Celebration of the 10th anniversary 5th Biennial Conference of the African Studies Association in Africa (ASAA) in partnership with New Horizons University (UNH) and the Arrupe Center for Research and Training (CARF) Lubumbashi, DRC, October 25-28, 2023.
The 5th biennial conference of the African Studies Association of Africa (#ASAA2023) will be held in Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of Congo. It will commemorate the 10th anniversary of the association’s launch on October 25, 2013, at the International Conference on African Studies organized by the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana (October 24-26, 2013). For the first time in ASAA’s history, the Biennale will be held in a French-speaking country, the Democratic Republic of Congo, a key part of the association’s strategy to extend its work to different parts of the continent and its diaspora; and strategically strengthen knowledge institutions with the aim of centering Pan-Africanism as an intellectual lens for critical inquiry.
The theme of this year’s conference is “Repatriating Africa: old challenges and critical perspectives”. Africa’s encounter with other parts of the world is full of controversial histories. Slavery, the transoceanic and trans-Saharan trade, colonization and the continent’s current entrapment in global systems of accumulation continue to elicit criticism among scholars, particularly with regard to loss, exploitation and extraversion. Slavery, the slave trade and colonization continue to come to the fore, not only as heinous crimes against humanity, but also because of their ongoing impact on African knowledge and cultural heritage. Global crossroads with Africa continue, and have always been accompanied by looting, destruction and cultural annihilation.
Recently, the resurrection of the long-standing and recurring issue of repatriation has returned to the fore as a crucial step towards dissociating and restoring African dignity. This new push for repatriation is triggered by the activation of the decolonization movement across Africa and its diaspora, particularly in the economic, financial, cultural and knowledge spheres. Growing calls for decentering colonial orthodoxies and centering Africa have given fresh impetus to the new quest for African cultural heritages, knowledge and traditions, and to what some see as a quest for authenticity. As art objects and archives in particular begin return journeys, there is a need for deeper conversations about the processes of cultural loss, spiritual return and restoration.
Sixty years after the founding of the Organization of African Unity (now the African Union), what is the state of the pan-Africanist project to restore and restitute Africanness? How should Africa approach the issue of repatriation? What new challenges, critical ideas and radical strategies should the continent deploy to restore lost heritage? What new questions emerge as looted heritage begins its journey home? What is the place/role of research, cultural heritage, archives, knowledge and knowledge production in the project to restore African dignity?
The conference will extend long-standing reflections on the restitution of African cultural heritage, initiated by Africans in the aftermath of independence, along four axes, each of which raises a multitude of burning questions. Participants are invited to propose contributions based on these four axes: restitution, repair, restoration and repatriation, which not only fit in with the current emphasis on the material, but also critically place the intangible at the heart of restitution debates. This latter approach should, for example, provocatively address themes such as the repatriation of knowledge, spirituality, histories, archives, concepts, theories, methodologies, languages and other ideas often coded as external.
In addition, the International Congress on African and African Diaspora Studies (ICAADS) will hold a pre-conference meeting on October 24. The first ICAADS congress was organized in 1962 by President Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana. There have been four other ICAADS meetings, in 1967 in Dakar under the patronage of President Léopold Sédar Senghor, in 1973 in Addis Ababa under the patronage of Emperor Haïlé Sélassié, and in 1978 in Kinshasa under the high authority of President Mobutu Sese Seko. Since its last session in 1985 in Ibadan, ICAADS has remained dormant. The rebirth of ICAADS will discuss and reinvigorate the extraordinary transformative dynamics of African studies on a global scale and have political implications, urging African leaders to consider the most pressing contemporary issues impacting black communities worldwide. These include the West’s environmental debt to Africa, neo-colonialism and the resurgence of military coups, Pan-Africanism, African citizenship, as well as the status and treatment of African migrants within and outside the continent, the African Union’s attitude towards dictatorships, its stance on international politics (e.g. the Covid-19 pandemic, etc.), gender and sexuality, the state of African studies and its diasporas, etc.
Submit proposals for panels, articles and other cultural presentations in the following thematic areas:
Restitution axis
- Reappropriating African works of art
- Revisiting the foundations of culture
- Sovereignty and heritage (historical, epistemological and transgenerational justice)
- Museums and Africa
- Refounding African identities and society today (Nouvelle personnalité africaine)
- Integration, humanism and modernity
- Restoring knowledge
Repair shaft
- Definite or indefinite repair.
- Moral, ethical and spiritual dimensions of reparation.
- Socioeconomics and repair.
- Philosophical assumptions and the enslavement of African governments
- Military and repair
- Repair, Science and technology
- Knowledge and ideologies
Restoration axis
- What tangible and intangible values need to be restored?
- From restoration to revolution
- Restoring knowledge
- Cultural forms and practices
- State policy and training
- Identity and personality
Repatriation axis
- Repatriation of research sites, intellectual priorities and heuristic postures.
- African tradition, “plural” commitments and modern technology.
- A conscious and decisive commitment to disruption
- Humus, African culture and the new world
- Repatriate knowledge
Abstracts: Abstracts (for papers, panels, round tables and cultural presentations) should be at least 200-250 words long, with the author’s affiliation, biography and contact details. The organizers encourage authors to identify which axis they align their abstract with and, if they wish, to build panels of 4 presentations. 1. Submit your proposal in English here. 2. Submit your proposal in French here. Deadline for abstracts: May 31, 2023 (extended) Responses to abstracts: May 31, 2023 For any questions, email: conference@as-aa.org Click on the link to access thecall in French Download the PDF version of the call in English and French.