"Reconfiguring African Studies" Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence at the University of Bayreuth

In this episode of the Cluster Conversations, artist

Find out more about Sabelo Mcinziba here.

Dr. Serawit Debele is the leader of the Cluster of Excellence's junior research group Sexualities, Political Orders and Revolutions in Africa: into the heart of Tunisia, Ethiopia and Sudan. Find out more about her work here.

www.africamultiple.uni-bayreuth.de/

In this latest episode of our podcast, Cluster fellow Dr. Victor Iwuoha talks with his host Prof. Dr. Doevenspeck about his latest research on  Biometric ID Policies, Gendered Dynamics, and Political Mobilization of Migrants in West Africa. The senior lecturer at the Department of Political Science at the University of Nigeria scrutinizes how the intrusion of biometric ID technologies into the conduct of cross-border management has revealed radically in political mobilization of migrants across West African borderlands especially in Nigeria.

To find out more about Dr. Victor Iwuoha please visit this link.

To find out more about the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence at the University of Bayreuth, please visit here.

This latest episode features Prof. Dr. Valentina Serreli talking with Cluster fellow Dr. Elshifa Elamin about her research project, in which she scrutinizes the language rights regime in Sudan enforced by the British colonial system. Sudan was under British colonial rule from 1899 to 1956, referred to as the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan or the Condominium. During this time, the British colonial system aimed to create new identities, including in Sudan and other parts of the Global South. The colonial regime restructured the precolonial social space and people into two ideologically and spatially opposed identities: the South and the North. To achieve this, they implemented a racialized apartheid system called the British Southern Policy. This system aimed to create language-based tribal units as a social and political administration tool, particularly in Southern Sudan. Language played a pivotal role in realizing this colonial project and is the main focus of Prof. Elamin's research.

Find out more about Prof. Elamin here.

To find out more about the Cluster of Excellence at the University of Bayreuth, please visit this link.

During this episode, Cluster fellow Valerie Nur talks with her fellowship host Prof. Dr. Joël Glasman (Chair of African History at the University of Bayreuth) about her research on the topic of artisanal knowledge and skills from a mobility perspective. Artisans in Niger often offer their services on the road and, in doing so, rely on a broad kinship network during their travels, within which knowledge, practices, and materials are exchanged, modified, and enhanced. By looking beyond single workshops and individual skills, I understand artisanal skill as a shared dynamic practice and places and routes of learning and exchange as hubs of technology and knowledge transfer over long distances. During her research, Nur aims to conceptualize craft as an epistemology of an exclusive professional community.

Find out more about Dr. Valerie Nur here.

For more info on the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence, please visit here.

In this latest episode Prof. Dr. Sabelo Ndlovu Gatsheni talks with associated fellow Dr. Halil Ibrahim Arpa about his research project entitled “Decolonial Hi/stories: Literary Subversion of Colonial and Post-colonial Historiographies”. In this project, Arpa scrutinizes the coloniality of knowledge against Black and Islamic communities in the Global North and alternative epistemologies to the crisis of modernity in the Global South. 

The episode was recorded during Dr. Arpa's stay at the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence at the University of Bayreuth.

⁠⁠More info on Dr. Halil Ibrahim Arpa

⁠⁠More info on the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence

In this episode of the Cluster Conversations Dr. Franz Kogelmann talks with Cluster fellow Dr. Chembea Suleiman Athuman about his project "Poetry (Qasidah) and Women’s Bodies in the Creation, Dissemination of Islamic Knowledge and Cultural Identity in Zanzibar". The study examines how active involvement of women in Islamic poetry (qasidah) helps (de-)construct traditional dynamics in the production and dissemination of Islamic knowledge and creation of cultural identity(-ies) along the East African coast. While Islamic knowledge production and dissemination was largely associated with male ulama (clerical class) in textual and religious spaces, advancement of media technology has caused a shift where qasidah not only support religious themes but also provide variations in the creation and transmission of knowledge and religious community identity. This shift, though rapidly gaining currency across Muslim communities, is explored within the microcosm of Zanzibar to understand how performance of poetry presents an avenue through which Muslim women engage with religious discourses in the region.

The episode was recorded during Dr. Chembea's fellowship at the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence at the University of Bayreuth.

⁠More info on Dr. Chembea Suleiman Athuman

⁠More info on the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence

In this episode, Cluster fellow Prof. Dr. Don Edward Walicek (University of Puerto Rico) talks with his host Prof. Dr. Susanne Mühleisen (University of Bayreuth) about Walicek's research project “Language Ideologies and Social Contact Involving West Africans and the English on the Gold Coast.” Working on this project during his fellowship with the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence, Walicek examines dynamics of linguistic contact among Europeans and West Africans who were involved in or otherwise impacted by the Atlantic slave trade. Focusing on language ideologies, it pays special attention to the English presence on the Gold Coast during the 16th and 17th centuries (1553-1700) given that the region was a major source of people sold into slavery as well as a point from which many departed for the Caribbean. The analysed materials consist of documents that have not been fully examined by linguists, such as local correspondence of the Royal African Company of England.

The episode was recorded during Dr. Walicek's fellowship at the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence at the University of Bayreuth.

More info on Dr. Don Edward Walicek

More info on the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence

In this episode, Cluster fellow Dr. Josph Kasule talks with his host Junior Research Group Leader Dr. Joschka Philipps about

Find out more about Dr. Joseph Kasule here.

Find out more about the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence here.

In this episode, Cluster

More info: https://www.bayreuth-academy.uni-bayreuth.de/en/people/Fellows-list/title-maja-figge/index.php

In this episode, Cluster fellow Alexandre Vieira talks with his host Ute Fendler about the African influence on Brazilian music in general and his music in particular.

For videos on the mentioned concerts please visit: https://youtu.be/Beq56_Llge8 and https://youtu.be/-RIyuNIh2m4