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- Convenors:
-
David O'Kane
(Nelson Mandela University)
Dmitry Bondarenko
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- Format:
- Panel
- Location:
- 10 University Square (UQ), 01/005
- Sessions:
- Tuesday 26 July, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
We insist on the centrality of African realities, as they are defined by communities in the continent and its diaspora. How, we ask, do Africa's peoples shape their visions of the reality around them, and how do concrete realities affect their actions to build the future?
Long Abstract:
Whether in the continent or in the diaspora, Africa's peoples face the future with realism, a consciousness of the concrete realities facing their continent in the twenty-first century. Those realities can inspire as much as constrain, but they are the decisive factor in all efforts, large or small, to transform the continent. The themes of hope, transformation and the commons remain a feature of research on Africa, but they must be handled in ways attuned to present-day African realities. The organizers of this panel welcome, therefore, any papers dealing with contemporary African realities as they are being defined, defended, or dismantled, by Africa's peasants, pastoralists and new urban working and middle class communities, and through interventions by African diaspora communities as well. Papers by African scholars are especially welcome. New problems of dependency and decolonization, threats of climate change and environmental degradation, and recurring problems of governance and democratization - these are all factors in conceptions of the present-day African reality, and of past and future realities as well. How, we ask, are such realistic visions constructed by Africa's people, and how do those visions inform their actions to build the future? The organizers are aspiring to bring together a range of papers that deals with as broad a set of cases and themes as possible: therefore, they look forward to receiving papers that are concerned with practical concerns and empirical cases, as well as those implying a broader focus on local ontologies and epistemologies.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Tuesday 26 July, 2022, -Barbora Kyereko (Charles University, Czech Academy of Sciences, CEFRES)
Paper short abstract:
In this contribution I am going to explain how transformation is produced, experienced, and negotiated in the post-colonial context of cocoa farming in Ghana, where social sphere and the natural world keep adapting together to meet world market demands. Or vice versa?
Paper long abstract:
Among cocoa farmers, hope for at least bearable future is engaged with practices, plant growth, and various activities accelerating time and dividing space. However, actual transformations are dependent on factors such as the demands of world market, global ecological actions, and local government shifts. Policy-makers may hope for a transformation from subsistence to market farming, and farmers may hope for less droughts and better yields. For both to happen, social sphere—matrilinear system shifting to patrilinear, non-market-based capitalism to liberal market, that would correspond to the demands of international capital and severe ecological policies—and the natural world would have to adapt. For the latter, answers are being sought through science that can measure or accelerate various aspects of plant growth and develop new varieties that are more resistant. The former is often translated into negative connotations that impact farmers in a negative way and shows them as less capable, even if they have to act in a framework that does not consider their circumstances. Hope then means hoping that what you are embedded in, and what you rest upon, will work, with the help of God. Meanwhile, in the eyes of others, it has to disappear and transform itself into a new system – and so it can work. Hopeful futures are articulated through the enactment of various policies, time-frames, and accessible scientific methods, not only through various processes of evaluation but also through plant growth.
Thais Tiriba (University of São Paulo)
Paper short abstract:
In this paper, I bring the thoughts, realities and perspectives of young South African adults living in Cape Town as they explain what it means to be young during the COVID-19 pandemic, the high unemployment rates among their age group, as well as the new possible gender roles available to them.
Paper long abstract:
In this paper, I bring the thoughts, realities and perspectives of young South African adults living in Cape Town. They explain, in semi-structured interviews, what it means to be young during the harsh reality of the pandemic and the high unemployment rates among their age group, as well as the new possible gender roles available to them. They describe the present from the perspective of their intersectional identities, affective and family relationships, faith and (lack of) work. They talk about intergenerational clashes, coexistence and cultural/ethnic differences in a city like Cape Town and what kind of bonds they want to build in the future.
This paper is part of my ongoing Ph.D. research in which I have been looking at the landscape of intergenerational affective, sexual and material exchanges in South Africa and Brazil. The paper is based on virtual and face-to-face semi-structured interviews with young adults in Cape Town and surrounding areas carried out between November 2021 and March 2022.