Unknown Speaker 0:00

Hey, welcome everyone. So good to see so many familiar names.

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We are so excited to be here. I'm Talia Lieber. I am a co editor in chief of Ufa hombu, a journal of African Studies.

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We are welcoming you to this symposium, which is in commemoration of the Bahamas 50th anniversary. We're celebrating here today who Bahamas past, present and future. In 1970, a group of students from UCLA African activists Association gathered together to found a journal of African Studies. Its first issue was published in part to counteract European and American control of the direction of African Studies. The founding editorial team also initiated the cross disciplinary ethos of the journal and highlighted its mission to gender, discussion and to be

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in the spirit of continuing to create an inclusive and interactive space for dialogue. We, as editors and chief have made it our mission to center the scholarship and the arts of the African continent through the journal and create a community of africanus on campus at UCLA and across the world. We're so happy that all of you could join us today for this symposium to celebrate this milestone with us. With the discussions fostered by this symposium we hope to determine a course and set out on the journals future publications and participation in supporting international scholarship from about AFRICOM.

Unknown Speaker 1:34

Hi, everybody. My name is Rebecca Wolf, and I am also the CO editor in chief of for hombu. And we realized that this important moment for the journal coincides with a moment of global fear and uncertainty. In addition to the widespread protests and calls to end racial and Justice COVID-19 continues to disrupt life around the world. We are this thinking of the international community of Bahamas fostered and many of you are here today, which is really exciting, and especially our friends and colleagues on the African continent. Since its inception, Bahama has prioritized building connections between continents and communities. Our current online platform and editorial process continue to promote working across distances. Now it seems that these modes of communication and collaboration are more important than ever, and it seems as if we all agree by being here.

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As we grow our community, we must also be sure to check in with our community. Now is the time to be kind to ourselves and mindful of, of one another's varying circumstances, we must especially have empathy for each other as we navigate this difficult time.

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As an academic journal, we also realize that we have a unique responsibility during this time, scholarship brutes our present predicament in history to give us perspective and allows us to respond to crises through critical thinking and deep analysis. Likewise, the arts enable creative engagement with an often critique of prevalent issues that we face. As a journal publishing new work during the current pandemic of COVID-19. We are keenly aware of this important research that we're doing and that we're collecting and sharing data. We hope

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that the research we publish will hold power structures accountable and instigate change whenever necessary.

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Talia and I are both art historians. And we are dedicated to being historians of African art who study sight and expand on the work of African artists and critics who use their practices and writing to speak back to power. through them. We have learned that if we want to see change truly happen, we must recognize the racist colonialist and Neo colonial is structures that shape our lives. And we must also dedicate ourselves to dismantling them. We stand in solidarity with the urgent call of black lives matter in the face of the United States in trench this systemic racism undergirded by rights white supremacy, as a journal based at UCLA, a gland grant institution, we also acknowledge the gabrielino Tongva peoples as the as the traditional land caretakers of the Tov ongar, which is the Los Angeles Basin and the South Channel Islands as we call them, as events unfold in Nigeria related to widespread and grassroots and SARS protests, with mahamudra cries the oppressive and violent tactics with which the Nigerian state has responded to the protests, and stands in solidarity with all Nigerians fighting against political corruption and police brutality. We want to particularly send our thoughts and support to our Nigerian friends and colleagues.

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Before we get started with our symposium, we want to thank for the following people for all

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the help that they provided us with planning and organizing and implementing this symposium. It has truly been a group effort and we could not have done it without the help of numerous people.

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First those in the African Study Center particularly director Andrew after Erica Anjum, Sheila breeding and Eva Howard, we could not have organized this symposium without their support. We also extend our thanks to Professor neilan Kwan and the Department of Art History for their scope co sponsorship of this symposium. We are lucky lucky that we are able to work with an incredible editorial team. We thank them all for their continued dedication to the journal and we especially thank Lucas avidyne degenhart Brown and Eva has for organizing our keynote lecture, our panel discussion and our roundtable discussion. We also want to thank all of our panelists and roundtable participants, we look forward to what is sure to be a live lively and insightful discussions about your research and contract contributions to for hongmoon. We are especially thrilled to welcome Dr. saundra Hale professor emeritus of anthropology and Gender Studies at UCLA and a scholar of Sudanese studies, who co founded hufa hombu in 1970. And as part of the roundtable, hufa hongyu at 50. And we thank her for her participation. We also think our keynote speaker, Dr. Mahmoud mom, Donny for being here today. As a scholarship has often pushed African Studies in new directions. We are very much looking forward to his lecture to begin in just a few minutes. Lastly, and certainly not least, we want to thank the AI team IT team at the International Center, Alex Xu, Leo Duarte and Oliver Chen, without their technical expertise, help and patience as Talia and I learned how to navigate zoom webinars formats for the first time, this symposium could not have been possible.

Unknown Speaker 7:02

In just a few organizational notes for this online format. Please note that this symposium is being recorded. We'll keep the chat feature open before and after the keynote the pen on the roundtable during all of the breaks so that participants can send messages to everyone. We want to see who's here and where you're from.

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It will use the q&a feature for asking questions of our speakers. Please, if you haven't done so already, dude, type your name in the chat.

Unknown Speaker 7:31

And let us know who you are. And we imagine that at some point during the symposium will experience technical difficulties or delays please bear with us we hope to stay on track with the schedule. But we appreciate your patience as we too are navigating this platform. We will share our program schedule throughout the day and we'll try to send out notifications via email regarding any timing updates, and when different components begin. If you don't do do so already, please follow us on social media or on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. The schedule is posted on our event website. Our symposium consists of three parts at 9am PST, we'll have a keynote lecture by Dr. Mahmood mamdani very soon, followed by a question and answer session which will be moderated by our books review editor Lucas at 11am. The symposium will take place with our panelists Turner, Otto neto temitope iF agunah and Kevin tarbela. You can watch their pre recorded presentations on our event website or on the YouTube links that were also included in your recent reminder emails. And part three is a roundtable discussion which will begin at 1pm. With our editorial alumni and contributors to FAMU we hope that you'll stay for the full program but if you cannot, please feel free to come and go as you can. The program on my notes when scheduled breaks will occur so that we can all avoid a full zoom fatigue, and but we'll try to keep our best to keep the times as planned.

Unknown Speaker 9:02

All right now we are pleased to have Professor Andrew Apter from the department's of anthropology and art history at UCLA and the director of African Studies to open up our symposium. We are extremely grateful for his support of the journal and of this virtual symposium.

Unknown Speaker 9:25

Well, thank you very much. Both of you. So Rebecca Talia, and welcome everybody.

Unknown Speaker 9:32

This is a very big for humble family in a very big African Studies family that's joined on. And I particularly want to shout out to my own brothers and sisters in Nigeria, who are joining us. And also to shout out not only are we worried about the N SARS movement in Nigeria, we're also worried about

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President Trump's reckless language pertaining to the evolving conflict.

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Between Ethiopia and Egypt over the dam. And let's just say that as

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the work of the African activist Association, and of Hama continues, we still have a lot of work to do. We have a lot of work to do in the United States of America, not only in relation to the ongoing

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institutionalized racism and violence against people of color in this country, but also to the erosion of democracy. And I've been working in Nigeria and in Africa long enough to know that

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we have a long history of the United States has a long history of trying to teach democracy abroad and trying to evaluate leadership and evaluate and monitor elections. And we need a lot of help in this country. Right now we've we've gone down a very serious rabbit hole, and hopefully we can claw our way out. But it's a it's a very crucial moment right now. So what I'm trying to say is that the mission of vamo is, couldn't be more relevant and striking. I won't take a lot of time I'm I'm absolutely thrilled that Professor Mahmood mamdani, has agreed to be the keynote speaker today. It's a tribute to the African activist Association. And it's a tribute to the Bahama

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editors. And it's a tribute to Professor mamdani that he would,

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of course, he's published in the journal in the past, so he's no stranger to it. But to do this, and he happens to be one of my favorite scholars of Africa, always provocative and he's taken the Macquarie Institute of, of social and

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sorry, Meister of economic research to an in new directions that are most welcome. These days, when everybody lies down to the neoliberal consulting paradigms. I won't speak long because we need to hear from him and get the conference going. But I just wanted to pay tribute and a shout out to the two co founders of Bahama.

Unknown Speaker 12:08

We've already

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recognize Sandra Hale, but I just want to say that she's an anthropologist extraordinare, who really

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developed new horizons in women's studies and feminist anthropology,

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and Sudanese and Middle Eastern Studies. She also founded California scholars for academic freedom, and received a scholarly Achievement Award for Middle East Women's Studies a lifetime of scholarly Achievement Award. My point being simply that here is the embodiment of what so many of us are trying to do, which is to really fuse our scholarship, with with the ethical engagement with the world of political engagement. I also want to shout out to the late and lamented to show me Gabrielle, who was a friend, friend of many of us who were here before his untimely death in 2010. And he was a giant in film studies. His degree was in theater and theater, film and television has degrees.

Unknown Speaker 13:09

And he pioneered really the, the theory of third world cinema and he, he himself came up with the concept of cinema, developed in two of his books, third cinema in the third world, the aesthetics of liberation, and third cinema explorations of nomadic aesthetics and narrative communities. So one can tell just from the titles, the, again, the the fusion of, of intellect and activism that that is a model for all of us. So, welcome again. I'll say no more because I think we have a long day ahead of us and you really don't need to hear from me but I'm delighted that this community online as it is so robust, I see 56 participants now and I'm sure the numbers will grow.

Unknown Speaker 13:59

Thank you for attending and we will take it to the next step. I'm not sure where is it Lucas who takes over now I'm not sure. Thank you for this chapter. And now we'll call upon our books review editor Lucas avedon, a PhD student in the Department of ethnomusicology so that he can introduce our keynote speaker.

Unknown Speaker 14:21

All right, Hello, everyone. I'm a promise. This is the last speaker before we get to our keynote.

Unknown Speaker 14:27

Hi, everyone, and thank you for attending our talk this morning. As previously mentioned, my name is Luke sabaton. And I'm one of the book reviews editor at FAMU

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our keynote speaker today is a renowned scholar and Professor of African history and politics. He received his PhD from Harvard University in 1974, and is the author of several foundational texts in African Studies including citizen and subject contemporary Africa and the legacy of late colonialism. When victims become killers colonialism and nativism and genocide in Rwanda.

Unknown Speaker 15:00

Good Muslim bad Muslim America the Cold War and the roots of terror is held professorships throughout the African continent, including at the University of dar Salaam, Macquarie University and the University of Capetown. Currently he teaches at Columbia University and is the 20th, Director of Macquarie Institute of Social Research in Kampala. Its forthcoming book, neither settler nor native the making and unmaking of permanent minorities examines the relationship between colonialism and the nation state, arguing that these institutions have been mutually constructed throughout history. His talk today is titled what can we learn from South Africa's 1994 transition? Please join me in giving a warm welcome to Professor Mahmood mamdani

Unknown Speaker 15:43

Hi, good evening. Good afternoon. Good morning. I know we're all in in different time zones. our attendees panelists and whoever is joining us today from different parts of the world. On behalf of Oklahoma's African Studies Journal editorial team, I would like to welcome you and thank you for joining us in our celebration of Obama's 50th anniversary. My name is Ania Hasnawi. I'm going to be one of your co host and co moderator today. And joined by my dear colleague degenhart Brown and our fellow panelists and attendees. I'll be introducing myself and everyone in a minute. As I'm a fourth year PhD at UCLA in the department of work arts and culture slash dance, and editor eufa hamo. My research explores trends in use music healing practices in Tunisia, I look at how practitioners navigate and negotiate the socio economic and political changes after the 2011 revolution while they perform in sacred and secular spaces. And as for degenhart, he's also a fourth year PhD student in the same department or arts and cultural slash dance. And he's an editor also at Oklahoma. His research explores the confluence of globalization, medical pluralism, and material religion and contemporary Federal Republic of Benin. And our panelists, we have Turner adore tomato and please correct me if I miss pronounce your name by

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any means. So he's a graduate of Ohio State University's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. His research focuses on engine energy transformation in Arusha, Tanzania and Columbus, Ohio, and on the ways in which ordinary people shape energy landscapes along their own energy trajectories. His PayPal is entitled experimentation and willful humble and solar possibilities. Kevin thiruvalla, Associate curator of African art and department, head of the arts of Africa, the Americas, Asia, and the Pacific Island at the Baltimore Museum of Art, although his job is a broad one, his personal research research focuses on the relationship between colonialism, climate change and artistic form. In Turkana country. Kenya is presented on his exhibition entitled A perfect power motherhood and African art accompanied by the short commissioned article about the exhibition that he will be that will be appearing in the winter edition of tribal art magazine. And last but not least, Tim topi fragua, an academic economic historian in the Department of History and International Studies at OSU and State University was Obu. Nigeria is in the last phase of his PhD in his research, with specialization on the colonial economy of Legos, Visa V, the historicity of African Brazilian returnees. And without further ado, and leave the first question to be asked by my dear colleague degenhart. Thank you, I made a good morning to you all, and felicitations to everyone. This is quite a momentous occasion, particularly given the multi layered chaos that is engulfing

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the this planet at this time. Thank you all for coming.

Unknown Speaker 19:00

Our first question goes to Kevin because I understand that he has to leave at noon on the.so.

Unknown Speaker 19:07

I have a question for myself and one for my Mita I'll start with me this question because it it touches on both on issues that we're both interested in. So I mean, I asked, I was interested by the notion that the patriarchal views of African societies were an import of Western colonialism. I was wondering with the aid of several African feminist perspectives and theories, you're brought up in your presentation, how the African matriarchy that can be viewed through these objects in this case, headdresses, conveying motherhood, etc, can effectively push against the influence of Western colonialism, and also its legacy in the West and in western museums.

Unknown Speaker 19:52

Yeah, but that's a great question. And thank you Amira, for really digging in and thinking about it. That's, you know, I think this is

Unknown Speaker 20:00

This is exactly what we wanted the visitors to the exhibition to think about and to start thinking about, you know, as I explained in the presentation, this is an exhibition that is part of a slate of programming devoted to sort of, you know, it's 100 year anniversary of the women's enfranchisement in the United States. And so across Museum, their exhibitions, exploring the relationship between women are women's art, and women artists, and power and subjectivity and all sorts of things like that. And so I think, you know, when we think about,

Unknown Speaker 20:30

you know, what I wanted this exhibition to do, and by bringing in these African feminist theories, in these African gender theorists, that I that I spoke about in the presentation is really show that there are alternate possibilities. You know, I think when we think about things, the ways that things are framed in the West and the things, the ways that we we sort of think about the representation of women and women's role in Western art history, it is through this lens of frequently through this lens of disempowerment through this lens of misogyny through this lens of, you know, something that needs to be overcome through this lens of patriarchy. And I think what, you know, the artworks in this exhibition do and the work that, you know, I think African gender theorists like, oh, you're okay, oh, you will, may have have done and many others. She's not, she's the one that worked on this project with me. So I mentioned in her but there are plenty of them.

Unknown Speaker 21:19

Really is, is showcased that, you know, you don't have to sort of create something out of thin air, you can there, there are alternative models that exist in the world for, I think ways of restructuring power relationships, and all you need to do is just look elsewhere. And so I think that's really what this exhibition is trying to do. And I, you know, I think

Unknown Speaker 21:43

by embracing, you know, by embracing that we I think it's easier to push against, I think, Euro American, patriarchy, Euro American, I think conceptions of power, which I think are relatively limited in terms of, you know, their ability, their sort of liberatory potential.

Unknown Speaker 22:05

Right. Thank you. And my question is somewhat related. So I'll follow up with that. I was curious, throughout this presentation, how this sections for the exhibition were conceived.

Unknown Speaker 22:20

I asked this because I noticed that at one point on one of the slides, the image selected to represent traditional qualities

Unknown Speaker 22:30

of mother power, was a Janis faced headdress, adorned with a figurine wearing what appear to be a pith helmet. And so given these explicit manifestations of syncretic artistic practice, how is the museum defining traditional? And how are these terms chosen? Yeah, so that's a that's a great series of questions. I'll start off by talking about sort of the ways in which these sort of section the big, the big sections, sort of the signs of mother power qualities of mother power and working mother power. And then sort of the other subsections that I pulled out in the presentation came about, as I as I mentioned in the presentation, the work on the exhibition was created by a curatorial team that involved sort of neat sort of coordinating efforts, but also, you know, working with African, like, oh, you're okay, are you with me, but also with a class of students at Johns Hopkins University of drawing from undergraduates across the greater Baltimore area. And so, you know, these these sections were developed, really, by the students, I mean, working with sort of the rest of the curatorial team. But you know, I think as folks coming into this, you know, as undergraduate as people who, you know, aren't scholars who aren't, but are sort of addressing and putting themselves in the role of what we like to think of who our museum visitors are this idea of an interested outsider. So that sort of layering of here's what you see, here's what it means. Here's the work it does really comes from them. And I want to I want to credit the five undergraduates, who really, who really came up with it, who really came up with this in terms of your question about, you know, this, the claim that we're making are sort of bringing to light I, you know, I don't think that this is particularly original, the idea that mother power this, the sort of, you know, what, what, for the matter of potency, that that, you know, I think folks have is grounded in is grounded in traditional moral and traditional values. We're thinking it's not necessarily that the artwork is is traditional and traditional. But I think that it is,

Unknown Speaker 24:36

it is channeling the authority of mothers are channeled. They're channeling something that is grounded in the past. You know, it's an authority that is linked to ancestry, it's linked tradition, tradition, it's linked to community morals, which are grounded in sort of a long duration of time. And when you're looking at that really wonderful Janice faced helmet mask, the reason that we highlighted it is so there are four things

Unknown Speaker 25:00

On top of the Janice faced helmet master to Colonial figures that are on the left and on the right, but the figure that you see basing on that image is the image of a woman that so we think this is probably an ej GM or Kelly headdress, we're not entirely sure. But out of all of these four figures, the hairstyle that she's wearing, the clothing that she's wearing, is much more. You know, I always hesitate to use the word traditional and African Studies, but it is much more traditional than the other figures that you see on that helmet. And so when we're thinking about how women are being represented, how mothers are being represented, they're being represented in a lot of these artworks in ways that that are linked to sort of long standing practices of dress, long standing practices of decorating one's body long standing practices of just presenting oneself in the world.

Unknown Speaker 25:49

And so I think, you know, this is what we've tried to do with the show is it's is say that, you know, this is a historic show, we it's bounded in time, we know that these things were around between the time period that we're talking about the late 18th century and sort of the early to middle part of the 20th century. But you know, it's not sort of dislike anthropological present, where this is how it's always been from all time across all of space. But this was a reality at this particular point in time.

Unknown Speaker 26:19

Thank you so much.

Unknown Speaker 26:21

I do we have istemi. Top is Tim told joined us.

Unknown Speaker 26:29

Yes, but I can't figure out how to add him to the gallery. So. Okay, well, we'll we'll turn to turn on Neto. Then

Unknown Speaker 26:37

while you do that, I mean, I would you like to ask him your question, or I can continue

Unknown Speaker 26:46

it one minute, let me try to unpinned.

Unknown Speaker 26:50

Okay, go ahead. Great. Um, either I can just go ahead and ask my question, or Yeah, please. Um, so regarding the efforts of African thinkers who propose developing a solar industry by, as you said, synthesizing the low tech, and as you mentioned, capabilities of rural African communities and the high tech capabilities of African scientists and researchers, I was wondering if postcolonial car structures will help or hinder, in your opinion, the success of these initiatives and the implicit and explicit voluntary and non voluntary financial bonds that may African countries have to their former colonizers. And I have to admit that when I was looking at this question, and I was thinking about this, the first thing that came to my mind was the Francophonie and immediately that came to my mind, but I know you're you're specialized in a specific, you know, geographical location, and more of the Anglophone side of it, not the Francophone, but I was thinking about that. So yeah, thank you so much for the question. And I have to acknowledge, do my due diligence and acknowledge a colleague of mine, Dr. Darren simonia, who last I checked was it with and he introduced me to the physicist whose quote, I paraphrased, a physicist is Abdul mamani of musea Republic. And he said something about synthesizing the low tech capabilities for rural African communities with the high tech capabilities of African scientists as a source of future for solar innovation.

Unknown Speaker 28:27

And I wanted to digress a little bit and say that, you know, I don't necessarily agree with the framing of the low tech, I think it

Unknown Speaker 28:36

I think it's important to keep in mind something that historian and sts scholar Clapton, Malanga said

Unknown Speaker 28:43

that the nature of technology is is up for debate and up for grabs. And in many ways, he points to ontologies of technology. And technology is a very broad means of accomplishing specific projects on your own.

Unknown Speaker 29:03

And when you look at technology from that angle, you can see something like the cow, as this is a incredibly dynamic technology, as I suggest,

Unknown Speaker 29:15

in my presentation, it's locally controlled, locally qualified and utilized in line with different types of valuations, communal valuations, valuations of energy

Unknown Speaker 29:30

to perform a few different tasks, converting variations and ecosystems,

Unknown Speaker 29:37

converting social and economic forms

Unknown Speaker 29:42

to kind of exist within something that Kevin said kind of that long durational approach in this case to technology

Unknown Speaker 29:52

given that, I think the answer to your question on

Unknown Speaker 29:58

if post colonial power

Unknown Speaker 30:00

power structures will help or hinder the success of, of these sorts of initiatives. I think the answers is really complex or rather, my research presents a complex picture. It's no question that colonial projects have disrupted technological and scientific undertakings. There were already going on, often in extremely violent ways. But I still think we should consider what ordinary people are doing with and through those structures, especially at the grassroots level.

Unknown Speaker 30:36

Put differently, how have people enacted forms of endurance, and experimentation, despite these structures, and that's kind of like the that's kind of the approach I take.

Unknown Speaker 30:48

In regards to solar innovation. People aren't merely receptacles, or on the receiving end of for exogenous sensibilities, but they actually interact with post colonial power structures, and many times, on their own terms, with their own values and with their own goals. And I might continue a little bit if you allow with some anecdotal evidence,

Unknown Speaker 31:13

I have a friend who attends urrutia Technical College, formerly administered by a German board. And so

Unknown Speaker 31:26

formal education might be considered, you know, a type of post colonial structure

Unknown Speaker 31:32

that adheres to the values of the system in which education was developed.

Unknown Speaker 31:39

And they certainly present a lot of high tech capabilities. But my friend, shed rack has kind of,

Unknown Speaker 31:48

you know, merged the teachings and the values of his home community with the resources and opportunities presented at a place like urrutia Technical College. Specifically, he invented a way to

Unknown Speaker 32:01

operate an electric switch remotely, using the telecommunications infrastructure around him.

Unknown Speaker 32:10

And he markets his technology for farmers, people engaged in animal husbandry, a range of tasks that aren't necessarily high tech, as do Mooney may have seen them.

Unknown Speaker 32:26

But that can be integrated through a technological system that that certainly does exist in that sense. And you can kind of imagine, at least I like to imagine how local knowledge values, languages can permeate that sort of infrastructure, in some pretty interesting ways, even the history of solar energy, and that I don't quite touch on in my presentation in Messiah communities that is

Unknown Speaker 32:58

emerged out of an embrace of risk risks of losing touch with pastoralists knowledge, traditional values. When students from rural Messiah areas went to achieve,

Unknown Speaker 33:14

or went to enroll in degree granting programs and formal education in the cities, they encountered solar technologies and said, Hey, actually, this stuff can be used back home to do some pretty interesting stuff.

Unknown Speaker 33:28

So yeah, that's, that's my way of kind of drawing attention to the clump complex ways that ordinary people along their own trajectories, encounter post colonial power structures, sometimes in unexpected ways, and oftentimes in line with their own values and sensibilities.

Unknown Speaker 33:48

Thank you. That was great. I really appreciate the approach you took to it in terms of the I I kept thinking of the mundane, the everyday, and how power structures are already set in place by how people navigate them, and like through local knowledge and how they can find alternatives. Just to go back to what Kevin was saying earlier, even like the whole curating process by people who not necessarily are scholars, and not necessarily are in the field, like a museum studies, but the possibilities of coming up with other ways of viewing things. I think that's really important to see that and to implement that. Yeah, absolutely. I might draw attention momentarily to the other case study I presented in my presentation, the energy Safari,

Unknown Speaker 34:40

you know, just as an alternative, you know, that's an example of a

Unknown Speaker 34:45

of a violent post colonial power structure that's disenfranchising

Unknown Speaker 34:51

local people and technological solutions. So there's there's definitely two sides but

Unknown Speaker 34:58

but I think there's a lot of room

Unknown Speaker 35:00

For interesting analysis as you as you point out,

Unknown Speaker 35:03

totally. Well, thank you. I appreciate it. Turner degenhart, do you want to go ahead and ask I think Tim topi is finally here with us. Welcome. Do you want to go ahead and ask a question or? Yeah, I think in terms of time constraints, which move to the professor, five minutes question.

Unknown Speaker 35:23

Turner, thank you very much. I thought this was a very compelling piece of work. And it definitely obviously engendered interesting conversations and conversations to come.

Unknown Speaker 35:35

So professor, if I wonder this is a question for you, and this is a question that I mean, and I kind of

Unknown Speaker 35:41

drafted simultaneously we both have similar interests in terms of your presentation.

Unknown Speaker 35:47

So your presentation is argued that the field of African Studies will have to expand its frontiers to other fields in the sciences, in order to concretely establish a pan African emancipatory scholarship, what you turn the P is crucial to this endeavor, as you point out in your conclusion,

Unknown Speaker 36:07

is a shift in the methodological approach of African scholarship from a foreign focus to a local one.

Unknown Speaker 36:15

Given this methodological approach, and the challenges that it presents, I was wondering how you would seek to mitigate or analyze or

Unknown Speaker 36:26

kind of engage,

Unknown Speaker 36:30

the decolonization of the mind is put forth by inky whitianga. And, and or the second order Orientalism, as introduced by Edward Sayid, where in both Western and non Western scholars are bound to contribute to the Eurocentric and provincialism discourses of the West, by default of receiving a Western structured university education.

Unknown Speaker 37:05

Yes, can you hear me? Yes. Um, Greetings to everyone. My sincere apologies.

Unknown Speaker 37:12

I would have loved to have my video. But unfortunately, it's extremely late down here.

Unknown Speaker 37:18

I'm speaking from Lagos, Nigeria, aside from the fact that the Nigerian state for some weeks now, the imposed a curfew, they've also you know, seek them past apply for past few days now. So I'm extremely sorry for the absence of video. And thank you, thank you brown for the question. And I think the question is extremely important. Me understanding the fact that post colonial African states or the reality of post colonial African institution is such that

Unknown Speaker 37:52

in spite of the fact that we have, you know, African professors, we have African doctorate degree holders of what's our view in our academy, but the point still remains that these professors digs doctors, you know, in our classrooms, you know, this pure Eurocentric, ideal ideas, no,

Unknown Speaker 38:13

you know, ideas that ordinarily, you wouldn't have expected an African, you know, scholar to speak in the classroom. But he does choose those who, you know, the institutionalization of,

Unknown Speaker 38:24

you know, of, you know, Eurocentric ideas within our academia. And I think, I mean, this is important for us to discuss. But I think also that the point I was making, you know, is that, for us, you know, that I'm interested in rebuilding or reframing

Unknown Speaker 38:45

for African Studies seems to be today, we cannot shy away from the need to decolonize the field. Because no matter how much you talk about it, there are still some aspects of African Studies that we must necessarily decriminalize it's methodologies. You know, it approaches, its epistemologies. I mean, these are issues that confront us within the field of history. We have enormous, you know, aspects of African Studies, or the field of history that are yet to be deconstructed or decolonized. The approaches sometimes, you know, speaking from what I know, of the African Academy, you know, the approaches sometimes aren't so different from what you would get in any, you know, any Eurocentric class. And I think this is not,

Unknown Speaker 39:34

this is not what we need at this point in time. Um, the point is, I'm not advocating for iluka based, you know,

Unknown Speaker 39:43

African Studies or an idea that, you know, I want the study of African Studies should be localized. No, I think we must blend our experiences, what I'm advocating for drawing inspiration from what scholarship means from the works of people.

Unknown Speaker 40:00

Like, you know, Professor Amos Wilson, you know what said that scholarship is about the survival of a group of people, you know, regardless of what you put it,

Unknown Speaker 40:09

I am advocating for halls, were generally interested in the field of African Studies, for us to have the ability and the capacity to use our studies as a unifying force. within this context, it has nothing to do with continental Africans, it has nothing to do with diaspora and Africans, no big scale, it has nothing to do with no region specifically, you know, it has to do with the social realities and conditions that face or confront Global African people. So within this context, I am not really saying that, you know, our understanding of African Studies must or should be inspired only from the experiences of continental Africans or for or from the methodologies that might probably be inspired by African based Africa based scholars. You know, because we know that knowledge, you know, has no, there is no bound to knowledge, you know, you cannot localize knowledge, knowledge should be global. But I'm saying that the purpose of African Studies must no really go beyond an academic endeavor, it must really go beyond, you know, the need for us to pass our exams, they need for us to be awarded a certificate they need for us to be issued our doctorate degrees or master's degrees, no, because there's a disconnect

Unknown Speaker 41:39

musli went up, let me for his dance, you know, on the African continent, there is a disconnect between the Timmy population on the streets

Unknown Speaker 41:49

and the academic. And this is quite unfortunate, because there is also a disconnect.

Unknown Speaker 41:58

Tell me Tell me, we lost you for a minute.

Unknown Speaker 42:21

Thought we've lost you.

Unknown Speaker 42:26

We'd like to try to reconnect.

Unknown Speaker 42:39

Hello, yes. I'm back.

Unknown Speaker 42:43

That's okay. You know, there for instance, like I was saying there is a disconnect between academics on the continent and the Timmy population on the academics do not think they Indian analysis, India, you know, India

Unknown Speaker 42:57

academic walks and your theses in their dissertations, you know, that they have to document the social realities and conditions of the people. So, for instance, you have an African scholar, for instance, you know, examining, you know, the, the economic development and growth of Lagos, on instance, colonial legal solicitors, and that's color, with the title of this chapter ization would ignore are the economic growth of Legos as affected or impacted on the living condition of the people. On the other hand, the scholar would examine how foreign companies are teaching us companies are the, you know, expanded at the margin over the decades, you know, so the point I'm making is that for us to be able to build an African Studies which the ordinary African person would be able to relate to the reason I wrote just the four rows, you know, what, generally, again, what generally interested in, you know, the field of African Studies to be able to connect our scholarship, our novices, you know, with the basic realities, or conditions or faces The Global African people. Without these, I don't think we'll be able to build

Unknown Speaker 44:14

an African Studies that take an ideal check 30 of the grid, Senegalese historian at the empty seat, because check that Yoda said that number one, Global African scholars cannot and it is different note that immediately not localized African Studies. Yes, most people you know, check at that point. Now, we must borrow from other people, monster expert knowledge, we must, you know, extract knowledge from whatever experience from whatever group What have you got this final analysis, which is very important, he said that for Spanner

Unknown Speaker 45:04

Let me copy. I think we've lost you again. Are you there?

Unknown Speaker 45:16

Okay, we're gonna shift to the question and answer section just for the interest of time. But thank you very much for your for your answer for us if I went, Oh, that was great. Um, I'm going to check now the q&a section. See what we have.

Unknown Speaker 45:37

So this is a question

Unknown Speaker 45:43

for this is a question for Turner. Other network from Turner. Veteran. So

Unknown Speaker 45:52

from me, I think that was from Turner to Jimmy tofi, I believe. back. Okay, there we have it. We have a question for you from Turner Neto.

Unknown Speaker 46:05

Okay. Questions. I could ask one.

Unknown Speaker 46:10

Go ahead.

Unknown Speaker 46:12

Sure. Well,

Unknown Speaker 46:15

I'm wondering.

Unknown Speaker 46:18

So Well, actually, Degenhardt, I prepared this question in response to a question that you were going to ask me about my use of the term imaginaries. Mm hmm. I'm not sure if that's still in the program.

Unknown Speaker 46:33

But I think it's a great point of

Unknown Speaker 46:36

contention between my work and professor for boomless work. We'll turn our Look, let me let me tell the question to everyone so that there's some context there. And then you can answer. Okay, thank you. So I asked Turner.

Unknown Speaker 46:51

Throughout his presentation, he uses this poly semantic term imaginaries, which I thought did a lot of

Unknown Speaker 46:59

the heavy lifting in his analysis, but was never in his analysis specifically on my say, in western technology practices, but was never really elaborated or spelled out for the for the audience. So I asked him if you could elaborate on what he means specifically when using the term imaginaries. In either or both Western and Maasai contexts.

Unknown Speaker 47:22

Yeah, this is super central to my, to my work. So thanks for identifying that shortcoming. So really, I'm borrowing it. from two science and technology studies scholars, Sheila jasanoff, and Seung Hoon Kim,

Unknown Speaker 47:42

who coined the term socio technical imaginaries to identify how science and technology are implicated in the production of visions for good and attainable futures. And in my work, I apply it broadly, to describe the processes by which solar energy projects are both conceived and implemented.

Unknown Speaker 48:10

And imaginaries are really closely related to another term, identify my production, called co production are another term identified in my presentation, the CO production of Science, Technology and Society, whereby a science and technology is developed,

Unknown Speaker 48:34

in ways can measure with the views and concerns of society, but then also go on to influence society.

Unknown Speaker 48:41

And I felt that imaginaries

Unknown Speaker 48:44

served as a kind of balancing force in an analysis of technological projects.

Unknown Speaker 48:53

That's to say that any group, regardless of size or scope, can generate socio technical imaginaries.

Unknown Speaker 49:02

As long as they have values and goals for the future, which we know most everyone does. And so imaginaries is the basis of my analysis of solar energy,

Unknown Speaker 49:14

less, less concerned with the technologies themselves and the effects of the technology. But why specific configurations of solar energy are deployed at specific times, and why?

Unknown Speaker 49:29

And this was a powerful way I think, to respond to energy discourse at the national and international levels, especially where my side participation in energy development

Unknown Speaker 49:41

is relegated to a sort of narrative of incorporation or abandonment of ways.

Unknown Speaker 49:50

Rather, I wanted to present or attempt to present

Unknown Speaker 49:55

Messiah imaginaries of solar energy futures to kind of unsettled the

Unknown Speaker 50:00

assumptions about investments in

Unknown Speaker 50:04

solar technologies.

Unknown Speaker 50:07

And this is, this is where I wanted to relate it to Professor boomless work.

Unknown Speaker 50:16

You know, the real, the real shortcoming

Unknown Speaker 50:22

in my analysis

Unknown Speaker 50:25

is that?

Unknown Speaker 50:27

Well, first, I'm deploying an external concept as a lens with which

Unknown Speaker 50:34

to organize evidence concerning solar energy development, technological histories, and technological trajectories. But also, although I conducted my interviews in Swahili,

Unknown Speaker 50:51

when I was interacting with my Messiah interlocutors, we're both using second languages.

Unknown Speaker 50:59

I'm not a linguist. And

Unknown Speaker 51:02

I find myself thinking about these processes of translation all the time.

Unknown Speaker 51:08

But what does it mean to apply an externally generated concept

Unknown Speaker 51:14

to evidence that you've garnered through multiple translations?

Unknown Speaker 51:21

And so here, I think Dr. figmas work is, is extremely helpful.

Unknown Speaker 51:28

Because

Unknown Speaker 51:32

although

Unknown Speaker 51:34

we're trying to connect scholarship with the realities of of African people on the ground,

Unknown Speaker 51:40

but there are perspectives and analyses that, in my opinion, are rendered impossible through the, through the English language, or through the conceptual tools of Western academics. And this is something that historian and sts scholar Clapton, Malanga identifies, on in his work,

Unknown Speaker 52:02

the history of science and technology in Africa. And he goes as far as to say, you know, African Studies should abandon decolonization, the term decolonization because Layton in that term is a colonial reference, and rather, scholarship, focus on re African ization or languages, knowledges and perspectives of Africans, and form

Unknown Speaker 52:28

the analytical substance.

Unknown Speaker 52:33

Thank you. I'm wondering if Kevin, do you have anything to add to this, particularly in terms of

Unknown Speaker 52:40

the kind of innate colonialism to the English language and how,

Unknown Speaker 52:46

how these can be mitigated or transiting to transcend it in a museum space?

Unknown Speaker 52:54

Yeah, I mean, I think this is something that we're grappling with right now. I mean, I think the very best types of artworks that we see in museums where they come from, you know, the types of things that are valued come out of a colonial mentality and come out of a colonial space. I mean, the the act of collecting is in and of itself, quote, like a euro American colonial project. And so I think, while there are both, there are there's real potential, I think, within public spaces, like museums and spaces that bring different folks together, to sort of learn and experience about the world learn and experience the world, I think.

Unknown Speaker 53:35

Sometimes I think it is, it is harder in some ways than I would say, traditional academic scholarship to do so because I think you are you are, you are dealing with

Unknown Speaker 53:45

the limitations that are imposed by financial structures that make museums operate in the ways that, you know, they do today, you're you're dealing with,

Unknown Speaker 53:55

you know, you're dealing with the reality of, you know, the works that are preserved, you know, were decided to be preserved largely by white Europeans and white Americans. And so I think there's a lot of work right now in the museum field across the board to

Unknown Speaker 54:12

basically dismantle all of that. And I think we are we as a field are moving much more towards, you know, what I really tried to ground this exhibition project in, which is the idea it's not just, you know, one person deciding what the narrative is. It's a it's a group of people. It's a community endeavor. It's an endeavor that stretches across continents and across generations, and in which narratives are built collectively.

Unknown Speaker 54:40

You know, those narratives, you know, in an art museum need to be linked to objects. And, you know, we have to, we're going to come up, we're going to come up against some of those things. But yeah, I mean, I think it's, you know, I think the the provocations of you know, I think professor of law and you know, what Turner you've been talking about, I think are they're really generative, and I think

Unknown Speaker 55:00

Like, like if a hammer and, you know, African Studies, has been pushing museums, I think particularly of late, but I think for a very long time to sort of think about how we can how we can change the colonial impulses. But you know, it's a, it's a problem. And it's going to take, I think generations to undo.

Unknown Speaker 55:24

Thank you. Okay, we're gonna switch now and take questions from the audience. So that's what the prior section, if you would like to just type in any questions you have into the q&a box, we can take a few minutes to wait for questions to come in.

Unknown Speaker 55:40

Thank you, all St. panelists for your, for your insight.

Unknown Speaker 55:47

Thank you for your great inputs, all of you that that was great. And I still have a lot of questions, but I'll leave space for our audience members to do it.

Unknown Speaker 56:03

Well, I mean, maybe we'd like to ask something while we wait for questions to come in. Sure. I mean, it was not really a question, but rather a comment, I really appreciate grappling with the term decolonization. Right? Because the question becomes, what form of decolonization if we ever use the term what it means? And we're decolonizing? What from what are from who? And who would benefit from this whole process of actually grappling with the term and I really appreciate both of and even including

Unknown Speaker 56:36

Professor fragua, his approach to it as well. And I think a lot of your work overlaps. And I think, you know, you cannot really talk about museums without talking about decolonization, I think they just go hand in hand, as someone who grew up with a very complex relationship with museums myself, and drinking museum space was never easy for me, especially going to the US and, and, and studying in the US and being part of a US institution. It's different from going into museum here. And over the past few years have been, you know, grappling with what it what it means to be in a museum and gazing upon objects and thinking about the whole curation process and what it involves. And I totally agree, it is not I believe, it's not a question that would be answered, like simply or, like right now, I think it would definitely be a practice that would take generation. But what's really reassuring that talks and

Unknown Speaker 57:36

research and such conversations are happening right now. And I do believe, as we have a question coming in, but just to finish the thought, as complicated as it is, I think such hard circumstances that we're all facing right now is making us rethink spaces, even more than ever before. So yeah, thank you. Would you like to read the question Degenhardt? Sir? This is from Liu motivo. And they asked, How can we orient African Studies to pay more attention to contemporary issues in Africa, Eg policing, urbanization, agricultural mechanization, etc?

Unknown Speaker 58:19

I guess, Professor phalguna, if you would like to take this, you haven't spoken in a bit, and then we can take the

Unknown Speaker 58:28

opinions of the other panelists.

Unknown Speaker 58:32

Thank you very much. And apologies for the in and out.

Unknown Speaker 58:37

First of all, we have to contend with, I think that the question is also part of why we must constantly have discussions of this nature, you know, because, for instance, where I come from the field where I come from history, more often than not, we have restricted ourselves to not so contemporary issues. I'm saying this because

Unknown Speaker 59:04

I mean, you don't you cannot write your thesis on a contemporary subject. It should you should you should you decide to write a thesis on contemporary subjects on any institution.

Unknown Speaker 59:22

Professor, we've,

Unknown Speaker 59:24

we've lost you again.

Unknown Speaker 59:27

down yet, can we have

Unknown Speaker 59:33

Do we have to be contained to be the question of period that is, it must be more receipt must not be so so resent? You know, before your topic. your research topic will be accepted in the department. But I think this is one of the ways in which we have made ourselves not so relevant. You know, because

Unknown Speaker 1:00:10

Professor sorry, you've cut out again.

Unknown Speaker 1:00:20

She's most, you know, because he has studied as a scholar to come up with prognosis, you know, so

Unknown Speaker 1:00:33

our best can we then consider ourselves to be relevant? You know, the muscle.

Unknown Speaker 1:00:53

Okay, this is quite patchy. But I guess in the meantime,

Unknown Speaker 1:01:04

please post more questions as they come in, maybe turn out what you'd like to take, take the mantle and engage this engage the question? Sure. And

Unknown Speaker 1:01:16

the asker mentions agricultural mechanization, which is tangential to my interest, energy and electrification. And so I think there's a good opportunity here.

Unknown Speaker 1:01:30

And, in what I guess, I have to say,

Unknown Speaker 1:01:35

coming from a science and technology studies background, trained in engineering, is that it was really helpful for me

Unknown Speaker 1:01:45

to look at issues of energy, and even electricity from within the long DeRay of cultural and technological history is something that Kevin pointed out in art, but it allows a re centering

Unknown Speaker 1:02:02

of,

Unknown Speaker 1:02:05

of local modes of being

Unknown Speaker 1:02:10

in projects like agricultural mechanization, solar energy development, that changes the landscape.

Unknown Speaker 1:02:19

And the politics of things like technology.

Unknown Speaker 1:02:23

So often technology is,

Unknown Speaker 1:02:27

is spoken of in along strict directional lines,

Unknown Speaker 1:02:32

and where technology is actually the agent of progress except itself.

Unknown Speaker 1:02:38

But actually, as I pointed out, we find ordinary people configuring and deploying these inbound technologies

Unknown Speaker 1:02:48

in ways that align with

Unknown Speaker 1:02:51

with history and culture, local processes. And so from kind of an engineering point of view, but also to address Ellie's specific question.

Unknown Speaker 1:03:07

I think that there's a balance to be paid between historical analysis

Unknown Speaker 1:03:17

and innovative analysis of, of trends

Unknown Speaker 1:03:22

and processes.

Unknown Speaker 1:03:26

in contemporary times,

Unknown Speaker 1:03:34

yeah, definitely. I think it should be noted to that. The fact that obviously, Professor speaking of technology and the imbalances of power that are inherent to it, the fact that Professor five wouldn't as a Nigerian is having such trouble in connecting,

Unknown Speaker 1:03:51

obviously, technologically with the seminar is a kind of damning indictment of the continued flows of power that dictate

Unknown Speaker 1:03:59

who has access to what technologies and how they benefit certain

Unknown Speaker 1:04:05

certain populations. Okay, we have another question in the q&a box. I mean, would you like to read to take it, literally? Sure. So do you see a space of authority for African Diaspora scholars, between parentheses Africans who have growing up outside of the continent, within the African Studies fields, Visa v continental Africans in regard to colonization efforts? That's a great question.

Unknown Speaker 1:04:31

So I don't know to whom this is being addressed, but I think and you could actually

Unknown Speaker 1:04:40

answer it.

Unknown Speaker 1:04:45

Would you want me to repeat the question or

Unknown Speaker 1:04:56

can offer

Unknown Speaker 1:04:59

a narrow response

Unknown Speaker 1:05:00

I think, to this question,

Unknown Speaker 1:05:04

except I cannot see the question anymore. Oh, it's from my friend.

Unknown Speaker 1:05:11

Anyway, so space of authority for African Diaspora scholars

Unknown Speaker 1:05:17

with an African Studies field.

Unknown Speaker 1:05:20

So something that I've seen in Columbus paying attention to local energy trajectories

Unknown Speaker 1:05:28

is that there are a lot of refugee communities

Unknown Speaker 1:05:35

reorienting

Unknown Speaker 1:05:38

their understandings of place

Unknown Speaker 1:05:42

and difference

Unknown Speaker 1:05:45

through the lens of technological projects. For example, there's a group

Unknown Speaker 1:05:52

of Somalian refugees who are

Unknown Speaker 1:05:56

utilizing a grassroots funding campaign to

Unknown Speaker 1:06:01

enable a solar energy installation in Mogadishu. And so I think that's a really awesome example of how values, experiences perspectives from the continent might travel and embed themselves in organizations,

Unknown Speaker 1:06:22

community relations

Unknown Speaker 1:06:25

and institutions here in the United States.

Unknown Speaker 1:06:31

Thank you, Turner. Kevin, would you have something to? Yeah, I mean, I, you know, I think it's as a you know, as a like, white man, in who's working in an African Studies field, I think it is important to say that I probably not the person who should be answering this question, you know, necessarily, or providing sort of like an authoritative answer, but I do think, you know, I think it is less important to me. And, you know, as somebody my PhD is in African Studies, like, to me,

Unknown Speaker 1:07:02

it is, it matters, who you're listening to, and who you're prioritizing. And I think that should be the focus of everything. And so I think there's, there's room in my view for anyone and everyone in African Studies, I think that's one of the things that I have always found so valuable about being an African Studies departments and working in African Studies as a field is that it is so I think, polyphonic and accepting of everyone. And so I think but the issue that I think we've addressed in that, and everyone just sort of brought up in various different ways, during this really, like very enlightening discussion is the fact that there's a lot of work that needs to be done to prioritize, where knowledge is coming from and how knowledge is being prioritized. And you know, who examining and analyzing our own paths of thought and tracing and thinking through whether or not they are grounded in an African reality or whether or not they're grounded in a reality of sort of Euro America of Euro Americans sort of white supremacy that has dominated I think, a lot of our thinking patterns, certainly in western institutions. So

Unknown Speaker 1:08:10

you know, I think, yeah, I'll leave it there. I do have to unfortunately run off at three but I do want to set our it's through here. I don't it's at the at the hour mark. Um, you know, I do have to run off but I want to say how much I have appreciated being a part of this panel. And thank you to you know, thank you to America. Thank you to degenhart. And to Talia and Rebecca for for putting this all together into Turner. temitope, it has been delightful to interact with you virtually, hopefully in person at some point in the future.

Unknown Speaker 1:08:44

Thank you, Kevin. I can't wait to see the show. Totally. Yeah. Thank you for sharing the great material with us and delightful conversation as well. And we're hoping we stay in touch and connect with you soon.

Unknown Speaker 1:08:58

Have a great rest of your day. Bye.

Unknown Speaker 1:09:02

For now, I do. Would you like to

Unknown Speaker 1:09:06

just Firstly, bro, I'm not a professor yet.

Unknown Speaker 1:09:12

Not a professor yet? No. In fact, I'm yet to hand my doctorate degree. But of course, I mean, I mean, I mean, the last phase of my of my research, I mean, before next May before the end of may still fully issue Hey, my dad, my Syfy a deadly degree.

Unknown Speaker 1:09:30

I think let me just react to the question that was asked. I think anyone any scholar, you know, African, or non African scholar could, you know, contribute enormously to the decolonizing efforts in African Studies. And I think this is extremely important because, for instance, one of my new greatest

Unknown Speaker 1:09:55

fight historians remains embassy devasting you know,

Unknown Speaker 1:10:00

When you look at the entirety of the works of positivism, you would you would actually think that positivism, you know, was an African, you know,

Unknown Speaker 1:10:10

continental African, you wonder not until you Google, you know a name, and then you find out that this actually was actually a white person, do you understand? I'm saying so anyone could contribute to the effort of decolonization of the field of African Studies.

Unknown Speaker 1:10:24

But to be able to do this all through, I mean, look, look, look, take a look at the life or works of the person of positivity, you would observe that there is one thing that remains significant, he spends a great chunk of his lifetime, you know, trying to understand the social realities and conditions of the African people, you know, because this subject is extremely important. You know, you cannot study people without not, you know, going out of your own comfort zone to really understand the realities and conditions. And this explains why Parsi David Buss, lives in Boston for Nissan spent a great chunk of his time, you know, on the continent, you know, putting the people amongst the people, not amongst the African heads of states, not amongst them not by going around, you know, meeting up with the Prime Ministers to the head of the President. No, no, no, no, no, he went to the cereals, you know, and with a cloud jets in mind, you know, rare for a European historian, we are extremely rare, you know, with a clear objective mind and I think these points are extremely important, you know, because I wanted to reach out to, you know, our guest speakers, you know, presentation earlier, but unfortunately, I couldn't, you know, I think this material points in time in our efforts to decolonize the field of African Studies, there are some terminologies that we have agreed to be anachronistic, and one of these terminologies is the question of tribe, tribe on the continent. The word tribe is not facilitating anymore. The word tribe as we considered to be a

Unknown Speaker 1:12:09

NASA from Eurocentric it has been considered to be derogatory, you know, because we can only use or the colonialism better the word tribe essentially to emasculate the importance of ethnic nationalities on the continent. How are you going to describe a people of over 10 million population, how do you have the culture of describe them as a tribe, you only use stripe for monkeys, does etymology of, you know, the usage of tribe

Unknown Speaker 1:12:43

theatricality, g d, historicity of the word tribe comes from the usage of monkeys, you know, so today on the continents, both scholars and non scholars are aware of the fact that the word tribe is dedicatory is not acceptable anymore. You cannot consider a warm European nation, for instance, you know, with not just a population within the continent, but a massive population in the diaspora in places like Brazil, in places like Chile,

Unknown Speaker 1:13:14

you know, in places like Cuba, you cannot describe that, that group, that ethnic group cannot condense that group by calling it a tribe. So I'm using this as an instance to let you understand that, in our effort to decolonize the field of African Studies, we must, you know, draw closer, it to understand the basic social realities and conditions of the people we thought this would continue to grow parrot, or will continue to a the same deals that a colonialist that the colonial historiography or historiography has, you know, propagated through the 19th century, and we cannot allow this to happen. So, yes, anyone can join the effort to decolonize the field of African Studies, both non Africans and Africans, and both Africans living on the continent and those living in the diaspora, what we must do this Clara understanding, you know, a clearer understanding would would mean that we must have the capacity to understand that we are not just doing this for the sake of, you know, for the sake of an academic, you know, purpose, we are doing this also because errantly in the, you know, errantly in the, you know, condensation of the entirety of what we understand to be the historicity of the African people. It's also a political agenda. It's also an economic agenda. So, in other words, when we join in the struggle to decolonize, the field of African Studies, we also contributed to the political and economic upliftment of the people. So we must also understand the religion

Unknown Speaker 1:15:00

Don't you?

Unknown Speaker 1:15:01

Tell me Tommy, I just have a clarification to make here from Professor after Who says I think Montana uses tribe with quotes around it as an ideological category that is used by social actors on the ground. It is not used analytically as a category of analysis.

Unknown Speaker 1:15:20

But of course, he agrees with your with your point. I'm just going to switch now to a last question because we're running very short on time. And this one is from ornella meganisi.

Unknown Speaker 1:15:32

What about the importance of race? Do you see a necessity to include critical race theory in the African Studies field, referring briefly to Jemima, Pierre's work in the predicament of blackness.

Unknown Speaker 1:15:56

Timmy Toby, I think you're you're muted.

Unknown Speaker 1:16:02

requested again, apologies. That's okay.

Unknown Speaker 1:16:07

The question is,

Unknown Speaker 1:16:10

what about the importance of race? Do you see? Do you see a necessity to include critical race theory in the African Studies field, referring briefly to Jemima, Pierre's work in the predicament of blackness.

Unknown Speaker 1:16:32

Hey, me. Yes,

Unknown Speaker 1:16:37

bro. So hot soup. Two can leave me with the question again. I mean, it was breaking the other time you were reading it out? Okay, I'll read it.

Unknown Speaker 1:16:46

What about the importance of race? Do you see a necessity to include critical race theory in the African Studies field?

Unknown Speaker 1:16:59

Absolutely. I think the question of race is extremely germane. Most recently, we're living at a time where,

Unknown Speaker 1:17:07

you know, some of us who have been told that racism do not exist, for instance, on the African continent. And we see we have to repeat this issue consistently. Because it does, you know, today, we are not talking about racism within the context of mere discriminations. We are talking about we are talking about it as as a form of institutionalization racism today as when it's institutionalized, you know, so much so that you don't get to see it walking around naked, the boy does exist. So for instance, in the African Academy fund, his stance, you know, it is so simple. And I made reference to this earlier on about the fact that, you know, we have professors, we have academics, you know, of the ideas, or the highest decreasingly academic still parroting, you know, Eurocentric ideas, that is not important, and effect, the concrete effect of institutionalization of racism, you know, which does exist, of course, it exists in its physical form, in countries such as South Africa, you know, and I think this is extremely important in our analysis, you know, because some, more often than not, you know, we have been told that, I mean, these are issues that can be ignored. I mean, we should gloss over hate and treat it as an issue that,

Unknown Speaker 1:18:27

I mean, that is just associate effects of, of an economic reality. But, I mean, we don't think that some of these some of these analyses are correct. So, I'm going to say that, yes, but most necessarily, you know, incorporates race analysis, you know, into our analysis, you know, our critical analysis, lippiett, you know, to straighten no different types of studies. But in doing this, also, we must realize that, you know, just like we've addressed racism, you know, or the question of phrase, as, you know, as, as a social construct, it does as its own economic and also political interpretation.

Unknown Speaker 1:19:08

If we begin to see the academia as one that has a political and also an economic mandate, they must begin to understand the role at which race, you know, the question of race plays in this in this analysis, for instance, we have all we are all aware of the fact that the dominating scholarship today remains Western scholarship. Why is it? Why is it? Why is he was Western scholarship wise? Why is it Western scholarship, it is Western scholarship, essentially, because there is also the question of what's the political importance of the Western countries in the global capitalist economic, you know, structure, you know, because as I said in my presentation would would Tommy's you know, the economics also determines the knowledge, you know, and then you might want to put a race factor into DNA

Unknown Speaker 1:20:00

He says, you know, by saying that, yes, most of the Western countries are dominated by, you know, nobody, by the assistance of the white power structure just does indeed. But if nobody fights him is also that, when you look at the realities of this country's also, you know, the realities of these countries is that they also have a tiny black bourgeoisie. You know, African bourgeoisie would profit from their systems of the Global Wealth power structure.

Unknown Speaker 1:20:29

You know, so I'm going to say that, yes, we must necessarily, you know, think about the question or phrase in our analysis critically, but we must be our VA of the political and economic of the realities that confronts us. Whenever we have to take on to the, you know, to the question of the race analysis. Yeah. Okay. Thank you so much. Then we talk and thank you to our other two panelists, Turner, Neto, and and Kevin,

Unknown Speaker 1:20:56

this was a this is a very riveting conversation. We're going to take a break now I'm going to pass it on to to Talia and thank you, of course, some medium, my co hosts.

Unknown Speaker 1:21:07

Thank you. Thank you both.

Unknown Speaker 1:21:10

Thank you, Turner. Thank you to McAfee. It was a great contribution job. And

Unknown Speaker 1:21:15

thank you, everyone for rejoining us after our lunch break, for our roundtable for hongu at 50. Welcome to everybody. people in attendance are really distinguished panelists who have all had really important roles in

Unknown Speaker 1:21:38

Bahamas editorial board and have gone on to have incredible careers. And

Unknown Speaker 1:21:46

as the current co editors and chief of Vaughn Lou Talia and I are particularly excited to serve as the moderators of this discussion. And we are lucky to have people here who have been involved throughout the journals long history. As the current co editors and Chief, it has been mine and Talia his mission to continue the legacy that they have set out for the journal. Um, and I also want to acknowledge that while Talia and I are serving as the moderators, we are in fact stepping in for our colleague of the Hess, who is a homeless art arts editor who unfortunately could not be here today, but who organized the roundtable and is responsible for bringing together this wonderful panel of participants. So without further ado, I want to introduce our panelists.

Unknown Speaker 1:22:44

Um, we have with us today Dr. Sandra Hill, research professor and professor emeritus of anthropology and Gender Studies at UCLA. Sandra was a founding co editor and editorial board member of vahagn moved from 1969 to 1971. She later served as the journals faculty advisor in 1972 to 1973 and again from around 2001 to 2007. She has contributed several key pieces to the journal about its activist roots and history.

Unknown Speaker 1:23:17

We also have Dr. Laura Smith, who is an associate professor in the School of foreign service and Department of government, and recently appointed director of the African Studies Program at Georgetown University. She wasn't on Oklahoma's editorial board from 1998 to 2005 and served as the CO editor in chief from 2001 to 2002, and has contributed an article to the journal on lalibela in Ethiopia. We're also excited to have Dr. zaccaria mon pili, who is the Austin marks Endowed Chair of International Affairs at the mark School of Public and International Affairs at Baruch College Cooney. He was both the CO editor in chief and the and the sole co editor of Chief in in chief of Islami from 2003 to 2006. He has also published in the journal on politics of conflict in Africa and African lessons of decolonization.

Unknown Speaker 1:24:19

We also have with us today Dr. Kim folds, who is the senior director of international research and evaluation at Sesame Street. She was editor in chief from 2006 to 2010 and oversaw the journal shift to an online platform from which we now operate today. She was also organized with She also worked with subsequent editors to digitize all of his issues. She has written about this transit transition and Ufa hombu and also contributed an article on the equitable distribution of the Nile River in Ethiopia. I'm

Unknown Speaker 1:24:56

Dr. Nana Osei alpari is an assistant professor

Unknown Speaker 1:25:00

of history at Fordham University. He was a co editor in chief for Ufa hammoud from 2014 to 2016, during which he led extraordinary efforts to revive the journal after it had been essentially in hiatus since 2011. He has also contributed articles to the journal on Mandela's comnenus ties, and the way racism shapes global responses to terrorism.

Unknown Speaker 1:25:25

We're also excited to welcome today Dr. Nate nail Nicola Lago run loopy, who is a senior lecturer in history at the University of Witwatersrand and the chairperson of the transformation committee of the width School of Education. He was an instrumental contributor to for hamo during its revival in the mid 2000 10s, and wrote articles on black students and academics and South African higher education, including for to for him his 2015 issue commemorating the journal's 45th year of publication.

Unknown Speaker 1:25:59

We are also happy to have with us Ruby Belle gam, who is the librarian for African Studies and International Development Studies at UCLA as a young research library. She has been an instrumental presence for FAMU and an archivist of our hardcopy additions, especially after the journal has transformed, transferred to a predominantly online platform. So thank you all for being with us today. I hope we can all kind of virtually Welcome everyone into this space. And as Talia just wrote in the in the chat, if you have any questions that come up, we'll be discussing for about 45 minutes as a group, and then we will open it up for q&a. So if you have any questions you'd like to ask anybody on the panel, please put them into our q&a feature.

Unknown Speaker 1:26:53

All right, so um,

Unknown Speaker 1:26:58

let's begin. Um, we want to start with the beginnings of a hanu. And our first question is for saundra. In conversations leading up to this roundtable you gesture towards if a homily being a project of quote, interrupted coloniality and quote, can you tell us a little more about what this phrase means to you, especially as it relates to the publication's early years and its founding by the African activist Association and direct response to contentious African Studies Association meeting in 1969, during which African representatives called for more African representation and input in the field of African Studies, how do you see the development of this project in the 50 years since and specifically for today?

Unknown Speaker 1:27:53

Oh, Sandra, I think you're muted.

Unknown Speaker 1:27:56

I should do that in two minutes. Right? Okay.

Unknown Speaker 1:28:00

For one thing, we all know that interrupting Colonia ality is a piece of jargon that has become

Unknown Speaker 1:28:08

commonplace.

Unknown Speaker 1:28:10

But that wasn't the term we used in those years. And what I want to do is to try to very quickly to tell you what you already know, which is that the atmosphere in the 1960s was very, very different from any time from then till now.

Unknown Speaker 1:28:30

Well, maybe with black lives matter. And we have a little bit of the 1960s that means that

Unknown Speaker 1:28:41

so for Hama was into

Unknown Speaker 1:28:44

identity

Unknown Speaker 1:28:47

giving voice

Unknown Speaker 1:28:50

is a pretty much terms that we don't use very much anymore.

Unknown Speaker 1:28:56

diversifying, breaking down the stereotypes of Africa.

Unknown Speaker 1:29:03

representation and above all, when I was on the editorial board above all

Unknown Speaker 1:29:11

stressing race.

Unknown Speaker 1:29:15

And it's not that we don't stress race now we certainly can see that we do. But we strip race in a very, very different way. I hope I hope that Black Lives Matter and and colleagues will turn this into something really positive.

Unknown Speaker 1:29:36

Um, well.

Unknown Speaker 1:29:39

You want to know about the early years they were very contentious very.

Unknown Speaker 1:29:47

We had an enormous amount of tension between

Unknown Speaker 1:29:54

white students and and by the way, I started to say

Unknown Speaker 1:30:00

People of color, but that term wasn't used and either

Unknown Speaker 1:30:05

between Africans and African Americans, that was one

Unknown Speaker 1:30:09

source of tension. And between white students and African Americans, not so much African.

Unknown Speaker 1:30:18

The African activist Association began. By the way, Rebecca, you said 69, it doesn't really matter much, but it was 68.

Unknown Speaker 1:30:29

When we storm, the barricades, so to speak at the African Studies Association meetings, the reason for that was it all of the most of the people in leadership roles in African Studies were white. And it's, it's, it was the primary reason why I dropped out of African Studies, shortly after.

Unknown Speaker 1:30:54

Shortly after those meetings, and the first and second editions of Bufo hamo, I dropped out. And I went to middle East Studies, which had its problems. But certainly, I saw that at least 50% of the people participating were from the Middle East.

Unknown Speaker 1:31:14

And that was, that was refreshing

Unknown Speaker 1:31:17

about African Americans in the triple A, and then in Oklahoma.

Unknown Speaker 1:31:25

It was a very broad group of people in terms of their ideological positions, Black Panthers, members of us, I'm going to forget now, but two or three other organizations, and they weren't always very friendly to each other.

Unknown Speaker 1:31:43

So

Unknown Speaker 1:31:46

I said it already enormous resentment,

Unknown Speaker 1:31:49

for the presence of whites, which shouldn't have come as any surprise to me. But since I was raised in a black neighborhood, and didn't know that anyone was ever supposed to dislike someone black, it did come as a bit of a shock.

Unknown Speaker 1:32:08

But we fought all the time. Absolutely. All the time. We met twice a week for three hours.

Unknown Speaker 1:32:15

And, and discuss almost everything you could imagine, I suppose representation took a lot of our time, but I don't think I can talk much longer.

Unknown Speaker 1:32:27

We, the disappointment I had

Unknown Speaker 1:32:32

in those years, was that the focus, as far as I was concerned, was really quite narrow. I remember we were involved in the, in the war in Vietnam, and I was deeply involved in those protests. And when I approached my sufa, hamo.

Unknown Speaker 1:32:54

Colleagues, people I was close to

Unknown Speaker 1:32:57

ask them to participate on campus in a

Unknown Speaker 1:33:01

in a march. They said no, that's really a white person struggle. Interesting, because, and I think of Vietnamese as white, but nevermind.

Unknown Speaker 1:33:12

And I was really, really, really disappointed. We participated in apartheid, anti apartheid activities,

Unknown Speaker 1:33:21

and in civil rights,

Unknown Speaker 1:33:25

rightly so. And we had some relationship with the Black Student Union, as it was called then.

Unknown Speaker 1:33:34

But there was a narrowness about international movements.

Unknown Speaker 1:33:41

I think I should stop or we'll run out of time for other people. And I have a, you know, an hour or two more to say.

Unknown Speaker 1:33:50

Thank you. So Jen, we have plenty of time. And Rebecca, I really, really, really appreciate you're setting this up, I can't believe it's been 15 years.

Unknown Speaker 1:34:01

It's amazing. And we're so glad that you could be here and to share the stories of the founding

Unknown Speaker 1:34:09

with us is something that we cherish. And so we really appreciate it. I'm wondering, um, I have a few follow up questions. I'll ask you a few. Just because I would love to hear a little bit more about the founding, and the political stakes, and how you, you and the rest of the members decided to write them into the description and the mission of the journal. Um, and what was the nature of the relationship like between the AAA and infohio, both in 1970, and in the following years?

Unknown Speaker 1:34:46

Well, I can't answer for some of the following years, but in the years that we were founding the AAA and infohio

Unknown Speaker 1:34:54

even though the editors came out of the AAA,

Unknown Speaker 1:34:59

there was

Unknown Speaker 1:35:00

Enormous competition and tension.

Unknown Speaker 1:35:04

That tension existed not necessarily because of those two groups that but also because a number of people, and maybe rightly so, something always to be discussed, but a number of people said that if we formed a journal that would SAP some of the energy of the activism and the radicalism and we would all become, you know, kind of stay at home intellectual.

Unknown Speaker 1:35:35

And that,

Unknown Speaker 1:35:37

I don't know whether the journal in the AAA ever recovered from that, because I've lost track of what's been going on with the AAA and even if the Hmong for that matter after I stopped being a the faculty consultants

Unknown Speaker 1:35:55

will, what were the issues? Well, you know, just forget about the tensions between us. We wanted to

Unknown Speaker 1:36:04

some of us wanted to tear down UCLA.

Unknown Speaker 1:36:07

And that reminds me, there's a big episode going on within the field of anthropology now, which is basically asking if we should burn anthropology. It's a very serious series of questions. And that's pretty much how we felt about African about UCLA and about African Studies.

Unknown Speaker 1:36:29

I remember we had a sit down in front of the director Leo Cooper's office, demanding various sorts of things, one of which was that we wanted to have an Associate

Unknown Speaker 1:36:42

Director that was a student, a graduate student, and preferably someone black, and that ended up being Bob come the late Bob coming. And, and we demanded a lot of other things we were we were brash and

Unknown Speaker 1:37:00

convinced. And

Unknown Speaker 1:37:03

I don't think I could sit on the floor anymore, and get up. But I certainly could at that time. Let's see.

Unknown Speaker 1:37:13

I didn't know did I probably didn't cover enough.

Unknown Speaker 1:37:19

Thank you. That's really interesting about the tension between the triple A and even just the idea of starting a journal and that it would take away from the activism of the organization. And so I want to open it up to all of our panelists about how everyone or you feel that the field of African Studies has come in this call coming from the 1968 as a meaning and Ufa Hormuz founding mission, is the work of interrupting coloniality achieved in the very existence of Ufa hombu or only when the journal takes explicitly stated political stances and actions. So, in other words, does the continued existence of Kufa hombu itself carry forward this legacy of interrupting coloniality? Or does it have to continue to redefine or reposition itself VSA v its given moment in time.

Unknown Speaker 1:38:28

As I can jump in here, I think, first of all, it is really great to be here with all of you and you'll be celebrating

Unknown Speaker 1:38:35

50 years later, and it's really an honor to be in the room again with Sandra, I wish we were together. But it's nice to see your face on the screen at least.

Unknown Speaker 1:38:44

I think what's striking about Sandra's comments is how resonant it was when I was editor of FAMU back in the day and how relevant it is to I think ongoing debates within the African Studies community today. And that suggests that there remains a very strong need for a space like FAMU to continue to pose a challenge to perhaps dominant main dominant methods and ways of studying Africa in the West today. Just to give you some context, and I came on after an R Smith and I hope she can come down this as well. But it was a period in which you know, I imagine not have made reckon recognize some of this, where we were really debating whether we should take the journal offline altogether. We lost support from the African Studies Center, the director at the time, I will won't say anything too specific, but really pulled the support for the journal from the African Studies Center. We lost our very, very tiny little office space that we had and whatever funding that we were receiving from the African Studies Center basically told it, who for whom we would have to figure out how to survive without any institutional support from the center itself. extremely short sighted vision, I think, from the director at the time, and I think, you know, I had conversations with

Unknown Speaker 1:40:00

With Sondra at the time with Kim eventually, as well about whether, you know, we just shut down the journal altogether, and you know, call it a day after the 35 year run at that point, um, and, you know, to kind of reflect on the current period that we live in, you know, Laura Smith and I have been involved with the African politics conference group, we observed some of these tensions about the lack of Black or African members in that formation today, there have been, you know, sort of criticisms of the organization as a result of the exclusion of African voices. So it's really striking to me to hear Sandra's account of the early days and to see that, you know, consistently across these various periods in my own career, that these questions remain very germane and what can be done about it.

Unknown Speaker 1:40:49

Last thing I'll just say is that, you know, I think one of the things about my experiences working with FAMU 15 years ago, is that it really, I think, instilled in me personally, a sense of commitment to constantly trying to champion these issues, in my own professional career as it's progressed since I've left UCLA, so I continue to be very involved in efforts to try to decolonize African Studies, as it were. And I'm not surprised when I see Laura Smith, in some of these meetings, championing some of these same questions, because I think he was ingrained in us, and very much as a part of our experience working with you from those values and the need for reconceptualizing Africana Studies is an engaged field, one that you know, especially as political scientists, that avoid some of the technocratic objective language through which the continent is often studied.

Unknown Speaker 1:41:50

Yeah, I mean, first of all, you know, the the usual but much gratitude to the to the organizers, Talia and Rebecca, and especially to Sandra, it's just delightful to see you. And I feel that that expression that you sat at the foot of someone and learn from them really applied to my earliest days.

Unknown Speaker 1:42:11

And for me, you know, so yeah, I mean, what Zachariah is saying resonated, and what Sandra said resonated, I think, a couple years before that we had center support. So that wasn't the issue. But we had other questions. And so that's, you know, part of how I remember I was co editor in chief with Judy Stevenson and Judy and I went to Sondra and tried to ponder some of these questions with her it was, was slightly different. But clearly, it's it's the same echoes. So some of it was around the synergy still between triple A because when I came in, so I came into the master's program in 98. And AAA was very active organization. And Oklahoma was also a very, you know, well established to had this, yeah, had this office, right, which is like prime real estate, and center support. And, and, and in so many ways, they were competing with each other, but they also had really different visions. And I feel that my own understandings of myself as a white American who wants to study Africa, and also my place in academia and in disciplines and conversations like that was shaped by the the grist of that tension, so to speak. Because the kind I wanted to see myself actually, as an activist, and not a journal editor when I came in, and in September of 98, but the kinds of things that AAA was doing, were not things that so I would go to those meetings and have really contentious conversations about sort of a

Unknown Speaker 1:43:51

definitely a kind of Eurocentric developmentalists version vision of Africa. That was the opposite of what I had had to come to study, I think, and then learning from Sondra and to show me Gabriel, who was the advisor at the time, and and just literally going into the office and like reading, you know, so I look forward to the conversation about the physical copies versus the digital, you know, reading those earliest editorials and the papers that people had written.

Unknown Speaker 1:44:19

reshaped me I mean, one of your questions was, did we know about the Montreal meeting, I had done an undergraduate degree with some focus on African I did not know about that. And Ufa humble was my introduction to that crucial question, which now I make a central part of my African Studies courses to my students, is his framing race, framing inequality, framing relationships between the place that we happen to be in at this moment, which for my students is usually in Washington, DC, and the places on the continent. So? Yeah, I mean, I'll just echo what Sacra has said it the journal

Unknown Speaker 1:44:58

is both

Unknown Speaker 1:45:00

vitally important, and I'm so grateful to those in those interim periods and to meet some of you since then who have kept that going. But I'm so grateful to the founders as well, that there is this place that we that that's, that's a place for us to engage those questions.

Unknown Speaker 1:45:20

I'd like to like to jump in to,

Unknown Speaker 1:45:24

to think about your question about

Unknown Speaker 1:45:27

Oklahoma's role in our war, right, in the contemporary moment when we run the run the journal. And if we're going to be activists do not. And I think every moment, you we have to be continuously looking for the injustice. And when we,

Unknown Speaker 1:45:46

when I came in, and we published the first thing in December 2014, it was an essence to commemorate Mandela's passing, it had been a year since he had passed. But NaOH and water wrote pretty scathing pieces, essentially, on how in South Africa, right, like academia is still hadn't been decolonized. Not just in the curriculum, but also in the people who are teaching the subject. And I just looking back on the old issues, and I checked again, that four months, three months later, we had the whole explosion of roads must fall in 2015. And so Jeremy and I and the board, we also commented on that particular issue, right, roads must fall and decolonizing, the university. And a few months later, Black Lives Matter pops up in the scene, right incidents in Baltimore, and whatnot. And we wrote about that. So I think, each year, there's always something and if you if you have nothing, it probably means you're not looking hard enough in the world to see what's happening each year have to continuously fight for those who are on the margins of society.

Unknown Speaker 1:47:11

Camera Now, did you want to add? Yeah, can I can I follow up on on

Unknown Speaker 1:47:17

banana. And

Unknown Speaker 1:47:23

you know, what, that actually, when I submitted my article for that special edition for Nelson Mandela's a one year passing anniversary, I didn't know that

Unknown Speaker 1:47:40

that a

Unknown Speaker 1:47:43

general publication was really

Unknown Speaker 1:47:47

trying to

Unknown Speaker 1:47:50

revitalize Omaha, it was a very, very important publication for me, because

Unknown Speaker 1:48:00

that December,

Unknown Speaker 1:48:03

that year 2014, South Africa was celebrating a 20 years since democracy 1994. And there was a debate in South Africa about the legacy of Nelson Mandela, you know, the youth, this case that, that were teaching the university who were born in 1994, who don't have the burden of history that we, my generation have with the ANC? We're starting to question the corruption of the ANC.

Unknown Speaker 1:48:39

And

Unknown Speaker 1:48:43

I felt that my generation who were born in the late 60s, we also have to

Unknown Speaker 1:48:49

put the context of this struggle. So my publication with the Professor

Unknown Speaker 1:48:57

William, aka on what has not changed in 20 years was very, very important. And the reason why I publish, I send it to a ham is because no one in South Africa wanted to publish that.

Unknown Speaker 1:49:12

You know, and so for me personally, woofer ham is very, very important because it has launched me

Unknown Speaker 1:49:21

the challenges that I experience I

Unknown Speaker 1:49:25

I studied all my degrees in South Africa in Bantu education, you know, the keynote address that Dan was talking about.

Unknown Speaker 1:49:34

And I went to Howard to do my PhD. And when I came back in South Africa, I bettered in 2016 to get into the university. So when I wrote that

Unknown Speaker 1:49:46

article

Unknown Speaker 1:49:47

of African research and and an African scholarship there missed opportunities in 20 years. I was really trying to show you know,

Unknown Speaker 1:50:02

dasp Bora, and here at home that nothing has changed. I mean in them in the morning when Madonna was presenting, I was trying to appreciate his work to say that there are cars that I'm teaching now to these children that were born in 1994. On mamdani, mfha and macabre, this kids are so shocked, they cannot believe what he went through. So 2015 again, I published on the roads must fall, and 2016. Again, I published on Mandela as a

Unknown Speaker 1:50:41

man Mandela's Yes, as a as the only African

Unknown Speaker 1:50:47

law students at vets University, where I'm teaching right now. And what I was trying to do with that was trying to show this generation,

Unknown Speaker 1:50:56

the so called porn free, I was trying to show them the struggle that Mandela went through, so that when they critique him to say, he sought out, they need to understand what his sacrifices his legacies.

Unknown Speaker 1:51:15

And what is really important with the fop application that I've done is that vets University is not working at the moment. They when they came and

Unknown Speaker 1:51:27

wrote an article to Oklahoma about the two architectures that

Unknown Speaker 1:51:33

William Morgan myself wrote, criticizing what has not changed, there was not decolonization in this era Open University in 20 years of, of liberation. So I'm very grateful. And I'm happy that for him, he was able to launch me with those South African Studies that the South African Studies community was not really prepared to publish them.

Unknown Speaker 1:52:00

I live with their

Unknown Speaker 1:52:04

Yeah, and I just wanted to comment, I agree with the other panelists who appreciate the effort in the symposium in the space to have these conversations and to see the familiar faces on the screen who I haven't seen for for many years.

Unknown Speaker 1:52:19

I think in thinking about what Oklahoma's role has been, obviously, the role that it can play has evolved, depending on what the circumstance it needs to respond to. evolves in in thinking about what Lara and Zack were talking about, when we lost funding. Really, the focus was wasn't even on the content anymore. It was on how can we survive anymore as a journal? If we go offline? What does that mean for the history that Sandra detail? What does that mean for the space that that it serves in in representing the space that marginalized scholars can publish in and can speak to each other and create that kind of dialogue? Would it fit at another UC because we also talked about that, too, should we move it to UC Berkeley or Irvine, and that also in thinking about the history that it was so UCLA centric, and so representative of the struggles that saundra went, talked about, that didn't seem the right space either, and just in the absence of as aquas talking about the the director who shall not be named.

Unknown Speaker 1:53:27

In the absence of that support, we really had to navigate the what made the most sense to ensure that it still was that revolutionary space, in this new world of publishing, right where we were without funding. But because we were without funding, it's sort of like for to find the importance of hamo. Right, it's sort of like reinvigorated our push to make sure that it has some sort of viable future. And that's really why we made the shift to digital, even though that inherently felt like it was kind of diverting from its original.

Unknown Speaker 1:54:04

Its original mandate.

Unknown Speaker 1:54:07

I don't know where I'm going with this. Sorry. But it's just as we were trying to navigate those spaces. We really were mindful of what was the original intention for for hamo? And how can we reconcile that with the very real realities

Unknown Speaker 1:54:21

that we're facing in order to keep it alive? And so that's really where the push the digital came from.

Unknown Speaker 1:54:29

Thank you so much. Yeah, both you come in Laura mentioned this digital move. I'm wondering, how has the digitization of Oklahoma afforded new possibilities but also pose certain challenges? with global connectivity kind of increasing and access to new information, travel, online communities and platforms? How was that move? And then for Ruby specifically, I know that you've been preserving the printed copies of the of the journal and the y RL.

Unknown Speaker 1:55:00

Making sure that they continue to be preserved there. So I'm, I'm wondering for you what you think, the value of still having the print, and then maybe Lauren can speak a little bit to the digitization?

Unknown Speaker 1:55:18

I think it was actually sort of between Zachariah and cam right. And we we didn't actually look I just was

Unknown Speaker 1:55:27

supporting from afar with brainstorming if my memory is not incorrect by that point. So I don't know camera zacharia? If

Unknown Speaker 1:55:37

Yeah, as we were saying a number of other graduate student journals had moved to this online platform. And in 2006, I mean, sort of the value of open access. Granted, it's it's grown. But in 2006, it was still a very new venture. It wasn't just scholarship wasn't really respected in the same way that it is through gated

Unknown Speaker 1:56:00

publications. But then UCLA Graduate Student Association was incredibly helpful for us, and they valued for hawkmoon a way that we were not feeling from the center.

Unknown Speaker 1:56:13

And I think also, we were angry Trank. You know, frankly, we wanted to figure out how can we ensure that?

Unknown Speaker 1:56:22

You know, I know that Sandra can talk about this, but it's been a contentious history between us Bahama in the in the center, but how can we ensure that we are never reliant on them again, because of shifting focus, and some of it was they lost the funding, and so there wasn't much they could do. But it wasn't just that, right. So that's really, some of it was out of need. Some of it was out of spite, honestly. But we more than anything, wanted to figure out what was the most sustainable way forward, even if it did mean that it would have to

Unknown Speaker 1:56:56

alter sort of the role of Oklahoma more broadly.

Unknown Speaker 1:57:02

And I would just add that one of the sort of more exciting things about that process, you know, I think Kim mails it absolutely at the time, it was in a much more fraught proposition shifting to online, you know, but for me now, at this point in my career, it's really nice to have access to the archives in such an accessible format. And I love the fact that it's open access is one of the great joys I used to have, as an editor when we had our space in brunch Hall was just going back through the archives, and we have an incredible collection, maybe we can talk about this old issues and move on with it. We're just sort of stacked in a bookshelf. And I used to just go and pick up a copy and just be struck by who had published in this journal in the past. You know, Robin Kenny, I had no idea he published there they move on Donnie is he sort of mentioned today, Alan was really who I eventually reached out to and got to publish again, while I was editor, you know, it's really extraordinary. He just assigned it mysteries 1980 something piece on Arabia, that was published in FAMU in my graduate seminar on African Studies, you know, this semester. So it's it's really great to me that, you know, despite the kind of unfortunate

Unknown Speaker 1:58:13

manner in which we had to sort of make the shift to online that it is now available to a much larger population, the fact that it remains open access, I think is really a testament to our view and the commitment that we that we collectively as a community have had to, to ensuring that this legacy survives. And I think there's still, you know, a very rich history here that that needs to be told about all of the amazing figures, historical figures really, were published in the journals over the decade.

Unknown Speaker 1:58:50

Oh, Sandra, were you going to say something?

Unknown Speaker 1:58:55

Okay.

Unknown Speaker 1:58:58

So can you hear me?

Unknown Speaker 1:59:00

Okay, good.

Unknown Speaker 1:59:03

Thank you very much. First, I have to thank

Unknown Speaker 1:59:07

Rebecca and Talia and everybody else who contributed to put in this forum together.

Unknown Speaker 1:59:17

The, the the response has been great, and it's wonderful to see old friends.

Unknown Speaker 1:59:26

I seem to be the constant.

Unknown Speaker 1:59:32

At least one of the constants as UCLA now.

Unknown Speaker 1:59:39

And I don't get to see everybody, as I used to at conferences. It's wonderful to see you all again.

Unknown Speaker 1:59:49

And thank you for helping to find this journal.

Unknown Speaker 1:59:55

Sandra.

Unknown Speaker 1:59:57

It's a very, very important journal.

Unknown Speaker 2:00:01

Most of the student run journals that I am familiar with

Unknown Speaker 2:00:09

are not as respected or do not have the stature that for Hamill has.

Unknown Speaker 2:00:18

It said dear over the years, and mainly because of the efforts and sacrifices of all of you who have really dedicated your, your time, your time which is short to begin with for a graduate student. And I also appreciate the fact that very respected scholars have published in Hamel and many of UCL is on renowned scholars have published and helped to continue the validation of this journal.

Unknown Speaker 2:01:07

Just to place the punting situation in perspective, a little bit

Unknown Speaker 2:01:15

when the in the 1950s obviously, I wasn't here,

Unknown Speaker 2:01:24

at read about it. But if an item 50s and early 60s, when departments were forming, you know, area focused departments, languages, departments,

Unknown Speaker 2:01:42

nearest done studies and so on, web being established.

Unknown Speaker 2:01:49

It was the thinking at that time by the Academic Senate, that African Studies should be established as a department.

Unknown Speaker 2:02:03

It ended up not happening.

Unknown Speaker 2:02:07

In spite of everything,

Unknown Speaker 2:02:09

all of the proposals being accepted and all of the plans being

Unknown Speaker 2:02:16

thought worthy.

Unknown Speaker 2:02:19

It didn't happen mainly because

Unknown Speaker 2:02:24

a particular color

Unknown Speaker 2:02:28

really made the case for not to beat.

Unknown Speaker 2:02:34

I mentioned this because, you know, they, the things we do may have ramifications beef beyond what we envision.

Unknown Speaker 2:02:47

So I doubt that this collide, knew at that time, that's

Unknown Speaker 2:02:54

the way really cutting out the lens of African Studies, in a way, because a lot of what we're experiencing today in terms of sustainability and continued development of African Studies and the struggles to

Unknown Speaker 2:03:17

secure funding from year to year for one program or another or for the entire program altogether, or to help the program to expand

Unknown Speaker 2:03:31

actually arise from the fact that African Studies, unlike its peers at UCLA, does not have any department, it doesn't have any home. It's just an interdisciplinary program. There isn't

Unknown Speaker 2:03:53

a related department

Unknown Speaker 2:03:57

to bolster its needs. And so the center is just an organized Research Unit. And right from the beginning, it relied heavily on extramural funding.

Unknown Speaker 2:04:11

In order to do its work,

Unknown Speaker 2:04:14

when title sex, the Department of Education, title six funding was discontinued.

Unknown Speaker 2:04:24

It was a terrible blow to African Studies. The hope was that they that funding will be restored. It never was. So things went from bad to worse. And, you know, right up until today, it's a cap in hand begging the university administration for support, making a case for continued programs, and so on. So the center itself was struggling to survive, but that's

Unknown Speaker 2:05:00

Very moment when, if I had was in dire straits, and, you know, just a little bit of perspective there,

Unknown Speaker 2:05:11

not to diminish any of what you went through, because I was also familiar with it. Because some of the editors came to talk to me to

Unknown Speaker 2:05:23

seek my advice about what to do wandering in the library would help

Unknown Speaker 2:05:30

in some way.

Unknown Speaker 2:05:33

So,

Unknown Speaker 2:05:35

you know, as far as the journal moving online,

Unknown Speaker 2:05:42

you know, what, what seemed to be an insurmountable challenge really resulted Finally, in the best situation possible in the most favorable situation, and it didn't happen out of the blue. I mean, you all worked towards it,

Unknown Speaker 2:06:04

use spent a lot of time, you know, find deign resources finding, including organizations or departments, within the university administration, to lend a hand. And there were two things involved, you had to think about the future of the journal, but at the same time, what would happen to what had already been published? And how would it remain,

Unknown Speaker 2:06:38

you know, valid, and how it did remain accessible. So all of those things finally came together through a lot of effort on the part of the editors, and the allies that they

Unknown Speaker 2:06:56

managed to secure. So

Unknown Speaker 2:07:02

they, the really exceptional thing about it is that

Unknown Speaker 2:07:10

at this very moment, there were many, there was a lot of shifting in publishing, so that

Unknown Speaker 2:07:21

commercial publishers, were looking for reputable journals that they could acquire,

Unknown Speaker 2:07:29

you know, a lot of

Unknown Speaker 2:07:33

Academic Publishers were in trouble financially, and if they could acquire these journals, in if the commercials could acquire these journals, then they will promise to keep that going. They had the infrastructure to do that, and the resources to do that. But then,

Unknown Speaker 2:07:54

many of the subscribers, they all subscribers will not be able to continuously subscribing because the cost would, the price of the journal would go up several hundred percent all at once. And this happened to a whole lot of journals.

Unknown Speaker 2:08:15

So that while they got a secure home,

Unknown Speaker 2:08:19

they became less accessible to

Unknown Speaker 2:08:23

people who had been used to acquiring them. So

Unknown Speaker 2:08:28

the work that for Hamill did, in this regard, in ensuring that there is a

Unknown Speaker 2:08:39

open access

Unknown Speaker 2:08:41

involved here, and that would continue that way has kept

Unknown Speaker 2:08:48

the readership and in fact, has expanded the readership, whereas you had about 150 subscribers to the print

Unknown Speaker 2:09:00

initially. Now, according to OCLC WorldCat,

Unknown Speaker 2:09:08

you have about 460 to 500

Unknown Speaker 2:09:15

separate libraries that have these in their catalogs and have direct access to a scholarship for that for that readers and that's really

Unknown Speaker 2:09:29

wonderful. The impact also, I was looking the other day and

Unknown Speaker 2:09:36

out of 600 something articles there were 249 articles that had been cited 350 times or so.

Unknown Speaker 2:09:52

And

Unknown Speaker 2:09:53

this includes the early issues of the journal

Unknown Speaker 2:10:00

Because it's now so much more accessible.

Unknown Speaker 2:10:05

But, you know, if we have time, we can talk more about some of the advantages of what's going on and what we envision for the future.

Unknown Speaker 2:10:17

I just don't want to leave you with the thought that I'm this old timer who may not be keeping up with things, and may not be as radical as I was then. And I'm just as radical.

Unknown Speaker 2:10:32

If not, actually, if not more. So. That's just a personal note.

Unknown Speaker 2:10:38

And I, I also wanted to, to say that there was a diet based on some of the things that Ruby said, there is a dialectic that we have to contend with. And that is that if we're too embraced by the institution,

Unknown Speaker 2:10:54

we

Unknown Speaker 2:10:55

well I don't need to programs are have much more independence, even though they may not have the same economic support.

Unknown Speaker 2:11:04

So

Unknown Speaker 2:11:07

I think I've said enough, again,

Unknown Speaker 2:11:10

thank you.

Unknown Speaker 2:11:15

Thank you, Sondra, thank you, Ruby, for that really the interesting historical context that you provided about the study and about moving to an online platform. So I think we have time to ask one more question as the moderators before we open it up to the group. So to end I know, now and Lauren and Zacharias have already kind of answered this. But if you want to expand or if other people want to chime in about how your experience reading the journal has enriched both your own research, and the work of your interlocutors on the continent, and also your role as educators within the field of African Studies.

Unknown Speaker 2:12:11

Um, I think I was reading the comments sorry, and

Unknown Speaker 2:12:19

Liu modibo Kumar,

Unknown Speaker 2:12:23

thanks for the comment and drink my time, the air I thought about about the journal activism with those people in the 1980s. And they work with apartheid. And how people like Robin Kelly, were allowed to go to Africa because of visa is because there was so anti anti apartheid and outspoken about it. And one of the things about the journal, and I think Robin Chi told me, this was always worried, you know that if you're too out there, right, you're going to get in some sense or another from somewhere and somehow, and I think being part of the journal and known its history, pushed me that one can be an intellectual one can be political. And one can be a scholar, the two are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they're all in one. And so one of the things which I appreciate about the journal was it gave me courage. It was it gave me courage to have people like nail published pieces, even though what's the vits department wrote, you know, to, to me saying, Why is this? Why is this op, you want to have a response? This is another scholar called ciona, or Cornell she published as well. And she had about 800 emails of hate, and threats, because she's also publishing to decolonize the university. And I think, but I hope you all keep going. And I'm really glad we've done this was at that time, AAA didn't really exist. They're not enough African has UCLA due to the money cuts, you all experienced. And so for harmel was triple a triple A was a phenomenal and for him, it was, as Ali mentioned, became the intellectual arm of AAA, another space where we convene and express our ideas. So I'm really thankful for the opportunity and I I'm glad you all continue continuing. It's still

Unknown Speaker 2:14:38

how my

Unknown Speaker 2:14:41

my publication have really helped me in in, in continuing my activism with decolonizing decolonizing. The curriculum, especially African history, is that now in my courses I'm able to use

Unknown Speaker 2:14:59

for example,

Unknown Speaker 2:15:00

Nana's

Unknown Speaker 2:15:01

article on about Mandela, you know, the issue of Mandela being a communist, you know, a controversial question. And also, you know,

Unknown Speaker 2:15:15

a

Unknown Speaker 2:15:17

Ghana in the Cold War, you know, and also using my own articles that are published, so that we can show our students who look like us that they can write, you know, they can be scholars, they can teach in the university. So that has been very, very helpful.

Unknown Speaker 2:15:41

The other point that Nana raised with the siana, O'Connell at UCT, the hate emails that she received,

Unknown Speaker 2:15:53

she had to live in west of Cape Town. She's from Cape Town. Now she's teaching here in Pretoria, invest of Pretoria and this is 20 is what this is the 21st century, you know.

Unknown Speaker 2:16:07

So we're still expert, we're still expressing, we're still experiencing a colonial education when we're trying to decolonize. So

Unknown Speaker 2:16:20

if goofer hammer can continue to publish, you know, it will have,

Unknown Speaker 2:16:28

for example, since I published in 2014, I've had some of my colleagues, South African scholars of my generation who have asked me, you know, how can we publish with that, for him and AFRICOM into them? A few of them have published, one of my students who was doing his Ma, you know, had a very

Unknown Speaker 2:16:51

circular, you know, racist comments for his article on, on on linking the blacks lives matter in the South African context. And I've,

Unknown Speaker 2:17:09

when I read it, I was so angry, I emailed to Mohammed to say, Can you try and help this student? So, this raises the question why I always, when I teach my students, I tell them that I've done my bachelor's, bachelor's degree in South Africa, my honors degree, my master's degree in South Africa, but

Unknown Speaker 2:17:34

never had a reading on check it off.

Unknown Speaker 2:17:38

And it's only when I crossed the Atlantic Ocean to go to Howard University to get my PhD. I had to read about Czech and that Europe, how, how, how crazy is that? Now, my students who are doing their undergrad degree, they are reading about Czech content, you know, when they get their BA degree and go to graduate studies, they'll be able to talk about check it up. How do you teach African without a reference on check it out? You know, when Professor Montana was saying triple m sounds like a desert. And he said he loved to see the readings. I'm happy said that, because

Unknown Speaker 2:18:24

I'm saying that the reading list that we give to our students must reflect the world. You know, in South Africa, African blacks are the majority, but you look at the written list. We are not there.

Unknown Speaker 2:18:43

I think that for him is helping us to decolonize

Unknown Speaker 2:18:48

knowledge production, and I'm very grateful. And that's why I decided I'm going to stay on till late so that I can participate.

Unknown Speaker 2:18:57

Thank you.

Unknown Speaker 2:19:03

I don't know if somebody else was gonna say that. I mean, I think just to really appreciate that perspective. And to say that, you know, interesting conversations happen at universities, like the one I met after a summer like this, right? When suddenly my colleagues want to come to us and say, What should I be putting on my syllabus, you know, and that happened so many times this summer that I thought, I am so grateful that I had an education and I put FOMO squarely within that not just UCLA as a as a wider institution, but very much the education of Oklahoma. The tradition, literally the articles that I read the people that I was surrounded with. So that race is I mean, if we're doing African Studies on the continent and in the United States, it should always be central to what we're thinking about and talking about.

Unknown Speaker 2:19:53

And, and, and, you know, representation, this word that Sondra use is bandied about now.

Unknown Speaker 2:20:00

Right. And then people want you to add a couple of folks to their reading list. So

Unknown Speaker 2:20:05

yeah, for me, it has always been

Unknown Speaker 2:20:10

the, the way that it's influenced my my scholarship and my teaching. And I hope the institutional commitments and change that I want to see a different type of institution, but with with similar challenges, quite frankly, are those same questions of what are we teaching our students, both in terms of representation, but but content? Absolutely.

Unknown Speaker 2:20:38

I, my experience is similar.

Unknown Speaker 2:20:41

My I had a postdoc with paws Elisa and 2010,

Unknown Speaker 2:20:46

to explore the experiences of African born academics in the United States in Canada. And the laser, his first article, in fact, was published in Oklahoma. And so he always had

Unknown Speaker 2:20:58

a very warm place in his heart for it. And part of the findings of that were obviously experiences around publication and just the inability to publish in journals. And so the effects of that then on promotion. And so out of that came the card. It's got a long name, Carnegie African disc for a fellowship program, where it's linking African born academics in North America with African academics and institutions on the continent for a variety of things. But some of the some of the outputs are publishable articles because of the importance of having representation in scholarship and what that means for making sure that knowledge production is much more inclusive and representative for the reasons that my colleagues have shared. My fellow panelists, the interesting thing is I'm not in academia anymore. So you know, it's coming back to academia is kind of like reentering, sort of relearning the language.

Unknown Speaker 2:21:55

But you can still apply the lessons that you've learned as part of Oklahoma, far beyond academia, how you approach partnership, how you approach, any sort of program design, how you approach knowledge production, these are all sort of really fundamental to what infohio is, and it's, you know, I think it's critical and how we approach particularly that Sesame Workshop is is arguably an international development organization. And it's complicated with within all of that, so how can you work to decolonize that and the lessons from Oklahoma since its history really still have stayed with me, and for that, I am immensely grateful.

Unknown Speaker 2:22:39

Great, thank you all so much. So we're just starting to receive questions through the q&a forum, please feel free to write them and we'll answer them as we can. Amir, thank you. Amira asks, thank you all for her. She says thank you all for being here and for your thorough contributions and stories. In our earlier panel, we started a great discussion about decolonization and what it means to African Africans and on the continent and the African diaspora, especially in the US. I was wondering, what are some of your thoughts on how do you see it, decolonization manifested through a platform such as for Hulu? And how would it address the complexities of the lived experiences of Africans in the African diaspora without dismissing their intersectionality while also recognizing their differences?

Unknown Speaker 2:23:38

Anyone want to try to answer? First?

Unknown Speaker 2:23:43

I'm gonna ask Professor Zechariah, and polish to answer that, because he wrote a piece on that for the issue we published.

Unknown Speaker 2:23:52

And I think it really catches

Unknown Speaker 2:23:55

on questionnaire is asking.

Unknown Speaker 2:23:59

But yeah, I'm happy to try. Um, for me, I think, you know, the, the question of decolonization is one that I began thinking about UCLA when I was a graduate student. It has continued through various manifestations. I'm currently working on something called the program on African social research on that is, I think, part of this longer term interest in what does it mean to decolonize African Studies and, and to decolonize, knowledge production more generally. And I think one of the central concerns I've had, especially operating within the discipline of political sciences, that there is a very sort of colonial mode of knowledge production that still manifests even amongst, you know, very liberal, well meaning types in our discipline. And so the American Political Science Association, for example, does run sort of these Africa workshops. But essentially, it's, you know, Western academics, predominantly white, male academics, who go to African institutions to teach them how to do American style political science, right?

Unknown Speaker 2:25:00

I mean, it's an extraordinarily colonial mode of sort of intellectual engagement that, you know, is coming potentially from a good place, but but gets the politics exactly backwards. Right. And I think one of the things that I took from my experiences at FAMU was was that, you know, I am much less interested in questions of representation. Right? Obviously, maybe representation matters. I'm not convinced of that. But I'm more interested in understanding how we can transform modes of knowledge production itself, right? And what does it mean, to try to engage with, you know, what I would call an African a thought, or a black bot or, you know, that is not simply about sort of bringing in diverse faces to to perpetuate the same modes of Korean knowledge production that have always permeated? Especially my discipline of political science? And that is an extremely difficult question in particularly when we think about the the extraordinary material differences that exist between those of us based at Western institutions and the reality of where African institutions are today. You know, as I think most of you know, that, you know, there are a lot of efforts to increase the number of African PhDs to try to create this sort of chord, but I think beyond simply increasing the diversity of faces, what does it actually mean to take seriously African thought?

Unknown Speaker 2:26:28

And that's something that I that I keep coming back to what does it look like to, you know, genuinely engage with African thinkers? And I mean, that in the broader sense, even outside of the university itself? I think one of the to come to the question, you know, one of the things that we've always sort of did, and I'm guessing this probably goes back to its founding under Sandra and others, was to insist that it be a space for African knowledge production, right, that it did not simply be, you know, attempt to replicate kind of Western modes of knowledge creation,

Unknown Speaker 2:27:03

even if they had African names attached, but rather to say, okay, you know, what would it look like to expand our conception of what constitutes knowledge and to create a journal in which these sorts of pieces can find space? Right? That's a it's a very fraught enterprise. But I think, an extraordinarily necessary one, even in this current moment where we might think that the the internet, for example, has been this great equalizer. Yet, we know that, you know, in most scholarly journals, the number of articles published by scholars based in in African institutions is vanishing. vanishingly small, not right. And so I think, you know, we've been

Unknown Speaker 2:27:43

through things like ovando, but also I think, generally for all of us, who came through,

Unknown Speaker 2:27:48

you know, the experience of working with FAMU, we need to constantly be sort of pushing back, I think, on the way in which the question of diversification has been been

Unknown Speaker 2:27:59

addressed, especially in the western Academy, and really start to ask, like, you know, is it sufficient, that we're simply trying to export our modes of knowledge production to to Africans and consider that to be decolonization? Right, I would, I would suggest, and I think, based on a lot of very influential thinkers, going back to probably phenomena and others, that is deeply inadequate, and what we need to be doing is to create many more funnels many more spaces that that allow different modes of thinking, right? Different ways of approaching the question of knowledge production itself to flourish, and I remain committed to that enterprise.

Unknown Speaker 2:28:48

I'd like to say that, for me, also, decolonization

Unknown Speaker 2:28:54

includes access as a central

Unknown Speaker 2:29:01

concept.

Unknown Speaker 2:29:03

You You have to have access to the thought and I'm so happy that

Unknown Speaker 2:29:12

Professor mampilly mentions

Unknown Speaker 2:29:16

the

Unknown Speaker 2:29:19

you know, the question of inclusivity and diversity of thought, diversity of approaches.

Unknown Speaker 2:29:28

So when it comes to research, and research results and published material or primary source material to do your work,

Unknown Speaker 2:29:43

how much access Do we have to what is going on in Africa? What is going on around the world outside? Europe and America?

Unknown Speaker 2:29:58

This is extremely

Unknown Speaker 2:30:00

Important where

Unknown Speaker 2:30:02

libraries have libraries and archives have limited resources, to collect material to license material that's electronic, or, excuse me to even process what they have

Unknown Speaker 2:30:21

collected already, in order to provide the widest access to that material, you'll compete to competing with

Unknown Speaker 2:30:31

the large programs, you know, you're competing with sociology, anthropology, history, etc, which

Unknown Speaker 2:30:45

may not necessarily

Unknown Speaker 2:30:50

recognize the importance of your area of the world. And

Unknown Speaker 2:30:59

the importance of including work that is done in that geographic area. So Take, for instance,

Unknown Speaker 2:31:10

scholars in Africa, publishing, in African journals,

Unknown Speaker 2:31:17

in journals that are published in Africa, so they publish their work there,

Unknown Speaker 2:31:24

but the distribution does not go far.

Unknown Speaker 2:31:29

And then we, we have to rely on forming consortia among institutions to collect and share this material through people who can do some supply in from the African continent. The alternative then becomes for most of those colors to pipe now with

Unknown Speaker 2:31:58

colors in the West, who they happen to know, or some who are sponsoring them.

Unknown Speaker 2:32:07

For exactly that sort of end game, to publish in western oriented

Unknown Speaker 2:32:16

journals.

Unknown Speaker 2:32:19

This doesn't always work out.

Unknown Speaker 2:32:24

Because that there have been sorry, I don't have

Unknown Speaker 2:32:29

examples off the top of my head right now. But there have been scholars who have been forced to shift the focus of their research, in order for it to fit the journal in which they're publishing.

Unknown Speaker 2:32:46

So that the academic independence that you need in order to do the work that really excites you that you think is important, gets diminished.

Unknown Speaker 2:33:01

So some of the journals that are more successful, say, for instance, some of the South African journals that used to be distributed by an outfit, known as saben, it

Unknown Speaker 2:33:17

have been acquired, we use to be able to purchase those, subscribe to those journals, right from Los Angeles, right.

Unknown Speaker 2:33:30

But they had been acquired by,

Unknown Speaker 2:33:34

you know, some of the other the larger commercial Western distributors like Taylor and Francis or

Unknown Speaker 2:33:44

sage.

Unknown Speaker 2:33:47

And they have become less accessible because they believe that an American institution should be able to pay thousands of dollars for one journal, or

Unknown Speaker 2:34:01

almost 1000 journal, a piece, dollars a piece, which is not the reality for areas studies at all. We are not funded in that way. And so the picture of access is very complex, very complicated. And I'm just wondering if there,

Unknown Speaker 2:34:29

there aren't things that maybe scholars can do to influence

Unknown Speaker 2:34:38

this phenomenon, think about where you're publishing.

Unknown Speaker 2:34:45

Think about how you may if you're on an editorial board, how you may influence that editorial board to consider a different distributor

Unknown Speaker 2:34:58

or to it

Unknown Speaker 2:35:00

influence them to include the parts of the world that you're interested in

Unknown Speaker 2:35:07

seeing your work, and to make sure that

Unknown Speaker 2:35:13

it's not the commercial enterprises that are dictating who gets to see what,

Unknown Speaker 2:35:22

and that there's a whole lot

Unknown Speaker 2:35:27

that's been written about this. But this is something that I see day to day in my work. And,

Unknown Speaker 2:35:37

you know, just I don't know if everybody has something to say about it. So it's one thing to get a journal started to sustain it, and keep publishing it.

Unknown Speaker 2:35:51

look at why it is being distributed, and who actually has access to that scholarship that's coming out. Thank you.

Unknown Speaker 2:36:03

I'd like to add on to that as well,

Unknown Speaker 2:36:07

in regards to the African diaspora, and I think part of the difficulty is also defining who was an African

Unknown Speaker 2:36:17

who was African diaspora, because over time, geography, it changes. I guess the best way to address its complexity is almost for us literally to go out and find scholars who address different facets of the lived experiences of Africans across the world. And for instance, you probably know, Medina, a good friend of mine, who works in difference of African Diaspora than I might work with Africans in Russia, the Soviet Union. And so it requires time and effort. But there are it is complex, and every century and every decade is different. And also when you look at different agendas and economic

Unknown Speaker 2:37:01

classes of people. So I think and so it's difficult, but it is there, and we can do it. And we should do it. Not just in America, but globally, and also within Africa, African Diaspora within Africa's most of migration of Africans actually in other African countries, and not to the global north,

Unknown Speaker 2:37:28

shall I?

Unknown Speaker 2:37:31

Well, I want to say I don't, I said,

Unknown Speaker 2:37:35

it's really had a profound had a profound effect on me.

Unknown Speaker 2:37:40

And one of the things was related to the colonial

Unknown Speaker 2:37:46

one of the things that had to do with dealing with being white in the field that I was in, and I think I went into the

Unknown Speaker 2:37:57

AAA environment, thinking that I was God's gift to

Unknown Speaker 2:38:04

racially liberated people.

Unknown Speaker 2:38:08

I learned a great deal. And I was able to carry that into my field work in Sudan and learn a great deal there as well.

Unknown Speaker 2:38:19

But I want to say about the colonial, I think we should try to decolonial eyes ourselves first. And that's not just white people.

Unknown Speaker 2:38:30

I think I'll get in trouble if I go any further. So I think I'll end that comment on that note.

Unknown Speaker 2:38:42

But I also think, you know, for Africans,

Unknown Speaker 2:38:47

not so much decolonize, but we becoming kromus neo colonial subjects, right as Neo saying, you go through your whole education, which is structured, which is which is structured on white supremacy and colonialism. And then you take that to be what it is to be an academic. And one of my humble lessons was getting pieces from Africans and African universities, and thinking to myself, this looks bad. This work looks back. And I to think to myself, what are the gatekeeping and processes, which I think academic piece should look like? And what does that standard, which I think, you know, academics should publish, and that's why I had to, you know, also decolonize my mind realizing that I have become that new colonial subject. Many of the early African leaders and theorists were worried and new would come around and, and so I think, for us, it's also to recognize that Yeah, we can change the face as you know, somebody doesn't like visitation. Right, but to decolonize our minds, because if we're not careful, we're all walking around as Neo colonial puppets and subjects are

Unknown Speaker 2:40:00

For us African born and raised individuals.

Unknown Speaker 2:40:17

Great. Thank you all. So if anyone has any final questions to pose to the q&a forum, we'll happily answer a few more.

Unknown Speaker 2:40:30

A quick announcement from Professor after is that we will be hosting a conference, the African Study Center, February 18, through 19th 2021. And the call for papers I believe is due November. I'll send the link in the chat. But in the meantime, if anyone wants to write some final questions into the q&a, we welcome them.

Unknown Speaker 2:41:06

Hey, Rebecca, Talia.

Unknown Speaker 2:41:12

Okay, this is a just a funny question. I want to ask, if

Unknown Speaker 2:41:18

we did not have COVID-19, would we be having this important celebration at UCLA?

Unknown Speaker 2:41:27

I miss just being there.

Unknown Speaker 2:41:31

Thank you.

Unknown Speaker 2:41:37

I guess I can it we would be having it at UCLA. Um, and yeah, I mean, it's one of the weird things about the sound digital space that we're all inhabiting academically is that it would be amazing to see everyone in person.

Unknown Speaker 2:41:56

But at the same time, being completely online and virtual has made it possible for us to take in different time zones into account.

Unknown Speaker 2:42:10

Have people involved like in Nigeria and South Africa, in our discussions, and be part of it without having to deal with the, as we've been talking about the economic issues that plague you know, the how we work within academia is, you know, how are we going to fund a conference such as this one, we want to bring people to the, from the African continent, or we want to go to the African continent, and deal with issues like plane tickets and things like that. Um, so, in a way, we were initially really disappointed, we couldn't have this in person. But I actually, um, maybe because I'm still on kind of this conference, you know, great feelings. But, um, it really, really worked out as an online platform. And I know issues of technology and internet access,

Unknown Speaker 2:43:09

things like that, you know, distribute or contribute to

Unknown Speaker 2:43:15

any quality with who can contribute and participate in these conferences. But at the same time, having something that isn't tied to a geographical location and involve travel can also be a good way to start working towards equity on who gets to attend these conferences, who gets to participate in these conferences.

Unknown Speaker 2:43:37

So in my mind, I almost wouldn't have it, besides the fact that I wish I could, like actually see people and, and be in the same physical space with people is that I almost wouldn't have it any other way than to be on this digital platform that we've set up.

Unknown Speaker 2:44:03

So I assume that everybody

Unknown Speaker 2:44:09

has been using for Hamill everybody knows where to find it.

Unknown Speaker 2:44:16

But I'm not really sure. So, Rebecca, and Talia, if you wouldn't mind. Can I take a minute to just share a screen with everyone?

Unknown Speaker 2:44:32

Yes. Okay. So

Unknown Speaker 2:44:45

hopefully y'all see my screen.

Unknown Speaker 2:44:50

Yes, we are thinking. Okay, good.

Unknown Speaker 2:44:53

So this is the UCLA library page. And that's our URL.

Unknown Speaker 2:45:02

One of the many, many ways in which you can get to, if you if you go to journals here

Unknown Speaker 2:45:11

and you type pin.

Unknown Speaker 2:45:24

And that gives you

Unknown Speaker 2:45:27

this result, right here, this is for help.

Unknown Speaker 2:45:34

So you see, if I haven't been on online, it's indexed in so many different online sources. So

Unknown Speaker 2:45:45

it's hard to miss. But I'm just going to select a UC is scholarship site, which is the most direct way to get to it. And here you have it,

Unknown Speaker 2:46:00

the latest volume, and you can scroll down this all the way to the very first volume one, number one

Unknown Speaker 2:46:11

through the issues. Now one,

Unknown Speaker 2:46:15

one important thing is for hameau, if it was just on its own,

Unknown Speaker 2:46:25

and you just wanted to search it by itself,

Unknown Speaker 2:46:31

you would get

Unknown Speaker 2:46:35

66 results on a certain search, which I'm just going to do now.

Unknown Speaker 2:46:42

You would select this button here for this journal in order to do that search. But if you wanted to search it along with everything else in

Unknown Speaker 2:46:54

a scholarship,

Unknown Speaker 2:46:57

and let's use this term allow

Unknown Speaker 2:47:01

for a search

Unknown Speaker 2:47:06

that multiplies several fold 2027 results of

Unknown Speaker 2:47:14

separate hex is what you get.

Unknown Speaker 2:47:18

And then you can filter it out in various ways, depending on what exactly you're looking for, what format,

Unknown Speaker 2:47:29

what type of information, articles, books, pieces, etc, that contain that term. If you searched only the journal in this database, you would get 66 results.

Unknown Speaker 2:47:47

So that's another advantage of it having a cohort of other is, is scholarship content that you can search from. And that's really what I wanted to share with you.

Unknown Speaker 2:48:06

I'll be happy to answer any questions.

Unknown Speaker 2:48:12

think there's one Ruby How can alumni have access to the UCLA library?

Unknown Speaker 2:48:18

There is a way to view a scholarship without library access, I believe but Ruby, if you want to answer that.

Unknown Speaker 2:48:27

Well, um,

Unknown Speaker 2:48:30

so his scholarship

Unknown Speaker 2:48:34

is actually

Unknown Speaker 2:48:36

open access.

Unknown Speaker 2:48:41

So unless there is an embargo on a particular resource, it's open access. And that's really what y'all wanted, which is the best model. It doesn't mean that it's free. Somebody is paying the cost. In this case, the University of California absorbs the cost of hosting and maintaining it.

Unknown Speaker 2:49:15

You're using student labor for free. A few people may be paid maybe copy editors, because their work is so specialized, but nothing comes for free.

Unknown Speaker 2:49:31

So

Unknown Speaker 2:49:33

the other question was, how can alumni get access to the UCLA library?

Unknown Speaker 2:49:41

We do have, if I can pull that up.

Unknown Speaker 2:49:47

We do have

Unknown Speaker 2:49:49

a number of different ways to get access to to the library collections

Unknown Speaker 2:50:05

I just want to show you, you know, like I say, if you give,

Unknown Speaker 2:50:11

if you give, give a girl a fish,

Unknown Speaker 2:50:15

they'll eat and not be hungry that day. But if you show them how to fish, they'll never be hungry again. So

Unknown Speaker 2:50:28

rather than just give you one thing, if you go to a library page, and you click on using the library,

Unknown Speaker 2:50:37

like library cards, access and privileges, all these will explain the categories,

Unknown Speaker 2:50:44

including for alumni.

Unknown Speaker 2:50:49

So

Unknown Speaker 2:50:52

the difficulty that we have, Oh, I'm so sorry, I forgot to share my screen.

Unknown Speaker 2:51:01

I'm so sorry.

Unknown Speaker 2:51:04

I wasn't sharing.

Unknown Speaker 2:51:07

But anyway, when you go to our library page, library, go to ucla.us.edu. And you click on using the library button at the top,

Unknown Speaker 2:51:21

you should be able to get there.

Unknown Speaker 2:51:24

To get all of the information about categories of users, and what the limitations are, we do not want to restrict anything. However, when we license a resource, like a database, or a journal that that we pay a license fee for, were restricted in

Unknown Speaker 2:51:52

the number of people that can have access to that material. Sometimes it's by sheer number, and sometimes its affiliation.

Unknown Speaker 2:52:06

So if we broke that license, we are liable legally,

Unknown Speaker 2:52:13

and can be sued.

Unknown Speaker 2:52:17

However, as a state institution, if you come onto our campus,

Unknown Speaker 2:52:23

and you access anything, that we have licensed, you are a user, and

Unknown Speaker 2:52:33

you're free to to have access. So that is one way to get around it.

Unknown Speaker 2:52:41

And another way to get around it is to

Unknown Speaker 2:52:47

say you're an

Unknown Speaker 2:52:52

alumna alumnus.

Unknown Speaker 2:52:55

One thing you can do is to become a life member of the Alumni Association. I don't know how many of you are actually alumni.

Unknown Speaker 2:53:07

I mean, card carrying alumni, who are actually paid.

Unknown Speaker 2:53:14

But alumni have some privileges as well, unfortunately, not to license material. But if you're on campus, you're one of our users.

Unknown Speaker 2:53:30

Thank you, Ruby, York, I hope to see the how you can access it, I think it's really important. And justice to see the sheer number of issues is is really amazing. Feel free to contact me if you have questions. I'm very happy to hear from everyone.

Unknown Speaker 2:53:48

Thank you. Before Rebecca and I conclude with a few thank yous I wanted to before to saundra for one final remark just about like reflecting back at the history of Bahama and seeing this gathering today.

Unknown Speaker 2:54:04

What are your thoughts? And what do you think are the most pressing, pressing, pressing issues that the editorial team must keep in mind in the year 2021.

Unknown Speaker 2:54:19

That asks for far more wisdom than I feel I have right now. But I am pleased in terms of what people are

Unknown Speaker 2:54:29

thinking and what they're thinking about and the enthusiasm for moving forward.

Unknown Speaker 2:54:37

You know, in many ways, I was the most negative person and I certainly didn't mean to be that. But we had a contentious beginning.

Unknown Speaker 2:54:48

So that's about all I have to say I'm really impressed and encouraged and feel good, really, really proud to have been a part of the

Unknown Speaker 2:55:00

founding of this journal. Really proud.

Unknown Speaker 2:55:04

Thank you, everyone.

Unknown Speaker 2:55:09

Great, thank you. Um, if we could have a virtual applause for this entire roundtable discussion

Unknown Speaker 2:55:16

can do so in the chat. Yeah, all of you are muted. But you can unmute yourselves. Thank you all so much. Just a few final remarks, we'd like to say a big thank you to the African Studies Center,

Unknown Speaker 2:55:30

to the art history department for co sponsorship to all of our keynote

Unknown Speaker 2:55:35

to the left to our keynote lecture, Dr. Mahmood mamdani, to our panelists, roundtable participants, our editorial team, and contributors, all of our moderators, everyone from past and present who came today, we appreciate all of you for showing up and joining us throughout the day. We wish you and your loved ones the best for the future. And we hope that you remain safe and healthy and well taken care of. You are part of our community and we really appreciate you.

Unknown Speaker 2:56:05

As always, feel free to write to us at Ufa hamo@gmail.com and follow us on social media Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. We want to hear from you and work with you even after the symposium has ended. We're planning to publish a fall issue in the coming month and then one or two issues in 2021 as our editorial team will likely make

Unknown Speaker 2:56:30

more shifts in the future. We are crushing Bahama, well Happy Birthday Happy Bahamas that 50. And thank you always so good to see you.

Unknown Speaker 2:56:41

I say let's do this again in 10 years for whoever's around.

Unknown Speaker 2:56:50

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai