2016
Institutions: Creativity and Resilience in Africa; CfP, 60th annual ASA meeting, Chicago, 16-18 November 2017
The 2017 annual meeting of the African Studies Association marks the 60th anniversary of the ASA. The association is responsible, in part, for institutionalizing the study of Africa in the United States, advocating for informed policy, and building dialogue and exchange with Africa-based scholars and institutions. The 60th anniversary offers a moment for critical reflection on what and who we are as an institution.
DEADLINE TO RECEIVE PROPOSALS: March 15, 2017
2016
Assistant Professor in Gender and Diversity, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Radboud University, at Nijmegen, The Netherlands invites applications for an Assistant Professor position for a five-year period in the field of Gender and Diversity in the Social Sciences.
2016
Religion and Time: Call for Papers, SAR Biennial Conference, May 15-17, 2017, New Orleans
The Society for the Anthropology of Religion (a section of the American Anthropological Association) will hold its next meeting at New Orleans, Louisiana from May 15 to May 17, 2017. The theme of the meeting will be “Religion and Time”.
2016
Three 4 year PhD positions within the project “Mobility trajectories of young lives: Life chances of transnational youth in Global South and North (MO-TRAYL)”
Applications are invited for three 4 year PhD positions within the project “Mobility trajectories of young lives: Life chances of transnational youth in Global South and North (MO-TRAYL)”. The project is funded by the European Research Council (Consolidator Grant), awarded to the principal investigator, Valentina Mazzucato.
Research project
Mobility patterns of young people of migrant background are not well understood, in part because young people have been assumed to have similar patterns to their parents, or to have no mobility by having been ‘left behind’. The Mobility trajectories of young lives (MO-TRAYL) project seeks to break open these assumptions by studying in detail the mobility trajectories of youth of migrant background. In specific it asks how young people’s life-chances, defined as their educational performance, psychological well-being and transitions into adulthood, are impacted by the way they move between their or their parents’ country of origin and the country where they reside. This will be investigated in 4 case study countries, with the interest of understanding how mobility and life chances are intertwined in diverse educational systems and under different migration regimes. The project focuses on youth of Ghanaian background in Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany and Ghana.
A team of researchers from diverse disciplinary backgrounds will investigate this question through the use of a comparative, mixed-method research design that combines ethnographic fieldwork (PhDs) and survey research (Post-doc). By specifically tracing youth mobility trajectories, the resulting different family compositions along the way, and how both affect life chances within different institutional contexts, the MO-TRAYL project aims to re-conceptualize youth mobility and family and add a longitudinal dimension to the study of migration and life chance outcomes.
Starting date: 1 March 2017 (or thereabout)
Inquiries about the position or the project may be addressed to Valentina Mazzucato: v.mazzucato@maastrichtuniversity.nl
For more information about the research project and about the Maastricht Center for Citizenship, Migration and Development see: https://macimide.maastrichtuniversity.nl/mo-trayl/
For more information about the Globalisation, Transnationalism and Development research programme of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, see: https://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/globalisation-transnationalism-and-development
2016
CfP for a book on African proverbs in honour of Prof. John S. Mbiti
A CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS to a book on African proverbs in honor of Prof. John S. Mbiti
Editors: Anne Kubai and Damaris Parsitau
Proposed title: Indigenous Epistemologies: African Proverbs on Human Relations, the Supernatural and the Environment
Prof. John Mbiti’s pioneering research and lifetime devotion to the study of African religions and philosophy is acclaimed globally. To honour Prof. Mbiti for his enormous contribution to scholarship, we are calling for essays to be put together in an edited volume.
When Prof. Mbiti gave his keynote speech at Egerton University during the AASR conference in 2012, he made a plea for research on African proverbs, which, in his view, is a theme that has not been adequately examined by African scholars of religion and philosophy. In his honor therefore, it is fitting for this volume to focus on a theme that he is interested in – that is the gap in current research on the philosophy and indigenous knowledge preserved in and transmitted through African proverbs.
With the processes of social change that have characterized the 21st Century, and the attendant weakening of ‘traditional’ social institutions, many societies are witnessing global challenges that call for multi-pronged responses. Without making the obvious reference to the terrain of social media, the question of knowledge – old and new – how it can be preserved, used and generated not only for social and economic advancement, but also as a common good in society, has come into sharp focus in recent times. One of the questions that needs to be answered is: what type of knowledge is not only necessary but also appropriate for different purposes? By focusing on African epistemologies through proverbs in his key note address at the African Association for the Study of Religions (AASR) conference in 2012, Prof. Mbiti called upon us at Egerton to take up the noble task of exploring this treasure of indigenous knowledge.
The contributions will take cognizance of Prof. Mbiti’s achievements in laying the foundation for the development of scholarship on African religion and philosophy, starting with his all-time classic An Introduction to African religions and Philosophy, published in 1969. The essays in the edited volume therefore, will be organized around (though not limited to) the following three broad areas:
(a) Analysis of proverbs that speak to the issues of human relations and wellbeing
- social networks
- peace and conflict
- taboos, rituals, behavior, etc
- gender relations
- health – the body, sexuality, etc
- rites of passage
(b) Analysis of proverbs that address the relationship between the supernatural and human beings
- sacrifices
- prayers
(c) Analysis of proverbs that address the relationship between human beings and the
environment, nature or natural resources
- sacred places: mountains, rivers, shrines, animals, etc
- human connection to land, sea, etc
Time frame
– Submission of abstracts: 30-12-2016
– Submission of first drafts of chapters: 30-4-2017
– Comments from reviewers to authors: 30-9-2017
– Submission of revised drafts: 30-12-2017
Please, send your proposal for a contribution to the editors:
Prof. Anne Kubai, anne.kubai@teol.uu.se
Dr. Damaris Parsitau, dparsitau@yahoo.com; dparsitau@egerton.ac.ke
NB. A writers’ workshop to bring together the writers for two days is envisaged in the project,
but this depends on the availability of funds.
