Lunch Talk Session: Funding opportunities and support for international research projects 

You have an idea for a research and/or innovation project and are searching for suitable funding? You have identified a call and are now looking for possible partners? You are working on a collaborative project proposal and need proof reading or other project advice?

Join the lunch talk session hosted by the Scientific Coordination Office Bavaria-Africa of the Bavarian Research Alliance (BayFOR) in Munich. We are your contact point for providing you with information about possible funding opportunities to realize research projects in cooperation with partners from African countries, Bavarian institutions and other organizations. We help to find suitable project partners and offer proofreading and expert tips on your research proposals.

Discover our services and explore various funding opportunities, with a special focus on AU-EU programs. We look forward to meeting you and working with you on successful project applications.

Lifeworlds in Crisis: Making Refugees in the Chad–Sudan Borderlands

Andrea Behrends

Based on two decades of fieldwork, an anthropologist’s revealing exploration of conflict, displacement and cooperation at the margins of the state.

The continuing Darfur War has caused mass displacement since 2003, with hundreds of thousands driven from their homes and many forced into refugee camps in western Sudan and neighbouring Chad. Building on twenty years of research in the region, Andrea Behrends tracks the repercussions of this conflict—sometimes referred to as the ‘first genocide of the twenty-first century’—for those living through it: those who stayed put, those who fled from rural areas to towns, those who moved to refugee camps, and those who fought. Telling the story of everyday survival on the Chad–Sudan border, an area central to state politics in the larger region, her account sheds light on how people create belonging, exchange knowledge, develop new practices and build futures in the face of extreme uncertainty.

Departing from the focus on large-scale humanitarian and military interventions associated with ‘states of emergency’, Behrends highlights the forms of cooperation and mutual knowledge production that emerge on the ground in these lifeworlds in crisis. She combines meticulous ethnographic description with theoretically grounded arguments to offer a pioneering study of how individuals have anticipated, survived and adapted to recurring crises and war in one of the world’s most economically marginalised regions.

Andrea Behrends is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Leipzig. Focussing on African issues, she has previously taught at universities in Bayreuth, Berlin, Vienna, Halle (Saale) and Hamburg. Alongside colleagues from Chad, she continues to work on human categorisation and belonging, displacement and aid, resource extraction, datafication and activism.

Africa’s Global Infrastructures: South–South Transformations in Practice

Edited by Jana Hönke, Eric Cezne, Yifan Yang

A bottom-up account of how infrastructure investment from the Global South has impacted African policies and practices—and its implications for an increasingly multipolar world.

The boom in South–South relations since the early 2000s has seen a flurry of investment in African infrastructure from emerging markets across the Global South. While the extent to which these projects spur growth is constantly debated, few studies have addressed their impact on ground-level political and socio-economic practices in Africa—or their consequences for transnational governance more broadly.

Through the lens of infrastructure, this book investigates the developmental ideas, processes and techniques that have travelled to and emerged from Africa as a result of Global South–led projects. How have they been adapted, transformed and contested by local actors? How does this shape business–society relations? And how has this challenged the Western-dominated global order? The contributors zoom in on large-scale Chinese-, Brazilian- and Indian-funded ventures—dams, ports, roads and mines—across countries including Kenya, Mozambique and the DRC. These ‘frontier zones’, bringing together politicians and practitioners, campaign groups and communities from Africa and elsewhere, offer a unique insight into the global workings of our contemporary world.

Taking a bottom-up approach, Africa’s Global Infrastructures explores the longer-term significance and implications of these pluralistic socio-economic interactions, for the continent and beyond.

Jana Hönke is a professor in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Bayreuth.

Eric Cezne is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Utrecht University.

Yifan Yang is a PhD candidate in African Studies at the University of Bayreuth.

Myths and Realities of Decoloniality in African Studies

A Roundtable Conversation with Michael McEachrane, Grace Musila, Amanda Hammar, and Sabelo Mcinziba convened by Andrea Behrends and Rüdiger Seesemann

Calls for decolonialization nowadays seem ubiquitous. They have left the confines of the Global South and abound in the academy of the Global North. Little if anything is left that has not been posited as the object of “decolonizing”. At the same time, what decolonialization means and entails in the respective context has become increasingly vague. The inflationary use of the term seems to have stripped it of its value: the more widely it is used, the less clear it becomes.

This roundtable will scrutinize claims to decolonization as asserted in a broad array of academic disciplines and institutions involved in the study of Africa. How can we identify serious attempts to respond to the exigencies of decoloniality? How do these attempts differ on account of their geographic location and the positionality of their protagonists? How can we explain that the “decolonial bandwagon” seems to attract more and more passengers? What steps are needed toward decolonizing African Studies more generally and in Germany in particular?

Prof. Dr. Henning Melber in conversation with Dr. Cassandra Mark-Thiesen and Prof. Dr Stefan Ouma

The Long Shadow of German Colonialism, Amnesia, Denialism and Revisionism

A no-holds-barred account of how German society struggles with its colonial legacy.

Henning Melber

From 1884 to 1914, the world’s fourth-largest overseas colonial empire was that of the German Kaiserreich. Yet this fact is little known in Germany and the subject remains virtually absent from most school textbooks.

While debates are now common in France and Britain over the impact of empire on former colonies and colonising societies, German imperialism has only more recently become a topic of wider public interest. In 2015, the German government belatedly and half-heartedly conceded that the extermination policies carried out over 1904–8 in the settler colony of German South West Africa (now Namibia) qualify as genocide. But the recent invigoration of debate on Germany’s colonial past has been hindered by continued amnesia, denialism and a populist right endorsing colonial revisionism. A recent campaign against postcolonial studies sought to denounce and ostracise any serious engagement with the crimes of the imperial age. 

Henning Melber presents an overview of German colonial rule and analyses how its legacy has affected and been debated in German society, politics and the media. He also discusses the quotidian experiences of Afro-Germans, the restitution of colonial loot, and how the history of colonialism affects important institutions such as the Humboldt Forum.

This mini-workshop supports you in putting an idea into writing, sharpen it, get some feedback and turn it to a guiding question for your next academic writing project. You will also get an idea of how (writing) coaching and copy editing can support you. All it takes is a little curiosity and 30 minutes of your time.

What will this workshop be like?
In a tried-and-tested 3-step approach, we will start from any of your ideas or inspirations – whether it's that draft paper in your drawer or an idea that popped up during one of the panel discussions you just attended. You will then dive deeper into your idea and be invited to look at it from multiple angles. Finally, we will encourage you to turn your idea into a guiding question that will keep you going and inspire your future writing process.

Who are we?
Dr* Joh Sarre holds a PhD in anthropology & African studies. Joh coaches academics to achieve their self-set goals and offers on- and offline academic writing workshops.

Maike Meurer (M.A.), also anthropologist and African scholar, is a freelance editor. Maike proof-reads and edits academic texts and helps writers convey their ideas confidently and convincingly in their texts.

Of Worlds and Artworks
A Relational View on Artistic Practices from Africa and the Diaspora

Editors: Ute Fendler, Marie-Anne Kohl, Gilbert Shang Ndi, Christopher Joseph Odhiambo, Clarissa Vierke

The present volume brings together contributions which explore artworks – including literature, visual arts, film and performances – as dynamic sites of worlding. It puts emphasis on the processes of creating or doing worlds, implying movement as opposed to the boundary drawing of area studies. From such a processual perspective, Africa is not a delineated area, but emerges in a variety of relations which can reach across the continent, but also the Indian Ocean, the Atlantic or Europe.

Contributors are: Thierry Boudjekeu, Elena Brugioni, Ute Fendler, Sophie Lembcke, Gilbert Ndi Shang, Samuel Ndogo, Duncan Tarrant, Kumari Issur, CJ Odhiambo, Michaela Ott, Peter Simatei, Clarissa Vierke, Chinelo J. Enemuo.

VAD Young Talent Award 2024

In order to support young talent in science, the VAD has been awarding a Young Talent Prize every two years at the VAD Conference since 2004. This prize recognizes outstanding qualification work by young scientists (Magister, Master, Diploma, PhD, etc.) with a focus on Africa.

We are very pleased to be able to honor the following people for their outstanding theses (Master's and doctorate) at the VAD Conference 2024 in Bayreuth:

		Céline Geisen-Mayerl (MA Work, Cultural and Social Anthropology, University of Vienna) - Becoming a 'Handicapable' Parent: Negotiating Disability, Parenthood, and Parenting in Cotonou (Benin)
		Esi Callender (MA thesis) (European Interdisciplinary Master African Studies, University of Bayreuth) - African Alliances of Subversion, Collaboration and Solidarity among Artists from Africa and the Diasporas in pIAR, Kumasi, Ghana
		Immanuel Harisch (dissertation) (Institute of African Studies, University of Vienna) - Great Hopes, False Promises. African Trade Unions in the World of Organized Labor. Institutions, Networks, and Mobilities during the Cold War 1950s and 1960s.

Join us at the ceremony to congratulate the young talents.

Knowing - Unknowing

African Studies at the Crossroads

Volume Editors: Katharina Schramm and Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni

This book emerges at a time when critical race studies, postcolonial thought, and decolonial theory are under enormous pressure as part of a global conservative backlash. However, this is also an exciting moment, where new horizons of knowledge appear and new epistemic practices (e.g. symmetry, collaboration, undisciplining) gain traction. Through our critical engagements with structural, relational, and personal aspects of knowing and unknowing we work towards a greater multiplicity of knowledges and practices. Calling into question the asymmetrical global economy of knowledge and its uneven division of intellectual labour, our interdisciplinary volume explores what a decolonial horizon could entail for African Studies at the crossroads.

Contributors are Akosua Adomako Ampofo, Eric A. Anchimbe, Edwin Asa Adjei, Susan Arndt, Muyiwa Falaiye, Katharina Greven, Christine Hanke, Amanda Hlengwa, Catherine Kiprop, Elísio Macamo, Nelson Maldonado-Torres, Cassandra Mark-Thiesen, Lena Naumann, Thando Njovane, Samuel Ntewusu, Anthony Okeregbe, Zandisiwe Radebe, Elelwani Ramugondo, Eleanor Schaumann

The book launch with Tilman Musch and Georg Klute presents the Saharan Studies Series edited by Tilman Musch with its first two published and three forthcoming titles:

DAGA TUDAA. Pensées Toubou: Proverbes du Sahara Central

Mahuma Abaliy Sediké

2021 vol. 1 Sahara-Studien / Saharan Studies / Études sahariennes

‘This book, which I have named Pensées Toubou, is a collection of more than 1,400 dāga proverbs in the Tedaga language, accompanied by a French translation and explanations in French. I collected these dāga among my friends and acquaintances. This work was not easy. It took quite some time to collect them and to know their exact meanings. Nor was the task of writing them any less daunting.

Unusual as it may seem, this gigantic task was carried out using a TECNO telephone! The  dāga not only enliven debates but also serve as guides in everyday life. What's more, some of them are of vital importance during judgements, where mediators frequently use them. A dāgu says: ‘He who does not know proverbs does not know how to speak and he who does not know the landmarks does not know how to travel’.

In publishing this book, my wish is that of offering a panorama of Toubou thought that has never been achieved and, above all, to preserve our culture’.

Mahuma Abaliy Sediké, a Toubou from the Gunna clan, was born around 1977 in Dirkou (Niger). A career teacher. He has been a member of the Académie de la Langue Toubou since 2016, and is dedicated to preserving the Toubou heritage.

Also introducing books:

2024, vol. 2  

This book brings together the results of a study carried out in 2021/22 on water supply in Faya (Borkou) and Bardai (Tibesti). The following topics are covered: wells in different geological contexts, daily water supply patterns and changing supply practices, water scarcity, conceptions of ‘clean’ and ‘dirty’ water, ‘diseases’ linked to the consumption of ‘dirty’ water, strategies for conserving clean water, future prospects for a sustainable water supply system. The results of two brief comparative studies outside the urban context (Kouba Olanga and Wour) are also included in this book. A booklet with 50 colour photographs gives the reader contemporary impressions of life and landscapes in Borkou, Ennedi and Tibesti. 

Dida Badi
vol. 3 

vol.4 

Sani Ibrahim
vol. 5 

Association for African Studies in Germany (Vereinigung für Afrikawissenschaften in Deutschland - VAD) is holding their biennial members meeting.

If you interested in joining, you are welcome to attend and meet the association members and council