News & Events

Het ASC interviewde promovenda Margot Leegwater over haar onderzoek naar landconflicten in Rwanda. Leegwater zal op 16 september 2015 promoveren aan de Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. Titel van haar proefschrift: 'Sharing Scarcity: Land Access and Social Relations in Southeast Rwanda.' (English:) The ASC interviewed PhD candidate Margot Leegwater about her research on land conflicts in Rwanda. Leegwater will defend her PhD Thesis on 16 September 2015 at the VU University Amsterdam.

David Livingstone and the Myth of African Poverty and Disease is an unusual book. After a close examination of Livingstone's writings and comparative reading of contemporary authors, Sjoerd Rijpma has been able to draw cautious conclusions about the relatively favourable conditions of health and nutrition in southern and central Africa during the pre-colonial period. The surprise awaiting travellers in and also before 19th century Africa was that the inhabitants of the interior, even the 'slaves', were healthier and better fed than many Europeans. Sadly, Sjoerd Rijpma died on 6 February of this year. 

The courage of ǁkabbo: celebrating the 100th anniversary of the publication of Specimens of Bushman folklore(2014) is the ASC library’s most recent acquisition relating to the famous ǀxam and ǃkung archive of Wilhelm Bleek and Lucy Lloyd. ǁkabbo was the oldest of the speakers of the ǀxam language that stayed in the Bleek household at different times during the 1870s. He expressed the wish that the stories of his people would be known through books. Lucy Lloyd hadSpecimens of Bushman folklore published in 1911.The courage of IIkabbo contains papers presented at the conference with the same name in South Africa in 2011, and is the subject of ourlatest Acquisition Highlight.