Events
May 6, 2011
Conference: The Art of Citizenship in African Cities
Time Friday, 8:30 am
Type Conference
Speaker(s) cgtmail @gmail.com
Please use this email address for general inquiries about the
Committee on Global Thought
Location Avery Hall, Wood Auditorium / Google Map
Registration Registration is Encouraged / Sign Up
Click here for the conference program (pdf)
May 6-7, 2011
The World and Africa Series
Committee on Global Thought / Institute for African Studies
Columbia University
OVERVIEW
The African metropolis represents one of the most challenging and
important spaces of our time. Insight on African cities has driven
some of the most innovative and provocative recent scholarly debates
considering development, the nature of citizenship, and the
postcolonial urban condition. In contrast with a familiar, sometimes
apocalyptic reading of "failed" African cities which characterizes
them as dysfunctional, chaotic and decaying, there is a burgeoning
scholarship which explores the way that African cities actually work
and the very orderly, dynamic, and creative processes which animate
them. This is part of a larger literature emphasizing the need to
incorporate African political systems into more cosmopolitan urban and
development theories. In line with this larger enterprise, this
conference highlights research at the cutting edge of African studies
seeking to re-conceptualize the nature and contours of citizenship in
African cities. It advances budding scholarship reframing urban
citizenship through showcasing emergent and historic practices through
which urban Africans enact and reconfigure their cities, while asking
some hard questions about the implications of these strategies and
their limits.
In particular, the conference focuses on the art of citizenship—or the
specific imaginaries and creative solidarities through which urban
Africans understand, order, and stake claims around the rights,
rewards, and spaces of the city. In addition to chapters extending the
analytical purchase of theories of African cities, the conference
foregrounds ethnographic studies exploring those new theories and
practices. It aims to interrogate the intersections between the
physical infrastructure and planning of African cities with the social
infrastructure contained in forms of collective action and cultural
imaginaries. As such, it examines the socio-cultural underpinnings of
citizenship struggles, or the systems of solidarity, identification,
and representation through which urban Africans build—and negotiate—
infrastructures and stake claims to spaces and rights to the city.
Beyond shedding new light on how we understand these cities, this
endeavor promises to recalibrate knowledge of how the city works, the
contours of fundamental city-ness, and what it means to be a citizen
in Africa and beyond.
The conference brings together some of the leading established
scholars with promising new academic voices in the study of African
urbanisms and presents fresh, innovative research into emergent
expressions of citizenship in diverse African cities across the
continent. The papers have been provisionally assigned to the
following panels. Each panel will also have an appropriate
discussant, to be drawn from the Columbia University and greater New
York academic community.
PROGRAM
May 6, 2011
8:30-9:00am Coffee and Bagels
9:00-9:15am Welcome
Mamadou Diouf (Director, Institute of African Studies, Columbia
University)
9:15-11:15am Panel 1
The Arts of Representation I: Aesthetic and Textual Representations
Presenters:
· Catherine Cole (UC Berkeley)
· Rémy Bazenguissa-Ganga (Université de Lille 1)
· Jinny Prais (West Virginia University)
Discussant: Souleymane Bachir Diagne (Columbia University)
11:15-1:15pm Panel 2
The Politics of Infrastructure: Rights to the City
Presenters:
· Antina von Schnitzler (The New School)
· Michael Ralph (NYU)
· Rudolf Gaudio (Purchase College, State University of New York)
· Kenda Mutongi (Williams College)
Discussant: Thomas Blom Hansen (Stanford University)
1:15-2:15pm Lunch & Remarks by Mokena Makeka (Makeka Design Lab)
2:15-4:15pm Panel 3
Environment and Public Health Discourses
Presenters:
· David Simon (Royal Holloway, University of London)
· Claire Laurier Decoteau (University of Illinois at Chicago)
· Rosalind Fredericks (NYU / Columbia University)
· Emily Brownell (University of Texas, Austin)
Discussant: Edward Ramsamy (Rutgers University)
4:15-4:30pm Break
4:30-6:30pm Panel 4
Sacred Cities
Presenters:
· Ruth Marshall (University of Toronto)
· Eric Ross (Al Akhawayn University)
· Cheikh Guèye (ENDA)
· Adedamola Osinulu (UCLA)
Discussant: Gregory Mann (Columbia University)
May 7, 2011
8:30-9:00am Coffee and Bagels
9:00-11:00am Panel 5
The Politics of Infrastructure II: Producing Cities
Presenters:
· Martin Murray (University of Michigan)
· Giles Omezi (Department of Geography, University College
London)
· Garth Myers (University of Kansas)
· Hannah Appel (Stanford University)
Discussant: Mabel Wilson (GSAPP, Columbia University)
11:00-11:15am Break
11:15-1:15pm Panel 6
Community/Membership/Belonging I: Collective Action across Space and
Scale
Presenters:
· Andy Clarno (University of Illinois at Chicago)
· Juan Obarrio (Johns Hopkins University)
· Peter Geschiere (University of Amsterdam)
· AbdouMaliq Simone (Goldsmiths College, University of London)
Discussant: Janet Roitman (The New School)
1:15-2:15pm Lunch break
2:15-4:15pm Panel 7
Community/Membership/Belonging 2: Placing Insiders and Outsiders
Presenters:
· Ciraj Rassool (University of the Western Cape)
· Thomas Fouquet (Iris – Ehess (Paris, France)
· Christine Ludl (Centre Marc Bloch, Centre Franco-Allemand de
Recherches en Sciences Sociales)
· Ramah McKay (Princeton University)
Discussant: Mike McGovern (Yale University)
4:15-4:30pm Break
4:30-6:30pm Panel 8
The Arts of Representation II: Representing Dakar
Presenters:
· Abdoulaye Niang (Gaston Berger University, Saint-Louis)
· Leslie Rabine (UC Davis)
· Allen Roberts (UCLA)
· Joanna Grabski (Denison University)
· Ndiouga Benga (UCAD, Dakar)
Discussant: Mohamed Mbodj (Manhattanville College / Columbia
University)
Conference conveners:
Mamadou Diouf
Director, Institute for African Studies and Leitner Family
Professor of History
Member, Committee on Global Thought, Columbia University
Rosalind Fredericks
Research Scholar, Committee on Global Thought, Columbia
University
Assistant Professor, Gallatin School, NYU
Committee on Global Thought
Columbia University
440 Riverside Dr.
New York, NY 10027
artofcitizenshipconference@gmail.com
Co-Sponsor(s) Department of Anthropology / Website
Gallatin School of Individualized Study / Website
Global Health Initiative
Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation / Website
Institute for African Studies / Website
Institute for Religion, Culture, and Public Life / Website
MESAAS (Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African
Studies) / Website
School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University /
Website
Contact cgtmail @gmail.com / Email or (212) 851-7293
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-
unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
No comments:
Post a Comment