News & Events

There are so many roadblocks in Central Africa that it is hard to find a road that does not have one. Peer Schouten, senior researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies, has mapped over a thousand of them in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Central African Republic, and South Sudan. In this ASCL Seminar on 24 February, he will present the main findings of his latest book, which argues that roadblocks aren’t just a symptom of corruption or state failure but encapsulate a distinct and meaningful form of order-making.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Nobel Peace prize laureate who helped end apartheid in South Africa, has died on 26 December 2021. On the occasion of his 90th birthday, on 7 October 2021, we compiled a Library Weekly. Tutu, born in 1931 in Klerksdorp, was Bishop of Johannesburg from 1985 to 1986 and then Archbishop of Cape Town from 1986 to 1996, in both cases being the first black African to hold the position. He was one of the driving forces behind the anti-apartheid movement. Read the Library Weekly.

Bertus Haverkort is de oudste zoon van een boerengezin op de zandgronden in Slagharen. Hij geniet van modernisering op de boerderij van zijn jeugd, omdat dit het werk verlicht en de opbrengsten verbetert. Met in zijn bagage een dosis moderne landbouwkennis uit Wageningen, trekt hij eropuit. In Colombia, India, Bolivia en Ghana werkt hij aan programma’s waarbij overdracht van westerse kennis het doel is. De resultaten vallen tegen. De aanpak blijkt niet te werken. Hij plaatst geleidelijk aan vraagtekens bij de toepasbaarheid van de westerse kennis in situaties waar de ecologie, economie en cultuur zoveel verschillen.

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, dockside customs officials would leaf through publications looking for obscenity, politically objectionable materials, or reprints of British copyrighted works, often dumping these condemned goods into the water. These practices informed later censorship regimes under apartheid in South Africa. By tracking printed matter from ship to shore, Prof. Isabel Hofmeyr (University of the Witwatersrand) shows how literary institutions like copyright and censorship were shaped by colonial control of coastal waters.