African Studies @ Carleton Digest: Issue of June 17, 2016

Guest: Cristina D’Alessandro, Professor at Sciences Po Paris and Senior Fellow at the Centre on Governance

When: Wednesday, June 29, 2016 from 5:30pm to 7:00pm

Where: University of Ottawa, Faculty of Social Sciences
120 University Drive (FSS 4004)

Free public lecture. Public interview format hosted by Eric Champagne, professor at the School of Political Studies and Assistant Director at the Centre on Governance.

Bilingual event

A light buffet will be served

Please confirm your attendance through the Eventbrite website by Tuesday, June 28th. 

RSVP by June 28th →

Invitée : Cristina D’Alessandro, Professeur à Science Po Paris et professionnelle en résidence au  Centre d’études en gouvernance

Mercredi, 29 juin 2016 de 17h30 à 19h00

Faculté des sciences sociales, Université d’Ottawa, 120, Université (FSS 4004)

Entrée libre. Événement sous la forme d’une entrevue publique animée par Eric Champagne, professeur à l’École d’études politiques et directeur adjoint du Centre d’études en gouvernance.

Événement bilingue. Un léger buffet sera servi sur place.

RSVP →

Samedi 2 juillet 2016 de 18:00 à 23:00 (HAE)

Au-delà de la Beauté tel que son slogan l’indique, l’événement Miss Congo Canada engage et éduque la jeunesse canado-congolaise au leadership, la lutte contre la violence aux femmes et la promotion de la culture congolaise au Canada à travers l’art.

Pour sa 3ieme édition, l’événement mettra en scène les jeunes femmes canado-congolaises qui se démarquent et souhaitent créer le changement positif dans leur communauté.

Tickets/Billets →

When:  Thursday, June 23, 2016

Where: Rideau Carleton Entertainment Centre
 

Hosted by the Trinidad Tobago Association of Ottawa in collaboration with the Trinidad and Tobago High Commission. This is the main fundraising event for the C.L.R. James Scholarship fund. Ticket prices are Adults $35, Children 6-12 $20 and Children 5 and under Free.

The AFRIGOS project at the Centre of African Studies, University of Edinburgh now invites applications for a 4-year PhD scholarship to work on China-Africa relations in cross-border transport infrastucture development and regional integration.

Details are available via the AFRIGOS project website.

The 1st stage deadline is 21st June 2016. 

The successful applicant is expected to start her/his work in Edinburgh from September 2016.

As it says in the job advert, we are ideally looking for someone with strong Mandarin skills and, of course, the successful candidate will need to be completely fluent in written and spoken English as well.

If potential applicants have any questions, these should be sent to: gradschool.sps@ed.ac.uk

The AFRIGOS team is already working on the job adverts for two 3-year postdoctoral level Research Fellows to start working on the project in autumn 2016. These will go live on the project website in the 2nd half of June 2016.

The conveners call for the submission of panel proposals addressing the conference theme Urban Africa – Urban Africans. New encounters of the urban and the rural but are explicitly open and sensitive to proposals focusing the rural. Africa may be becoming urban but it will remain a rural continent for a long time. Urbanization has an impact on the nature of the rural much in the same way the character of the rural shapes urban dynamics in particular ways. It will be of crucial importance to explore rural-urban entanglements on the continent and encourage researchers with a strong research record in rural Africa to bring their expertise to bear on how the changing face of the continent is impacting their own object. Propositions addressing other themes and emerging issues in particular are equally welcome.

The call for panels will be circulated from 1 June 2016. The time frame for the submission of panel propositions via the online form  extends from 1 June 2016 to 18 August 2016. All panel proposals must be made via this form. You will be asked to provide your contact details, institutional affiliation and current position, the title of your panel, a short abstract of no more than 300 characters (including spaces) and a long abstract of no more than 250 words. The main conference language being English, this information should be submitted in either English or French.

Panels will last an hour and a half and will include a maximum of 5 participants, including the panel convener and/or discussant. Panels are required to be open for paper proposals through the website: panels shall not be organized as ‘closed’ sessions. Each participant shall present one paper only but may be involved as convener of a further panel, plenary session or roundtable, or be involved as discussant in one of these (i.e. one additional role).

On submission of the proposal, the proposing convener (but not the co-conveners) will receive an automated email confirming receipt. In case you do not confirm this receipt please contact ecas2017@unibas.ch. Proposals will be marked as pending until the Scientific Committee’s decisions are communicated in September 2016.

Every year the British Institute in Eastern Africa (BIEA) invites applications for our small Thematic Research Grants. These funds are usually dispersed through two calls for applications per year, usually released in June/July and December. This is the first call for applications in the 2016-7 year. Please pay attention to this webpage in December 2016 for the second grant call and deadline information.

The British Institute in Eastern Africa invites applications for funding for research projects that engage with one or more of the following thematic areas:

1. Everyday States
2. Bio-Cultural Frontiers
3. Land, Heritage ad Memory
4. Spending Time
5. Connections and Disconnections

BIEA research funding is available to support original research within these thematic areas in any discipline in the humanities and social sciences across the region. The BIEA’s thematic grant scheme particularly seeks to help researchers who have limited access to other sources of funds. In doing so, the BIEA seeks to nurture early career researchers and scholars in eastern Africa, and is keen to fund small projects that lay the ground for larger projects.  Such researchers may include postgraduate students in eastern African or the UK, or people who have not followed conventional research careers but whose local knowledge or contacts make them well-fitted to conduct quality research.

This funding supports original research in the humanities and social sciences, and we particularly encourage applications from the wider eastern African region, which we define as stretching from Sudan, to Mozambique, and Zimbabwe, and including Madagascar. Grants are normally between £500 and £1,000; in exceptional circumstances, up to £1,500 may be awarded. The grant should contribute towards actual research costs and not include institutional overheads, applicant’s stipend or publication costs. Priority is given to researchers based in the UK or eastern Africa.

All applications and references must be submitted by email to  grants@biea.ac.uk by the date advertised.

Late applications will not be considered. Please Complete the Application Form (downloadable here).

BIEA’s research funding is competitive, and we can only fund a limited number of applicants. Your application must make a clear and compelling case for why we should support your proposed research. It is a condition for the investigator to provide BIEA with written documentation that the research has been approved through ethical review prior to receiving the grant. Applications should include:

• a covering letter making your case for a grant and explaining the background to your project;
• a CV;
• a completed application form;
• a detailed proposal (maximum 1500 words) setting out how the project fits into the thematic area;
• a clear and realistic budget detailing how you will use the amount requested;
• a plan for dissemination – PhD thesis, journal article, conference papers, etc (BIEA will not fund research if there is no prospect that anyone will ever hear about the results).
• A complete application dossier should reach BIEA by 10th of July 2016

You will need to arrange for two references to be sent directly to BIEA by the closing date. The referees must both support you and endorse the project in your application. For postgraduate students, one referee must be your supervisor.

Successful applicants will be informed within one month of the closing date. If you have not heard from us by then, please assume that your application has not been successful on this occasion.

If you are successful in your grant application, you must be a member of the BIEA to receive your award.

For more information on the grants, see  guidelines for applying.

ARC – Resistance to international prescriptions and injunctions in Africa and the Middle East today 

Project summary:

This ARC project is funded by the Université catholique du Louvain (UCL-Belgium), and will focus on resistance to international prescriptions and injunctions in Africa and the Middle East today. Even before the ‘fall of the Berlin Wall’, the doctrines of international organizations were already converging in line with the ‘Western modernity model’. This model seems to affect the way in which policy makers worldwide prescribe standardized development recipes in diverse policy domains. Those policy makers have used a variety of means, including force, to transform local practices, typified as ‘incoherent’ with the model’s core objectives. However, today’s state of affairs illustrates the extent to which uniform prescriptions in line with the ‘modernity ideal’ have failed or are challenged by actors on the ground. Resistance strategies vary in intensity and form, and are often interpreted as the result of local particularities. This research, however, assumes that (1) contestation on the ground, beyond its local characteristics, may be interpreted as a marker of broader resistance to ‘Western modernity’. The project further ambitions (2) to assess whether such contestation affects the ‘modernity ideal’ and, if so, (3) in which way. Resistance is understood here as the combination of practices that deviate from the external prescriptions, and discourses that legitimize this deviation.

The research project adopts an interdisciplinary approach and has three main objectives:

1. The first objective of the research is to analyze the ways in which the ‘Western modernity ideal’ guides policy prescriptions in Africa and in the Middle East within three public policy domains: (a) land and water policies, (b) primary education and child care policies, (c) and gender/women’s rights policies.

2. Secondly, the project analyzes the types and intensities of resistance expressed within these three policy domains. The project will notably focus upon the roles of intermediary actors (local civil society actors, local elites, local administrators …) that operate between national policy prescribers and local populations.

3. Third, the research aims to analyze the consistency of arguments put forward by intermediary local actors to justify resistance. Through a meta-analysis, it will verify if these arguments have the potential to converge towards alternative societal projects, different from the ‘Western modernity model’ embedded in the international political agenda.

The methodology of this project is based on a case-study approach that focuses on three core settings and on resistance to three types of public policies: (1) Rwanda – land/water policies; (2) Senegal – primary education and child care policies; (3) Jordan – gender/women’s rights policies. Innovative qualitative field research methods (such as the Group Analysis Method and Participatory Forum Theater) will be adopted in order to address the challenge of collecting data in sensitive societal settings.

Download the PDF re: Call for PhD Candidates

For More Information →

When: June 25, 2016 at 11:00 a.m.

Where:  Vincent Massey Park. Bandstand Area

African Multiculturalism Day Celebration event will bring together our African, Caribbean and Black communities in several activities that will entertain, educate and promote togetherness in both our local communities and Canada wide. One of our goals is to preserve our cultures in Canada whilst helping our community to learn and integrate into the Canadian culture and learn about other cultures that make Canada a unique country. African Multiculturalism Day in Canada brings to fore our unity in diversity and strengthens it.

If you need additional information, please contact Sareda Sareda Quah-Vo, or John Adeyefa.

When: June 26th, 11:30 a.m.

Where: Ottawa City Hall. Councillors Lounge-Theatre.

The African Canadian Association Ottawa is being inaugurated, this launching will bring together our African communities and Associations as one. It is to promote togetherness in both our local communities and Canada wide.

If you need additional information, please contact Sareda Sareda Quah-Vo, or John Adeyefa.