African Studies Association of Africa (ASAA) stages first ever conference in East Africa

The African Studies Association of Africa (ASAA) Conference held it’s first ever meeting in East Africa on October 24- 26, 2019 following two such successful events in West Africa.  

This year’s theme, ‘African and Africana Knowledges: Past Representations, Current Discourses, Future Communities’ presented an opportunity to take stock of the knowledge produced by Africans in Africa and the Diaspora in various forms and to examine representations and current African realities and emerging futures with African knowledges.

 Although Africa has contributed more human and material resources to global welfare, it is ironic that it continues to be regarded as the poorest continent intellectually and materially. Besides, the ‘African condition’ today is a result of those past representations and the production of knowledge that still represents Africa in popular media and scholarship as hopeless, poor, dark and devoid of knowledge.

The President of ASAA, Prof Akosua Adomako Ampofo said that the first meet in East Africa was a great testament to the thirst to drive the Africa agenda forward. She emphasized that the goal of ASAA is to continually invest in the knowledge produced by Africans on the continent and beyond. “The knowledge that we will share should empower our teaching, research, advocacy, art, performance, and politics. I would like us to reflect on our individual roles in this collective enterprise—as scholars, university administrators, teachers, cultural activists, artists, journalists, elected and appointed leaders and students,” said Prof Adomako Ampofo.

The Vice Chancellor Professor Paul Tiyambe Zeleza challenged the scholars, researchers, faculty, students, staff and representatives from all over Africa to foster the culture and expand capacity of research in African universities. He mentioned that Africa’s research and development investment continues to be very low- the lowest as compared to Asia, Europe and the US. “In 2013, researchers from Africa were estimated to be at 2.4 percent and by 2014, research publications from Africa were still at an all-time low at 2.6 percent,” said Professor Zeleza.

 He however pointed out that there is still more that Africa can do to increase its research output. He said that this can be achieved through increasing resources allocated to research and development, establishing reward schemes for outstanding and young researchers from Africa, recruitment of faculty focusing and engaging in research, create retooling opportunities for researchers, conducting research in relevant and emerging fields and expanding university rankings by encouraging differentiation of institutions where some institutions can identify themselves as conducting research.  

The African Studies Association of Africa (ASAA) was established in 2013 during the climax of the 50th anniversary celebrations of the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana, Legon, to promote Africa’s own specific contributions to the advancement of knowledge about the peoples and cultures of Africa and the Diaspora. The ASAA is currently the only multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary professional association on the continent dedicated to the study of Africa from an Africanist perspective, what Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of Ghana, referred to as studying our societies and experiences in an African-centered way.