USA Africa Dialogue Series - Conference on Connections and Disconnections in the History and Cultures of Eastern Africa

From: Iain Walker <iain.walker@COMPAS.OX.AC.UK>
To: IOSTUDIES@JISCMAIL.AC.UK
Sent: Monday, January 5, 2015 5:26 PM
Subject: [IOSTUDIES] Connections and Disconnections in the History and Cultures of Eastern Africa

Connections and Disconnections in the History and Cultures of Eastern Africa

Confirmed speakers include: Bing Zhao, Monika Udvardy, Chapuruhka
Kusimba, Thomas Hakansson, Kathryn De Luna, Daniel Branch, Sarah
Longair, Pamila Gupta, Gerard McCann, Salvatory Nyanto

30-31 March 2015, BIEA, Nairobi

This conference will explore the place of Eastern Africa within global
approaches to the study of the region's past and present. The fields of
history, archaeology, anthropology and literature have all witnessed a
global turn in recent years. The global paradigm is fast became a common
point of entry to study of the region, particularly among European and
North American scholars. This conference will include discussion of such
research, but also consider the methodological and intellectual
challenges presented by this approach to the study of Eastern African
societies in the past and present.

The conference will be organised around four key and overlapping themes
in the existing global studies literature: exchange; power and politics;
communication; and mobility. Exchange will consider the subjects of
commodities, trade and currency. Power and politics will look at the
ways in which global networks of power in its various forms have shaped
the ordinary lives of the peoples of Eastern Africa. Communication will
explore the forms by which language, media and cultural performance have
been inflected with a global discourse. Mobility will consider the
implications for Eastern Africa of the global movement of peoples, ideas
and objects. The papers will discuss connections and disconnections
under these headings.

Eastern Africa will also be discussed in comparative terms, with
contributions from papers considering similar questions from elsewhere
in the region.

Papers across all four themes will consider four questions:

What is Eastern Africa's place in conceptualisations of the global? The
papers collectively will examine the extent to which Eastern Africans
have shaped global processes through their agency as much as having been
the subjects of forces beyond their control.

To what extent can we talk about Eastern Africa's own transnationalism
in global terms? The papers will think about how global approaches to
the study of the region provide intellectual or methodological
inspiration for transnational studies of the past and present within
Eastern Africa.

What are the limits of the global? There is much well founded scepticism
about global approaches to the study of African societies, past and
present, among Africanists. Some of these concerns are grounded in
methodology. How feasible is it to develop the necessary linguistic and
archival skills to carry out truly global research? But many Africanists
have highlighted the danger of unconnected spaces being marginalised in
histories that stress connectivity.

How do we study the local in a global world? There is a great deal of
scholarship still to be written about Eastern Africa which is important
for its own sake, not just for what it may tell us about the rest of the
world.

Panels will be comprised of four speakers and a chair. There will be no
discussant in the interests of encouraging participation from the floor.
Papers will not be pre-circulated, but a 3 page abstract will be
required from all speakers two weeks in advance of the conference.
Abstracts should be sent to d.p.branch@warwick.ac.uk

For persons with mobility difficulties, please indicate when you RSVP
for necessary venue arrangements to be made.

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