News & Events

On Tuesday 30 March at 1.45 p.m., ASCL PhD candidate Gerda Hooghordel will defend her dissertation Reeds in the wind of change. Zulu sangomas in transition, at Leiden University. Reeds in the wind of change investigates the changing healing practice of Zulu sangomas in KwaZulu Natal, South Africa. Indigenous healing in South Africa is currently at a crossroads. While the latest healthcare legislation accepts the traditional healthcare system as equal to cosmopolitan healthcare, the accompanying institutional developments present obligations and challenges for indigenous healers. You can watch the PhD defence via livestream.

In January, the Zambian Government bought back two of the country’s copper mines which were privatised in 2000. The greatest impact of the mines on the daily lives of local residents is their impact on the local environment: air pollution and water contamination. The government’s decision to purchase the mines raises local expectations regarding its ability to ‘end’ pollution, Duncan Money and Jennifer Chansa write in their contribution to the ASCL Africanist Blog.

This online seminar by Blessing-Miles Tendi, Associate Professor in the Politics of Africa at the University of Oxford, focuses on the life of Solomon Mujuru, an illustrious African liberation fighter in the 1970s and, until his assassination in 2011, an important figure in Robert Mugabe's ruling ZANU PF party in Zimbabwe. Tendi's biography of Mujuru throws light onto the opaque elite politics of the 1970s liberation struggle, post-independence army - Mujuru was the first black commander of independent Zimbabwe's national army - and ZANU PF. 

The ASCL is deeply saddened by the news that Dr Bernard Berendsen died on 11 February. Bernard has been very important to the African Studies Centre Leiden, for a very long time. Bernard worked for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as Head of the Africa Desk and Ambassador for the Netherlands in Tanzania (among other functions). He was a member of the ASC's Advisory Council and later of its Curatorium. He supported the integration of the African Studies Centre in Leiden University in 2016, after which he became the Chair of the new Advisory Board of the African Studies Centre Foundation. The ASCL will remember Bernard’s commitment, his wise advice, his kindness and his foresight.

On the occasion of the conferral of an honorary doctorate to Mozambican children's rights activist Graça Machel, a 60,000 euro fund has been set up to enable two female students from South Africa each year to follow the Master of Laws Advanced Studies programme in International Children’s Rights. The fund was announced by the Dean of the Faculty of Law, Prof. Joanne van der Leun, during the Dies Natalis of Leiden University on 8 February 2021. Upcoming deadline for application: 1 April.

To mark the conferring of an honorary doctorate on human rights and child rights activist Graça Machel on 8 February 2021, the ASCL Library has compiled this web dossier on children’s rights in Africa. The dossier includes titles from the ASCL Library collection, extended with sources available through the broader Leiden University Library collection. The dossier is introduced by Ton Liefaard, professor of Children's Rights at Leiden University. Read the web dossier.

Newspapers from Africa are among the hardest items to collect systematically. Therefore, the ASCL is happy to supply access to yet another small collection of (print) newspapers from Somalia. The Swedish publisher SCANSOM, long active in the field of Somali publications, has digitised and republished fourteen volumes of mainly English, and some Somali language newspapers. The newspapers were originally published in the period 1961-1987, an important period of time just after Somali independence. Read more in the latest Library Highlight!

Recently the memoirs of Professor Charles Odidi Okidi, former Dean of the School of Environmental Studies of (then) Moi University in Eldoret, Kenya, were published. Title: In Pursuit of Excellence. From 1991 onwards the Netherlands supported this School. Ton Dietz was the scientific coordinator on the Dutch side. In his memoirs, Prof. Okidi writes: ‘It is desirable that a tracer study be done to find out what has happened to those who went to Amsterdam. Where are they?' Dietz, a pensioner but very actively involved in the Africa Knows! conference, did a deep search on the internet. Read his blog!