Younger researchers in humanities and the social sciences across Africa who are studying what the organisers call ‘new forms of political participation and their significance in Africa’ have an opportunity to attend a week- long Summer programme December 2017 in Bamako, Mali. That is if they apply before October 16th, 2017.
As itemised in the tweet announcing the opportunity by some of those associated with the programme, the school is open to Post-doctoral candidates who would have defended their thesis no longer than five years ago; Doctoral students who should be in an advanced state of their project and are in a position to present first results of their research; PhD students and post-doctoral students who have a writing project such as thesis and/or scientific article to go with; are working on one of the axes of the theme as listed below; they have got good language skills in English and/or French and can send a 1000 words maximum abstract of their research, a CV, current academic affiliation and a letter of motivation to scholze@em.uni-frankfurt.de.
Explaining the objective of the programme in the tweet, it is linked to confronting different disciplinary approaches in order to stimulate a fruitful dialogue about methods, theories and fields of investigation related to the subject-matter. The expectation is to discern commonalities and specificities with regard to different African terrains through the interdisciplinary dialogue following a comparative perspective. The four principal axes of investigation around which the Summer School would revolve are given as New Forms of Political Participation and their Specificities; Intra- and Supranational Forms of Articulation; Reconfiguration of Political Order; International Actors and their role
Theoretical discussions and practical exercises will be the approaches to the Summer School comprises, beginning with the theoretical overviews superintended those introduced as specialized senior scholars on what “politics” really means; African Constitutionalism; Medias and Mobilization; Rural/Urban Problematic and Mobilization and Mobilization and Diversity of Actors: The Participation of Women, among others. A two day writing school in which participants are asked to present their current writing projects would then follow.
Financed by the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study (STIAS) in the framework of the Program Point Sud, (interdisciplinary research centre at the University of Bamako) the Summer School is organized by the Goethe University Frankfurt/Main in Germany in collaboration with STIAS and research institutes and universities in six other African countries.
It has been fixed to take place from December 13th to 18th, 2017 at the Research Centre Point Sud in Bamako/Mali and those seeking additional information are asked to contact Dr. Marko Scholze of the Goethe University, Frankfurt, Germany (scholze@em.uni-frankfurt.de). Other sites are www.pointsud.org and www.stias.ac.za
.
