AfrikanistikCluster Bayreuth
- Title
- AfrikanistikCluster Bayreuth
- Date
- November 25, 2024
- Language
- English
- Transcript
- so multiplicity is uh an attempt to overcome this colonial baggage and it is also an attempt to explain the uh heterogeneous life worlds that we encounter in African and African diasporic contexts so approaching Africa as multiple for us also means to take a relational perspective relationality is another theoretical keyword in our uh joint work and the understanding um from which we operate is Africa as constituted by relations and as everchanging relations so we don't look as Africa as the result of interactions but we look at the relations in which African life worlds emerge and um the the third key term we use is reflexivity and this refers to the self referential character of the processes that we study and it also um emphasizes the necessity for us as Scholars to reflect uh on uh the work we are doing so this kind of um reflexive approach to African studies is also key I'm innocent mendu the director of the rhs University African studies Center which is a member of Africa multiple we are based at Ros University in South Africa Africa mpo operates at five locations which is Ros invest which I mentioned the University of b here in Germany the University of Joseph kizo which is in buchina Faso and university of Legos which is in Lagos Nigeria as well as Mo University we have evolved over the years from the first uh phase of the cluster which for focused mainly on researching around broader uh themes such as moralities learnings knowledges um affiliations and so on to more specific research thematic fields that we have collectively developed together but what is very critical in that development is that we seek to create enduring entities entities that will exist beyond the time or period of Africa mpo and entities which will continue to have institutional support in the different universities where they are domiciled so we are establishing therefore structures that are meant to last beyond any individual project our experience with pixas is the foundation on which we build our collaboration now our internationalization efforts for the PHD training in collaboration with our AMC's on the African continent so we have already uh developed plans with the representatives of early career uh at these universities and also at um Salvador de Bahia our special partner for diaspora studies my research focus in terms of geography is um Ethiopia uh Sudan in Tunisia and we are looking at um what um you know major political Transformations such as revolutions or you know Pro protest movement social movements make possible for queer political subject formation and in fact through this project I tried to approach the question of the reconfiguring African studies because I'm I'm I'm I'm deeply interested in the subject of African studies and knowledge production as well uh and I think one thing I should really really mention is the the fellowship The Continuous Fellowship that we have within the class that brings um Scholars from the continent and elsewhere oh and all of these continuous uh amazing conversations that happen putting together an exhibition which is a photograph exhibition and it's meant to be accompanied by a set of essays which follow a series of interviews that I did with the people whose photographs are featured in the exhibition and the idea behind the entire exhibition was to photograph people's hands and get them to talk about what it is that they've done with their hands often people talk about history as something that has happened to them and I was curious what happens if we reflect and look at it from their own perspective of what happens when people talk about history as something that they have done and very often hands are the site of action that people do things with and so I was curious to put together an exhibition that will be a reflection of this as a center now we we we we we we do we do like ear for example uh Workshops can that can actually bring in people to Mo but more than that we we actually like every year we do an International Conference as we come to the close of this projects we have actually done like four International conferences and this has this was really you know um very exciting you know so to speak in fact one we just did it just just after they had allowed people to go out of their countries just after coffee that slightly like um East so we did the first uh conference and we really had a big participation but our greatest one was was one that we did um in 2023 which is what we are calling inoc Mo University in the National Conference on African studies and we really had participations from you know the the different locations even people from Brazil who had been collaborating quietly also also came in with the Africa cluster Center and focus on knowledges as a research section we have been able to interrogate the EA System and bring out from it the knowledge that it contains and such knowledge includes philosophy uh it also includes social and political thoughts of the African people that are not necessarily resident in Africa but also uh that do have Universal values so in terms of real document impact I can say that my research has been able to in a way bring some changes to the curriculum of English studies you know and of course in terms of extensive networking relationship ship with Africans both in the continent on the continent and in the diaspora the Cent Africa mil so far organized several scientific meetings in particularly five International conferences on half to-day issues and in Bina like the issue of covid-19 the issue of security the center has also uh set up several research project on different themes like migration violence in the context of covid-19 globalization and health Africa multiple clust Center of Excellence is a a very strong okay and beneficial collaborative project uh our section as knowledge section has contributed in terms of uh uh um public engagement within University related to gender topic and that's led to a public conference on gender issue in academics uh in terms of commitment in terms of Engagement uh uh we can also uh notice the uh I was talking about the ministry people from the ministry you know participating in in some of the our symposia bringing all the on board during these past six years has reinforced our research result and also has helped us to take into account some of the activities like having workshops in collaboration of the gender and development lab the whole idea behind the African multiple cluster of Excellence is that that of Rec configuring history of African study you will see that it comes from the global North but the whole intellectual exercise of the center of this initiative is really to reorient the notion of African study so that the voices of the global sou can be heard in terms of what it means to actually do African study my interest is from the musical uh aspect so decipline of music and then possibly have it published in this journal um yeah so those kinds of opportunities and then from an archival perspective looking at the collections that we have on the African continent and looking at the state in which they are uh which they are in and trying to find remedies or Solutions with regard to digitalization which is kind of the very everyday thing about the archives but it's also looking towards the future and especially here in the continent where many countries are still refusing to digitize collections as especially in the world as it is changing and with our continent so young it is very clear that Africa will be a major player in the future and it is important we know where we're coming from and we start to explore the indigenous knowledge the Africa multiple have done quite a lot in this direction and in addition to what they've done they've really shown light on it and have helped to inspire others to go into this area and actually start to interrogate our past interrogate what we're doing so that the future can really benefit from the African continent we are very happy to be collaborating with the Africa cluster within the University of Lagos as well as the African multiple in in general uh we hope that the they will be part of the cluster 2.0 because I do believe their work is unfinished and it will be a loss to humanity if it isn't
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