News & Events

Artiesten Akwasi en Bokoesam onderzochten bij het Afrika-Studiecentrum en de Universiteit Leiden de historische relatie tussen Ghana en Nederland. Beide artiesten hebben (deels) Ghanese roots, maar zeggen op school niets over die geschiedenis te hebben geleerd. Top Notch, hun platenlabel, stuurde de artiesten op onderzoek uit. Jos Damen, hoofd bibliotheek ASCL, leidde Akwasi en Bokoesam rond.

Peter Knoope (International Centre for Counter-Terrorism, ICCT) headed a team that conducted field research in Ghana and Benin, exploring the potential for religious radicalization in stable countries in West Africa. New religious “ideologies” mixed with economic frustrations have deeply impacted the traditional balance. During the seminar on 28 April, Knoope will highlight border porosity, absence of a strategic approach to counter-terrorism, youth frustration, rural and urban disparities and rampant illiteracy. His conclusion: action is needed urgently.

Each year on 8 March special attention is paid to the position of women worldwide. This year’s UN theme for International Women's Day is directly related to the Sustainable Development Goals. Gender equality is an important factor in all of these targets. It is also an important issue for the African Union, that recently declared 2016 the ‘African Year of Human Rights, with a particular focus on the Rights of Women’. In this context, the ASCL Library has compiled a web dossier containing titles from the catalogue published after 2011, and paying attention to all the themes represented in the Sustainable Development Goals. Read the new web dossier.

CNV Internationaal, the international department of the Dutch trade union CNV, has commissioned the ASCL to conduct explorative studies in five countries: Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, and Mali. The major aim of these studies is to make an inventory and assessment of the roles, strengths and weaknesses of civil society actors, including trade unions, when it comes to labour issues such as youth employability, decent work, gender and social dialogue. The collaborative research group ‘Trade Unions and Labour Issues in Africa’ will conduct the study.

Mirjam de Bruijn and Han van Dijk have been awarded subsidy by NWO-WOTRO for their new research project 'The Fulani in the Sahel: Caught between the Hammer of Muslim Extremism and the Anvil of the State (Mali, Nigeria)'. The project will focus on the political dynamics in the Sahel and the appearance of nomadic pastoralist movements in the context of increasing political instability in the Sahara-Sahel zone: West Africa. More in particular: the increasing participation of the Fulani in political movements and agitation. Find out more about the project.

Female Genital Mutilation is considered a form of Violence Against Women and a human rights violation. A growing number of states where FGM is prevalent have signed and ratified the relevant human rights treaties. Yet the prevalence rates remain high in many of the countries where FGM occurs. During the seminar on 24 March, Annemarie Middelburg will raise the question to what extent and why states comply or not with the human rights framework. She takes Senegal as a case study.