News & Events

The theme of this year’s Voice4Thought Festival is ‘People in motion’. On this occasion, the ASCL Library has compiled a selection of library items related to the theme. The selection highlights items on diverse art forms, such as film, music, and literature. It includes personal stories from ‘people on the move’ and offers background through various literary and social studies. Check out the ASCL Library selection!

On 12 September Muslims all over the world celebrated the Sacrificial Feast (Eid al-Adha). Every year the uncertainty of the lunar date to which this feast is linked, instigates religious disputes about the correct determination. The Nigerian book Moonsighting, by Abu ‘Aaishah Murtadha Salahuddeen al-Iwoowee, a reformist preacher hailing from Iwo, offers insight into these debates and sheds light on shifting perceptions on Muslim authority, the nation-state, and Christian-Muslim relations in Africa. It is the subject of our latest Library Highlight!

The ASCL and the ASCL Community mourn the loss of Kees Burger, fellow of the ASCL Community. Kees was an economist who did research in East Africa, while working first at the VU Amsterdam and later at Wageningen University. One of his projects was a restudy of the famous study by Mary Tiffen and colleagues in Kenya, More People, Less Erosion. With Fred Zaal, he edited the book Sustainable Land Management in the Tropics: Explaining the Miracle.

This is a Cocoon Initiative Kenya Working Paper. In it, Marcel Rutten en Moses Mwangi provide a short historical overview of land policy and land law development in Kenya and the way these have affected and still impact the position of women in Kenyan society. In particular, they present detailed cases of the use of fake wives by cheating husbands, in an attempt to convince the local Land Control Board that the intended sale of part of the family land is conducted with the full approval of the other household members.

ASCL senior researcher Benjamin Soares has been appointed as an honorary co-editor of Africa. Founded in 1928, Africa is the journal of the International African Institute in London. It is the premier journal devoted to the study of African societies and culture, and it encourages an interdisciplinary approach. The journal appears quarterly and is published by Cambridge University Press.