Kenya

S1-D: Postcolonial Governmentality, Subjectivation and Agency: Translation and (Re)formulation of the Bangladeshi Idea of Microfinance in Africa.

Übersicht: 

The research project analyses the evolvement of microfinance-programs in Bangladesh and their transformation in Tanzania and Kenya. The focus is on subject-constitution and agency of women in the context of transnational discourses of development politics and global political and economic settings. The following research questions will be addressed: How are agency and subjectivity negotiated in the context of microfinance-programs in Tanzania, Kenya and Bangladesh? Which actors influence this process in what ways? What power structures and discourses do transnational norms confront in regional contexts? The analysis of the negotiation of power structures, constellations of agents and interests in local, national and transnational contexts will demonstrate the impact of market-oriented programs on community processes and would empirically contribute to the issue of ‚Markest  on the Move’.

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Involvierte AFRASO Mitglieder: 

AFRASO Publications

S2-C: New Approaches to Transnational Gender Politics: Chinese-African Collaboration

Übersicht: 

The research project analyses the potential and pitfalls of South-South collaboration through the perspective of transnational gender politics. Much of contemporary scholarship on the latter topic arose in the reflection of the transnational women’s movement, following its emergence alongside the World Conferences on Women in Nairobi (1985) and in Beijing (1995) as a central sphere of negotiation.

However, over the last few years the ongoing shift in the international order has impacted on various stakeholders within the gender arena both in African and Asian societies. Within the larger context of development and transnational relations the question how South-South cooperation takes place and which topics are negotiated by actors within the gender arena is important. Among the Asian actors, the All-China Women’s Federation (ACWF) as China’s largest women’s organisation has been particularly active in increasing collaboration with its African counterparts. By cooperating across the otherwise significant continental divide new opportunity structures have emerged. Yet, the related issues have not been explored in existing literature. The project therefore undertakes an analysis of the common issues and challenges that inform current collaboration between the ACWF with gender mechanisms and women’s organisations in selected African countries.

 

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Involvierte AFRASO Mitglieder: 

AFRASO Publications

Mageza-Barthel, Rirhandu ; 2015 ; Mobilizing Transnational Gender Politics in Post-Genocide Rwanda (Gender in a Global/Local World Series) Farnham/Burlington: Ashgate. ; Mageza-Barthel, Rirhandu ; Ashgate ; Farnham / Burlington

Talks and Lectures

Mageza-Barthel, Rirhandu ; Zur Politik chinesisch-afrikanischer Beziehungen ; Friday, March 6, 2015 ; Goethe University Frankfurt
Mageza-Barthel, Rirhandu & Uta Ruppert ; Zivilgesellschaft in Kenia und Äthiopien, SoSe 2014
Mageza-Barthel, Rirhandu ; What’s Civil Society Got to Do with It? Beyond the State in Sino-African Relations ; Tuesday, March 11, 2014 ; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Mageza-Barthel, Rirhandu ; Towards a New Gender Politics: African Women’s Movements & their Afro-Asian Encounters ; Wednesday, July 8, 2015 to Friday, July 10, 2015 ; Sorbonne Universität, Paris
Eckl, Frauke; Mageza-Barthel, Rirhandu & Thubauville, Sophia (panel convenors) ; South Korean-Ethiopian Interactions ; Tuesday, August 25, 2015 ; Warsaw
Ruppert, Uta & Rirhandu Mageza-Barthel ; Panel: "South-South Cooperation in Gender Politics: Trans-Regionalization as an Alternative Option for Sub-Saharan Africa?" ; Wednesday, June 11, 2014 ; Bayreuth University
Mageza-Barthel, Rirhandu ; Neue Ansätze zivilgesellschaftlicher Geschlechterpolitik: Chinesisch-afrikanische Kooperationen zur Bekämpfung von Frauenarmut ; Thursday, February 7, 2013 ; Goethe-Universität Frankfurt
South Africa and China - Politics and Perspective ; Mageza-Barthel, Rirhandu & John Njenga Karugia, SoSe 2015 ; Goethe University Frankfurt
Mageza-Barthel, Rirhandu ; Gender(ed) Matters: Revisiting Chinese-African Relations ; Friday, December 12, 2014 ; Guangzhou, China
Mageza-Barthel, Rirhandu ; Gender Politics in Africa: International Dimensions, WiSe 2013/14 ; Goethe University Frankfurt
Mageza-Barthel, Rirhandu ; From the Margins to the Centre? New Perspectives on Sino-African Relations ; Friday, February 20, 2015 ; New Orleans
Mageza-Barthel, Rirhandu ; From Sisterhood to Friendship: African Women’s Movements in Chinese-African Relations ; Wednesday, March 25, 2015 ; Cape Town, South Africa
Ruppert, Uta & Rirhandu Mageza-Barthel ; Feminism(s) Prospects in Africa: Perspectives on Transformation and Stabilization ; Thursday, August 7, 2014 ; Goethe University Frankfurt
Mageza-Barthel, Rirhandu ; Decolonizing Epistemologies, Methodologies and Ethics: Postcolonial-Feminist Interventions ; Thursday, July 2, 2015 ; Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany
Mageza-Barthel, Rirhandu ; Africa in World Politics / African World Politics, SoSe 2016 ; Goethe University Frankfurt
Mageza-Barthel, Rirhandu ; 'Beijing Created a War between the Sexes' – Transnational Gender Politics in Rwanda after '94 ; Wednesday, June 18, 2014 ; HU Berlin

S3-C: New Approaches to Negotiating Development: South Korean-African Interactions

Übersicht: 

Over the past decade, there has been a significant increase in the number of collaborative projects between South Korea and various countries in Africa, especially in the area of development cooperation. Both South Korean and African partners have stressed the perceived "win-win" nature of these new collaborative relations. Both sides have emphasized that the interactions are not merely focused on one-sided economic interests, such as raw material trade and investment, but rather that these interactions appear to represent a model for a more holistic relationship which also includes exchanges in the fields of culture and education. On the one hand the possibility of exporting its own development experiences is understood as an opportunity for South Korea to reposition itself as a player within the international community. On the other hand, the African partners have equally welcomed such new forms of cooperation as evidenced by the various “Looking East”-Policies that have been adopted in a significant number of countries across the African continent in recent years. Within this context, South Korea represents a particularly interesting development partner for these countries due to its recent development history that led to exceptionally fast economic growth and compressed modernization in the second part of the twentieth century. Moreover, the shared experiences of a colonial past as well as the acute socio economic deprivation may also be opening new avenues for cooperation between South Korea and (some) of its African partners. 

Within this context, the research project seeks to analyze emerging discourses and corresponding processes of negotiation in relation to concepts and practices of development in South Korea and two of its focus countries in Africa, Ethiopia and Kenya. This research investigates how emerging developmental concepts and goals and the resulting social (and national identity) dynamics are being formed in the context of development cooperation. Special focus lies on corresponding processes in the areas of culture and education.

This project will contribute to the on-going debate surrounding various concepts and models for development as well as their implementation in the form of policies and programs. Through its interdisciplinary approach (political science and cultural studies) and comparative research design spanning two continents, the project will provide new methodological and theoretical insights into the transnational process of negotiating development.

Kontakt: 

Ort: 

Involvierte AFRASO Mitglieder: 

AFRASO Publications

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Talks and Lectures

Eckl, Frauke; Mageza-Barthel, Rirhandu & Thubauville, Sophia (panel convenors) ; South Korean-Ethiopian Interactions ; Tuesday, August 25, 2015 ; Warsaw
Eckl, Frauke Katharina ; Living and Breathing Best Practices? South Korean Development Experiences in Ethiopian Higher Education ; Thursday, July 9, 2015 ; Sorbonne Universität, Paris
Eckl, Frauke Katharina / Krämer, Diana ; From “Asian Values“ to “Asian Experiences“? What is special about South Korean Development Cooperation in Africa? ; Tuesday, March 24, 2015 ; Cape Town, South Africa
Eckl, Frauke Katharina ; Ein Vorbild gelungener Modernisierung? Südkoreanische Bildungsprojekte in Äthiopien ; Friday, March 6, 2015 ; Goethe-University Frankfurt

S4-A: Indian Ocean Imaginaries in East African Literature and Oral Culture

Übersicht: 

The project addresses the transformation of Indian Ocean imaginaries in East African literature and oral culture. The central research question focusses on the connections between the imaginaries of the Indian Ocean region generated by historical African-Asian interactions on the one hand and the representation of today’s African-Asian interactions in contemporary East African literature on the other. With its focus on Indian Ocean imaginaries, the project targets a key issue with regard to the historical emergence and contemporary constitution of new transregional concepts of space (AFRASO Key Area 4); with its historical focus, the project contributes to lending historical depth to the analysis of African-Asian interactions within the AFRASO research programme as a whole.

The project is based on the assumption that Indian Ocean imaginaries differ widely throughout East Africa and that in historical terms coastal regions and landlocked regions distant from the sea have generated particularly divergent cultural constructions of the Indian Ocean. To utilize these differences for an analysis of the transformation of Indian Ocean imaginaries, exemplary field research on images of the Indian Ocean in oral culture will be conducted in rural Uganda and in Zanzibar. An analysis of literary representations of the probably best-known Indian Ocean icon – the dhow – will establish which Indian Ocean imaginaries are generated by the specific experience of travelling on the Indian Ocean by dhow. Representations of the lived experience of dhow voyages on the Indian Ocean will be analyzed in historical perspective in reports, travelogues and biographies in English and Swahili and will be contrasted to current literary renderings of the dhow topos. Finally, the corpus of East African literature in East Africa (Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda) from 1960 to the present day will be analyzed with a special focus on concepts and images of the Indian Ocean area as a transregional cultural contact zone, representations of Asians, Asian culture and Asian countries and different versions of Indian Ocean imaginaries in coastal regions and the East African hinterland. The combined analysis of oral culture, dhow literature in English and Swahili and the corpus of anglophone East African writing is designed to produce new insights into the complex genesis and transformation of Indian Ocean imaginaries and to provide differentiated answers to the question if and how contemporary images and concepts of the Indian Ocean as transregional contact zone build on earlier Indian Ocean imaginaries, or whether representations of current  African-Asian interactions are characterized by a break with these historically generated imaginaries.

A dhow on the Indian Ocean waters next to Zanzibar in 2013. © Karugia, John Njenga

A Zanzibar Government document associated with the Dhows season in 1947-1948 © Zanzibar National Archives, photo by Karugia, John Njenga.

The novel, Nairobi to Shenzen: A novel of Love in the East by Mark Okoth Obama Ndesandjo © Mark O. Obama Ndesandjo

The Mtepe, a sewn craft mainly built in Lamu on the Indian Ocean coast © Fort Jesus Museum Mombasa, photo by Karugia, John Njenga.

 

Mao Zedong and Jomo Kenyatta as portrayed on Kenyan and Chinese currency in "Selling World Power" (short story) in Kwani? 04, Kwani, 2007 by Billy Kahora.

 

Kontakt: 

Ort: 

Involvierte AFRASO Mitglieder: 

AFRASO Publications

Schulze-Engler, Frank ; 2015 ; Once Were Internationalists? Postcolonialism, Disenchanted Solidarity and the Right to Belong in a World of Globalized Modernity ; Reworking Postcolonial-ism: Globalization, Labour and Rights ; Malreddy, Pavan Kumar; Heidemann, Birte; Laursen, Ole Birk & Janet Wilson ; Palgrave Macmillan ; London & New York ; 19–35
Karugia, John Njenga ; 2017 ; Indischer Ozean ; Handbuch Postkolonialismus und Literatur. ; Hg. von Dirk Göttsche, Axel Dunker und Gabriele Dürbeck ; Metzler ; Stuttgart
Karugia, John Njenga ; 2016 ; Indian Ocean Mega Projects in East Africa vs. Human Rights ; Megaprojekte Contra Menschenrechte - Fortschritt um jeden Preis? ; Braun, Naima ; No. 4 ; Tanzania-Network ; Berlin
Schulze-Engler, Frank ; 2014 ; Africa’s Asian Options: Indian Ocean Imaginaries in East African Literature ; Beyond the Line: Cultural Constructions of the Southern Oceans ; Michael Mann, Ines Phaf-Rheinberger ; Neofelis ; Berlin ; 159-179

Talks and Lectures

Karugia, John Njenga ; Writing Back to Whom? East African Literature in a Multipolar World, WiSe 2013/14 ; Goethe University Frankfurt
Karugia, John Njenga ; Writers in African Politics, WiSe 2014/15 ; Goethe University Frankfurt
Karugia, John Njenga ; Wissensproduktion in der geteilten transregionalen Forschung ; Friday, December 4, 2015 ; AFRASO, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt, Frankfurt
Karugia, John Njenga ; Wissensproduktion in der geteilten transregionalen Forschung ; Friday, December 4, 2015 ; Goethe-Universität Frankfurt
Karugia, John Njenga ; Wealth in China’s ‚Colonies‘ in East Africa ; Monday, April 14, 2014 to Friday, April 18, 2014 ; University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria
Karugia, John Njenga ; Travelling Afrasian Objects ; Friday, May 6, 2016 ; University of Augsburg
Schwarz, Julia ; Transregionale Kontaktzone Indischer Ozean: Afrikanisch-asiatische Interaktionen in Uganda und Sansibar ; Saturday, January 31, 2015 ; Goethe-Universität Frankfurt
Karugia, John Njenga ; Transregional Research in Trans-Areas: Methodological Reflections ; Monday, December 14, 2015 ; Universität Hamburg
Schulze-Engler, Frank ; Towards a New Global South? Afrasian Imaginaries in East African Literature ; Monday, March 9, 2015 ; University of Western Australia, Perth
Karugia, John Njenga ; Towards a Braver History of the Indian Ocean ; Thursday, November 26, 2015 ; Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Barcelona
Schulze-Engler, Frank ; Spectres of Solidarity: Transregional Interactions in East African Literature ; Wednesday, March 25, 2015 ; Kapstadt
Schulze-Engler, Frank ; Spectres of Solidarity: Asian-African Interactions in East African Literature ; Thursday, October 9, 2014 ; University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa
Schulze-Engler, Frank ; Spectres of Solidarity: Asian-African Interactions in East African Literature ; Tuesday, October 7, 2014 ; Centre for Indian Studies in Africa (CISA), University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
Karugia, John Njenga ; Multidirectional Afrasian Mnemoeconomics ; Sunday, July 10, 2016 to Friday, July 15, 2016 ; Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa
Karugia, John Njenga ; Memory, Migration and Politics in Asia-Africa Relations ; Wednesday, April 2, 2014 ; Jindal School of International Affairs, O.P. Jindal Global University Delhi, New Delhi,
South Africa and China - Politics and Perspective ; Mageza-Barthel, Rirhandu & John Njenga Karugia, SoSe 2015 ; Goethe University Frankfurt
Schulze-Engler, Frank ; Looking Sideways: African-Asian Literary Relations in the 'Global South' ; Monday, March 16, 2015 ; Monash University, Melbourne
Schulze-Engler, Frank ; Looking Sideways: Afrasian Imaginaries and the Remaking of World Literature ; Thursday, January 21, 2016 ; Goethe-Universität Frankfurt
Karugia, John Njenga ; KiswaChin - Sinokiswahili in Kariakoo Chinatown ; Sunday, June 8, 2014 to Monday, June 9, 2014 ; University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany
Beek, Jan & Julia Verne ; Introduction: Geteilte Forschung ; Friday, December 4, 2015 ; Goethe University, Frankfurt
Karugia, John Njenga ; Indischer Ozean ; Thursday, December 10, 2015 ; Auswärtiges Amt, Berlin
Karugia, John Njenga ; Indian Ocean Migrations and Impacts in the 21st Century: China and India in East Africa ; Friday, April 4, 2014 ; Department of African Studies, Delhi University, New Delhi, India
Karugia, John Njenga ; Indian Ocean Mega Projects vs. Human Rights in Africa Within a Global Perspective of Asian Engagement ; Saturday, October 29, 2016 ; Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung, Berlin
Karugia, John Njenga ; Indian Ocean as a Memory Space in the Context of South Africa and India ; Tuesday, October 25, 2016 ; Centre for African Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi, India
Karugia, John ; In (Visible) Imperial Indian Ocean Memories ; Thursday, June 25, 2015 to Wednesday, March 30, 2016 ; University of Amsterdam
Karugia, John Njenga ; Discussing China in Tanzania's Parliament ; Friday, January 17, 2014 ; Konfuzius Institut, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
Karugia, John Njenga ; Dignity for Self and Others: Insights from Memory Studies ; Saturday, April 25, 2015 ; Prynnsberg Estate, Clocolan, South Africa
Karugia, John Njenga ; Contested Heritage Politics Across the Indian Ocean ; Thursday, January 14, 2016 ; Martin Luther Universität Halle-Wittenberg
Karugia, John Njenga ; Connective Indian Ocean Memories: Towards a Braver Indian Ocean History ; Friday, September 25, 2015 ; Goethe Frankfurt University
Karugia, John Njenga ; Connective Indian Ocean Memories ; Wednesday, March 25, 2015 ; Kapstadt
Karugia, John Njenga ; Connective Afrasian Ocean Memories in Pheroze Nowrojee's 'A Kenyan Journey': Between Competitive and Multidirectional Remembering ; Thursday, October 13, 2016 ; Diasporic Constructions of Home and Belonging Indian Diaspora Centre, University of Mumbai, Mumbai, India
Karugia, John Njenga, Erll, Astrid & Sissy Helff ; Collective Amnesia, Denial or Disavowal of History? The Indian Ocean Islands of Mauritius and its Colonial Past ; Tuesday, May 19, 2015 ; The Frankfurt Memory Studies Platform, Goethe University Frankfurt
John Njenga Karugia ; Civilizational Dialogues Between Asia and Africa: Asia in East Africa's Parliaments ; Tuesday, March 11, 2014 ; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Karugia, John Njenga ; Chinesische Migration nach Tansania ; Wednesday, February 20, 2013 ; Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum – Kulturen der Welt, Köln
Karugia, John Njenga ; Baohan Street: An African Community in Guangzhou (China) ; Thursday, October 16, 2014 ; Global South Studies Center Cologne, Cultures and Societies in Transition
Karugia, John Njenga ; Asiatische Akteure in Afrika im globalen Kontext ; Saturday, November 23, 2013 to Sunday, November 24, 2013 ; Herbert-Wehner-Bildungswerk, Dresden
Karugia, John Njenga ; African Memories of Visits to China ; Thursday, January 15, 2015 ; Konfuzius Institut, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
Prof. Dr. Frank Schulze-Engler ; Africa's Asian Options: Indian Ocean Imaginaries in East African Literature ; Tuesday, August 6, 2013 ; Gros Islet, St. Lucia
Karugia, John Njenga ; Afrasian migrations across transregional spaces and places: East Africans and Chinese Migrants ; Thursday, May 15, 2014 to Saturday, May 17, 2014 ; Centre for Interdisciplinary African Studies, Goethe University of Frankfurt and Centre for the Study of Contemporary Africa at the University of Naples “L´Orientale”, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Karugia, John Njenga ; Afrasian Literature, WiSe 2015/16 ; Goethe University Frankfurt
Karugia, John Njenga ; Afrasia: Justice and Ethics Within a Multidirectional Mnemoeconomics Framework ; Thursday, October 27, 2016 to Saturday, October 29, 2016 ; Department of Socio-Cultural Diversity, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany
Karugia, John Njenga ; „China in Afrika – Chancen, Herausforderungen, Perspektiven ; Thursday, May 22, 2014 ; Leipzig, Germany

S4-C: African-Asian Interactions in Cyberspace. Transregional Scamming.

Übersicht: 

The new African-Asian interactions are also opening up new opportunities for African and Asian scammers (419 Advance Fee Fraud). The project studies these transregional interactions in cyberspace between scammers and their counterparts. Based on ethnographic research in Ghana and India, the project asks how scammers make use and thereby transgress boundaries between continents and between physical and virtual spaces. However, the project also studies how police officers and other actors aim to set new boundaries in transregional spaces and authenticate virtual identities.

African scammers often use the image of the African other in their emails. Virtual identities derive their authenticity from such references to images of the cultural other – the abundant gold or the willing African mistress. Actors use such images of the cultural other as supposedly objective orientation, thus scammers can refer to them to create compelling narratives. By researching interaction in cyberspace, the project maps these imaginary spaces of the cultural other.

By using conventional images of the cultural other and the supposed authenticity in their fraudulent narratives, scammers ultimately undermine these forms of orientations. Their transgressions lead to radical uncertainties concerning transregional and virtual spaces. Some actors seek new methods to authenticate their counterpart in cyberspace. Still, police officers and other state officials try to re-establish bureaucratic categories of identity and set new boundaries.

Kontakt: 

Ort: 

Involvierte AFRASO Mitglieder: 

AFRASO Publications

Beek, Jan ; 2016 ; Cybercrime, police work and stroytelling in West Africa ; Africa ; 86 (2)

Talks and Lectures

Beek, Jan ; Transnational Cyberfraud and Cyberpolicing ; Tuesday, November 11, 2014 ; School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi
Beek, Jan & Julia Verne ; Introduction: Geteilte Forschung ; Friday, December 4, 2015 ; Goethe University, Frankfurt
Beek, Jan & Mirko Göpfert ; Gemeinsam ethnologisch forschen: Feldgeschichten teilen ; Friday, December 4, 2015 ; Goethe University, Frankfurt
Beek, Jan ; Finding Scammers: Kriminalpolizeiliche Ermittlungen gegen Internetbetrug in Ghana. ; Thursday, April 24, 2014 ; Goethe University Frankfurt
Jan Beek ; Doing Area Online: Internetkriminalität zwischen Afrikaund Indien. ; Friday, January 29, 2016 ; Goethe-Universität Frankfurt
Beek.Jan ; DEAR SIR OR MADAM – Internetkriminalität in Afrika und Asien ; Friday, March 6, 2015 ; Goethe University, Frankfurt
Beek, Jan ; Cybercrime between Africa, Europe, and India ; Wednesday, October 8, 2014 ; University of Mumbai
Beek, Jan ; Cyber Fraud and Policing: From Africa to India ; Thursday, October 30, 2014 ; Centre for the Study of Social Systems, Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi