News & Events

ASCL senior researcher Marcel Rutten was interviewed by VPRO's Bureau Buitenland on Radio 1 about the drought in Eastern Africa. A humanitarian disaster is being faced by some 12 million people. After this interview, the young girl Elyke from Friesland started to sell her own baked cookies to collect money for the good cause. She and Marcel were interviewed again on 17 February.

A special issue of Vice Versa on land rights pays extensive attention to land rights in Africa. The issue has features on land rights in Mozambique, Uganda, and the city of Beira (Mozambique). ASCL director Ton Dietz is quoted in an article about the coherence of the Aid & Trade policy of the Netherlands. Matthijs van Leeuwen is interviewed about his research project 'Grounding Land Governance'. An essay by Annelies Zoomers (director of LANDAC, of which the ASCL is a partner) highlights the land grab and how to 'leave no one behind'. Her book 'The Global Land Grab: Beyond the Hype', written with ASCL researcher Mayke Kaag, is also quoted.

This will be the first workshop organised in the framework of LeidenASA (Leiden African Studies Assembly) for postdocs and advanced PhD students - not necessarily with an Africanist background - from Leiden University and other universities in the Netherlands. The workshop, given by Joed Elich, will focus on Publication Strategies. After the workshop, there will be ample opportunity for meeting your peers, networking and 'speed dating' with senior researchers and specialists.

Comic strips and cartoons form a perhaps small, yet highly relevant part of the ASCL Library. Many African cartoons and comic strips act as a societal watchdog by holding their leaders responsible for their actions, writes Drs. Ogo Ubabukoh, publisher of Kata Kata African Cartoons, in his introduction to our new web dossier. The dossier contains an overview of all comic strips and cartoons as well as literature on these subjects available in the Library.

What is it like to be a civil servant in Nigeria? Among the books collected during the ASCL library’s acquisition trip of last year to Nigeria are some (auto)biographical documents about working in the Nigerian civil service. They draw a picture not only of the civil service, but also of the political, economic and home circumstances of the times described. Two of them, Memoirs of mixed blessings (2009) and Living the dream (2015), are the focus of our latest Library Highlight.

The Anglophone regions in Cameroon, the North West and South West, have experienced violent clashes in recent months following plans of the government to impose the use of French language in schools and courts. Protests have led to a shutdown of the Internet in these regions. ASCL Community fellow Francis Nyamnjoh (member of the editorial board of Langaa Publishers) compiled a list of relevant books providing background to the crisis. Almost all publications are available in the ASCL Library.