Annual report African Studies Centre Leiden 2016

African Studies Centre Afrika-Studiecentrum Leiden

Annual Report 2016

African Studies Centre Afrika-Studiecentrum Leiden

Annual Report

2016

2 Afrika-Studiecentrum Leiden/African Studies Centre Leiden Address: African Studies Centre Leiden

po Box 9555 2300 RB Leiden

the netherlands

Visiting address: pieter de la Court Building

Wassenaarseweg 52

2333 AK Leiden

the netherlands

Telephone: Office: +31 71 5273372/3376

Library: +31 71 5273354

Email: Office: asc@asc.leidenuniv.nl Library: asclibrary@asc.leidenuniv.nl Website: www.ascleiden.nl

Twitter: www.twitter.com/ASCLeiden

www.twitter.com/ASCLibrary

Facebook: www.facebook.com/ASCLeiden Country portal: http://countryportal.ascleiden.nl

ADDReSS

AnnuAL RepoRt 2016

3

tABLe oF ContentS

preface 9

Research 10

Societal Relevance 21

Visiting Fellows 33

phD Research 37

Involvement in Teaching 39

Research Masters in African Studies 2015-2016 39 Library, Documentation and Information Department 47

Events and External Contacts 54

Governing Bodies and Personnel 62

Financial Overview 65

publications bij ASCL staff 66

Seminars 79

Researchers in the Media 83

Colophon 88

Exhibition on the Herero and Nama Genocide

The Dynamic City Africa

Works 2016:

Opportunities for Lease Financing in Africa Workshop

Breaking Down Barriers to Exclusion

Cocoon Initiative Kenya Working Paper 5, September 2016

Scoping Confe- rence: ‘Improving the Perspective for Regional Trade and Investment in West Africa’

Voice4Thought

12 16 22 26 40

Bridging the Gap between Bird Conservation and Sustainable Development

38

24 44

ASCL oRgAnIzAtIon peR 1 JAnuARy 2016

5 This is the first annual report of the African Studies Centre as part of Leiden

University. Leiden University is proud to have the Centre as one of its assets, and the African Studies Centre, Leiden (ASCL) is grateful for the welcoming atmosphere, and for the opportunities it creates: the ASCL will have its own professors, its own Graduate School, more involvement in teaching, receive the University’s matching funds for NWO and EU projects, and a more solid foundation for a future in which evidence-based knowledge about Africa will become more important. The ASCL is also thankful for the University’s creation of the Africa Fund to support more synergy between the ASCL and other Leiden-based scholars who study and teach about Africa. We are extending our reach and intend to develop an Africa strategy together with the Erasmus University Rotterdam (including the Institute of Social Studies, and the Institute of Housing and Urban Research), Delft University of Technology, and IHE Delft Institute for Water Education). Together, we will hold an Africa Year in 2019, and we are working towards a major Africa Library in 2023, by which time, hopefully, we will have moved to new premises, on Leiden’s Humanities Campus.

In the past year, the first year of our integration into Leiden University as an interfaculty institute, it was not always easy to adjust to the university rules and protocols, but with the support of our new Board, consisting of members who represent the deans of the Faculties of Humanities, Social Sciences and Law, we have made a successful transition. A word of thanks, too, to our Finance Department and to our Secretariat, who were on the frontline in terms of dealing with the new dispensation, and to the members of our Executive Board (eB), who did a good job of making sure it all worked according to the new rules, but with enough flexibility to manage it properly. A special word of thanks, too, to the members of the new Work’s Council (our Dienstraad) for their vigilance and professionalism.

I would like to mention the following highlights of 2016.

We received the great news that our Research Master’s programme in African Studies has now officially been reaccredited, and with excellent evaluation

pReFACe

remarks. I would like to thank Han van Dijk for his input as a Chair of the RESMA Board, and Azeb Amha for many years of dedicated and reliable service to our students and to the programme, which we see as one of our gems.

We celebrated the real start of the Leiden African Studies Assembly (LeidenASA), with special thanks to Mirjam de Bruijn and to Maaike Westra, who work together with many enthusiastic colleagues. We had a lovely, festive LeidenASA day on 8 December. And we are now seeing the start of the collaboration between our Library and the University Library (UBL). The ASCL can rely on a very solid and dedicated library and support staff that facilitates our many outreach activities and which makes us so much more than ‘just’

a research and teaching institute. We can safely say that all researchers and library staff had a busy time in 2016 (and in the years before), but I fear it has been particularly tough for the support staff (as confirmed during the recent meetings we had about ‘work pressure’). However, so far, we have survived and we can be proud of what we have accomplished together.

We had a few other wonderful events last year: the Stephen Ellis Annual Lecture by Prof. Muna Ndulo, thanks to Jan-Bart Gewald, my successor and forthcoming new director of the Centre (per 1 September 2017; he was selected in an open recruitment process). We also had a very energetic Voice4Thought Festival in September and a surprisingly good Africa Works conference in October. There was an inspiring big and energetic Societal Panel on 8 December.

There have been very good and important INCLUDE Platform meetings this

year, both in Lusaka and in The Hague. We should not underestimate how

important InCLuDe has become for our good name in Ministry of Foreign

Affairs circles and among African think tanks. We are pleased that the Ministry

has accepted another two years of funding and involvement. Thanks to Marleen

Dekker and Karin nijenhuis, and to our support staff!

6

We also saw the start of the formal process to establish seven or even eight of our own professors at the ASCL (some together with other Leiden-based departments), and we are proud and happy that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has accepted to fund one of these positions, the Stephen ellis Chair in the Governance of Finance and Integrity.

We can also start our own Graduate School and deepen our involvement in teaching in Leiden and the Hague, further solidifying our future as a hub of African Studies; but, this is also a way to improve our financial basis, and make the Centre less dependent on our core subsidy. So far, Leiden has been very generous in allowing us to make use of all the existing financial reward systems present in this university.

During 2016, we spent time preparing for the big external evaluation that took place in April 2017. We collectively produced a self-evaluation report, which forms the basis for our new long-term strategy (for the years 2018-2023). There

have been a few surprises for me while co-writing this self-evaluation document.

When I became director in 2010 we had 48 members of staff, we now have 51.

In 2010, we had 36.8 full-time equivalents, there are now 38.1. The total number of research staff has increased from 17.7 fte to 19.3 fte. Library staff went from 8.4 to 7.6 and support staff from 8.5 to 8.3. So, despite an almost 20 per cent budget cut to our core funding from the Ministry of education-with-an-oDA ticket, we have managed to improve our staff strengths and particularly our researchers’ strengths (although with less seniors and more juniors now). And it is good that some rejuvenation is possible, because some of our seniors have found prestigious jobs elsewhere! For instance, Benjamin Soares accepted a position as professor at the University of Florida, and Han van Dijk has become full-time professor at Wageningen University. Another surprise was that we are younger now, on average, than we were in 2010. Of the 48 people who were on our payroll in 2010, 21 have left and 24 have joined. For an academic institute, we have rejuvenated quite successfully, and our composition has also changed: in 2010, there was one person on our staff, in a temporary position, who was born or raised in Africa, currently there are seven, although I am also including Jan-Bart gewald and trudi Blomsma, but why not? Africa is

‘decolonizing the mind’, so let’s do that as well!

Another amazing fact is that our relatively small Centre has produced close to 1,200 publications during the last six years, and our publications repository has had 1.4 million downloads.

This is my last ‘introduction to the Annual Report’ in my role as director. At 65 years of age, in Africa, I would now be regarded as an Elder. I will give my valedictory lecture, on 25 September at 16.00 in the Academiegebouw (you are welcome!), and this will be followed by an Inaugural Day for the new ASCL professors, on 9 October. Long live the African Studies Centre Leiden!

Ton Dietz, May 2017

Voice4Thought festival ‘People in motion’ with Valsero (Cameroon)

7

8

9 the African Studies Centre Leiden (ASCL) is the national knowledge centre on Africa in

the Netherlands. The ASCL undertakes research and is involved in teaching about Africa and aims to promote a better understanding of and insight into historical, current, and future developments in Africa. The ASCL is an interfaculty institute of Leiden University and has a world-famous library and documentation centre that is open to the public.

Visit our website at www.ascleiden.nl

Unique website visitors:

172,924 (404,800 pages were visited, of which 11,062 Country portal pages)

Likes: 4,673 Followers: 4,023 on 31.12.2016

SoMe FACtS AnD FIguReS

The ASCL is located in the Pieter de la Court building, Leiden University.

How to find the ASC

10 Africa and Global Restructuring (2012-2017 Research Programme)

The ASCL’s current research cycle seeks to better understand Africa within the recent historical juncture of global restructuring. The proliferation of new economic, political and cultural alliances since the 1990s, recurrent global economic crises, and the emergence of new global powers are indications of a global restructuring in which Africa’s place is markedly different than it was just a decade ago. Within this rapidly changing context, various countries in Africa, even some without oil or mineral wealth, have been experiencing quite high rates of economic growth. There has been increased demand for African resources, most notably oil, minerals and land, shifting patterns of trade and exchange, as well as considerable discussion about new investment opportunities in Africa and Africa’s ties with partners in Asia and Latin America.

Africa’s rapidly growing population is increasingly youthful and urban, and many Africans are benefiting from improved health and well-being. Other important trends include the rise of sizeable middle classes on the continent, Africa’s ongoing religious dynamism and cultural creativity, and the spread of new technologies, such as the mobile telephone and satellite television. The ASCL attempts to understand this apparent accelerated change on the continent in relation to earlier political economic configurations and shifting patterns of inequality, access to resources and forms of conflict. The ASCL notices the economic downturn in many African countries starting late 2015 and following lower world market prices of Africa’s raw materials. This questions the sustainability of Africa’s high growth era between 2000 and 2015.

The ASCL’s main individual and collaborative research activities fall within the four major interrelated thematic areas of the 2012-2017 research programme:

ReSeARCH

the African Studies Centre Leiden (ASCL) is the national knowledge centre on Africa in the Netherlands but with a global function. It serves the academic community in the Netherlands, in Africa and elsewhere and it serves professionals in the Netherlands and beyond that deal with Africa; this can be in Ministries, in ngos, the business community, journalists, teachers, publishers, and the wider public. The ambition of the ASCL is to be a think tank about Africa for specialized audiences in research and teaching environments, as well as to serve as an information centre about Africa for policymakers, practitioners and the public. The ASCL is a core player in the newly formed Leiden African Studies Assembly, which was established when the African Studies Centre (ASC) became an integral part of Leiden University as an interfaculty institute on the first of January 2016 as the African Studies Centre Leiden.

Central to the ASCL’s position as the centre for study and dissemination of Africa in the netherlands is the research, primarily in the social sciences and humanities, carried out by its researchers. The research carried out by the ASCL is conducted by the centre’s core research staff, PhD students, and associated researchers, within the ASCL’s current 2012-2017 research programme, ‘Africa and Global Restructuring’. During 2016, researchers of the ASCL carried out a wide variety of both collaborative and individual research projects within the ambit of the aforementioned research programme. This resulted in a number of publications, public engagements, and extensive discussion with policymakers and other academics.

ASCL researchers conduct their collaborative and individual research within

a variety of Collaborative Research Groups (CRGs) that cover the four, core

interrelated thematic areas of the research programme ‘Africa and Global

Restructuring’. All ASCL researchers regularly meet in the Researchers Assembly

(RA), the overarching body that facilitates free discussion on all issues relating

to research at the ASCL, including, amongst other things, funding, representation,

planning and output. In 2016, the RA was chaired by Jan-Bart Gewald, with

Akinyinka Akinyoade as the RA’s deputy chair.

11 trajectories on the productive potential and sustainability of these resources. The focal points in this field of inquiry include (i) possibilities for improved well-being in terms of land, water and food security and more inclusive access to these resources; (ii) issues of food, land, water and youth employment in and around Africa’s expanding urban centres; and (iii) the use of resources to improve human development and the quality of life (physical and mental health, nutrition, educational level, skills).

The extensive and multi-disciplinary cohort of ASCL researchers involved in resources and well-being have been in continuous dialogue with government ministries, NGOs, private sector and media, both in the Netherlands and abroad. As the host of the Secretariat for the Knowledge Platform on Inclusive Development Policies (INCLUDE), one of the so-called Knowledge Platforms launched by the netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs in June 2012, the ASCL has also been involved in policy relevant research and research valorisation relating to issues of inclusive development.

Central to the thematic area focusing on resources and well-being, is how individual and collective plans and actions affect African trajectories to improved well-being at the level of the individual, local community, region and the state within the context of global restructuring. Building upon research started before the new research programme was initiated, ASCL research staff members have made significant and timely contributions to important academic and policy debates in the field.

Dietz’s participatory assessment of development project highlighted the serious challenges involved in reaching the ultra-poor in Africa through NGO interventions (http://www.padev.nl/other_output.htm, accessed 26 January 2017). Similarly, Elbers work on Breaking down barriers to inclusion sought to investigate the way in which an effective lobby and advocacy for children with a disability could be realised. A specific focus on women in development featured in several projects that Dekker worked on, for example on women in community-based organizations (zimbabwe), intra-household collaboration 1. Resources and well-being

Within the thematic area focusing on resources and well-being, in 2016 research staff members have continued contributing to important academic and policy debates on development, agriculture, food security and related topics. The thematic area of resources and well-being is of crucial importance in contemporary Africa, and one that demands sustained and critical fundamental research. The ASCL has taken a central role in this and much of its core research falls within this rubric. Resources and well-being are central to the lives of all people, and feature prominently in the life histories and aspirations expressed by many in Africa. In addition, a focus on resources and well-being is also manifest in the many and varied planned development and change models that the state, international donors and non-state actors, including private companies promote and seek to initiate.

In Africa, as elsewhere, people seek to exploit and transform natural and other (financial, human) resources to create economic, social, political and cultural networks and institutions locally, regionally and (trans-) nationally, and are thus involved in processes of inclusion and exclusion. Individual and collective plans for improved well-being are influenced by the fact that state and non-state actors operate (and people live and work) in highly volatile, uncertain and often adverse social, economic and political conditions. In addition, in the struggle for access to resources and a modicum of well-being, the intentions and aspirations of some inevitably clash with those of others.

Specifically, the ASCL aims to arrive at a better understanding of (i) how people in contemporary Africa use and perceive the continent’s main physical resources, namely (arable) land, mineral resources, livestock, physical infrastructure, water and labour, in their trajectories towards improved wellbeing;

(ii) how these uses and perceptions relate to and interact with the economic,

social and political contexts that are increasingly being shaped by today’s global

restructuring (including various transnational companies with headquarters

across the globe); and (iii) the effects of individual and collective plans and

12 Exhibition on the Herero and Nama Genocide

The Mémorial de la Shoah in Paris presented the first European exhibition on the genocide of the Herero and nama in german South-West Africa:

Le premier génocide du XXe siècle. Herero et Nama dans le Sud-Ouest africain allemand, 1904-1908 (25 November 2016-12 March 2017). Prof. Jan-Bart Gewald made his personal archive available for the exhibition and gave a lecture at the opening of the exhibition on 24 November 2016. Scientific curator of the exhibition was Leonor Faber-Jonker, research assistant at Leiden University and affiliate member of the ASC. She worked together with curator Sophie Nagiscarde (Mémorial de la Shoah). Gewald and Faber-Jonker also collaborated on the programme of an international symposium organized by the Mémorial de la Shoah and the German Historical Institute in Paris (26-27 February 2017).

Between 1904 and 1908, an estimated 80 per cent of the Herero and half of the Nama, some 75,000 men, women and children, lost their lives in German South-West Africa, present-day Namibia. They were either killed directly by German soldiers or died of starvation, disease and maltreatment in concentration camps. In 2016, the German government announced that it was preparing an official apology for this colonial crime, today considered the first genocide of the twentieth century. The timely exhibition at the Mémorial de la Shoah aimed to help a general audience understand both the roots and the lasting consequences of the genocide. Dozens of photographs and documents were shown alongside videos, maps, and several items including pass tokens of forced labourers, to evoke the events in all their complexity. Like two earlier

‘dossier exhibitions’ on the Armenian and Rwandan genocides, the exhibition was presented by the Mémorial to stimulate comparative research on genocide and raise awareness.

The exhibition was accompanied by several events, including lectures, film screenings and a two-day international symposium in February 2017. Speakers included Ida Hoffmann (nama genocide technical Committee), esther Muinjangue (Ovaherero/Ovambanderu Genocide Foundation), Dag Henrichsen

(Basel University), Kathrin Roller (Medizinische Hochschule Brandenburg), Jeremy Silvester (Museums Association of Namibia), Holger Stoecker (Humboldt University Berlin), Joachim Zeller, Leonor Faber-Jonker and Martha Akawa (University of Namibia). Topics ranged from German colonial policy and scientific and legal racism in the colony to present-day commemorations and the need for an apology and reparations. The exhibition received much media coverage both in France and abroad, including from Le Monde, RFI, and NRC Handelsblad . A webdossier and a small, but richly illustrated exhibition catalogue are available.

Leonor Faber-Jonker / Jan-Bart Gewald Installation view of the exhibition

Representatives of the genocide committees at the symposium

13 Key publications:

Bekele, M.S., 2016, Economic and Agricultural Transformation through Large-scale Farming. Impacts of large-scale farming on local economic development, household food security and the environment in Ethiopia, PhD thesis, Leiden University.

https://openaccess.leidenuniv.nl/handle/1887/43731.

Bergh, M. van den, 2016, Bridging the Gap between Bird Conservation and Sustainable Development. Perceptions and participation of rural people in Burkina Faso’s Sahel region, PhD thesis, Leiden University. https://openaccess.leidenuniv.nl/

bitstream/handle/1887/44390/ASC-075287668-3793-01.pdf?sequence=2.

Dietz T. (N. Pouw, T. Dietz, A. Bélemvire, D. de Groot, D. Millar, F. Obeng, W. Rijneveld, K. van der Geest, Z. Vlaminck, F. Zaal), Participatory Assessment of Development Interventions. Lessons learned from a new evaluation methodology in Ghana and Burkina Faso. American Journal of Evaluation (April 2016). https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Nicky_

Pouw/publication/301287553_American_Journal_of_Evaluation-2016- Pouw-1098214016641210/links/570f8a1708aec95f06145668.pdf.

2. Constellations of governance

From a multidisciplinary perspective within the areas of politics, history and religion, ASCL researchers have continued to contribute to key academic debates about governance in Africa in 2016, which are also of concern to policymakers and others. Constellations of governance takes a broad view on politics, power and ‘governance’ in Africa, as shaped by historical processes, social actors and movements, and conflict arenas, be they actual physical conflict, or contestations of ideologies and interest groups (e.g. in political forums and the media). Field- and archival-based studies continued to be done in 2016 on

‘governance’ by researchers working on related and overlapping themes, from the historical to the political-economic and the rural-sociological. Governance and polygyny (Nigeria) and a review on the evidence on gender equality

interventions for property rights, labour markets, political participation and violence against women.

Significant contributions were made on agricultural performance, urban agriculture and the gendered division of labour in crop cultivation, urban agriculture and livestock keeping, biofuel feedstock production, forest value chains, water management, forest regimes and forest governance, and resource management in a variety of African countries. ASCL researchers working in these fields also conducted research and published articles on related issues in places in Asia and Latin America, which are useful for comparative reflection.

Access to land featured prominently. In addition to ongoing research on the important topic of land grabbing in Africa by Bekele, Kaag, Rutten and uche, ASCL researchers also conducted research on land governance in conflict and post-conflict settings in Mali, Burundi, South Sudan and Uganda.

Building on work for the the national Federation of Christian trade unions in the netherlands (CnV), issues surrounding labour dynamics and trade unions became an important area of interest, culminating in the establishment of a collaborative and NWO-WOTRO/INCLUDE funded project ‘Increasing Political Leverage for Informal and Formal Workers’ Organizations for Inclusive Development in Ghana and Benin’ (Kaag and Leliveld). Uncertainty in household economies and livelihoods featured strongly in the work on community-based health insurance in Togo (Dekker and Leliveld) and Ethiopia (Dekker) and a study into the effects of dollarization in Zimbabwe, including the intensification of gift-giving rather than other anticipated coping mechanisms in such a hyperinflationary context (Dekker).

Work conducted within the context of an African Dynamics joint publication

led in part to the establishment in 2016 of the Centre for Frugal Innovation in

Africa, a joint multidisciplinary centre of Leiden University, Delft University of

Technology and Erasmus University Rotterdam, within which Leliveld is one of

the principal researchers.

14 in Africa – in the sense of the equitable political management of public goods, law, and social justice – has remained deeply problematic in the past decade, despite the economic dynamism and selective growth in state contexts. In- depth study has shown the resilience and originality of socio-political actors within and outside state spaces in formulating alternative modes of organization and survival. At the level of states and state governance, the moves towards

‘democratic’ reform, inclusive politics and social justice remained problematic, and the new alliances of state regimes with foreign investors and emerging foreign powers or allies weakened the political agency of non-state actors and marginal groups and classes (like youths, ethnic or religious minorities) and insurgent groups in certain regions. We found that ‘governance’ as a concept also had to be redefined in a more analytical and less normative way.

Research within this thematic area focused on a restudy of the early 2000s on

‘fragile’ and ‘weak states’, particularly as the explanatory power of such state- oriented models, based on narrow ideas of governance, appeared to be too limited. Some states might not ‘function’ for the majority of citizens but appear to be ‘strong’ nevertheless, often propped up by continuing donor support. We showed that durable socio-political, ethno-regional fault lines and contestation persisted in many African societies (Chad, Ethiopia, Central Africa, Somalia). Also, that the continent is not free from ‘ungoverned spaces’, where new (armed) power claimants forcefully established their rule or ‘authority’, and often had some global impact. ‘Governance’ in such spaces is not the political management of public goods and some kind of rule-of-law regime, but more like coercive political control and the direct exploitation of resources and people.

As to the perennial issue of development – seen here as a comprehensive process of induced societal change that has political, economic and socio- cultural features – ASCL research in 2016 emphasized its context-sensitivity and its appropriation by political actors, either ‘developmental states’ and elites, social movements, religious groups, or ethno-regional minorities or even criminal networks (shading into politics). The essential contestedness of ‘development’

within national arenas came out starkly in various country studies (on Central Africa, Chad, Ethiopia).

In 2016, the African continent as a whole continued to deal with the after-effects of the World Bank-inspired ‘structural adjustment’ programmes of the 1980s, now converted into new models about private-public (i.e. state) partnerships for socio-economic development. Such models, allying African state regimes with global capital and global institutions, appeared to relegate African farmers, urban workers and other producers to a secondary role, with few rights accorded.

The new players in Africa (e.g. Asian countries and companies) seamlessly fit into this paradigm. This appeared for instance in the processes of large-scale land investments aimed to ‘replace’ subsistence agriculture and agro-pastoralism – with little alternatives for those displaced. Indeed, 2016 continued the trend in which a surprising number of land governance and livelihood conflicts emerged in the wake of foreign land investments. These conflicts had environmental as well as socio-political aspects. They occurred in conjunction with lapses into state authoritarianism and political closure in quite a few countries. Other countries consolidated their democratic politics, with elections, party diversity and political alternation, but were faced with similar challenges of equity and inclusiveness.

Understanding ‘politics in Africa’ thus meant exploring these complex constellations of governance, emergent power formations, political-economic inequality, (religion-based) radicalization and competition as well as crime networks in localized settings. It also meant identifying their constituent elements in everyday economic and political practice, and examining how new technologies were changing the way economists and state actors understand and interact with informal economies (Nigeria, Chad, Mali, Central Africa, Sudan).

ASCL researchers continued to address the historical dynamics of the past

century that led to the current political dispensations, regimes, or party states

(South Africa, Zambia, Niger, Central Africa). Historicizing and rethinking the role of

the state thus also generated renewed interest in participatory reassessments of

15 Africa’s own post-independence histories, in the relevance of common periodisation

(‘pre-colonial’, ‘colonial’, ‘post-colonial’), and in the current aspirations among various actors (from state to business circles to political and religious groups and individuals).

This contributed to questioning the received wisdoms on the desired or expected trajectories on national resource management, ecological policy, social justice and

‘security and the rule of law’, ideals held in some form by most Africans (although in specific local expressions), and prominent in current UN and donor policy (incl. Dutch government policies) towards Africa.

In 2016, numerous contacts and exchanges – both on an individual and collective basis, e.g. study days, lectures or seminars, advisory reports – were undertaken by ASCL researchers with members of the netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Development Cooperation, the mass media, NGOs, and other societal organizations seeking advice.

Key publications:

Ellis, S., 2016, This Present Darkness. A history of Nigerian organised crime. London:

C. Hurst

Uche, C.U. (A. Ezeoha, A. Igwe, C. Onyeke, C. Uche), Relevance lost? The Petroleum Equalization Fund in Nigeria. Energy for Sustainable Development 31 (2016): 152- 162. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.esd.2016.01.004

Dijk, H. van (D. Kobusingye, M. van Leeuwen & H. van Dijk), Where Do I Report My Land Dispute? The impact of institutional proliferation on land governance in post-conflict Northern Uganda. Journal of Legal Pluralism and Unofficial Law 48.2 (2016): 238-255. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07329113.2016.1195673

3. Identification and belonging in a media age

In 2016, within the thematic research area centred on identification and belonging in an age where media – in particular, mobile telephony and ICts – continues to proliferate, researchers continued the ASCL’s long-standing focus on understanding new forms and the politics of identification and belonging.

the ASCL researchers continued to explore how changing modes of belonging and exclusion in Africa over time have been affected by the current era of global restructuring in conjunction with the ongoing media revolution. While older forms of identification and belonging, such as those pertaining to religion, class, gender and political affiliation continue to be significant but have changed due to this global restructuring in important ways, the proliferation of new media and communication technologies – most recently the mobile telephone and the Internet but also older mass media such as television – has equally led to profound changes in forms of identification in Africa. It has dramatically extended the possibilities for communication over space and time, but has also changed the content and the significance of flows of information, knowledge, images and ideas to, from and within Africa.

In 2016, this research focus continued to contribute to a better understanding of the way these developments have had specific consequences for processes and identification and belonging in various parts of Africa through extended and intensive, empirical and historical research. Important insights have been gained and made available in a wide range of publications, reports, conferences, workshops and policy exchanges. The theme of identification and belonging has proved to have been a productive and conducive one, evidenced by a high spin- off of subsequent, partly externally funded research projects and publications.

In this thematic area of the research programme, the projects have continued

to identify key moments when identification and belonging are expressed

in social, cultural and political forms. These include rituals of the life course

(marriages and funerals), cultural creativity in music, the visual arts, material

In November 2016, ASCL, in collaboration with the Netherlands-African Business Council (NABC), organized the Third Africa Works Conference. This is the largest event in the Netherlands that focuses on doing business in Africa.

The theme of the conference, which attracted over 500 delegates from Europe and Africa, was Innovation in Finance. During the conference, ASCL organized a workshop on Opportunities for Lease Financing in Africa.

The panelists at the ASCL workshop included Mr. Emeka Ndu (Group Chief Executive Officer of C&I Leasing plc, which is the largest leasing company in Nigeria) and Mr. Jonathan Gigin (Senior Financial Sector Specialist, Africa Leasing Facility II International Finance Corporation). Ritesh Shah and Rob van den Heuvel represented the Lage Landen International BV netherlands, a subsidiary of Rabo Bank, which is the largest leasing company in the Netherlands. The workshop was moderated by our senior researcher, Dr. Chibuike Uche.

In his welcome address, ASCL Director, professor ton Dietz stressed the importance of sustainable capital for Africa’s development. He emphasized that the role of the workshop was to encourage cooperation amongst leasing companies in the Netherlands and Africa. He was particularly pleased by the strategic importance of the organizations represented at the workshop.

Deliberations at the workshop highlighted diverse perceptions of leasing in Africa by various stakeholders. All panelists thanked the ASCL for organizing the workshop and putting them in touch with other important stakeholders in the leasing industry in Africa. Participants also agreed to continue to work together after the conference in order to find ways of enhancing the leasing market in Africa.

An important highlight of the meeting was the vigorous promotion of the concept of micro leasing as a potent instrument for skills acquisition and raising capital by the poor in Africa, by the International Finance Corporation. In this regard, IFC showcased the remarkable success of Selfina Tanzania. Established in

2002, Selfina Tanzania helps women build and grow value-creating sustainable businesses, by enabling them to acquire equipment for their businesses on lease. In the past, Selfina clients have used such leased equipment for various businesses including baking, tailoring, farming, livestock keeping and food vending.

In other to protect the leased assets and ensure their proper use, Selfina ensures that the lessees are taught the basics of business management and the proper use and maintenance of such assets. The IFC presentation on micro leasing elicited a lot of interest from both leasing practitioners and development agencies.

Chibuike Uche

ASCL director Ton Dietz, Hans Docter (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) and Marina Diboma of the NABC, the moderator of Africa Works! Photo: Jan-Joseph Stok / NABC.

Africa Works 2016: Opportunities for Lease Financing in Africa Workshop

16

17 culture and language, including literature and journalism as well as more popular

linguistic forms, such as patois, slang and SMS usage, and diverse forms of political action and expression and how they change over time, including their mediatisation. The detailed empirical research has been able to demonstrate how shifting identifications has led to new alliances and networks, which in turn influenced norms, values and worldviews, such as those in the field of sexual and reproductive rights. New social formations, such as transnationally operating NGO’s and other civil society organizations that have emerged as new contexts of belonging in a global age, have facilitated access to new resources, engendering at the same time forms of exclusion and relations of inequality, and at times even fuelling outright conflict.

The core group of researchers belonging to this research field consisted of de Bruijn, Abbink, Gewald, R. van Dijk, Soares and Kaag. Taken together, this group of researchers has been able to approach the problematic of rapidly changing processes of identification and belonging from within their own fields of specialization, yet allowing for a diversified and multidisciplinary exploration of these processes. M. de Bruijn approached the core theme of this research program by focusing on the rise of new communication technologies (the mobile phone in particular) as well as the rise of the social media on the continent. J. Abbink, focused primarily on political processes of identification and belonging, highlighting in particular how these are intertwined with the rise of the new media as well and the way in which these coalesce with the expression of religious notions of identity. Gewald applied a historical approach to these questions by looking specifically at the emergence of colonial rule in various parts of Africa and the way new technologies of communication, transport, administration and planning impacted on people’s identities and social formations. R. van Dijk concentrated on questions of the interaction between religion and the introduction of new (global) bio-medical technologies in the context of the HIV/AIDS crisis which have led to new notions concerning the

‘social engineering’ of behavioural change and the refashioning of private lives.

Soares concentrated on the exploration of recent developments in African Islam and how new movements have been emerging including new forms of

leadership and public profiling. Kaag focused specifically on the context of Islam in the role of new social and organizational formations, particularly in which the rise of transnational NGO’s and charity-organizations have played a major role in the refashioning of social identities and belonging.

Crucial to the research field has been the work that continued to be conducted in 2016 within the many prestigious projects led by De Bruijn. Within these projects researchers sought to understand the dynamics that exist in the relationship between social media, mobile telephony and social fabric under duress in Africa’s mobile margins. They combined studies on mobility/migration, conflict and communication in an attempt to uncover these new dynamics, which were so evident in North Africa and the Middle East in 2011. The studies that were conducted in these projects were situated in northern Middle Africa (Chad, Central African Republic, Cameroon and eastern Nigeria). These findings have enhanced our understanding of conflict dynamics and the role of social media and ICT in conflict and post-conflict societies (www.connecting-in-times- of-duress.nl; www.voice4thought.org; http://www.ascleiden.nl/research/projects/

ethnographic-study-mobile-money-africa, accessed 26 January 2017).

Key publications:

Soares, B.F. (A. Masquelier & B.F. Soares) (eds), Muslim Youth and the 9/11 Generation. University of New Mexico Press, 2016.

Bruijn, M. de, Citizen Journalism at a Crossroads. Mediated political agency and duress in Central Africa. In: B. Mutsvairo (ed.), Participatory Politics and Citizen Journalism in a Networked Africa. A connected continent . Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. 90-102.

Dijk, R.A. van (K. Krause & R. van Dijk), Hodological Care among Ghanaian

pentecostals: De-diasporization and belonging in transnational religious

networks, Diaspora 19.1 (2016): 97-115.

18 4. Africa’s global connections

Within this broad thematic area in 2016, ASCL researchers continued to be concerned primarily with Africa’s changing connections with the world in two main areas: economics and development, on the one hand, and religion, in particular Christianity and Islam, on the other, and occasionally their intersection.

The adoption of this research theme as a transversal theme in ASC’s research programme 2012-2017 was based on the recognition that the world has an increasingly multipolar character. This is a result of the emergence of new global powers such as China, India, Brazil, turkey and the gulf States, and this is crucial for reflecting on Africa’s role and position within this evolving world order. Among the questions are: What does this multi-polarity mean for Africa?

How does Africa fare when faced with possible struggles over its raw materials and resources (such as land, water, biomass and mineral resources) and escalating bids for hegemony by different global players? What does this mean for new streams of finance and knowledge production and exchange and the reorientation of Africa’s networks? Does the new historical set-up offer African countries and social groups room for negotiation and manoeuvre, and possibly lead to greater growth and stronger institutions? These questions are especially acute given Africa’s potential to take advantage of its demographic dividend.

today, many Africans are young, healthier and better educated than in the past and are poised to enter the work force.

This theme combines an interest in Africa’s changing economic and political linkages to the world, with one in evolving social, political, economic and cultural networks that link Africa and Africans to other parts of the globe, including African diasporas. By taking an African vantage point and highlighting the agency of African groups vis-à-vis external actors, this field of enquiry challenges victimising views of the continent. It shows how African strategies towards these actors have a significant effect in helping to shape today’s world. This is not least because African actors’ choices for orientating themselves to new poles and partners are eroding western hegemony in political, economic and cultural domains.

In 2016, research related to this theme continued to be broad-ranging and diverse, ranging from studies at the local level (e.g. new entrepreneurial partnerships, humanitarian and educational encounters, and changing cultural orientations) to the national level (e.g. bilateral economic and diplomatic agreements) and the international level (e.g. changing alliances in international forums such as the un), and from studies with a predominantly historical focus to studies focusing on the newest technological trends and political developments. Since the African diaspora is an increasingly important actor in forging and reinforcing new global linkages and relationships, it has also received particular attention.

Research conducted by ASCL researchers within this thematic area in 2016 continued to seek to contribute to an understanding of the building processes and the effects of the multipolar world that is shaping new economic and political topographies in Africa and beyond. The research has particularly focused on: (i) new and changing connections facilitated by technological and institutional innovations (Abbink, De Bruijn, Soares, Gewald, Leliveld); (ii) Africa’s position in the global division of labour, world trade and investment patterns (Dietz, Cheru, Uche, Kaag, Leliveld) including the shadowy side of international fraud and organized crime (Ellis); (iii) the political consequences of new partnerships and alliances (Abbink, De Bruijn, Kaag); and (iv) the cultural economy of Africa’s linkages to the rest of the world, especially in religion and education (Soares, Kaag). Finally, the activities of the CRG ‘Africa in the World:

Rethinking Africa’s Connections’, which will be dealt with further along fit wholly within this programme.

Key publications:

Kaag, M., Islamic Charities from the Arab World in Africa. Intercultural encounters of humanitarianism and morality. In: V. M. Heins, K. Koddenbrock, C. Unrau (eds), Humanitarianism and Challenges of Cooperation. Abingdon [etc.]:

Routledge, 2016. 155-176.

19 Cheru, F., Emerging Southern powers and new Forms of South-South

Cooperation: Ethiopia’s strategic engagement with China and India. Third World Quarterly 37 (2016): 592-610.

Mann, L., (K. Meagher, L. Mann & M. Bolt), Introduction: Global Economic Inclusion and African Workers. Journal of Development Studies 52.4 (2016): 471- 482.

Within these broad thematic areas of the research programme, ongoing ASCL research activities are organized into individual research projects and collaborative research groups (CRGs) that bring together several ASCL researchers working on related issues and themes. Much of the ASC’s research is carried out in close cooperation with colleagues outside of the ASCL and in concert with various partner institutions in Europe, Africa and elsewhere in the world.

Collaborative Research Groups

Some of the ASCL’s research is conducted within the rubric of collaborative research groups, each comprising between five to seven ASCL researchers, various affiliated members, and a member of the Library staff. The five CRGs active in 2016, in alphabetical order are:

Africa in the World: Rethinking Africa’s Global Connections (2012-present)

Convenor: Mayke Kaag

This group explores Africa’s changing global linkages in an increasingly multipolar world in which actors such as China, India, Brazil, turkey and the gulf states are becoming major players. This includes reflection upon what this means from the vantage point of Africa and the agency of Africans, as well as placing the current dynamics in a historical context. A number of infosheets were published (i.e.

China, Brazil, Indonesia, turkey, South-Korea and their relationships with Africa),

which were well appreciated by the targeted audience, policymakers and the wider public. In 2016, the group, in collaboration with the Afraso programme in Frankfurt, worked on the preparation of an academic workshop entitled

‘Destination Africa: Africa as a centre of global connectivity’, to be held in Spring 2017. Finally, a proposition for the establishment of an AEGIS CRG on ‘Africa in the World’ was submitted to the AEGIS board.

Conflict in Africa: Trajectories of Power Competition and Civic (Dis-) engagement (2014-present)

Convenor: Han van Dijk

This group explores the processes of making of authority, legitimacy, and conflict escalation and mediation in the context of new growth trajectories in Africa. In addition to analysing how people devise their own local solutions to problems of survival and livelihoods, the research aims to produce field data, insights and contributions to broader discussions on security and the rule of law in Africa, prominent in policy debates and international development efforts.

Food Security and the African City (2012-present) Convenor: Akinyinka Akinyoade (2014-present)

This is one of the two largest CRGs, and it brings together ASCL and affiliated researchers working on questions of food security and urban food systems in Africa in particular. This CRG contributes to, amongst others, ongoing discussions between the netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the netherlands Ministry of Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation, the Netherlands-African Business Council (NABC), Wageningen University (WUR) and the ASCL about the establishment of ‘Agrohubs’ in and around African cities.

Labour Dynamics and Trade Unions (2013-present) Convenor: André Leliveld

This group addresses Africa’s recent economic growth from the perspective of labour with a particular focus on trade unions and informal workers’

organizations as important actors for inclusive development. In 2016 work

continued on the role of trade unions and informal workers’ organizations

20 for the political leverage of informal workers in Ghana and Benin (NWO, 2014-2017) In 2016, the members of the collaborative research group Trade Unions and Labour Issues in Africa (TULIA) were active in several domains.

Within the INCLUDE strategic actors project on ‘Political Leverage of Informal Workers Organizations in Ghana and Benin’, coordinated by Mayke Kaag, Kassim Assouma and Zjos Vlaminck conducted extensive fieldwork in Benin and Ghana, respectively. In August 2016, Zjos Vlaminck left the project and her duties within the project were taken over by Raphael Verbuyst and Tanja Hendriks. In collaboration with the societal partners in the project stakeholder meetings were organized in Cotonou and Accra to present and discuss the first results.

In December 2016, a consortium meeting was organized in Leuven, Belgium, which focused on the presentation of research findings and the preparation for the dissemination strategies. In 2016, CNV International, of which ASCL is a knowledge partner, commissioned a series of scoping studies in tunisia, egypt, Morocco, Mali and Algeria. These studies were conducted by the researchers Rafael Verbuyst and Paul Lange, and coordinated by André Leliveld. The final reports will be published in 2017. In April 2016, André Leliveld represented the CRg at the SoAS-ASCL Roundtable on labour research in Africa, organized at SOAS in London.

Rethinking Contemporary African History and Historiography (2012-present)

Convenor: Jan-Bart Gewald (up to 31 December 2016)

This CRG is the second of the two largest collaborative groups at the ASCL, and it brings together those broadly interested in questions of history and historiography in Africa. It serves mostly as a forum for the exchange of ideas.

the group held eight meetings in 2016 in which CRg members from the ASCL and affiliated researchers, as well as several outside researchers, presented their research, primarily of the topic of African Biography. In September 2016, an international workshop dealing with African Biography was hosted by the CRg

in preparation for the African Dynamics publication of 2018, which will focus on the methodology, researching and writing of academic African biography.

Individual Research Projects

Although a considerable portion of ASCL research activities falls within the CRGs, in 2016 each ASCL researcher continued to conduct individual research, sometimes in collaboration with colleagues from outside the institute. In fact, researchers’ individual research remains at the heart of the ASCL’s research programme and feeds into the CRgs and the larger success of the ASCL as a major centre for Africanist research.

Agnieszka Kazimierczuk with her research assistant in Ghana

21 The ASCL is not a ‘normal’ university department. It has a strong mandate to do

research that is relevant to society and it maintains a solid network of contacts with a large number of societal partners, in the Netherlands and in Africa.

A number of ASCL activities with a special and diverse societal relevance have been highlighted in text boxes. On 8 December, the first and very successful

‘societal meeting’ took place (see a report below), and we highlight the relevance of the ASCL’s work for the Sustainable Development Goals. The ASCL’s societal relevance is mainly focused on the Netherlands and on Europe.

It is important, however, that we continue to remain an independent, research- based knowledge hub about Africa. This calls for critical involvement and critical distance from the societal partners that we work with, now and in the future.

Report of the Societal Advisory Panel

once a year the ASCL, in partnership with the Leiden African Studies Assembly (LeidenASA), invites its key partners to discuss the position of Leiden-based Africanists within Dutch (civil) society. This ‘Societal Advisory Panel’ is organized by the Board of Governors of the Foundation African Studies Centre. The 2016 Panel was the first edition since the ASCL adopted its new institutional status as an interfaculty institute within Leiden University, as of 1 January 2016.

As agreed between the last Board of Governors that was in place within the old institutional structure and the Executive Board of Leiden University, the Foundation African Studies Centre will continue to exist with a slimmed-down Board of Governors, currently consisting of two members: Agnes van Ardenne and Bernard Berendsen (chair of the Societal Advisory Panel morning session).

The 2016 edition took place on 8 December in the inspiring environment of the National Museum of Ethnology (Museum Volkenkunde). There was a high turnout of participants, representing ASCL partners from diverse segments of society, including knowledge platforms (e.g. INCLUDE, Food & Business, VIAWater), ministries (e.g. Foreign Affairs and Defence), NGOs (e.g. HIVOS, Liliane Fonds, Fairwear, UNICEF), business (e.g. NABC, FMO, VNO-NCW), press/media/publishers (e.g. Brill, NCDO/ OneWorld, Zuid-Afrikahuis) as well

as representatives from LeidenGlobal, Leiden Municipality and ASCL’s Scientific Advisory Council. The Panel discussions were organized around five broad thematic domains: economics, socio-politics, communication & culture, heritage/

library and action research.

The 2016 Societal Advisory Panel generated the following conclusions and recommendations to the ASCL/ Leiden African Studies Assembly:

• Partners particularly value the ASCL and the breadth of knowledge on Africa available in Leiden as a source for context analysis. They would like to see the ASCL offer sound updates of changing circumstances and longer- term scenarios. The Country Portal, Seminars and Country Meetings are highly appreciated; the Africa Yearbook is being underutilized.

• Partners require insight into the political and social ‘rules of the game’

underlying power relations in Africa as these are generally difficult to expose for outside observers. The ASCL should therefore preserve its capacity to provide locally sourced and historically well-informed knowledge on the socio-political structures in Africa.

• the ASCL is praised for its long-standing research presence in many areas in Africa and how it gives voice to local researchers and the wider local community. Collaboration between local research/activists and prominent international research institutes such as the ASCL (and LeidenASA at large) is in some of the most fragile contexts in Africa a means to maintain operations. Science has also a role to play in lobby & advocacy.

• In the area of African economies, the ASCL is faced with increasingly scattered subjects and themes and a small group of researchers who are over-demanded. This situation asks for careful decision-making. One cannot expect from the ASCL to offer the full modern economist’s toolbox (e.g.

randomized controlled studies or experiments). However, it is important to be properly informed about these kinds of research tools and to ambition the position of broker to be able to translate this kind of expertise to political economy and multidisciplinary discussions.

• Within the ASCL economic programme there seems to be a shift in focus from traditional ‘development aid’ to business/entrepreneurship & trade.

SoCIetAL ReLeVAnCe

22

In many African countries, people with disabilities are forgotten in mainstream policymaking despite being a large and marginalized minority group. People with disabilities frequently face stigma and discrimination in their communities and are often denied their basic rights such as food, education, employment and access to health services. One way in which disability can be bought to the forefront of policymaking is through lobby and advocacy. In dialogue with governments or other power holders, Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) can lobby for more inclusive policies and practices and put the rights of people with disabilities on the political agenda. Alternatively, CSOs may act as watchdogs to ensure that government and private parties follow up on agreements and commitments made. While some CSOs have been quite successful in putting the rights of disabled people on the political agenda, others have failed to achieve any success. This raises the question why.

In 2015, the African Studies Centre and the Liliane Foundation started a learning programme on lobby and advocacy for children with disabilities. Together with local partners of Liliane Foundation in Cameroon (CBCHS) and Sierra Leone (one Family people), the programme seeks to identify the success factors of lobby and advocacy for children with disabilities. This is achieved by examining different cases of disability advocacy in these countries through a variety of research ‘lenses’. Examples of such lenses include, the organizational resources most critical for undertaking advocacy work, how opportunities and constraints in the political environment shape advocacy success and how participation of children with disability in advocacy contributes to advocacy effectiveness.

the research in Sierra Leone and Cameroon is conducted by talented students who are handpicked from Dutch universities. During their fieldwork, the students are supervised by local academics dr. Walter Nwki from Buea university (Cameroon) and Dr. Aisha Ibrahim from Fourah Bay College (Sierra Leone). Besides producing peer-reviewed publications, the programme aims to

strengthen the capacity of Liliane Foundation and its local civil society partners to support, design and implement effective lobby & advocacy strategies.

At the core of this collaboration lies the interaction between practitioners and researchers to facilitate knowledge development, dissemination and application.

Willem Elbers

Breaking Down Barriers to Exclusion. Building capacity for lobby and advocacy for children with disabilities

Discussing research findings during a learning event in Cameroon

23 However, poverty and inequality should be at the heart of the approach: to

understand the linkages between economic transformation and distribution issues (inclusive growth & development). Striking the right balance between business development and poverty reduction calls for a critical stance. In which sectors of the economy are poor people employed and to what extent do they benefit from growth? How to promote local sourcing?

• The ASCL should link academic expertise on developments in Africa to practical knowledge on Africa that resides with the business sector, policymakers and practitioners. Advanced insights can be produced by integrating knowledge that is fragmented among different stakeholders and by creating joint learning experiences. The business sector, NGOs and those working in the field of economic diplomacy require from the ASCL to offer sound information as critical input for their assessments of security, financial climate and investments opportunities & risks. This has been successfully tested during the Africa Works! events. The convening power of the ASCL in general proves to be very effective. It is therefore useful to explore how to deepen relationships with various actors in Africa and how to strengthen European-African synergies within the framework of LeidenASA.

• A strong recommendation is to better satisfy the demand for economic research coming from Africa itself and to strengthen knowledge exchange with African partners as well as through South-South relations.

• When financing North-South (and North-South-South) partnerships Leiden should make greater use of public-private collaborations, both at the European level as well as globally.

• the multidisciplinary research approach followed by the ASCL for years already is highly appreciated. A multidisciplinary approach is critical to better understand, for example, the complex relations between population groups, employment creation, education, migration and climate change, but also when other themes are added such as infrastructure and health.

• Participants fully support the policy stance taken by the ASCL/LeidenASA to no longer focus on (one-sided) capacity building for knowledge institutes

in Africa but to strengthen mutual partnerships based on equality. That it

can be difficult for African academic institutes to break free from the often very rigid academic structures is identified as a serious challenge.

• The ASCL/ LeidenASA are encouraged to continue organizing informative seminars on a wide range of topics as well as other public events which are – also because of an effective social media strategy – well-attended by people from remarkably broad segments of society.

• It is concluded that the ASCL successfully uses forms of communication that are open to a wide range of users beyond academic experts only.

It is encouraged to continue following this path. It is however noted that there is a need to monitor the accessibility of seminar presentations and to differentiate between seminars geared towards academic experts and other seminars that target a broader audience.

• Considering the dual task of the ASCL (conducting research + familiarizing the public with Africa) the general opinion is there are too many academic seminars and not enough ‘Africa Today’ seminars (the current ratio is about 80:20). This gave rise to the idea to organize (even) more Africa Today seminars and Country Meetings together with partners in order to reach new target groups, as has been successfully done with the Voice4Thought Festival.

• It is good that ASCL actively collaborates with various civil society partners.

It should capitalize even more on its current status as university institute, in terms of outreach and communication. The university seeks to achieve global exposure in which Africa should be an important pillar. In recent years, the news media attention for Africa as well as for development issues/

international cooperation has come under increasing pressure (including financial). Many news media go through difficult times; newspapers cut back on their coverage of foreign affairs. The ASCL should therefore invest in preparing ready-made information for the media and in maintaining its network of media partners including the local press.

• Participants praise the ASCL for tackling the difficult task of keeping its

specialized library up and running and to further (and leading the way in)

professionalizing its digital services. The university integration has provided

Discussing research findings during a learning event in Cameroon

This publication by Marcel Rutten and Moses Mwangi deals with the sensitive issue: corruption in land transfers at the expense of the family of a willing seller who uses fake wives to receive consent from the land control board to sell part of the family’s land without the other members knowing. This practice has been mentioned previously by a human rights organization, albeit briefly.

there are currently no detailed studies of this phenomenon in academic literature. This working paper provides in-depth information about fake wives, the sellers (occupation, education) and the buyers involved. The details show that mostly reasonably well-educated sellers use the fake wives in transactions that primarily include well-off buyers, notably commercial companies. The paper is linked to another publication that discusses the role of the land broker in Africa.

Preliminary results of these Cocoon Initiative Kenya working papers were presented during guest lectures at the universities of Cambridge, Oxford, Toulouse, Salzburg and in the quarterly seminar series of the Kenya National Land Commission. Members of the NLC, who reviewed the paper, commented very positively and, to date, it has been downloaded through Researchgate almost 300 times in just three months.

A pastoralist ngo commented: “this is now a common practice in all parts of Africa. The push for registration and titling of land, especially that in pastoralist societies, which is under customary tenure, is contributing to the problem – absentee landlords are beginning to emerge in areas in uganda whose lands are traditionally under customary tenure, where the concept of absentee landlords was alien. Many of the African elites e.g. in Karamoja as well have gone further to create an environment of landlessness making it more worse for the African women to be left out in allocation.”

Cocoon Initiative Kenya Working Paper 5, September 2016

24

25

to contribute to the development policies of the Netherlands. The Rutte-I Cabinet (2010-2012) formulated four target domains (agriculture, water, sexual and reproductive health and rights, and security and the rule of law; within a broader commitment to the Millennium Development Goals). The Rutte-II Cabinet (2012-2017) broadened agriculture to ‘food and business’, and added inclusive development’, and the nexus between the policy and knowledge sectors became embedded in five ‘knowledge platforms’ for these five domains.

But Rutte-II also committed itself to the new Sustainable Development Goals 2015-2030, and to the Paris Agreement about Climate Change. And there is a commitment to broader topics than the five Platform domains, mainly because of the migration debate, and ‘how to keep people there’ (‘there’ primarily referring to Africa and the Middle East).

the African Studies Centre Leiden has always committed part of its research agenda to research-for-policy, with activities relevant to all five knowledge platforms (with a current emphasis on the Inclusive Development Platform, an excellent opportunity to mitigate the risk of a clearance (compare for

example the Royal Tropical Institute, KIT).

• In the area of collection development, the ASCL Library should proactively make acquisitions in collaboration with the university library and the library of the Wereldmuseum rather than wait for what comes onto the market.

• The ‘Catholic Documentation Centre’ of Radboud University possesses and provides researchers access to a large collection of interviews with former missionaries. The ASCL could follow this example by recording the experiences (video footage, photographs) of anthropologists, historians and other scientists (and diplomats, development workers?) who have lived and worked in Africa. Not all this information has been made public and this could be valuable for future generations of researchers.

• As the ASCL is in the process of appointing its own professors and will be providing more educational tasks, it is important that students are encouraged to conduct interviews with people who have been professionally engaged with Africa and to analyse/annotate this information.

• The ASCL should fully describe the collections that are available within Leiden and encourage students/researchers to draw on these resources for their research projects.

• Finally, although the event was well-attended and well-received a cause for concern was the one-sided orientation of the panel with almost no representatives from the African diaspora in the Netherlands.

The next edition of the Societal Advisory Panel will take place at the end of 2017.

The African Studies Centre Leiden and the Sustainable Development Goals

Core funding for the African Studies Centre Leiden comes from the Ministry

of education, Science and Culture in the netherlands, but with a so-called

ODA ticket in the Dutch government budget. The ASCL was and is supposed