News & Events

After almost 30 years of dedicated work, Katrien Polman is retiring from the ASC’s Library, Documentation and Information Department this month. Katrien started working at the African Studies Centre in 1986. She was part of the driving force behind some very succesful library services: abstracts, web dossiers (she even became known as ‘Ms Web Dossier’), the African Studies Thesaurus and the indexing of books and journal articles. The ASC is grateful for Katrien’s many contributions and will miss her as a colleague!

The ASC is saddened by the news that Professor Geertje Lycklama à Nijeholt died in the early hours of Tuesday 18 November 2014. Geertje was a member of the ASC Board of Governors from May 1997 – April 2005. Her commitment to women and gender equality was reflected in her professional career, through which she made a major contribution to women’s work, feminist organizations, gender policies and the institutional strengthening of research and teaching in women and gender studies.

This week, the sixth European Conference on African Studies (ECAS) will take place in Paris (8-10 July). The principal theme is Collective Mobilisations in Africa: Contestation, Resistance, Revolt. Many ASC researchers will host or contribute to a panel. Several books written by ASC researchers or published by the ASC are to be presented at the conference. Alongside ECAS, the weeklong cultural event AFRICA ACTS, dedicated to the arts of performance in Africa and the Diaspora, will take place.

This volume attempts to dig deeper into what is currently happening in Africa’s agricultural and rural sector. It seeks to convince policymakers and others that it is important to look at the current African rural dynamics in ways that connect metropolitan demands for food with value chain improvements and agro-food cluster innovations. The book has been published by Brill in the African Dynamics Series, the annual publication of the Africa Studies Centre in which a theme is discussed by scholars from all over the world. Editors this year: Yinka Akinyoade, Wijnand Klaver, Dick Foeken and Sebastiaan Soeters.

This is the first extensive empirical study of Zimbabwean orphans and other vulnerable children and young people. Chronically poor children and their carers can be corrupted or silenced by management systems which fail to recognise their basic human needs. Resilience in the face of such adversity is celebrated by the dominant project management ideology but is a major barrier to achieve  sustainable improvements in the lives of vulnerable children. Manasa Dzirikure and Garth Allen propose a new person-centred project management approach.