.g. on migration, labor, art, academia, or race, class and gender informed struggles, but also on appropriations of the minor.
Across the globe people who are subalternally positioned and face myriad forms of marginalization experience gaps to a dignified life imagined – and yet find ways to navigate within and across imposed positions and circumstances. Moving beyond both victimization and romanticization and by taking up the notion of “minor realities“ by Deleuze and Guattari and the “(black) undercommons“ by Harney and Moten, this panel inquires: what are the everyday practices, discourses, imaginations etc. that enable minor realities? What does the minor (have to) adopt or borrow from the major (as the dominant), what does or can it refuse and where does it become something of its own? But also where does the minor reconfirm, conform to or become appropriated and exploitable by the major, and where does it decentre or become a threat to it? And what is the larger socio-political implication of such “living within limits” (Jackson) in respect to its potential for change, justice, well-being or survival? This panel invites ethnographically grounded and theoretically evocative contributions that creatively engage with the tropes “minor” and “limit” and focus e.g. on migration, labor, art, academia, or race, class and gender informed struggles, but also on appropriations of the minor.
Convenors:
Sandro Simon (University of Cologne)
Danielle Isler (University of Bayreuth)
8) ARTS, LANGUAGE AND CULTURAL EXPRESSION
P.8.01
Laughing at Power: Humour, Identity, and Socio-Political Commentary in African Digital Comedy Skits
Humour has successfully been used as a tool for capturing feelings and opinions about different social and political issues, and not just a tool for relieving tension. Different studies have pointed out the intricacies of humour as a genre with an expanding sub-genre of comedy skits. This panel sets out to investigate the interplay of humour, socio-political commentary, and digital performance in Africa’s contemporary media landscape and the cultural potency of humour in digital comedy skits, examining how these short-form performances serve as tools for dissent, identity negotiation, articulation of marginalized voices and spotlighting of social contradictions. With platforms such as YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok expanding access and reach, skits have become a dominant expressive form among youth. Billig’s (2005) notion of the use of humour text to achieve a serious end; humour as bossiness enriches the intersections between humour, identity, and sociopolitical critique in African digital comedy, with particular focus on skit culture. Panelists will explore how skit-makers mobilize linguistic and performative strategies, such as prosody, code-switching, parody, satire, metaphor, and rhetorical reversal, to challenge hegemony and reflect contemporary African realities. Through theoretical lenses like the General Theory of Verbal Humour (GTVH), Pragmatic Acts theory, and Discourse Analysis, this panel situates skit culture as a unique digital arena where humour functions as both resistance and cultural narration. Focusing on representations of gender, class, politics, and religion, this panel will offer insights into how humour shapes public discourse, disrupts dominant narratives, and constructs alternative narratives in postcolonial
Convenors:
Winnie Daniel (Federal University Lokoja)
Adesina Sunday (University of Ibadan)
P.8.02
Trajectories of African and Afro-descendant Literatures in Switzerland
For over a century, African and Afro-descendant literatures have crossed borders to engage a growing global readership. Long examined through the lens of former colonial powers – either to expose their origins under tutelage or to emphasize resistance – they have since transcended these frameworks to unfold in a variety of forms and spaces, including in Switzerland. Through literary archives (e.g., Jean-Marie Volet, Lausanne), cultural events, literary prizes (such as the Ahmadou Kourouma Prize), publishing houses, academic research, and personal trajectories of writers of African origin, Switzerland has become a significant space for the reception, circulation and promotion of these literatures.
This panel invites a critical exploration of how African and Afro-descendant literatures are being received or written in Switzerland. How do African writers view this landscape? What positions and experiences emerge from their texts? How are these works received, studied, or interpreted in a country without a direct colonial past, yet deeply embedded in European cultural and political networks? In what ways does a Swiss perspective shape the representation of history and literary spaces? What are the places and institutions of legitimization?
Connecting these two literary spheres, unequal in scope and history, is not about drawing equivalences, but rather about shifting focus away from traditional cultural centers (Paris, London, Berlin, New York) to better grasp the multipolar dynamics of the transnational literary field. Switzerland's engagement with African and Afro-descendant literature also offers an opportunity to reassess its position in the global history that literature reflects both critically and sensitively.
This panel invites a critical exploration of how African and Afro-descendant literatures are being received or written in Switzerland. How do African writers view this landscape? What positions and experiences emerge from their texts? How are these works received, studied, or interpreted in a country without a direct colonial past, yet deeply embedded in European cultural and political networks? In what ways does a Swiss perspective shape the representation of history and literary spaces? What are the places and institutions of legitimization?
Connecting these two literary spheres, unequal in scope and history, is not about drawing equivalences, but rather about shifting focus away from traditional cultural centers (Paris, London, Berlin, New York) to better grasp the multipolar dynamics of the transnational literary field. Switzerland's engagement with African and Afro-descendant literature also offers an opportunity to reassess its position in the global history that literature reflects both critically and sensitively.
Convenors:
Jehanne Denogent (UNIL Université de Lausanne)
Amandine Herzog-Novoa (Bern universität)
P.8.03
Africa Narratives Trauma: Mediating Civil Wars, Remaking Memory and problematizing Continental Transformations
In some African countries, the aftermath of civil wars and ethnic/religious conflicts has profoundly impacted societies leading to internal dislocations, emigrations, poverty, etc., and yet these experiences are unevenly represented in media narratives. In some climes, artists have created literary and visual works that grapple with remnants of conflict, addressing themes of trauma, memory, and reconstruction. Their objective is to retrospectively analyse traumatic events and their subsequent emotional effects, with the goal of preventing similar incidents in the future. For example, in Germany, rubble films, known locally as trümmerfilme, constituted “‘open forum’ and continuing discussion of German national guilt” following the world war. In Africa, beyond literature, such narratives are often lacking due to political concerns, fear of renewed tensions, or limited resources, hindering post-conflict transformation.
This panel invites scholars and practitioners to explore the presence/absence of trauma narratives in African nations which have suffered civil unrests. We seek contributions that
• identify and analyse characteristics of trauma narratives in specific nations, examining their thematic and aesthetic approaches to depicting post-conflict realities.
• investigate sociopolitical, policy and cultural factors that foster the presence/absence of trauma narratives.
• explore how this presence/absence reflects and influences Africa's interaction with global discourses on transformation, justice and reconciliation.
• assess how trauma narratives shape memory, constituting an open forum for continuing discussion on attaining national healing and transformation
By situating trauma narratives within the broader framework of global transformations, this panel underscores the functions of African media in fostering multi-ethnic, national and cosmopolitan flourishing.
This panel invites scholars and practitioners to explore the presence/absence of trauma narratives in African nations which have suffered civil unrests. We seek contributions that
• identify and analyse characteristics of trauma narratives in specific nations, examining their thematic and aesthetic approaches to depicting post-conflict realities.
• investigate sociopolitical, policy and cultural factors that foster the presence/absence of trauma narratives.
• explore how this presence/absence reflects and influences Africa's interaction with global discourses on transformation, justice and reconciliation.
• assess how trauma narratives shape memory, constituting an open forum for continuing discussion on attaining national healing and transformation
By situating trauma narratives within the broader framework of global transformations, this panel underscores the functions of African media in fostering multi-ethnic, national and cosmopolitan flourishing.
Convenors:
Ezinne Ezepue (University of Nigeria)
Ademola Adesola (Mount Royal University)
Joachim Friedmann (HAW Hamburg)
P.8.04
Sub-Saharan Literary Cosmopolitanism: Toward a New ‘Possible World’?
Overview
The Francophone corpus in this panel is not defined by authors’ origin, but by a textual scenography shaped by dominant voices (characters or narrators) identified as Sub-Saharan African or of African descent. These voices emerge through “cultural commonalities” (endogenous knowledge, onomastics, belief systems human or non-human, etc.), and may appear anywhere, on or off the African continent. This “Africa in the world” is often represented through migration or migrance, implying an unstable relationship to the world, where subjects (human or not) are affected by their environment.
Proposal
This configuration challenges the idea of “belonging to a global citizenship,” seen as a cosmopolitanism in which the subject shapes “a common humanity, a history and a future that we can offer each other in sharing” (Mbembe, 2013). Gilroy (1998) criticizes the assumption that whites travel voluntarily and recreationally, while Blacks people’s only move as “refugees, migrants or slaves.” Our aim is to examine contemporary literature through this lens and move beyond the category of migrance to analyze texts that articulate forms of cosmopolitanism – signs of plural cultural experiences enabled by formal strategies.
Axes
• Cosmopolitanism, like “Afropolitanism” (Mbembe), is not viewed as elitist or Eurocentric, but as a vernacular skill, a co-production enabling mutual recognition through exchange.
• We explore how cosmopolitanism frames displacements (geographical, spiritual, cultural, etc.) and their aesthetic and political implications.
• Finally, is such autonomous mobility only possible for Sub-Saharan characters situated outside Europe, such as in Africa or South America?
The Francophone corpus in this panel is not defined by authors’ origin, but by a textual scenography shaped by dominant voices (characters or narrators) identified as Sub-Saharan African or of African descent. These voices emerge through “cultural commonalities” (endogenous knowledge, onomastics, belief systems human or non-human, etc.), and may appear anywhere, on or off the African continent. This “Africa in the world” is often represented through migration or migrance, implying an unstable relationship to the world, where subjects (human or not) are affected by their environment.
Proposal
This configuration challenges the idea of “belonging to a global citizenship,” seen as a cosmopolitanism in which the subject shapes “a common humanity, a history and a future that we can offer each other in sharing” (Mbembe, 2013). Gilroy (1998) criticizes the assumption that whites travel voluntarily and recreationally, while Blacks people’s only move as “refugees, migrants or slaves.” Our aim is to examine contemporary literature through this lens and move beyond the category of migrance to analyze texts that articulate forms of cosmopolitanism – signs of plural cultural experiences enabled by formal strategies.
Axes
• Cosmopolitanism, like “Afropolitanism” (Mbembe), is not viewed as elitist or Eurocentric, but as a vernacular skill, a co-production enabling mutual recognition through exchange.
• We explore how cosmopolitanism frames displacements (geographical, spiritual, cultural, etc.) and their aesthetic and political implications.
• Finally, is such autonomous mobility only possible for Sub-Saharan characters situated outside Europe, such as in Africa or South America?
Convenors:
Christine Le Quellec Cottier (UNIL Université de Lausanne)
Isabelle Chariatte (University of Basel)
P.8.05
From Ritual to Algorithm: Evolving Embodied Resistance in African Performing Spaces
We invite papers tracing the evolving roles of the African performing body as a site of protest, resistance, and reimagination across sacred, physical, and digital spaces. Across African cultural performances, the body has been functioning as a political text evolving from the sacred to the speculative spaces. From the ritual space for instance, Chika Odike (2025) observes that in the colonial era, Igbo masked performances like the “Ghost Policemen” and “Oyibo” caricatures allowed the masquerades satirise colonial authority. The masquerade becomes a mobile stage for political commentary, using the body, costume, and performance to protest against unfavorable laws. Dramas from secular theatres such as Ogunde Traveling Theater in Nigeria, also critique colonial authority (Encyclopedia Britannica). In the postcolonial Nigeria, Fela Anikulapo Kuti embodied resistance through Afrobeat performances that transformed both his body and Kalakuta Republic into living spaces of defiance (Olaniyan, 2004). while playwrights like Ngugi Wa Thiong’o, Wole Soyinka, mobilized drama texts to critique imperialism, and government corruption respectively. The body became a living text, inscribed with cultural and political intent. Today, digital creators such as Bobrisky’s queer performance, unsettles binaries of gender and space.
This panel invites contributions that trace this trajectories across:
-Protest in colonial cultural expression
-Postcolonial theatre and musical activism
-Digital and virtual performance
Speculative futures of protest embodiment
We welcome papers interrogating:
-How bodies have been sites of resistance across African performance spaces
-How gender, costume, and gesture evolve in protest cultural expressios?
-What the future of protest embodiment might look like in Africa?
This panel invites contributions that trace this trajectories across:
-Protest in colonial cultural expression
-Postcolonial theatre and musical activism
-Digital and virtual performance
Speculative futures of protest embodiment
We welcome papers interrogating:
-How bodies have been sites of resistance across African performance spaces
-How gender, costume, and gesture evolve in protest cultural expressios?
-What the future of protest embodiment might look like in Africa?
Convenors:
Mary Nkechi Okadigwe (Nnamdi Azikiwe University)
Daniel Iweze (University of Benin)
Nwabunwanne Igweadiani (Alex Ekwueme Federal University)
P.8.06
Music as a site for socio-spatial dialectic in Africa
This panel discusses African music, and in particular highlife music from West Africa, as valuable rich oral documentaries and sites of cultural heritage. The panel opens up a conversation on music from Africa by resituating it as a historical site as well as contemporary experience for African studies research both within and outside the continent. We do this by conceptualizing music from Africa as a socio-spatial production in its effort or contributions to representations of the society, be it built work or as spatial metaphors. We contend that African music – in both production and performance – draws from the environment in its narratives and affirms keen sensibility to an interpolation of human, geographies, ecologies and landscapes. Highlife music is not arbitrary, but a thoughtful assemblage of social forces, power relations and human activities which shapes and is shaped by the social, cultural, economic and political environment. By nature of the genres, their disciplinary interconnectedness or pluralism, we welcome contributions from trans- and interdisciplinary scholars seeking to stride epistemological and methodological routes as critical response to global transformation discourses. The panel invites scholars and practitioners of different disciplinary interests to engage with multifaceted themes such as heritage, race, migration, sustainability, domesticity, class struggles that are produced in the music.
Convenors:
William Francis Adjei-Mensah (Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology)
Karen Lenny Lauterbach (University of Copenhagen)
Josh Brew (University of Pittsburgh)
Markus Coester (University of Bayreuth)
P.8.07
Linguistic and Cultural Expression in African Arts: Language as Memory, Resistance, and Renewal
Language serves as the core that permeates African artistic expression and functions simultaneously as communicative tool, aesthetic framework, and repository of cultural memory. From the rhythm of oral storytelling to the visual semiotics of traditional symbols, and from the linguistic experimentation of contemporary music to the code-switching strategies in modern literature, African artists continually engage language as a medium of cultural memory, resistance, and renewal.
This panel aims to interrogate the dynamic interplay between linguistics and African artistic expression across four interconnected domains: literature, visual arts, symbolic imagery, and music. We will investigate how indigenous languages and oral traditions go beyond mere communication to become tools for African artists in shaping their worlds linguistically, visually, and musically.
Research Questions:
– Regarding contemporary African artistic production, how do indigenous languages function as aesthetic frameworks?
– Within African visual culture, what semiotic codes are functional for the conveyance of cultural meaning and resistance narratives?
– While aiming for cultural originality, how do digital platforms modify traditional African artistic expressions?
– What role does linguistic experimentation play in asserting autonomous African cultural imaginaries?
Theoretical Framework:
This panel is interested in the deployment of interdisciplinary perspectives such as postcolonial linguistics, visual semiotics, ethnomusicology, and digital humanities to examine how indigenous languages and oral traditions function not just as tools of communication but as aesthetic frameworks that shape artistic production. We will explore how these expressions challenge colonial legacies while asserting distinctly African worldviews and aesthetic sensibilities.
This panel aims to interrogate the dynamic interplay between linguistics and African artistic expression across four interconnected domains: literature, visual arts, symbolic imagery, and music. We will investigate how indigenous languages and oral traditions go beyond mere communication to become tools for African artists in shaping their worlds linguistically, visually, and musically.
Research Questions:
– Regarding contemporary African artistic production, how do indigenous languages function as aesthetic frameworks?
– Within African visual culture, what semiotic codes are functional for the conveyance of cultural meaning and resistance narratives?
– While aiming for cultural originality, how do digital platforms modify traditional African artistic expressions?
– What role does linguistic experimentation play in asserting autonomous African cultural imaginaries?
Theoretical Framework:
This panel is interested in the deployment of interdisciplinary perspectives such as postcolonial linguistics, visual semiotics, ethnomusicology, and digital humanities to examine how indigenous languages and oral traditions function not just as tools of communication but as aesthetic frameworks that shape artistic production. We will explore how these expressions challenge colonial legacies while asserting distinctly African worldviews and aesthetic sensibilities.
Convenors:
Ruth Karachi Benson Oji (Pan-Atlantic University)
Ayo Osisanwo (University of Ibadan)
P.8.08
Echoes of Justice: African Oral Traditions, Discursive Memory, and Global Epistemic Transformations
This panel seeks to explore the enduring power of African oral traditions and discourse systems as reservoirs of indigenous knowledge, justice, and social memory in an era marked by global epistemic shifts. At the intersection of language, performance, and cultural preservation, African orature—encompassing proverbs, praise poetry, folktales, communal storytelling, and ritualized speech—offers dynamic frameworks for understanding and contesting global power relations, ecological wisdom, historical restitution, and postcolonial resistance.
As planetary crises intensify and calls for decolonizing knowledge systems grow louder, this panel interrogates how African oral traditions not only resist epistemic erasure but actively shape pathways toward reparative justice and cosmopolitan flourishing. We invite papers that examine the political, ecological, and ethical dimensions of orality as a discursive tool for transformation, including its role in climate narratives, truth commissions, feminist epistemologies, and intergenerational knowledge transfer.
As planetary crises intensify and calls for decolonizing knowledge systems grow louder, this panel interrogates how African oral traditions not only resist epistemic erasure but actively shape pathways toward reparative justice and cosmopolitan flourishing. We invite papers that examine the political, ecological, and ethical dimensions of orality as a discursive tool for transformation, including its role in climate narratives, truth commissions, feminist epistemologies, and intergenerational knowledge transfer.
Convenors:
MIRABEAU SONE ENONGENE (WALTER SISULU UNIVERSITY)
Divine Che Neba (University of Yaoundé 1)
P.8.09
Digital (Re)Imagining of Gender, Sexual Relationship and Cultural Identities among Girls and Young Female Adults in Postcolonial Africa
This panel interrogates the digital (re)imagining of gender, sexual relationships, and cultural identities among girls and young female women in postcolonial Africa. The proliferation of digital media has created new spaces for self-expression, identity formation, and community building. However, the extent to which these digital spaces empower or marginalize African girls and female young adults remains understudied in critical gender and multidisciplinary discourses. Despite growing digital literacy, African women’s online experiences, across generations, remain largely shaped by patriarchal norms, cultural expectations, and societal pressures that limit their agency and autonomy. Therefore, this panel invites quality and objective studies that interrogate how African women, especially girls and young female adults, use digital media to challenge or reinforce traditional gender norms and expectations. What role does digital media play in shaping their perceptions and expressions of sexual relationships and identities? How do digital spaces promote or influence the creation of new cultural identities and feminist narratives?
Contributions in this panel will contribute to a deeper understanding of the complex dynamics and intersections of digital media, gender, and culture in postcolonial Africa by providing insights into methods and practical ways digital platforms can be utilized to promote gender equality and challenge patriarchal norms, thereby fostering a more inclusive and equitable postcolonial Africa. The panel will also provide implications for policymakers, educators and practitioners working to promote gender equality and empower African girls and young Female adults in Africa and beyond.
Contributions in this panel will contribute to a deeper understanding of the complex dynamics and intersections of digital media, gender, and culture in postcolonial Africa by providing insights into methods and practical ways digital platforms can be utilized to promote gender equality and challenge patriarchal norms, thereby fostering a more inclusive and equitable postcolonial Africa. The panel will also provide implications for policymakers, educators and practitioners working to promote gender equality and empower African girls and young Female adults in Africa and beyond.
Convenors:
Ezinwanyi Edikanabasi Adam (Babcock University)
Onyinyechi Nancy Nwaolikpe (University of East Anglia)
P.8.10
African Linguistic Sovereignty in the Twenty-First Century: Negotiating Power, Identity, and the Postcolonial Politics of Voice
This panel interrogates the paradox of Africa’s growing artistic recognition within global cultural circuits alongside its persistent entanglement in structures of linguistic dependency. While African literature, music, and cinema have achieved notable international acclaim in recent years, such visibility often hinges on the continued privileging of colonial languages and Eurocentric gatekeeping institutions. This raises urgent questions: To what extent can African cultural expression be truly autonomous when it is filtered through foreign linguistic regimes? How are African artists, writers, and performers negotiating linguistic power and resisting the commodification of their voices?
Foregrounding African languages as both artistic mediums and sites of epistemic struggle, this panel examines the entangled relationship between linguistic sovereignty, cultural production, and the postcolonial politics of voice. Contributions will explore how creative practitioners navigate the intersecting pressures of donor expectations, transnational markets, and local audiences, especially within intra-African networks of cultural consumption such as Nollywood and Afrobeats. Special attention will be given to how multilingual performance, code-switching, and indigenous language revitalisation emerge as strategies of negotiation, resistance, aesthetic innovation, and cultural reclamation.
The panel welcomes contributions from the fields of linguistics, literary studies, translation theory, anthropology, and cultural sociology that examine how African languages influence artistic themes, performance practices, and critical discourse across literature, performing arts, film, and digital media. By foregrounding African linguistic agency, this panel aims to contribute to broader debates on decolonising the arts in the Global South and restoring expressive autonomy within an interconnected yet asymmetrical global cultural landscape.
Foregrounding African languages as both artistic mediums and sites of epistemic struggle, this panel examines the entangled relationship between linguistic sovereignty, cultural production, and the postcolonial politics of voice. Contributions will explore how creative practitioners navigate the intersecting pressures of donor expectations, transnational markets, and local audiences, especially within intra-African networks of cultural consumption such as Nollywood and Afrobeats. Special attention will be given to how multilingual performance, code-switching, and indigenous language revitalisation emerge as strategies of negotiation, resistance, aesthetic innovation, and cultural reclamation.
The panel welcomes contributions from the fields of linguistics, literary studies, translation theory, anthropology, and cultural sociology that examine how African languages influence artistic themes, performance practices, and critical discourse across literature, performing arts, film, and digital media. By foregrounding African linguistic agency, this panel aims to contribute to broader debates on decolonising the arts in the Global South and restoring expressive autonomy within an interconnected yet asymmetrical global cultural landscape.
Convenors:
Babatunji Adepoju (University of Lagos)
Folajimi Oyebola (University of Bremen)
9) MEMORIES, HISTORIES, ARCHIVES, MUSEUMS
P.9.01
Re-imagining Sacred Spaces in North Africa: An interdisciplinary Reading
What does it mean to reclaim the sacred space in a postcolonial world? This panel explores sacred spaces in North Africa as fluid, palimpsestic realms where history, memory, and imagination converge. Drawing on interdisciplinary perspectives, it examines these spaces as sites of continuity and rupture, tradition and innovation, exclusion and inclusion.
The panel will explore sacred space as a dynamic construct, re-imagined through humanities and social sciences. Humanities disciplines reveal how symbolic motifs and mythic narratives evoke spiritual meaning and collective memory, reconfiguring the sacred in response to crises. Social sciences examine how sacred spaces function as sites of social cohesion, identity formation, and political resistance, particularly in contexts of globalization, migration, and cultural hybridity. Together, these perspectives reveal how sacred space is continually re-imagined to address contemporary challenges, offering pathways toward healing, community, and ethical engagement.
The panel seeks to explore the following topics:
1. Re-imagining sacred spaces to address contemporary issues of justice, healing, solidarity, resistance, and pluriversal futures.
2. Restoring the past and re-expressing pride in ancestral heritage and knowledge.
3. Re-writing the sacred space in literature and philosophy to challenge hegemonic and colonizing narratives.
4. Restoring hope amid social fragmentation and economic deterioration.
5. Exploring the continual becoming of the sacred space to decolonize North African culture.
The panel will explore sacred space as a dynamic construct, re-imagined through humanities and social sciences. Humanities disciplines reveal how symbolic motifs and mythic narratives evoke spiritual meaning and collective memory, reconfiguring the sacred in response to crises. Social sciences examine how sacred spaces function as sites of social cohesion, identity formation, and political resistance, particularly in contexts of globalization, migration, and cultural hybridity. Together, these perspectives reveal how sacred space is continually re-imagined to address contemporary challenges, offering pathways toward healing, community, and ethical engagement.
The panel seeks to explore the following topics:
1. Re-imagining sacred spaces to address contemporary issues of justice, healing, solidarity, resistance, and pluriversal futures.
2. Restoring the past and re-expressing pride in ancestral heritage and knowledge.
3. Re-writing the sacred space in literature and philosophy to challenge hegemonic and colonizing narratives.
4. Restoring hope amid social fragmentation and economic deterioration.
5. Exploring the continual becoming of the sacred space to decolonize North African culture.
Convenors:
Cyrine Kortas (MECAM)
Souad Matoussi (The Faculty of Arts and Humanities)
P.9.02
Ancestral Remains in University Collections. Comparison and Connections
This panel focusses on the restitution of colonially „acquired“ Ancestral/Human Remains in European University collections (and draws on on-going research at Universities of Basel, Freiburg, Strasbourg as well as partners in the Global South). Papers should address contested practices and experiences – becoming one of the salient aspects of persistent asymmetry between nodal points of knowledge production in diverse world regions. Ever since European researchers began – in the name of enlightenment and human evolution, to classify human beings, the urge to collect „specimen“ began. Little did they care about the damages they imposed on those who became depersonalized “objects” of their research and their relatives. Papers addressing current practices of restitution/repatriation, commemoration and memory politics are also welcome.
Convenors:
Andreas Mehler (Arnold Bergstraesser Institute)
Tricia Close-Koenig (Université de Strasbourg)
P.9.03
How to deal with the colonial legacy in a diverse Africa searching for its identity in the contemporaneous world? Stepping beyond cultural influences of colonial powers in West Africa
Increasingly, young Africans are becoming aware of the weight of colonial heritage that still influences their daily lives and keeps them trapped when it comes to referring to their past and their presumed cultural identities. Languages, religious practices, political and economic systems are all factors that force African societies into a so-called globalisation that distances them even further from questions about an unacknowledged past.
The restitution of cultural property plundered back in time by colonialists is a prism where you can find remnants of colonial violence and its various repercussions in European societies as much as the African struggle for liberation from the consequences of colonialism. What might be the contribution of those cultural artefacts for the identity for young Africans?
Can their return and re-humanisation refocus the debate on the culture and identity in the 21st century? How, then, can they overcome a colonial past whose legacy is engraved in tradition and institutionalisation? The aim of this panel is to reflect on the future challenges facing African societies who intend to overcome cultural, political and economic influences and simultaneously seek an alternative path their autonomous position in a globalized world.
The restitution of cultural property plundered back in time by colonialists is a prism where you can find remnants of colonial violence and its various repercussions in European societies as much as the African struggle for liberation from the consequences of colonialism. What might be the contribution of those cultural artefacts for the identity for young Africans?
Can their return and re-humanisation refocus the debate on the culture and identity in the 21st century? How, then, can they overcome a colonial past whose legacy is engraved in tradition and institutionalisation? The aim of this panel is to reflect on the future challenges facing African societies who intend to overcome cultural, political and economic influences and simultaneously seek an alternative path their autonomous position in a globalized world.
Convenors:
Hans Peter Hahn (Goethe-Universität)
Kokou Azamede (Université de Lomé)
P.9.04
Imaginations and Translations of Pasts and Pastness: On concepts, archives and practices of embodied histories
This panel seeks contributions which engage with African archives and traditions of imagining and translating histories for wider audience, in the past and present. African traditions of storing, conceptualising, crafting and sharing (or not) knowledge and visions of pasts and pastness continue to be marginalised in scholarship. Likewise, positions, roles and registers of articulation of intellectuals, including historians and artists, lack scholarly attention. Their engagement and influence within and beyond communities are rarely discussed, as are the expectations of the latter.
We invite reflections on the intersection between African history productions, archives and public engagements. In this, ‘translations’ in the wider sense and regarding languages, concepts and registers of articulations become important. This is evident in the centrality of traditions of embodied histories.
Contributions should engage with these themes, provide succinct examples grounded in African archives and conceptualisations and reflect on traditions of intellectual labour and public engagements. We encourage perspectives which highlight historical personages and practices.
We invite reflections on the intersection between African history productions, archives and public engagements. In this, ‘translations’ in the wider sense and regarding languages, concepts and registers of articulations become important. This is evident in the centrality of traditions of embodied histories.
Contributions should engage with these themes, provide succinct examples grounded in African archives and conceptualisations and reflect on traditions of intellectual labour and public engagements. We encourage perspectives which highlight historical personages and practices.
Convenors:
Dag Henrichsen (Basler Afrika Bibliographien)
Nashilongweshipwe Mushaandja (University of Namibia)
P.9.05
Archives and Epistemic Justice: Pan-African Perspectives on Transformation
This panel critically explores the evolving role of archives and records management in Africa as instruments of justice, memory, and societal transformation. The continent’s colonial legacies and diverse post‑independence trajectories continue to shape archival landscapes, while simultaneously offering a fertile terrain for digital transformation, epistemic redress, and decolonized futures.
Engaging with the conference theme “African Perspectives on Global Transformations,” our panel foregrounds archives not as passive repositories but as active agents constructing inclusive and equitable futures. We examine institutional reforms, community-led memory projects, and intercontinental collaborations—such as initiatives catalyzing community archives for social good and AI‑enabled smart archival infrastructure. These examples illustrate African-led approaches to knowledge preservation, accessibility, epistemic justice, and digital innovation.
We invite scholarly papers that address, but are not limited to, the following sub‑themes:
1. Decolonizing national and institutional archives across Africa
2. University archives as spaces of resistance and transformation
3. Indigenous knowledge systems and alternative record‑keeping traditions
4. Oral history and community memory work in diverse African contexts
5. The politics of access, ownership, and restitution of African heritage
6. Digital archives and transnational collaboration across Africa and the diaspora
7. Archival silences, historical trauma, and transitional justice in African societies
This panel seeks to foster a robust pan‑African dialogue on the politics of archives, facilitating comparative analyses across regions. Simultaneously, it provides critical insight into how African archival practices—from digital transformation to grassroots memory activism—are reshaping global conversations around memory repair and planetary justice.
Keywords: Digital transformation; accessibility; epistemic justice; archives; Africa.
Engaging with the conference theme “African Perspectives on Global Transformations,” our panel foregrounds archives not as passive repositories but as active agents constructing inclusive and equitable futures. We examine institutional reforms, community-led memory projects, and intercontinental collaborations—such as initiatives catalyzing community archives for social good and AI‑enabled smart archival infrastructure. These examples illustrate African-led approaches to knowledge preservation, accessibility, epistemic justice, and digital innovation.
We invite scholarly papers that address, but are not limited to, the following sub‑themes:
1. Decolonizing national and institutional archives across Africa
2. University archives as spaces of resistance and transformation
3. Indigenous knowledge systems and alternative record‑keeping traditions
4. Oral history and community memory work in diverse African contexts
5. The politics of access, ownership, and restitution of African heritage
6. Digital archives and transnational collaboration across Africa and the diaspora
7. Archival silences, historical trauma, and transitional justice in African societies
This panel seeks to foster a robust pan‑African dialogue on the politics of archives, facilitating comparative analyses across regions. Simultaneously, it provides critical insight into how African archival practices—from digital transformation to grassroots memory activism—are reshaping global conversations around memory repair and planetary justice.
Keywords: Digital transformation; accessibility; epistemic justice; archives; Africa.
Convenors:
Carolyne Nyaboke Musembe (Technical University of Kenya)
, Ese Eunice Anenene (University of Ibadan)
P.9.06
Entangled Histories of Slavery: Perspectives on the Demand and Supply Chain, Cultural Disruption, and the Reparation Dynamics
Discussions surrounding the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the dynamics of reparations continue to influence the modern world. This trade persisted for over 400 years, involving the participation of both European and African partners. It developed into a deeply intertwined demand and supply relationship, where European demand drove the trade while African societies supplied the individuals involved. In Europe, the trade laid the groundwork for the emerging capitalist economy, with the profits fueling industrial growth and economic development. In Africa, the trade disrupted traditional social hierarchies, family structures, and community relationships, while traditional rulers and merchants amassed fortunes and built their empires. However, debates about reparations often focus heavily on European culpability, while African counterparts receive little blame. Understanding these interconnected networks is crucial for comprehending the broad historical context of complicity and addressing past injustices through reparative dynamics. This panel seeks papers that address issues such as the reappraisal of the nature/patterns of the demand and supply chain, the major actors involved in the trade, the multidimensional disruptions of cultural heritages, the types of benefits gotten by participants, the plights of victims (individuals and states), existing approaches to reparation/restitution by the European partners, discussions on the neglected narratives of African partners, forms of modern slavery, and other areas related to the trans-Atlantic slave trade, its consequences, and reparation discourses.
Keywords: Slave trade, demand and supply chain, reparation, Europeans, Africans
Keywords: Slave trade, demand and supply chain, reparation, Europeans, Africans
Convenors:
Moses Yakubu (University of Lagos)
Jan Zahorik (University of West Bohemia)
P.9.07
Interspecies Histories of Southern Africa: Global Perspectives
Southern African historiography has long had strong socio-environmental inflections. From quite early, this canon has emphasized that the history of southern African people is fundamentally a social history of human communities interacting with the natural world. In some ways, this grapples with the two interlocking and dangerous fallacies of—on the one hand—a ‘continent without history’ and—on the other—a ‘nature without people’.
The panel shows that an understanding of interspecies history in southern Africa can inform broader global questions about humankind’s relations with the non-human world. This involves the complex ways in which southern African environments were altered through the transformation of pastoral and hunter-gatherer lifeways, as well as how eighteenth- and nineteenth-century imperial ‘discovery’ extracted southern African fauna to display as specimens in their natural history museums. Further, it considers how colonial subjugation shaped the emerging science of wildlife conservation within questions of access to land and resources, and of pseudoscientific race theories and eco-racist ideas. Finally, it asks how southern Africa became a prominent site where scientists from all over the globe travelled to conduct ecological experiments, ultimately leading to a close linkage between colonial and apartheid land tenure policies and today’s global science of ecology. Ultimately, this panel shows that an understanding of interspecies history in southern Africa can inform broader global questions about humankind’s relations with the non-human world.
The panel shows that an understanding of interspecies history in southern Africa can inform broader global questions about humankind’s relations with the non-human world. This involves the complex ways in which southern African environments were altered through the transformation of pastoral and hunter-gatherer lifeways, as well as how eighteenth- and nineteenth-century imperial ‘discovery’ extracted southern African fauna to display as specimens in their natural history museums. Further, it considers how colonial subjugation shaped the emerging science of wildlife conservation within questions of access to land and resources, and of pseudoscientific race theories and eco-racist ideas. Finally, it asks how southern Africa became a prominent site where scientists from all over the globe travelled to conduct ecological experiments, ultimately leading to a close linkage between colonial and apartheid land tenure policies and today’s global science of ecology. Ultimately, this panel shows that an understanding of interspecies history in southern Africa can inform broader global questions about humankind’s relations with the non-human world.
Convenors:
Marie Muschalek (Uni Basel)
Bernard C. Moore (Uni Basel)
Emmanuel Mogende (University of Botswana)
Procedure
Paper proposals must consist of:
- The panel to which the paper is proposed
- Paper title
- An abstract of max 250 words
- Name, institutional affiliation and email address of author(s)
The deadline for paper submissions is 11 January 2026 (23:59 CET).
All proposals must be made via the conference platform. We do not accept paper proposals via email.