The
Institute's panel series is an interdisciplinary programme that
brings together students, academics, activists and independent scholars
from around Australia and the world.
Panel Series, Semester Two
2007
Foregrounding Africa
Excepting accounts of disasters and Africa as the
international basket case, Africa remains at the edge of Australia’s
world. Press coverage is limited and mostly of a sensational nature.
Our diplomatic engagement has declined substantially. African studies
at Australian universities languishes – no doubt as a consequence
of the neo-liberal imperative. As the politics of the continent
are written off in terms of violence and corruption, Africa has
kept its place on the map as a playground for international tourists
and a site for charitable works.
This series will attempt to show something of another Africa. If
one thing is clear from African historical and contemporary studies,
it is that Africans acted, and have continued to act to further
their own interests and to enhance their own identities; that they
were not passive bystanders in the colonial and postcolonial eras.
However there were blockages, structures and systems that hemmed
them in and corralled their futures. And there still are.
We also need to put ourselves in the picture. We need to critically
examine not only our own assumptions and ideas about Africans but
also our notions of what is normal, desirable and “political”.
We might then be led to reflect on whether the causes of Africa’s
problems are as much external as internal.
Thursday 2nd August
Update on Decolonisation in Western Sahara: Malainin Lakhal with
Nic Maclellan
Wednesday 15th August
Africa’s Engagement with Development:
Jacques Boulet, with Priya Rangan and Elleni Bereded-Samuel as discussants
Wednesday 29th August
Development Strategies, Global Designs: Jacques Boulet, with Christian
Küll and Charmaine Consul as discussants
Wednesday 12th September
The Borderlands Story: Jacques Boulet
Thursday 6th September
A Postcolonial Understanding of Contemporary Africa: Pal Ahluwalia
Thursday 18 October
Music and Politics in West Africa: Graeme Counsel
All seminars will be held at the Institute of Postcolonial Studies,
78-80 Curzon Street, North Melbourne, VIC 3051, beginning at 7:30pm.
Charges: waged $5, unwaged $3, members free.
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