conference

Africa Knows! It is time to decolonise minds

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Panel D19 (1 video; 11 papers, 6 with)

Title of panel:

Convenors:

Marieke van Winden (conference organiser, African Studies Centre Leiden);

Larissa Nordholt (Leiden University);

Jan-Bart Gewald (Leiden University);

Marie Huber (Humboldt Universitaet zu Berlin);

Adom Getachew (University of Chicago);

Enocent Msindo (Rhodes University).

Stream:	D: Cases of regional and disciplinary specifics
Start time:	22 January, 2021 at 15:30 (UTC+1)
Session slots:	2

Long abstract:
This panel aims to bring together old and new perspectives on the history of African historiography, i.e. on the history of how Africans and others, from within and outside of African societies, have dealt with and thought about the African past. The panel invites papers on a wide range of topics, including, the legacy of the slave trade and how it has been studied, pan-African visions of history, how the 'Mfecane' became conceptualized as a period in Southern-African history and how the power of the paradigmatic logic of the Hamitic hypothesis was employed to introduce a racialist logic in African history. Historical analysis of the key methodological debates, for instance, the use of oral history and oral traditions as source materials, is of interest, too - especially in relation to debates on the decolonization of history. Lastly, the panel also wishes to engage with the actors and networks of this intellectual history and the history of decolonization of historiography that ensued. For instance: what has been the role of international institutions such as UNESCO and its General History of Africa project in establishing a historiography of Africa? [coordination: ASCL and History Department Leiden, together with Humboldt University Berlin, Edinburgh University, and Rhodes University]

11 Accepted papers:
1	Confronting the Hamitic hypothesis in UNESCO's General History of Africa
2	Re-thinking women's histories in nationalist struggles
3	Developing heritage - developing countries: UNESCO and the making of national heritage institutions in African countries from 1950 on
4	'Making the archival watch dog bark': the UNESCO archive of African oral tradition
5	The 21st century cultural self-reinvention: Mbopo ritual and the Calabar Festival in southern Nigeria
6	From the ashes reborn: reconsidering the 'Time of Troubles' in Southern Africa in the context of global history
7	Ngungunhane e a revisitação do passado na literatura moçambicana
8	Biographies of Africans in America during the slave trade and their contribution to the retrieval of the African history: The case of New Granada 16th & 17th centuries
9	Decolonizing African history: spotlight on the history of Africa in the ancient and medieval times
10	Citizenship, indigeneship and the legacy of colonialism: the Nigerian example
11	Writing history beyond Trevor-Roper: the experience of African history, with special reference to Zimbabwe

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