Research Africa: Monday Aug 21

– Events & Issues
Can African Critics Rewrite the Story of African Photography?
By M. Neneelika Jayawardane
Friday August 4th, 2017
Since the early 1990s, when Malian photographers Malick Sidibé and Seydou Keïta began to attract international attention for their stylish, mid-century portraiture, there has been an upwelling of interest in photography and lens-based media from African and African diaspora artists. Today, more than two decades after the first Rencontres de Bamako (commonly known as the Bamako Biennale), in 1994, as photography from Africa has become intrinsically tied to the global flows of art fairs, biennials, and magazines, certain geographies on the continent have remained locations of aesthetic innovation. Cities like Accra, Addis Ababa, Bamako, Cairo, Lagos, Nairobi, Dakar, Johannesburg, and Cape Town are now home to multiple exhibition platforms and educational programs, and have become centers of photography, despite financial and political pressures. Platforms and events—such as LagosPhoto in Nigeria, Addis Foto Fest in Ethiopia, RAW Material Company in Dakar, Kulte Gallery & Editions in Rabat, and the roving Àsìkò Art School and the Photographer’s Master Class—are producing their own cartographies of knowledge about art through distribution channels across Africa and beyond.
Read more on the story in this link:

Can African Critics Rewrite the Story of African Photography?

– Investing in Public Infrastructure: Roads Versus Schools
By Manoj Atolia, Bin Grace Li, Ricardo Marto, Giovanni Melina
09 August 2017
Despite investment in education appearing to be a more pressing need in many developing countries, spending on roads often exceeds that on schools. This column argues that the different pace with which roads and schools contribute to economic growth is central to governments’ optimal allocation decision. Investment in schools tends to lead to a larger long-run increase in output, but the effects are more delayed than for investment in roads. This trade-off contributes to the bias towards roads, in particular when government concerns about debt sustainability and policymakers’ myopia are taken into consideration.
Read more on the story in this link:
http://voxeu.org/article/investing-roads-versus-schools?mc_cid=d7c3d8bb38&mc_eid=fab0566d63

– Out of India: A Wave of Brutal Violence Against Visiting College Students is Forcing the Country to Examine its Racism Problem
By Pamposh Raina
On 11 August 2015, speaking at the celebrations marking the 55th anniversary of the independence of Chad, President Idriss Deby declared, ‘we must have the courage to say there is a cord preventing development in Africa that must be severed.’ The ‘cord’ he was referring to is now over 71 years old. It is known by the acronym ‘CFA franc’.
Thick white curtains with a colorful zigzag pattern only partially block the scorching sun from the living room of Sandra Adaora Okoyeegbe’s rented apartment on the outskirts of New Delhi. An episode of BKChat LDN streaming on YouTube flashes on a modest flat-screen TV mounted on a wall. The 21-year-old African student calls the recently launched British web series a “chat show,” each episode featuring a group of mostly black, young participants who exchange their views on issues including the racism they contend with in the U.K. Okoyeegbe has faced it in India, too.
Read more on the story in this link:
Out of India

– CONFERENCE: Call for Papers
Governance and Islam in East Africa: Muslims and the State
The Aga Khan University’s Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations (ISMC) and East African Institute (EAI) seek to bring together academics, civil society actors and policy-makers to explore the relationship between governance and Muslims in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda in contemporary times.
Recent studies of Muslims in East Africa have tended largely to explore two main approaches. The focus has been either to study Muslims in relation to security issues, or to explore the reforms attempted within the communities and their implications for Muslim theology, rituals and general welfare.
However, a third approach, which has hitherto received less attention, is the relationship between Muslims and the governance of the countries in which they reside as citizens or residents. Such an approach, inclusive also of the other two dimensions, permits us to view the attitudes and activities of Muslims both in relation to themselves and to the various challenges they face in common with their fellow compatriots and citizens.
This approach will be addressed through the broad themes of institutions, law and politics and discussed in keynote conversations convened by, among others, Farouk Topan, Alex Awiti, Erin Stiles, Hassan Mwakimako, and Kai Kresse. We welcome paper submissions on a broad range of topics under these themes.

Submission of Proposals: 
Papers are invited within the conference themes and accepted papers will be grouped into panels, with each speaker having 20 minutes to present their paper. Interested individuals should submit proposals to ismc.governance@aku.edu by 31 August 2017. There is no conference fee and all conference meals will be covered. We will inform you if you paper has been accepted by the end of September 2017.
Contact Info:
Charlotte Whiting, Manager, Governance Programme, Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations
Contact Email: charlotte.whiting@aku.edu
URL: https://www.aku.edu/govprogramme/conferences/Pages/home.aspx https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/ywg3ay/these-kenyan-farmers-are-coding-apps-to-cope-with-a-devastating-drought

NEW BOOKS كتب جديدة
– The Arabic Freud: Psychoanalysis and Islam in Modern Egypt
[فرويد العربي: التحليل النفسي والإسلام في مصر الحديثة]
Author: Omnia El Shakry
Drawing on scholarly writings as well as popular literature on self-healing, El Shakry provides the first in-depth examination of psychoanalysis in Egypt and reveals how a new science of psychology―or “science of the soul,” as it came to be called―was inextricably linked to Islam and mysticism. She explores how Freudian ideas of the unconscious were crucial to the formation of modern discourses of subjectivity in areas as diverse as psychology, Islamic philosophy, and the law. Founding figures of Egyptian psychoanalysis, she shows, debated the temporality of the psyche, mystical states, the sexual drive, and the Oedipus complex, while offering startling insights into the nature of psychic life, ethics, and eros.
Publisher: Princeton University Press, 2017

– The National Council For Higher Education And The Growth Of The University Sub-Sector In Uganda
[المجلس الوطني للتعليم العالي ونمو القطاع التعليمي الجامعي في أوغندا]
Author: ABK Kasozi
This book narrates the experience of the Ugandan NCHE in the establishment, development and regulation of higher education institutions in Uganda from 2002 to 2012. In this period, student numbers in higher education institutions increased from about 65,000 to some 200,000 and university institutions from about ten to more than triple the number. The book discusses the role of a regulatory agency in the delivery of higher education, the relation of universities and colleges with such an agency, its impact on developing university capacities, and leadership in creating and refining higher education ideas. The experience of Uganda’s regulatory agency, the NCHE, in those ten years should help both the Ugandan and other African higher education stakeholders in sharing lessons learned from this one case study. The author sees the role of regulatory agencies as vital in the initial stages of building a higher education sub sector and in periods of system transitions such as the current journey from elite to mass systems but is of the view that the university remains the home of knowledge creation, dissemination and its application in society.
Publisher: CODESRIA, Senegal, 2017

– The Black Jacobins Reader
[دليل المثقفين السود الى الارث الجاكوتي]
Editor(s): Charles Forsdick, Christian Høgsbjerg
Contributor(s): Terkel, Studs
Containing a wealth of new scholarship and rare primary documents, The Black Jacobins Reader provides a comprehensive analysis of C. L. R. James’s classic history of the Haitian Revolution. In addition to considering the book’s literary qualities and its role in James’s emergence as a writer and thinker, the contributors discuss its production, context, and enduring importance in relation to debates about decolonization, globalization, post-colonialism, and the emergence of neocolonial modernity. The Reader also includes the reflections of activists and novelists on the book’s influence and a transcript of James’s 1970 interview with Studs Terkel.
Publisher: Duke University Press, 2017

– The Archaeology of the Jesuit Missions in Ethiopia (1557–1632)
[علم الآثار لدى البعثات اليسوعية في إثيوبيا- 1557 -1632]
Author: Víctor M. Fernández, Jorge de Torres, Andreu Martínez d’Alòs-Moner, and Carlos Cañete
One of the earliest and most ambitious projects carried out by the Society of Jesus was the mission to the Christian kingdom of Ethiopia, which ran from 1557 to 1632. In about 1621, crucial figures in the Ethiopian Solomonid monarchy, including King Susenyos, were converted to Catholicism and up to 1632 imposing missionary churches, residences, and royal structures were built. This book studies for the first time in a comprehensive manner the missionary architecture built by the joint work of Jesuit padres, Ethiopian and Indian masons, and royal Ethiopian patrons. The work gives ample archaeological, architectonic, and historical descriptions of the ten extant sites known to date and includes hypotheses on hitherto unexplored or lesser known structures.
Publisher: Brill Publishes, 2017

——————————-
Research Africa welcomes submissions of books, events, funding opportunities, and more to be included in next week’s edition.
To subscribe or unsubscribe email: research_africa-editor@duke.edu
Website: https://sites.duke.edu/researchafrica/