Clemens Zobel  (CES)

Anthropology and the emergence of Africa: science(s) and place(s) between colonization and decolonization

The configuration of an object of knowledge and political strategy referred as "Africa" has played an important role in the imagination of the western "Self", in the definition of the specific characteristics of the European nation-states, and in the design of scientific fields as a continuum between natural and human sciences. This seminar will deal with the ways how the Anthropology created its African object, both within and beyond the colonial experiences of Germany, France and Great Britain. Three questions will be explored: 1) How were the internal union and diversity of the "Africa" built as an object of knowledge and political strategy? 2) How was this object changed in the processes of colonization and decolonization? 3) What "use" did the Anthropology have in the colonization and decolonization? The answers to these questions are not only related to the interaction between the European scientific models and political practices but will also examine the corresponding appropriation by the political elites and intellectuals in Africa.

Biographic Note:

Clemens Zobel is a researcher at CES and Associate Professor of Political Sciences in the University of Paris 8. He has studied political issues from the perspective of music, oral tradition and institutional democratization in Mali. Furthermore, he is particularly interested in the history of Anthropology and its objects. In this area, he published/co-edited three books - Das Gewicht der Rede;  Postcolonialisme, Postsocialisme et Posterité de l'Idéologie and The younger brother in Mande: kinship and politics in West Africa and wrote papers, among which: “Les génies du Kòma: Identités locales, logiques religieuses et enjeux socio-politiques dans les monts Manding du Mali”; “Décentralisation, espaces participatifs et l'idée de l'indigénisation de l'État africain : le cas des communes maliennes” and “Essentialisme et Culturalisme chez Leo Frobenius et Maurice Delafosse”.

Albert Farré Ventura (Centre for African Studies / ISCTE)

The State and traditional authorities: an overview of the weaknesses and conflicting political agendas

During the colonial and postcolonial periods, the State and the traditional authorities have maintained, simultaneously, an alliance and a struggle: An alliance to guarantee the administrative efficiency of the territory and population control, and a struggle for legitimacy or, in other words, a struggle to impose the hegemony of the language and political project. In the last stage of the colonial period, the State managed to establish a favourable "status quo" to its interests, but, following the independences, in a context of political instability, some traditional authorities, due to the flexibility and creativity of its political culture, have achieved a place for negotiation which allows them acquiring a position of influence, both within the scope of daily management efficiency and the more symbolic level of legitimacy.

In this seminar, I will favour an approach based on concrete current examples, namely the traditional authorities of Uganda and Republic of the Congo, Mozambique, Swaziland, Guinea-Bissau and Senegal. The theorization of the political culture in Africa can only be attempted if based on the empirical knowledge of a sample of the existing situation plurality.

Biographic Note:

Albert Farré Ventura is a Post-Doctoral researcher (with a grant from FCT) at ISCTE-IUL (Centre for African Studies). He holds a PhD on History and an Undergraduate Degree in Anthropology by the University of Barcelona. He did field work in the Uganda, Republic of Congo and Mozambique. In Mozambique, he is an Associate Researcher at CEA-UEM and ARPAC. In Uganda and Republic of Congo, he has been working with rural development NGOs.

Mallé Kassé (Cheikh Anta Diop University - Dakar, Senegal)

Islam and Politics in Senegal

In Senegal, the Islamic religious fraternities play a role of "major electors" and every politician, since Leopold Sedar Senghor, seek to receive "ndigel" (guidance) from the "marabus" (Muslim religious leaders). However, with time, the marabus' social role has changed, and, today, it is, mostly, a source of economic return.

In this seminar, I will analyse the specificities of the Senegalese Islam, yet bearing in mind the relationships with Islam across borders. In particular, I will consider the corresponding consequences to the country's society and political reflection and practice, exploring, among others, the following questions: 1) Islam and the political game in Senegal? 2) The Senegalese Islam and the Iranian revolution; 3) An Islamic republic in Senegal? 4) The Senegalese left wing and Islam.

Biographic Note:

Mallé Kassé is Professor at the School of Humanities of the Cheikh Anta Diop University, in Dakar. He holds a PhD in Angolan Literature by the Haute-Bretagne University, Rennes II (France). He studies the issue of the occupation in the post-independence period, space and politics. His interest lies on subjects related to academic freedom. He was one of the leaders of the Autonomous Union of Higher Education (SAES) of Senegal.

Catarina Martins (CES / FLUC)

“La Noire de…” has a name and a voice. The narrative of Africa's Anglophone and Francophone women beyond Mother Africa, anticolonial nationalisms and other occupations

Despite the acknowledgement achieved by several female writers from Africa and the Diaspora, the African literature canon, in Africa and otherwise, continues to consist mostly on men, which means that the dominant representation of the African Women is still a masculine construction. This canon is determined by a western (neo-)colonial market and critique, or marked by the anticolonial resistance from the independence period, where the nationalist projects of patriarchal nature not only have silenced the role of women but also have given women a role of subalternity in the mythical idealization of Mother Africa or the Woman as a symbolic materialization of the Nation oppressed by colonialism.

Besides these, among many others, there is another occupation, regarding which the narrative of African women defines itself as resistance: the western feminism, white and of middle class, which "universalization" around the Woman is denounced as another colonial practice over the black women from the South. Although feminism, in its most recent debates, has been integrating plurals, in the intersection between the concept of "Woman" with race, social condition and religion multipliers (among others), the African women's literature is still one of the places where the debate continues, focusing on what the feminisms are and the fundamental dilemma between the search for solidarities, which assumes sharing a common identity, and the articulation of differences and power practices in the concrete experiences of "being a woman".

Based on the analysis of some key issues, recurring in fundamental narratives of Anglophone and Francophone women from the Sub-Sahara Africa, from the 1960s to nowadays, specially the social role of women between the private and public spheres, the relationship between femininities and masculinities, motherhood and sexuality, this seminar intends to map, even if briefly, some of these debates.

Biographic Note:

Catarina Martins is Assistant Professor at the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures of the School of Arts and Humanities of the University of Coimbra and a Researcher at the Centre for Social Studies. She holds a PhD in German Literature by the University of Coimbra. Some of her main areas of interest are the comparative literature, postcolonial studies and feminist studies, focusing on issues of violence representation. Simultaneously, she also studies non-Lusophone African literatures, specially of women, from the perspective of feminist problematic and the representation of childhood.

Fabrice Schurmanns (CES Doctoral Student - Post-Colonialisms and Global Citizenship)

The tragedy of the postcolonial State

Is there a tragedy specific to the South? Can we talk about a tragedy of the postcolonial State? To what extent does this tragedy moves closer or away from the model usually considered as original: the Greek tragedies? To what extent can we use the concept of tragedy to understand the conflicts and tensions experienced by the post-independence African States? How have been approached the Postcolonial African literatures and the social-political realities that marked the decades following the independence struggles against the colonizer? I will use the work of the renowned writers from the French-speaking Equatorial Africa - Sony Labou Tansi (Republic of Congo), Pius Ngandu Nkashama (RDC) – in order to reflect about these issues. Firstly, because these authors come from countries that experienced different kinds of violence associated to the postcolonial State (civil war, dictatorship, foreign interference for the control of resources, ethnic conflicts, etc.). Secondly, because, as African authors who write in the colonizer's language and participate in several cultural places (African literatures, Francophone literatures, etc.), they allow questioning the multiple spatial and temporal transformations of which we generally understand as "tragedy".

Biographic Note:

Fabrice Schurmans holds and Undergraduate Degree in Romance Philology and Communication Sciences (Liège University) and a Master's Degree in Modern and Contemporary Romance Literatures (Porto University). He is concluding his PhD dissertation in Postcolonial Studies (CES/UC). Some of his most recent publications are the book Michel de Ghelderode. Un tragique de l’identité, Croquemitaine et le rêve (translçation from a play by José Jorge Letria), La Bataille Navale (translation and critical edition of a play by Jaime Salazar Sampaio), «Subversion des codes dans les romans policiers de Pepetela»; and «De Hannah Arendt a Nicolas Sarkozy : leitura pós-colonial do discurso africanista»; «O esquecimento da complexidade e a memória da essência: Hutu e Tutsi na literatura colonial»; «O genocídio do Ruanda no cinema : ausência, representação, manipulação».

Mamadou Ba (SOS Racismo)

African immigration in Portugal beyond Lusophony - Where do the other Africas fit?

For long, the African immigration in Europe and Portugal was integrated in the colonial and postcolonial dynamics. These dynamics were mostly translated into the privilege of migration routes through historical and linguistic affinities. However, this situation significantly changed since the 1960s and early 1970s, with migrations within the African immigration itself. The change in mobility patterns determined by the economic globalization is accompanied by the evolution of Europe's political organization. The Maastricht and Amsterdam treaties, the Shengen agreements and many other political instruments for mobility management implemented by Europe forced the African immigrants to try adapting the management of their stay and permanence in the European space bearing in mind the job opportunities, the levels of social and legal protection and the possibility of obtaining a legal status which would guarantee their safety and better living conditions.

Portugal is no exception to this reality: soon after Portugal's accession to the European Union, a huge investment in infra-structures, with the contingent of immigrants from PALOP unable to make up for the workforce needs, caused the arrival of many immigrants from different origins, including from non-Lusophone African countries. However, the presence of these immigrants was always obscured by the perception that the African immigrants in Portugal came solely from PALO, and this perception was only changes with the first extraordinary regularization in 1993, which revealed the presence of other non-Lusophone Africans in Portugal. Nowadays, the African immigration on Portugal spreads the continent's diversity with the presence of Anglophone, Francophone, Lusophone and Maghrebi immigrants.

Despite this reality, both the perception of the African immigration diversity and the political response to the need to acknowledge this diversity fall short of the expectations. Hence the question: where do the other Africas fit in the immigration policies?

Biographic Note:

Mamadou Ba is the leader of the Association SOS Racismo and the European Network Against Racism. He was born in Senegal, in 1974, and holds an Undergraduate Degree by the Cheikh Anta Diop University, Dakar.