News & Events

Prof. Thomas Kirsch (University of Konstanz) will kick off the ASCL's new seminar programme on 8 February with a lecture about the proliferation of security in South Africa, and elsewhere. The seminar starts out from the empirical observation that, once they have been implemented, security measures like the employment of CCTV cameras, security guards or barbed-wire fences need to be secured if they are to be maintained in the face of potentially adversarial forces.

This ASCL seminar on 15 March by Prof. Lovise Aalen (Chr. Michelsen Institute, Bergen, Norway) focuses on the impact of economic growth, through formal female employment, on the empowerment of women in Ethiopia. Through the study of female manufacturing workers in what is one of the fastest growing economies in Africa, Prof. Aalen has analysed how women's participation in the labour market impacts on gender roles and on women's participation in society through interest groups. She has been invited as our guest speaker by Prof. Jan Abbink, who will chair the afternoon.

From pioneering state-led import-substituting industrial policy under Kwame Nkrumah to pioneering economic liberalization under J.J. Rawlings in the 1980s, independent Ghana has repeatedly been seen as a test-case in economic policy in Sub-Saharan Africa. In this seminar, Prof. Gareth Austin (University of Cambridge) will analyse Ghana’s economic policies and performance. Chair: Prof. Chibuike Uche.

Guinea-Bissau is one of the poorest countries in the world. Due to the poor education system parents often try to set up schools themselves. Roel Burgler made a photo reportage of education in Guinea-Bissau, together with SOS Children’s Villages. The photos are currently on show in the corridors of the African Studies Centre Leiden. Roel Burgler and Mieke Hartveld (programme officer Africa at SOS Kinderdorpen) will give an introduction to the exhibition on 25 January.

The final results of the research project 'Ethnographic Study on Mobile Money in Africa' have just been published. The project is a comparative ethnographic study into the usage, perceptions and attitudes towards digital financial services (DFS) in four selected countries: Cameroon, DRC, Senegal and Zambia. The results give insight into why people are motivated to use DFS and why they might not be using specific mobile phone-related monetary transfer systems.

Dr Camino Kavanagh (Dept. of War Studies, Kings College London) gave an insightful Stephen Ellis Annual Lecture on the impact of Cyberspace and ICTs in Africa. Dr Kavanagh presented an overview of the benefits of cyberspace, such as greater connectivity thanks to the Internet, and of the challenges, e.g. cost of security, cybercrime, the use of African states as launch pads for illicit activity in other states and human rights challenges. You can now watch or read the presentation online.