By Toyin Falola
The forthcoming 25th Annual Africa Conference at the University of Texas at Austin has been scheduled to be held from April 1st to 5th. It marks the Silver Jubilee of a gathering that has consistently hosted intellectual discourse on African Studies in the United States of America. In its usual fashion, the event will bring students, researchers, scholars, and practitioners of different disciplines and backgrounds together for dialogue on historical and contemporary questions that have and are shaping Africa and its diaspora population.
The theme of this year’s conference, “Movements, Migrations, Labor and Displacements in Africa and the African Diaspora,” is a medium to reflect on the matters of mobility, identity, belonging, and economic transformation. African societies and their peoples have migrated around the world for centuries, either for trade, settlement, or through forceful means, which connects with slavery and colonization. These different migration patterns, however, have had an impact on the indigenous African and diasporan Africa culture, economy, and politics. In the contemporary era, new forms of migration and displacement of the African peoples and their diaspora have emerged through globalization, economic conditions, climate change, urbanization, and other factors. This conference thus seeks to examine how these processes have affected Africans and how Africans have resisted or adapted to these conditions.
The conference will incorporate a hybrid approach by allowing virtual and physical sessions, which would allow participants from various locations, such as Lagos, Amsterdam, Berlin, Accra, London, Freetown, Johannesburg, Kyiv, Helsinki, New York, Washington D.C., Toronto, Columbus, and Los Angeles, to actively participate in diverse conversations. This shows commitment to the accessibility nature of African Studies to the World and it creates a networking opportunity for scholars from different parts of the globe to collaborate. The conference will open virtually on Wednesday, the 1st of April. The Austin Central Standard Time will be its base timeframe.
The first round of panels will focus on migration, gender, cultural production, and identity within the African and diasporic context. It will feature discussions around cultural production on African migration and the experiences of African women in migration processes. There will also be discussions on the relationship between textile design and cultural heritage, the role of Kenyan women as interpreters in the growing China–Africa relationship, the migration of African nurses in global health systems, and the strategies employed by non-governmental organizations to combat human trafficking in The Gambia.
Also, there will be discussions on African women, migration, and trafficking. Here, presentations on feminist reinterpretations of African literature, cross-cultural marriages between Africans and Taiwanese communities in East Asia, professionalization of transactional relationships across borders, and the international dimensions of African sports mobility will be featured. Going further, there will be discussions around cultural production and identity formation, how African drama of the twentieth century reflects cultural continuity between Africa, the Caribbean, and African American communities, political fragmentation and identity formation in Africa, and the experiences of women who survived the Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria. The final session for the first day will feature discussions around Yoruba textile traditions, the ecological and cultural implications of textile production, and artistic translation as a method for reclaiming African knowledge systems.
The second day will also be a virtual program. It will feature discussions on the shifting identities within and outside the African diaspora, the role of Islam in regional migrations, the experiences of African diasporic communities during the COVID-19 pandemic, the early twentieth-century South African nationalism, and the transport entrepreneurs operating along Ghanaian waterways during the era of the slave trade. Other sessions will feature, the development, imperialism, and African mobility with presentations on the political implications of diaspora communities in Europe, the role of African labor in the technological expansion of imperial river transport systems in the nineteenth century, the representation of migration in African literature, the socioeconomic impact of international migration on Nigerian development, the psychological consequences of financial obligations within transnational families, the role of information technologies in managing cross-border labor mobility, the educational consequences of internal displacement, and historical parallels between migration patterns in Africa and those along the United States southern border.
Day three of the conference, Friday, April 3rd, will be a physical session at the University of Texas, Austin. There will be discussions on African women, migration, and trafficking, and feature presentations on citizenship and gender equality within African immigration policies, indigenous maternal health practices among Igbo diaspora communities, and the intersections of gender-based violence and human trafficking in East Africa. An important aspect of this session is the keynote lecture that Professor Olajumoke Yacob-Haliso of Brandeis University will deliver. She will discuss African migrants, intersectionality, and African knowledge systems.
Presentations will continue with focus on topics like linguistic identities formed through pre-colonial migrations, the role of Yoruba proverbs in shaping migration discourse, the persistence of Islamic identity among Nigerian migrants in urban environments, the intellectual legacy of Omar Ibn Said, the experiences of African immigrants in the United States, African political leadership, the economic contributions of diaspora communities to African development, the historical evolution of accounting practices in Nigeria, identity construction among Zimbabwean youth living in the United Kingdom, the formation of transcultural identities through multilingual migration experiences, economic connections between African migrants and Chinese commercial networks, the relationship between youth unemployment and migration in Cameroon, and the infrastructural challenges created by rural-to-urban migration in Lagos.
On Saturday, 4th of April, the conference will continue with discussions on imperialism, migration histories, diasporic identities, and labor mobility with presentations on cross-border trade within West African border communities, the movement of captives along the Niger-Benue confluence during the Atlantic era, the historical impact of yellow fever epidemics in Ghana’s Pra River basin, the effects of skilled professional migration on health and education systems in Nigeria, the linguistic consequences of migration for minority languages, and the role of humor and satire in African literary responses to migration experiences, maritime security challenges in Southern Africa and the broader economic implications of illegal fishing within coastal regions and others.
There will also be discussions on matters such as the emotional and psychological dimensions of belonging among Black communities in the United States, the identity negotiations of Jamaican American communities, and the narratives of African youth navigating diasporic life in Britain, the experiences of African immigrants confronting racial trauma, the shifting identities within global diasporas, the genealogical histories linking African ancestry in the United States to communities in Tennessee, cultural interpretations of historic voyages associated with early African arrivals in North America, and the relationship between religious identity and humanitarian action in displacement contexts. There will be discussions around the movement of religious beliefs across continents, the role of Islamic advocacy in migration debates in Nigeria, border management strategies in response to trans-Saharan migration patterns, and environmental challenges facing migrant settlements in rapidly urbanizing areas of Lagos.
The final session of the conference will be focused on migrant labor, health, and economic transformation with presentations around investigate mental health among migrant laborers in colonial Ghana, public health disparities affecting displaced African populations in global labor systems, the experiences of immigrants navigating economic uncertainty and belonging, the themes of Afrofuturism in contemporary African literature, urban displacement caused by gentrification, historical interpretations of slave trading kingdoms in West Africa, and the efforts of immigration authorities to combat human trafficking and irregular migration.
After the rigorous intellectual engagements, the conference will transition into a formal setting by hosting a banquet on Saturday at the Otis Hotel in Austin. At this event, only registered participants and guests will be in attendance, and there will be a banquet speech from Professor Christian John Makgala from the University of Botswana. This aspect of the conference will provide all participants with the opportunity to reflect on the discussions thus far, whilst they celebrate the silver jubilee of the dialogue on Africa. There are side events between sessions, provisions for live music, poetry recitations, and the display of artistic traditions from across Africa and its diaspora.
The Local Organizing Committee has done a terrific job in planning the activities and programs under the able Chairmanship of Yahaya Halidu, ably supported by energetic committee members, Chukwuemeka Ohajionu, and Sylvester Akyea Abedi Bright.
