ASAA2022 Solidarity Messages

Find here the solidarity messages in support of ASAA2022 4th Biennial Conference from around the world.

Akosua Adomako Ampofo, President of the African Studies Association of Africa (ASAA) and Professor at the University of Ghana

Shose Kessi, Dean of the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Cape Town, South Africa
Divine Fuh, Director of HUMA – Institute for Humanities in Africa, University of Cape Town, South Africa
Ousseina D. Alidou, President of the African Studies Association (ASA) and Professor at Rutgers University, United States
Carli Coetzee, Editor of the Journal of African Cultural Studies, United Kingdom
Jacob U’Mofe Gordon, Emeritus Professor for African and African-American Studies, University of Kansas
Njoki Wamai, USIU-Africa and Partnership for African Social and Governance Research (PASGR), Kenya
Ola Uduku, Professor at the Manchester School of Architecture, United Kingdom
Seth N. Asumah, Chairperson of the Africana Studies Department and Professor at State University of New York Cortland, United States
Cecelia Lynch, co-editor of Critical Investigations into Humanitarianism in Africa (CIHA) and Professor at California University, United States
Kwaku Arhin-Sam, Executive Director of the Friedensau Institute for Evaluation (FIFE), Germany
Benjamin N. Lawrance, Editor-in-chief of the African Studies Review Journal and Professor at University of Arizona, United States

Abstracts submission deadline for ASAA2022 extended to 31 Jan 2022

The deadline for submission of abstracts for the ASAA2022 conference has been extended to 31 January 2022, 23:59 PST (UTC−06:59 on Feb 1).

The Conference Committee is responding to numerous requests from, particularly younger scholars to extend the deadline. We hope that this extension allows sufficient time for accepted panellists to submit their abstracts as well as for scholars and other people affected by COVID-19 to submit their abstracts.

The call for abstracts is available in English, French, Arabic, Portuguese and Swahili. And we look forward to engaging with the authors on the next steps.

Kindly also note that as a consequence, the date of the abstracts acceptance notification automatically moves to 7 February 2022.

Applications for workshops now open

You don’t want to miss out on the next ASAA2022 Conference! The extended conference programme features various sessions that cover a wide variety of topics. Get involved and learn about what’s new in your field.

Applications for the ASAA2022 workshops are now open. For details, see Pre-Conference Workshops, taking place 11–12 April 2022 and Post-Conference Workshops, taking place 21–22 April 2022.

Participants have to register or be registered for the conference. Most workshops are limited in numbers, so make sure to submit your application and documentation as indicated.

Registration open for ASAA2022

Save with early-bird discounts. 

The registration for the ASAA2022 is now open. As a hybrid conference, you can join us live in person or virtually – your choice! 

The ASAA 2022 is taking place 11th – 16th April 2022 in Cape Town, South Africa and online via video conferencing.

Visit our Registration page today to register and get the early bird rates that apply until 31 January 2021 – don’t miss out! 

For those attending in person, we have compiled helpful information on the things you need before booking your flight, such as travel and visa, accommodation, pre- and post-conference tours and getting around locally. 

We look forward to seeing you at ASAA2022!

Call for abstracts now open

The ASSAA2022 Conference Committee invites proposals for abstracts. Proposals can be submitted via the dedicated online portal. The deadline for submission is 30th August.

Submissions can be made to a selection of confirmed panels that feed into the ASAA2022 conference theme: “Africa and the Human: Old questions, new imaginaries”. Panel formats include traditional panels, where up to five papers are presented, as well as roundtables, where a group of scholars discusses the topic at hand in front of an audience.  

Submitted proposals will be peer-reviewed, and authors will be notified by 14th September 2021. Selected full papers will be considered for publication in the HUMA-ASAA “Encounters” book series.  

Call for panels now open

The call for panels for the ASAA2022 is now open for proposal submissions and closes 30 June 2021. The decisions of the ASAA2022 Scientific Committee will be communicated on 11th July 2021.

ASAA encourages conveners (those proposing/organising a panel) to reflect on the conference theme and address issues outlined in the theme description. Please read the call for panels information and then submit your proposal via our dedicated online platform on https://uctcmc.eventsair.com/4th-biennial-conference-of-the-african-studies-association-of-africa/asaa2022-panel-proposal-submission

ASAA2022 venue: Cape Town, South Africa

Aerial picture of Cape Town, South Africa

The Executive Committee of the African Studies Association of Africa (ASAA) has nominated HUMA – Institute for Humanities in Africa at at the University of Cape Town (UCT), South Africa to co-host the next biennial conference.

The African Studies Association of Africa (ASAA) was established in 2013 to promote Africa’s own specific contributions to the advancement of knowledge about the peoples and cultures of Africa and the diaspora. The Biennial Conference is the scientific convening of the association. It is one of the continent’s largest gathering of African and Africanist scholars across the continent, its diaspora, and globally, bringing together over 600 delegates to think around a specific theme. The first biennial conference was held at the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria in October 2015, the second – ASAA2017 – at the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana, Legon in October 2017, and the third – ASAA2019 – at the United States International University Africa, in Nairobi, Kenya.

ASAA2022 takes place on the back of global protests against the devaluation of Black/African lives. This, also as a global epidemic of violence against women, attains alarming proportions. As the world begins to grapple with the collective existential threat and consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, HUMA is keen on working with the ASAA to convene researchers, intellectuals, activists, artists, students, and the policy community to reflect on the critical questions that are crucial to forging a more ethical and liveable interdependent life going forward, and how-to, and the productive consequences of centring Africa, African perspectives and epistemologies at the core of imagining a new world.

Africa and the Human: Old questions, new imaginaries

ASAA2022 theme

The theme of ASAA’s 4th Biennial Conference 2022 is African and the Human: Old questions, new imaginaries.

What does it mean to be human today in Africa, African in the world today, and what can Africa contribute to thinking the human? The idea of the human is increasingly threatened by destabilising transformations as the world gradually moves to what is defined by some as the abyss of modernity and the aftershocks of the postmodern. Will prevalent ideas of being human and/or being African survive? Should the idea of the human and African be saved, and as we move into the Anthropocene/posthuman, what or who will or should count as human and/or African in the end? As the old certainties of the enlightenment are questioned and rejected and the promises of neoliberal democracy shattered – labelled as both fraudulent and farcical – what alternatives remain to imagine the human from Africa?