2013 Conferences
African Studies Association
Arianna Lissoni attended the 56th Annual Meeting of the African Studies Association on the theme Mobility, Migration and Flow which took place in Baltimore from 21-24 November 2013. She presented a paper titled 'Dear Comrade Chief Rep: love, marriage and family relations in the ANC in exile in Tanzania' as part of a panel convened by Paul Landau (University of Maryland) on 'The problem of auto/biography and living memories'. Landau and Jon Soske (McGill University) were the other presenters on the panel, and Ciraj Rassool (UWC) acted as discussant.
Land Divided Conference: Land And South African Society In 2013, In Comparative Perspective (UCT)
Close to 500 academics, government officials, land activists representing various NGOs and civic groups gathered at the University of Cape Town from 24 – 27 March 2013 to explore and debate the legacy of the 1913 Natives Land Act on its centenary. The conference reflected on the legacies of the Natives Land Act, the ANC government’s redistribution challenges among other issues on land, policy and development in South Africa post-1994.
Michelle Hay presented a paper entitled ‘A Tangled Past: Land Settlement in Mopani District, Limpopo, in the 20th Century’.
Voices of Protest, engaging political power in North and Sub-Saharan Africa, L’Orientale, Procida
The Summer School was attended by Phil Bonner and Molemo Moiloa. It was an opportunity to meet young, academics working on Africa. The programme structure enabled the expression of young voices in a safe and encouraging environment. The conference’s student centred approach was refreshing and very productive.
The content, and approach to content, was quite strongly influenced by an African studies approach. At least one participant from the programme is likely to take part in a History Workshop conference on Youth in Johannesburg in 2014.
African Studies Association
Arianna Lissoni attended the 56th Annual Meeting of the African Studies Association on the theme Mobility, Migration and Flow which took place in Baltimore from 21-24 November 2013. She presented a paper titled 'Dear Comrade Chief Rep: love, marriage and family relations in the ANC in exile in Tanzania' as part of a panel convened by Paul Landau (University of Maryland) on 'The problem of auto/biography and living memories'. Landau and Jon Soske (McGill University) were the other presenters on the panel, and Ciraj Rassool (UWC) acted as discussant.
European African Studies Association
Danai Mupotsa travelled to Helsinki for the summer-school, following which she attended the meeting in Lisbon where several members of the NRF Chair presented papers.
Re-figuring the South African Empire
Arianna Lissoni presented a paper entitled “Rethinking the turn to armed struggle” and Sarah Godsell presented a paper entitled “Backyard of Empire: Reflecting on the role of Bantustans in the South African Empire”. This conference investigated histories of imperialism, colonialism and nation-building in the Southern African region, in the context of a critical reassessment of South Africa as a state and nation. The overall aim was to understand the region’s history from its margins and to shift perspectives away from the teleological narrative of the emergence and consolidation of a modern South African nation-state throughout the 20th century.
American Anthropological Association
Danai Mupotsa attended the annual conference held in Chicago in November 2013. She was part of a panel convened by Anna West (Anthropology, Stanford University) that was framed around the aesthetics of security in Southern Africa (http://site.videobrasil.org.br/en/news/1773363). The panel took different subject/objects of knowledge and framed them around questions of affect, aesthetics and belonging to enter a critique of “security”. The paper presented was titled “A Question of Power.” This is the title of the first chapter of her dissertation, where she introduces the thesis as a whole while working through the methodological and ethical considerations of the project. The intention is to edit aspects of this paper for submission to a journal on the subject of visual anthropology.