Centre of African Studies 1962-2012

CELEBRATING
50 YEARS OF THE
Centre
of African
Studies
1962-2012
Cover: Two young Orma women on their way to the
well in the Galole area of the Tana River District, Kenya.
Photograph: James Pattison, CAS PhD student.
Contents: Fishing on the banks of the Nile, Khartoum, Sudan.
Photograph: Laura Mann, CAS PhD student.
Contents
Centre of African Studies Staff
Gerhard Anders, Lecturer in African Studies:
International Development
Alan Barnard, Professor of the Anthropology
of Southern Africa; Honorary Consul of the
Republic of Namibia
Lizelle Bisschoff, Leverhulme Trust
Postdoctoral Fellow
Barbara Bompani, Lecturer in African
Development; Programme Director:
MSc in Africa & International Development
Davide Chinigò, Research Fellow: PISCES
2
Director’s welcome
4
CAS@50 conference
8
Centre of African Studies:
The early years
10Africa and Edinburgh:
Africanus Horton, the University of
Edinburgh’s first African graduate
12Africa and Edinburgh:
Julius Nyerere, graduate of the University
of Edinburgh and first President of the
United Republic of Tanzania
16Interdisciplinary engagements:
A portrait of CAS@50
20
Degrees in CAS: PhD programme
Joost Fontein, Lecturer in Social
Anthropology
22
Degrees in CAS: MSc programmes
Sabine Hoehn, British Academy
Postdoctoral Fellow
24CAS in the community:
Knowledge exchange
Sara Rich Dorman, Lecturer in Politics
and International Relations
Molefe Joseph, Leverhulme Trust
Postdoctoral Fellow
Peter Kingsley, INZI Research Fellow
Seona Macintosh, Administrative Secretary
Thomas Molony, Lecturer in African Studies;
Programme Director: MSc in African Studies
Paul Nugent, Director of the Centre of
African Studies; Professor of Comparative
African History
James Smith, Professor of African and
Development Studies; Assistant Principal:
Global Development Academy
Sam Spiegel, Lecturer in International
Development
Michelle Taylor, INZI Research Fellow
Wolfgang Zeller, Co-ordinator: African
Borderlands Research Network (ABORNE)
26CAS in the community:
Africa in Motion Film Festival
Director’s welcome
Although the Centre of African Studies (CAS) was
formally launched in January 1963, it had already
been in operation since 1962. This makes 2012
the fitting year in which to mark our Golden Jubilee.
CAS is as old as most independent African states
– and slightly senior to Malawi and Zambia – and
in a curious way our ups and downs have mirrored
those of the continent as a whole. First, there was a
period of youthful optimism in the 1960s, followed
by a more sober realism over the following decade.
In the 1980s, academic cutbacks posed a serious
threat to the very existence of African Studies.
Although at least two Centres in the UK were closed
down in the lean years, CAS refused to succumb and
fought a successful campaign to ensure its survival.
Finally, at a time when optimism about Africa
abounds once more, CAS has undergone a
radical transformation of its own. Having been
pared back to a single member of staff in the 1990s,
we currently employ around a dozen core staff who
work closely with some twenty other Africanists
across the three colleges of the University. The
unprecedented expansion of recent years has been
built on rising student numbers – currently some
50 students on our two masters programmes and
around 25 research students – as well as substantial
research income. On our 40th anniversary, the tone
of the reflections by our founding members was
somewhat sombre. George (‘Sam’) Shepperson, who
was the pre-eminent mover and shaker at the time
when CAS was established, referred to the Centre
as facing an “uncertain future”.
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CAS has come through that uncertainty and now
stands in an unprecedented position of strength.
CAS is widely considered as the leading Centre
in the United Kingdom and it is at the forefront
of European collaboration through its active
participation in the AEGIS network.
In this commemorative publication, we seek to
convey a sense of this history as well as to showcase
our present activities. Along the way, we pay tribute
to colleagues, including some former Directors, who
got us up and running and steered us through some
choppy waters: notably Sam Shepperson, Kenneth
Little, Christopher Fyfe, Chris Allen, David McMaster,
Ian Duffield, Alan Barnard and especially Kenneth
and Pravina King. We also gratefully acknowledge
our many supporters beyond the University who
have contributed to our African scholarships and the
regular cycle of conference activity (especially the
Binks Trust). Without them, we probably would not
have made it this far.
Let the celebrations commence!
Professor Paul Nugent
Director of CAS
Outreach event conducted by the Special Court
in a village near Makeni, northern Sierra Leone.
Photograph: Gerhard Anders, CAS staff member.
Left: Core CAS staff 2012 with the Centre’s
Director, Professor Paul Nugent, holding the
wooden Yoruba head that has served as the
CAS mascot for decades.
This skilfully stencilled map of Africa was spotted on the outside
wall of a secondary school in Moyo town, northern Uganda.
Photograph: Wolfgang Zeller, CAS staff member.
CAS @ 50 conference
6 - 8 June 2012
The Centre of African Studies (CAS) has hosted an international conference on a
particular theme in every year since 1962. To mark the 50th anniversary, CAS will host
its most ambitious event yet with over 80 panels and 250 participants. The theme of
the conference is CAS@50: Cutting Edges and Retrospectives. The conference aims
to revisit some of the issues that have been of interest to Edinburgh Africanists over
the years and to highlight current research agendas.
Three keynote speakers who have been at the forefront of Africanist scholarship and
have made large contributions to the humanities and social sciences, will participate
as keynote speakers in CAS@50: Professor Jean-François Bayart (CERI, Paris), Professor
Frederick Cooper (New York University) and Professor Thandika Mkandawire (The London
School of Economics and Political Science).
To learn more about the Centre’s
50th anniversary conference, visit
www.cas.ed.ac.uk/events/annual_conference/2012
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Centre of African Studies
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Kaizer Chiefs supporters eagerly anticipating a penalty kick versus
Bloemfontein Celtic in a Premier Soccer League fixture (February
14th 2009, Super Stadium, Atteridgeville, South Africa).
Photograph: Marc Fletcher, CAS PhD student.
“I well remember the conference at Edinburgh in 1962. I was a young assistant professor
and this conference assembled many of the leading scholars of Africa at the time.
It was an exciting occasion, and an excellent start for Edinburgh’s long concern
with the study of Africa. I can only hope the next fifty years will prove as strong.”
Professor Immanuel Wallerstein, sociologist, social scientist and
expert on post-colonial Africa | 2011
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Centre of African Studies:
In northern Uganda, hope and despair are often
expressed in the names of small businesses like this one
in the town of Koboko, the birthplace of Idi Amin.
Photograph: Wolfgang Zeller, CAS staff member.
The early years
It was in the context of decolonisation
that significant funding was invested in
the academic study of Africa in Britain.
Sir William Hayter was commissioned by
the University Grants Committee to write
a report on area studies in 1961. Hayter
recommended the creation of two Centres
of African Studies, supported by significant
funding for a start-up phase, which was
eventually extended to ten years. One of
these Centres was allocated to Birmingham,
becoming the Centre of West African
Studies, and the other to Edinburgh.
The model that was adopted was of a
combination of core disciplines, in which
the post-holders would have one foot in the
Centre of African Studies (CAS) and another
in a disciplinary department.
When Edinburgh’s Centre of African Studies
opened its doors, it employed Henry Ord
(Development Economics), Christopher Fyfe
(History), Malcolm Ruel (Social Anthropology)
and David McMaster (Geography). Ruel
moved to Cambridge in 1970 and Ord died
in post in 1977, but both McMaster and Fyfe
remained in Edinburgh until their retirement
in 1987 and 1990 respectively. Although
Sam Shepperson and Kenneth Little were
instrumental in the creation of CAS and in
establishing the reputation of African Studies
at Edinburgh, neither was located in the
Centre. Grace Hunter was the venerable
administrator who doubled as the secretary
and keeper of the library and by all accounts
kept the daily show on the road. In the
beginning, CAS offered a Diploma in African
Studies, which was only later upgraded to an
MSc degree.
The launch event of 7 January 1963 brought
together an impressive cast by any measure.
Lord Hailey, whose criticism of Indirect
Rule orthodoxies signalled the demise of
the British Empire in Africa, was the guest
of honour. In attendance were Thomas
Hodgkin, Lucy Mair, Audrey Richards, Daryll
Forde, Immanuel Wallerstein and Jacob Ajayi.
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Centre of African Studies
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Over the years, CAS established itself as
a hub for African Studies in Edinburgh and
across Scotland. Much of the research took
place in other parts of the University, for
example in Law, Divinity and History, but this
fed into the work of the Centre and enabled
it to fulfil Hayter’s underlying interdisciplinary
remit. Much of the synergy was achieved
through the annual international
conferences. These events were always
organised as thoroughly interdisciplinary
events – a tradition that continues down
to the present. Many of these conferences
were ahead of their time, including the
inaugural conference of January 1963 which
was entitled Urbanisation in African Social
Change. The conference papers were all
published in-house and it was only in the
1990s that there was a shift to external
publication.
In subsequent years, CAS was able to
extend its field of operations into Politics,
with the temporary appointment of Jabez
Langley and subsequently of Chris Allen to
a permanent position. By 1980, there were
no fewer than five joint appointments.
Thereafter, new appointments were
made to departments rather than to the
Centre, meaning that Africanists could
only contribute as much time as their
departments would allow. For many years,
it was the cross-University committee and
its elected chair that kept CAS moving
forward. In 1990, when Kenneth King was
appointed Director of the Centre, a muchneeded measure of stability was provided.
This enabled the Centre to be rebuilt in more
recent times, when staff are once more
appointed full-time to CAS and the spirit
of interdisciplinary collaboration lives on.
“A Centre of African Studies was opened on Monday at the University of Edinburgh by
Lord Hailey, in the presence of many representatives of African colleges. […] Amongst
those present were Professor Thomas Hodgkin, Head of the Institute of African Studies,
University of Ghana, Professor Daryll Forde, Director of the International Africa Institute,
Dr Immanuel Wallerstein, Dr Audrey Richards and Dr Van Belsen.
The Centre will serve primarily candidates for the PhD degree already registered in their
particular department, and candidates registered for the postgraduate Diploma in African
Studies. Courses available include Arabic and Islamic History, Economics, Geography,
History, Phonetics and Linguistics, Social Anthropology, and Social Medicine.
Tuition and Examination are £60.”
Report on the launch of the Centre of African Studies | 12 January 1963
Africanus Horton, the University of Edinburgh’s first African graduate.
Africa and Edinburgh:
Africanus Horton, the University of
Edinburgh’s first African graduate
Born in 1835 near Freetown in Sierra Leone, James Africanus
Beale Horton was the son of an Igbo recaptive who resettled
in Africa after being freed from a slave ship. Horton attended
the CMS Grammar School, and was then awarded a
scholarship from the War Office to study medicine in the
United Kingdom. He spent three years at King’s College,
London, and in 1858 became a Member of the Royal College
of Surgeons. After graduation, he then studied a fourth year
for the MD in Edinburgh – where Robert Knox, whose racist
theories Horton was later to take issue with, had only two
years before been teaching Anatomy.
While earlier records from London refer to him as ‘James
B. Horton’ (‘Beale’ being an adoption after his missionary
benefactor), at Edinburgh he was registered as ‘James
Africanus Beale Horton’ – the African identifier immediately
establishing his continent of origin. In Edinburgh Horton
lodged at 50 Rankeillor Street, some ten minutes’ walk from
his classes. He passed his oral examinations in five medical
subjects satisfactorily, and in Practice of Medicine was the
only student of the year to be awarded Honours. He also
wrote a doctoral thesis – ‘Thesis on the Medical Topography
of the West Coast of Africa including Sketches of its Botany’
– for which he was commended and (with nine others)
he was awarded a certificate of merit for helping with
histological demonstrations.
After Edinburgh Horton served for twenty years as a medical
officer in the British army in West Africa, reaching the rank
of Surgeon-Major. During these years he carried out medical
research and published several books, including a standard
work on tropical medicine. As a political, social and economic
thinker, he was far in advance of his age. Convinced that
Africa’s “complete regeneration must be looked for from her
sons alone”, Horton’s perceptive mind also concerned itself
with the types of government suitable for each of the British
possessions.
10 Centre of African Studies
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This was expressed in his West African Countries and
Peoples, the first call for self-government by a West
African author – dating from 1868 and published in London,
but reprinted in 1969 by Edinburgh University Press.
By advocating the establishment of a West African university
(with special emphasis on the teaching of science and the
education of women) as well as a supra-territorial legislative
assembly, Horton’s ideas were truly in line with the early
20th century nationalists, and some of his demands on
education and business investment were in step even with
post-independence African politicians and economic
planners. Professor George Shepperson, a previous member
of the Centre of African Studies, has described Horton as
“the father of modern African political thought”, and one
of the pioneers of Pan-Africanism.
Horton died at the age of 48 in 1883, and the centenary
of the death of the University of Edinburgh’s first African
graduate was commemorated by the Centre of African
Studies in 1983. A memorial plaque was dedicated on
23 June 1983 by Dr Arthur Porter, Vice-Chancellor of the
University of Sierra Leone, in the presence of the Sierra Leone
High Commissioner, Mr Victor Sumner. Before the ceremony
the Principal of the University of Edinburgh, Dr John Burnett,
delivered the annual Africanus Horton Memorial Lecture,
which then was given in alternate years in the universities
of Edinburgh and Sierra Leone.
Notes: Horton’s biographer was Christopher Fyfe, author of
Africanus Horton, 1835-1883: West African Scientist and Patriot
(1972). Horton was not the first Doctor of African descent to
graduate from the University: William Fergusson, a West Indian,
had done so in 1814, and John Baptist Phillip of Trinidad in 1815.
Fergusson went on to become Governor of Sierra Leone.
“the father of modern
African political
thought”
Africanus Horton described by
Professor George Shepperson,
former Dean of the Faculty of Arts
and leading figure in the creation
of the Centre of African Studies.
Africa and Edinburgh:
Julius Nyerere, graduate of the University
of Edinburgh and first President of the
United Republic of Tanzania
Julius Nyerere was born in 1922 to Mugaya Nyang’ombe
and Nyerere Burito, the chief of Butiama village in the northwest of what was then Tanganyika. He studied at Mwisenge
Native Administration School in Musoma, Tabora Government
School, and Makerere College in Uganda. He returned to
Tabora, where at St Mary’s he taught Biology and History
– hence the name Mwalimu (teacher) – before obtaining a
scholarship to study in the United Kingdom.
Nyerere was originally assigned to train to become a science
teacher and took a short preparatory course of Physics and
Chemistry in Edinburgh. Various universities were discussed,
but in October 1949 he gained a place to study for a Master
of Arts degree at the University of Edinburgh. As Nyerere
himself put it at the time in a letter from Edinburgh, “if I can
be useful to my country after my studies here, I will be more
useful if I take an arts rather than a science degree”. The
courses he chose were in English, Political Economy, Social
Anthropology (taken during his first year); British History and
Economic History (second year); and Constitutional Law and
Moral Philosophy (third year), subjects that he chose in order
“to get a fairly broad course of study without bothering too
much about the details of a specialist”.
While at Edinburgh Nyerere wrote to Father Walsh, the
Director at St Mary’s and his mentor, to tell him that he
was considering becoming a priest because he “could do
a lot of good for people”. Walsh then wrote back to tell
the young Nyerere that he did not have a vocation to the
church. The vocation was elsewhere, as Nyerere probably
already knew. “There was no moment when it all clicked into
place. It wasn’t a sudden inspiration, I didn’t suddenly see the
light. It was not like the call of the Christian, ‘I’ve been called!’
At Edinburgh, I was certain I was coming back [to Tanganyika]
to get myself involved in full-time politics. I had made up my
mind that my life would be political.”
Nyerere graduated with an Ordinary Degree of Master of Arts
on 4 July 1952 and was “anxious to get back to work as soon
as possible”. Eight years after leaving Edinburgh, Julius Nyerere
became the first Chief Minister of Tanganyika.
12 Centre of African Studies
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He went on to deliver the territory to independence from
Britain and became its first Prime Minister, and then the first
President of Tanzania when Tanganyika merged with Zanzibar
in 1964. In 1967 he made the Arusha Declaration, which
outlined the principles of ujamaa, his vision of the country’s
national socialism and self-reliance.
He officially retired from domestic politics in 1985, but
continued to work with the South Centre for many years. He
was still working as chief mediator in the Burundi conflict until
shortly before his death in 1999, and is still fondly referred to
in Tanzania as Baba wa Taifa: ‘Father of the Nation’.
Nyerere returned to Edinburgh on many occasions, first in
1959 and then in 1962 to receive an Honorary Degree of
Doctor of Laws from the University. In 1987 he gave the
opening address at the Department of History’s conference
on The Making of Constitutions and the Development
of National Identity with a paper entitled, ‘Reflections
on Constitutions and African Experience’.
His final trip to his alma mater was in 1997 when he taught
and conducted seminars at the Centre of African Studies, and
on 9 October delivered the Lothian European Lecture, ‘Africa:
The Third Liberation’, in which he castigated neo-colonialism
and appealed for African countries to be allowed to develop
their own forms of democracy. On 14 December 1999,
exactly two months after his death in London, the University
held a Celebration and Thanksgiving for the Life of Mwalimu
Julius Nyerere. The University now honours Mwalimu with
three Julius Nyerere masters scholarships.
The entrance to the School of Social and Political Science
also now proudly bears a plaque, unveiled by retired President
H.E. Ali Hassan Mwinyi at the two-day celebration of the life
of Julius Nyerere, held at the University in conjunction with
the Tanzania High Commission to mark ten years after the
Father of the Nation’s death. The plaque reads: ‘In Honour
of Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, 1922-1999, African Statesman,
first President of the United Republic of Tanzania, Graduate
of the University.’
Bust of Julius Nyerere, situated in the Centre of African Studies
Maasai warriors (ilmurran) doing a traditional dance at Naboisho
Conservancy, Maasai Mara, at celebrations for World Tourism Day, 2011.
Photograph: Crystal Courtney, CAS PhD student.
“Moving to the Centre of African Studies in 1992 was a defining moment in my life.
I had been a deputy head teacher in rural Zimbabwe but needed some space to think and
feel what was right for me to do next. CAS provided that for me with its rich mixture of
interdisciplinary perspectives and its broader social experience. It was at CAS where I read
many of the authors that are still important to my academic work as a professor today and
where I started my collaboration with Kenneth King, still very active after 20 years.”
Professor Simon McGrath, University of Nottingham
MSc in African Studies 1992-93 and PhD 2002 | 2011
14 Centre of African Studies
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Gerhard Anders, CAS staff member,
doing research at Kailahun Police Station,
eastern Sierra Leone in March 2009.
Photograph: Géraldine Bollmann.
CAS members have been involved
in a number of research projects that
inform their teaching and supervision.
Their research falls under five research
themes: Creativity and Consumption;
Politics, Law and Governance;
Development and Innovation;
Religion, Beliefs and Society; and
Space and Connectivity.
Creativity and Consumption
Professor Paul Nugent, the Centre’s
Director and President of AEGIS,
currently works on a project entitled
‘Race, Taste and Power: The Cape
Wine Industry’, funded by the
Leverhulme Trust. The project spans
the 20th century and combines a
history of (stalled) innovations in the
Cape wine industry with an analysis
of the role of racialised discourses
and practices in shaping wine
consumption patterns and vice versa.
Interdisciplinary engagements:
A portrait of CAS@ 50
Since its establishment in 1962,
the Centre of African Studies (CAS)
has been a hub of interdisciplinary
research and teaching. It is one of
the leading Centres of African Studies
in Europe and an active member of
several academic networks, including
AEGIS - African Studies in Europe.
Currently, the Centre’s core staff
includes historians, anthropologists,
political scientists and geographers
with wide-ranging expertise in
development, nineteenth and
twentieth-century history, politics,
transitional justice, new information
and communication technologies, civil
society activism, borderlands, public
health and environmental issues. CAS
serves as the University of Edinburgh’s
focal point for scholars from all
academic units working on African
issues and is housed within the School
of Social and Political Science.
16 Centre of African Studies
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Within the College of Humanities &
Social Science, CAS has associated
members in History and Classics,
Divinity, the Business School,
Education and in the School of Law.
There is also close collaboration with
Africanists in the Colleges of Medicine
& Veterinary Medicine and Science &
Engineering, especially in Geosciences
and Tropical Veterinary Medicine.
Members of CAS also contribute to the
Global Development Academy, which
provides a platform for research and
teaching collaboration across its three
colleges. CAS has well-established
research partnerships across Europe
and in Africa, especially in Kenya,
Tanzania, South Africa, Ghana, Malawi,
Namibia and Botswana.
East African cinema and African
popular culture is the subject of
Lizelle Bisschoff’s research, funded
in part by the Leverhulme Trust.
In her postdoctoral research Lizelle
is assessing the emergence of
indigenous filmmaking in East Africa
in an attempt to trace how audiovisual representations contribute
to imagining and shaping the
postcolonial nation.
Politics, Law and Governance
Several members of CAS are involved
in research projects on transitional
justice, international criminal law
and crime control in Africa. Gerhard
Anders’ research focuses on globally
circulating ideas about development,
good governance, international
criminal justice and the rule of law,
tracking the everyday experiences
of civil servants, lawyers and others
involved in the production and
diffusion of administrative and legal
knowledge. Sabine Hoehn, a postdoctoral fellow in CAS, is conducting
a study on transitional justice and
the intervention of the International
Criminal Court in Kenya funded by
the British Academy.
Currently, Gerhard is co-developing
an anthropological study focusing
on the experiences of defence lawyers
in international war crimes trials.
The project focuses on defence
lawyers representing those charged
with crimes against humanity,
war crimes or terrorism before
international and hybrid criminal
tribunals. Gerhard is also involved in
a German-Swiss research project on
the emergent international regime
of crime control and security in Africa.
The project studies how Africa is
being turned into a laboratory for
new technologies of crime control.
The multifarious connections
between resource extraction and
livelihoods in Africa have been the
focus of Sam Spiegel’s work. Interested
in interdisciplinary approaches for
understanding issues of global
inequality, Sam’s research has
addressed a variety of inter-linkages
in the socioeconomic, environmental
and political dimensions of resource
extraction and rural livelihoods in
Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast
Asia, with particular attention to
conceptualisations of regulation and
resource management challenges
in artisanal and small-scale mining
communities.
In Social Anthropology, Laura Jeffery
is responsible for an ESRC-funded
research project on the forcible
removal of the inhabitants of the
Chagos Islands to Mauritius, the
Seychelles and the United Kingdom.
In Politics and International Relations,
Sara Rich Dorman has worked on
NGOs in Zimbabwe and the politics
of nationalism in Eritrea, while editing
African Affairs. In the Business School,
Kenneth Amaeshi works on corporate
business responsibility, while Peter
Rosa focuses on entrepreneurship
in family businesses in Uganda.
In Law, Professor Anne Griffiths has
carried out legal anthropological
studies on social relationships, gender
and the law in Botswana.
Making the best of poor infrastructure after years of civil war
in northern Uganda, women traders have managed to give
this section of the market of Gulu a distinctly feminine touch.
Photograph: Wolfgang Zeller, CAS staff member.
Interdisciplinary engagements:
A portrait of CAS @ 50
Development and Innovation
Professor James Smith, Co-Director
of the Centre of African Studies, has
played a leading role in a number
of international projects, notably
the Department for International
Development (DFID) ‘Policy Innovation
Systems for Clean Energy Security
(PISCES)’ project with Tom Molony and
Davide Chinigò, which is examining
bioenergy security in East Africa and
South Africa, and the ESRC Innogen
Centre, which is exploring the social,
political and economic implications
of the new life sciences. Other recent
projects have included a project
funded by the Microsoft Foundation to
look at mobile banking in Kenya, and
a systematic review, commissioned
by DFID, examining the evidence of
the impact of aid on maternal and
reproductive health.
James is also working together
with Lawrence Dritsas, Professor
Sue Welburn, Michelle Taylor and
Peter Kingsley on a major project
examining the evolution of human
and veterinary research into sleeping
sickness from the 1960s until the
present day. This research, funded by
the European Research Council, will
conduct comparative studies in East,
West, Central and Southern Africa over
the next five years.
Religion, Beliefs and Society
The importance of religion in African
civil society is studied by Barbara
Bompani, who has been working in
South Africa since 1999 where she
conducted research on religious
organisations and faith-based
organisations (FBOs). Her research
focuses on the dialectical relationship
between FBOs, their activities and
socio-political action; the production
of knowledge around faith,
development and the relationship
between civil society; and society and
politics in South Africa after the end
of apartheid. She is currently involved
in a project that analyses the role of
FBOs in South Africa to support noncitizens during the xenophobic attacks
in Spring 2008 and the churches’
critical voice of state intervention.
In Social Anthropology, Joost Fontein
has played a leading role in launching
the Bones Collective Research Group
and on a research project exploring
the ‘Materialities of Death in Southern
Africa’. In Divinity, Afe Adogame
organised the CAS annual conference
on Scotland in Africa in 2009. Afe’s
research focuses on African traditional
religion and African diaspora in the
UK. Over the years, there have been a
few dominant themes across Divinity
and the Centre of African Studies,
including the history of Christianity
in Africa, missionary history, Islam and
Christian relations in Africa, African
traditional religions and more recently
religion, globalisation and the African
diaspora.
To learn more about the Centre’s research
and staff, visit www.cas.ed.ac.uk/staff_profiles
18 Centre of African Studies
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Space and Connectivity
Since 2007, CAS has served as hub
for the African Borderlands Research
Network (ABORNE), an interdisciplinary
network of researchers interested in
all aspects of international borders
and trans-boundary phenomena in
Africa funded by the European Science
Foundation. Professor Paul Nugent
and Wolfgang Zeller are both founding
members and respectively serve as
chairman and scientific coordinator.
The emphasis is largely on borderlands
as physical spaces and social spheres,
but the network is also concerned
with regional flows of people and
goods as well as economic and social
processes at some distance from the
geographical border. The membership
of ABORNE has grown to nearly 250
individual researchers and institutions
from across Europe, Africa, North
America and Asia.
New information and communication
technologies are another area
of interest. Tom Molony’s work
concentrates on information and
communication technologies (ICT),
initially with a focus on how mobile
phones and the internet are used
in micro and small enterprises in
Tanzania. This has drawn him into
also looking at the social use of these
technologies in countries across Africa
and, increasingly, their application in
other areas such as the political sphere.
In Social Anthropology, Professor
Alan Barnard has been engaged in
an ESRC-funded project on language
and kinship in the Kalahari Basin
in collaboration with Humboldt
University Berlin. In History, Francesca
Locatelli has researched the history
of Asmara, while Ola Uduku from the
Edinburgh College of Art is working
on urban architecture in West and
Southern Africa.
Degrees in CAS:
PhD programme
The PhD in African Studies is one of the few
doctoral programmes dedicated to the
study of Africa in the UK. The programme
has, over the years, drawn on the core
disciplines of the Centre’s academics and
associates to provide a multidisciplinary take
on social scientific research in Africa. In the
last (2008) Research Assessment Exercise, all
subject areas to which the Centre’s academic
staff contributed (politics, sociology, social
anthropology and history) were rated in the
top six in their research subject areas. Our
multidisciplinary approach to researching
Africa is built on disciplinary strength.
The PhD programme has traditionally worked
on a co-supervisor system, which helps embed
an interdisciplinary approach and ensures
a good balance of regional and thematic
expertise. Students are actively encouraged
to draw on multiple theoretical traditions,
diverse methodologies and interdisciplinary
approaches to produce holistic, novel and
insightful research on Africa.
This approach has been successful. Our
students regularly publish in leading
international journals before completing
their studies. Journals such as the Journal
of Southern African Studies, African Affairs,
Journal of East African Studies and Journal of
International Development have all recently
featured articles by our students.
Over the years the programme has attracted
students from all over the world, Africa, the
UK, Europe, North America and Asia. Many
of these students have gone on to make
their mark internationally, while others have
enjoyed the city, University and Centre
so much they have remained. Of current
academic staff, Barbara Bompani (graduated
in 2007, religion and politics in South Africa),
Sabine Hoehn (2010, civil society in Namibia),
Tom Molony (2005, information and
communication technologies in Tanzania) and
Michelle Taylor (2011, health systems policy in
Uganda) all completed their doctoral studies
in the Centre of African Studies.
20 Centre of African Studies
www.cas.ed.ac.uk
Other graduates work elsewhere in the
University of Edinburgh, such as Joan Haig,
who is a research fellow in the Scottish
Centre for Diaspora Studies.
Our doctoral students have also been
very successful at winning competitive
and prestigious post-doctoral research
fellowships. In recent years, our graduates
have secured several fellowships from the UK
Government’s Economic and Social Research
Council, the Leverhulme Trust and the British
Academy. Our graduates have also played key
roles in large, collaborative research projects
such as the UK Department for International
Development-funded Bioenergy project
(Tom Molony) and the European Research
Council-supported Sleeping Sickness project
(Michelle Taylor).
Our past students have also travelled far and
wide. Emilie Venables (graduated in 2009,
sexuality in West Africa) is now a senior
researcher at the Wits Reproductive Health
and HIV Institute in South Africa, where she
leads research on HIV prevention projects,
focusing on youth, vaccine development and
migration. James Pattison (2011, pastoralist
livelihoods in Kenya) is a researcher at the
International Institute for Environment and
Development. Andrew Newsham (2007,
participation in rural livelihoods in Namibia
and Argentina) is a research fellow at the
Institute of Development Studies, Sussex.
Daniel Hammett (2007, coloured identity
in the Western Cape, South Africa) is a
lecturer in Human Geography at the
University of Sheffield. Alex Beresford
(2011, politics and trade unionism in South
Africa) has been appointed to a permanent
lectureship in the Politics of African
Development at Leeds University.
For a small centre, our graduates’ intellectual
footprint is large.
Marcello Olum from Opiro village near Moyo town in
northern Uganda with his highly decorated taxi bike.
Photograph: Wolfgang Zeller, CAS staff member.
Beatrice Lamwaka (left)
and Jackee Budesta
Batanda (right) are
award-winning authors,
pictured here outside the
office of women writers’
association FEMRITE in
Kampala, Uganda.
Photograph: Wolfgang
Zeller, CAS staff member.
Degrees in CAS:
MSc programmes
The MSc in African Studies and the MSc by Research (African Studies) have long acted as the backbone
to postgraduate programmes in the Centre of African Studies (CAS). Indeed, the MSc in African Studies
was introduced not long after the Centre was established in 1962. In 2009, the MSc in Africa and
International Development was added to the suite of postgraduate programmes offered by the Centre.
MSc in African Studies
For its anniversary year, CAS has merged the MSc in African
Studies and the MSc by Research (African Studies) to form
a new ESRC-accredited MSc in African Studies. The MSc will
commence with the new intake of students in September
2012 and remains true to its roots, offering a solid foundation
in the core CAS strengths of Anthropology, History and
Politics. The programme is structured around two core
courses: The first, ‘Modern Africa’, uses a comparative
framework to offer a wide-ranging overview of social and
political processes, with an explicitly interdisciplinary focus.
The second core course, ‘Contemporary African Issues and
Debates’, allows students to frame and interrogate a range
of contemporary debates that are common to much of
sub-Saharan Africa today.
The core courses are complemented by a range of
optional courses, among them the new options of ‘African
Borderlands’, ‘African Cities’, and ‘African Popular Culture’.
Added to these is a new research training course, ‘Research
in Africa’, which complements other ESRC-accredited research
training in the Graduate School and offers a dedicated Africafocused research training course that equips students with
the relevant skills to undertake fieldwork on the continent
at graduate level. It also serves as a grounding for those
planning to undertake doctoral research. The dissertation is
a component of both the MSc in African Studies and the MSc
in Africa and International Development and provides the
opportunity for students to undertake supervised research
on a topic of their own choice and can involve fieldwork –
a captivating experience that often ensures our students get
a lasting taste for African research, or continue with an Africafocussed career path.
22 Centre of African Studies
www.cas.ed.ac.uk
MSc in Africa and International
Development
The MSc in Africa and International Development builds on
the University’s cross-disciplinary expertise on development
and is aimed towards students and professionals looking to
develop a deeper understanding of the complex dynamics of
international development in the African context. In less than
three years, the MSc in Africa and International Development
has become a popular programme that brings together a very
international community of students from all over the world.
Studying African development in CAS means being
involved in a truly international environment with staff
and students that bring distinct experiences and different
interpretations. Uniquely this programme offers teaching,
resources and opportunities to gain both theory and
practical knowledge of international development issues.
Students can choose among a wide range of courses with
a focus on health, gender and development, security,
human rights, entrepreneurship, politics and theories of
development, education, poverty and governance. Students
are also encouraged to attend practical courses to gain
skills in order to work in development agencies and to take
part in the internship programme with our NGO partners
in Africa and in the UK. As a past student stated: “If you are
remotely interested in Africa’s history, future, or position
in international relations then you would be making the
right choice by taking this course. An attractive outcome
is that, whether it is in a small or large way, you will be
empowered with the knowledge and inspiration to make a
positive contribution to the trajectory of this potential-rich
continent”.
To learn more about the Centre’s postgraduate programmes,
visit www.cas.ed.ac.uk/postgraduate_study
A view from above of Owino Market, Kampala, Uganda.
Photograph: Caroline Valois, CAS PhD student.
CAS in the community:
Knowledge exchange
For the past 50 years, scholars linked to
the Centre of African Studies (CAS) have
been challenging the conventional
boundaries delineating access to
knowledge and discussion. As Professor
Paul Nugent notes in his welcome,
CAS’s history is finely intertwined with
the first crucial decades of African
independence, and this has given
scholars linked to the Centre ample
opportunities to make their research
count in diverse and interesting ways.
For many years, Professor Kenneth
King’s pathbreaking research on the
informal sector and education were
widely consulted by the aid community.
In 1997, Kenneth and Pravina King
also launched a year-long schedule of
activities, called Scotland Africa ’97,
which brought Africa to the doorsteps
of people right across Scotland.
The deep personal and professional
links that CAS members have since
forged with scholars, journalists,
intellectuals, public figures, activists and
policy-makers on the African continent,
in the UK and wherever people take
an active interest in Africa, are too
numerous to mention. Today these
links reach far beyond the confines
of NGO planning units and the board
rooms of national and international
donor agencies, into the management
of private enterprises investing in
Africa; into the studios of filmmakers,
broadcasters and musicians; into
museums, cinemas, stages and other
public spaces of contemporary African
cultural production; into courtrooms
of Europe’s increasingly rigid
immigration and asylum systems as
well as those of the institutions of
international criminal justice.
24 Centre of African Studies
www.cas.ed.ac.uk
Journalists, governmental and nongovernmental institutions frequently
approach CAS for interviews or
expert commentary, in particular
in relation to elections in African
countries where staff members have
particular expertise. In recent years,
topics have included: Biofuels and new
information technologies (Professor
James Smith, Tom Molony); criminal
and post-conflict justice (Gerhard
Anders, Sabine Hoehn); mineral
extraction (Sam Spiegel, Wolfgang
Zeller); (in-)security in border areas
and regional integration (Professor
Paul Nugent, Wolfgang Zeller); and
xenophobic and sexually motivated
violence (Barbara Bompani).
The weekly CAS seminar series
provides outstanding international
scholars in African Studies and related
disciplines an opportunity to speak
to a wider audience within and well
beyond the University of Edinburgh.
The annual Africa in Motion Film
Festival, founded by CAS’s Lizelle
Bisschoff, brings high-quality feature
and documentary films as well as
discussions and seminars with some
of their creators to a broad audience
at Filmhouse Cinema. As Edinburgh’s
premier independent cinema, it
also hosts the Take One Action Film
Festival, which frequently invites CAS
staff as expert discussants for their
screenings of socially critical films.
In recent years CAS has set up an
active blog and facebook page,
through which current and past
students keep each other and staff
informed of new projects they are
involved in.
CAS staff run regular writing and
publishing workshops designed to
enable our students and researchers
to develop their skills to write critically
and effectively for a wide range of
audiences. These activities relate to
the growing editorial and publishing
expertise within CAS.
The Centre currently includes the
editors of three of the leading
Africanist journals: Journal of Modern
African Studies, Journal of Southern
African Studies and African Affairs,
amounting to a substantial fieldshaping role. In 2009, CAS launched
the open access peer-reviewed journal
Critical African Studies, which seeks
to return Africanist scholarship to the
heart of theoretical innovation within
each of its constituent disciplines.
The journal has been widely noticed
and its re-launch under the aegis of
an established academic publisher
is under negotiation.
In diplomatic settings, Professor Alan
Barnard is a very active honorary
consul for Namibia and Professor
Paul Nugent has acted as a leading
consultant/advisor to the US State
Department and the African Union.
Professor Paul Nugent, Sara Rich
Dorman, Wolfgang Zeller and Tom
Molony have acted as international
election observers. Tom is also
writing a new biography of Julius
Nyerere’s early years including the
former Tanzanian president’s time
in Edinburgh.
Film poster for Togetherness Supreme, a Kenyan film
screened at the Africa in Motion Film Festival in 2010.
Image courtesy of Hot Sun Films.
CAS in the community:
Africa in Motion Film Festival
frica
n otion
Edinburgh African Film Festival
...the festival has screened over
200 African films
to audiences totalling around
15,000 people
over the past six years.
Lizelle Bisschoff, a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Centre
of African Studies, founded the Africa in Motion (AiM) Film
Festival in Edinburgh in 2006, which takes place annually in
October and November at Edinburgh’s Filmhouse Cinema.
Devised as a platform to increase access to one of the most
marginalised of cinemas worldwide, the festival has screened
over 200 African films to audiences totalling around 15,000
people over the past six years. Many of these films are virtually
inaccessible to UK audiences, with few distribution networks
and exhibition outlets to exhibit African films in the UK. Over
the years, many African films have had their UK premieres
at AiM, and the festival includes screenings of classics,
contemporary features, short films and documentaries from all
the corners of the continent. Since its inception, the Centre of
African Studies has been a partner and financial supporter of
the festival.
Film screenings are accompanied by a wide range of
complementary events, including directors’ master classes
and Q&As, workshops, seminars, academic symposia, art
exhibitions and music performances by Edinburgh-based
African musicians. Some highlights from the past six years
include the presence of the famous director Gaston Kabore
from Burkina Faso in 2008, who introduced a retrospective of
his work and hosted a director’s master class at the Edinburgh
College of Art in collaboration with the Scottish Documentary
Institute. A retrospective of the work of Malian director
Souleymane Cissé also took place in 2008, as well as tributes
to the founding fathers of African cinema north and south
of the Sahara in 2007 and 2008 respectively: Senegalese
director Ousmane Sembene who passed away in 2007, and
Egyptian director Youssef Chahine who passed away in 2008.
In 2006 and 2007 the festival had a focus on ‘lost African
film classics’, where little-known African films from the early
years of post-independence filmmaking were screened at the
festival, followed by panel discussions by international African
film scholars.
In 2009 the festival’s theme was trauma, conflict and
reconciliation in Africa, in line with the United Nations’
International Year of Reconciliation. An accompanying
symposium on how art is used to promote and advance
reconciliation in post-conflict African societies resulted in a
much-anticipated book edited by festival co-directors Lizelle
Bisschoff and Stefanie Van de Peer entitled: Art and Trauma
in Africa: Representations of Reconciliation in Music, Visual
Arts, Literature and Film.
26 Centre of African Studies
www.cas.ed.ac.uk
To learn more about AiM, visit
www.africa-in-motion.org.uk
In early 2010, AiM received a prestigious international
award from the S.E.R. Foundation, endorsed by the UN,
in recognition of the festival’s contribution to promoting
and highlighting peace and reconciliation issues in Africa.
Education has always been at the heart of the festival,
and collaborations with children, young people and schools
have resulted in animation workshops, drumming and
dancing workshops, storytelling events, school screenings
and educational sessions, and packages of animation short
films being screened to families every year at the festival
since 2008.
In 2008 the festival launched a short film competition
for young and emerging African filmmakers with the
winner selected by an international jury of high-profile film
practitioners. Through the short film competition the festival
endeavours to make a contribution to assisting and nurturing
the growth of African film industries.
Since 2008 the festival has toured to other parts of the UK:
In 2008 a selection from the main programme toured to 12
cities across the UK. In 2009 and 2010 the festival toured to
the highlands and islands of Scotland. African films have been
screened on the Isle of Skye, the Shetland and Orkney Islands
and various locations in the Scottish Highlands and Fife.
In February 2012, the festival toured to schools in Edinburgh
and its surroundings, screening African films to primary and
secondary school classes and talking to pupils about how to
be responsible global citizens.
Now entering its 7th year, Africa in Motion has reached
maturity to become a premier platform for the exhibition
of African cinema in the UK and internationally.
Senegalese musician Soriba Kanout performing
at the Africa in Motion Film Festival in 2011.
Copyright: Michael Marten, www.marten.org.uk, 2011
In 2002 Kenneth King said “The Centre is older than the discovery of the jua kali [informal
sector] in Ghana and Nairobi in the early 1970s. […] The buzz around the Centre has surely
something to do with the commitment and enthusiasm of those associated with it. Like the
jua kali the Centre doesn’t have regular hours – it doesn’t have formal sector lunch hours and it
seems to be open after many departments are closed. Like the informal sector, it is very hard to
put your finger on what makes it special and different from the formal sector. But as soon as you
go into an informal jua kali workshop in Kibera, Kamukunji or Mathare in Nairobi, you know
it’s different. I think that is the same in CAS.”
Kenneth King, former Director of CAS, in Encounters with the Centre of African
Studies – Celebrating 40 Years of African Studies in Edinburgh | 2002
28 Centre of African Studies
www.cas.ed.ac.uk
Centre of African Studies
The University of Edinburgh
Chrystal Macmillan Building
15a George Square
Edinburgh EH8 9LD
Scotland, UK
Tel:
+44 (0)131 650 3878
Email:[email protected]
Website: www.cas.ed.ac.uk
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