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Special issue of the Journal of Genocide Research (The official journal of the International Network of Genocide Scholars [www.inogs.com])

‘The History, Impact, and Memory of the Nigeria/Biafra Civil War, 1967-70’
Guest editors: Lasse Heerten (Berlin / Potsdam), A. Dirk Moses (Florence / Sydney)

The African Leadership Centre is pleased to announce a call for applications for the Peace, Security and Development Fellowships for African Scholars starting in September 2011.

The Robert Sterling Clark Foundation Fellowships at the Vermont Studio Center are being established to support the development of  international artists and to broaden their opportunities for  intercultural dialogue here in the United States. Read the press release here.

A call for a special issue: West African Women as Workers in a Changing World. The issue will be guest edited by Dr. Akosua Keseboa Darkwah for West Africa Review.

Deadline for Abstract: April 30, 2011.
Deadline for Paper: July 30, 2011
Submit your abstract and paper directly to Dr. Akosua Keseboa Darkwah at akosuadarkwah at gmail.com

West African Women as Workers in a Changing World

West African women have long been noted as active participants in the economic spheres of their respective countries. From Senegal through Ghana to Nigeria, written records, mostly travelogues by Western travelers written in the early nineteenth century, make it quite clear that women traded in a variety of items. Survey material from the early twentieth century such as the work of Baumann (1928) also highlights the fact that farming in Africa in general was as much a woman’s as a man’s activity. Other writers such as La Ray Denzer (2005) describe how West African women parlayed skills and connections built in their careers as teachers and nurses to enter into politics in colonial West Africa.

A call for a special issue: Celebrating Women’s Legacies: African Women and Social Transformation in a Global Context. The issue will be guest edited by Dr. Josehpine Ahikire.

Deadline for Title and Abstract: April 30, 2011.
Deadline for Paper: August 31, 2011
Submit your title, abstract and paper directly to Dr. Ahikire at jahikire at ss.mak.ac.ug

Celebrating Women’s Legacies: African Women and Social Transformation in a Global Context

In the 1980’s, women studies scholarship in Africa was largely dependent on policy-oriented applied research methods; it was donor driven, undertheorized and depoliticised. By the 1990s, the discipline gained strength as a number of women entered the field of gender studies. Despite the dominance of Western theoretical constructions, African women emerged as the central subject of social inquiry, raising questions about which aspects should be visible, which should be silenced, and what are the consequences of both in theoretical and practical terms. Questions about visibility and silencing point to the need to go beyond women as eternal victims. While it is undeniable that historically women have been disadvantaged relative to men, perpetually looking at them as victims creates a discourse of lamentation that negates rather than promote knowledge about them.