Call for Panels

The members of AEGIS are organizing a biannual European Conference on African Studies (ECAS). The third conference will be hosted by the Institute of African Studies of the University of Leipzig on 4 to 7 June 2009. The overall theme of ECAS 3 is “Respacing Africa”. The AEGIS Steering Committee encourages scholars and students interested in African Studies to participate in this conference.

AEGIS was founded in 1991 as a network of European Centres of African Studies. It is a network of university and non-university African Studies centres based in Europe. It aims to create synergies between experts and institutions. With primary emphasis on Social Sciences and Humanities, AEGIS' main goal is to improve understanding about contemporary African societies. AEGIS current membership is Barcelona, Basel, Bayreuth, Bordeaux, Copenhagen, Edinburgh, Göteborg, Hamburg, Leiden, Leipzig, Lisbon, London, Mainz, Naples, Oxford, Paris, Porto, Trondheim and Uppsala. For further details see http://www.aegis-eu.org.

The conference is open to all disciplines and methodological approaches representing the Social Sciences and Humanities. However, at the same time the Steering Committee is strongly inviting panel proposals which look into the re-scaling and re-shaping of Africa through the various references which are being – or have been – made to the spatial dimensions of human action (social, symbolic, imagined or otherwise). This includes processes of globalisation, regionalisation, transnationalisation, re-nationalisation etc. – at all levels and across time.

Panels are expected to consist of four papers, with a chair and a discussant. Larger panels may be accommodated over more than one session. At this stage the Steering Committee invites potential panel organisers to provide a title and some of the names of participants to be considered for inclusion in the programme. A 50 word abstract and 250 word description should be included. The official conference language is English (contributions in any EU language are possible, but there will be no translation services offered, except for key note speeches).

The call for panels closes 1 August 2008.
Panel proposals should be submitted to the Steering Committee of ECAS 3, c/o Institute of African Studies, University of Leipzig through the online registration system “Call for panels” at http://www.uni-leipzig.de/~ecas2009/.