Haan, L.J. (Leo) de

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CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 3 & 4, 2005 Page 78A Strategie Partnership Between CODESRIAand the African Studies Centre ( Leiden)Ii May 2005 CODESRIA and ASCntered into a strategie partnership inrder to promote understanding andgoodwill among scholars in general andwithin African Studies in particular, andas part of a desire to strengthen scientificties, äs well as to broaden faculty, studentand policy-makers' experiences and ho-rizons.Although organisations of a different na-ture, CODESRIA being a network for theadvancement of research and the ASC aresearch and information centre, theirmissions show considerable similaritiesand invite so to speak both organisationsto collaborate. CODESRIA formulated itsmission äs to promote the developmentof social research in Africa; to defend theacademie freedom of African scholars; toovercome all barriers to knowledgegeneration and dissemination; tostrengthen the institutional basis ofknowledge production in Afnca; toadvance the frontiers of multi-disciplinarity in social research; and toincrease the representation of Africanscholarship outside Africa. ASC Leiden'smission is: to be a scientific institute thatgenerates and collects scientificknowledge about Africa throughfundamental and policy-relevant multi-disciplinary research on socio-cultural,economie and political phenomena; tocontribute by its dissemination to betterinsights into historical, contemporary andfuture societal processes in Afnca; topromote the global advancement ofAfrican studies and play an active andinspiring role in the national and globalnetwork of Africanists, with special atten-tion to collaboration with and capacity-building of African Institutes andresearchers; and to exchange insights onsocietal processes in Africa with policy-makers in particular and the general pu-blic at large.CODESRIA and the ASC intend todeepen their existing relations in thesphere of scholarly co-operation inAfrican Studies and to develop new rela-tions on the principle of mutual benefitand füll reciprocity, in particular with res-pect to research and documentation. Bothparties will promote joint research andtraining projects, including as appropriatean exchange of staff; the development ofrelationships between their libraries anddocumentation centres, including throughIGT, and to establish a regulär exchangeof their publications; to organise jointLeo de HaanAfrican Studies Centre, Leidenannual awards for MA and PhD theses inAfrican Studies; to mutually support theirpublication series and to consider theediting of joint publications; and toconsider the possibility of jointlyorganising conferences, symposia,seminars and workshops. It was agreedthat both organisations would undertakejoint activities to raise funds for theactivities planned.Research on Africa occupies an impor-tant place in many research institutes anduniversities in the Netherlands. However,the ASC is in the only research centrewhere so many researchers on Africa areconcentrated, and from such a widevariety of disciplines. This combined withits library and documentation centre,makes it a unique and important centre ofresearch on Africa. Within theNetherlands, social-science research onAfrica is closely linked with all kinds ofpolicy and development issues. Untilrecently it had mainly a rural orientationbut an urban orientation is now gainingimportance. Natural resource manage-ment, agriculture, sustainable developmentand livelihood strategies of the poor usedto be important themes, folio wed bypolitics, ethnicity, religion and history,social differentiation and transformationprocesses, including gender and healthcare. Interest is now graduallyconcentrating on conflict, HIV/AIDS,poverty, youth, migration and climaticchange. Culture, i.e. language, arts as wellas the role of culture in development, isan important but diverse theme.Economie issues like trade and finance,law and demography receive less atten-tion.Research at the ASC itself is organisedinto three theme groups. Theme group'Agency in Africa' has the view thatunderstanding large-scale transformationprocesses requires a focus on agency inAfrica, an approach in which the localactors' understanding of theircircumstances is crucial. Their percep-tions, ideas, emotions and even fantasiesare taken into consideration. This themegroup aims to study the processes ofmeaning and signification in whichagency transpires, in the decisions andchoices that people make and the hopesand desires they express. The researchconcentrates on investigating how theseprocesses have a hearing on all kinds ofpolitical, economie and social changes intheir livelihoods, or to what extent theyare affected by these changes. Theapproach is both empirical and reflexive.The theme group's research focuses onthree fields of study: mobility; power,contestation and confrontation; and issuesof knowledge and reflexivity. The secondtheme group 'Culture, politics andinequality' aims to examine the political,economie and socio-cultural dynamicsthat generale new formations of politicalpower and of communal, ethnic,occupational or political identities acrossAfrica in the light of long-term historical,economie and social background factors.The term 'formation' points to thedynamic and processual aspects involved,including human agency. In this respect,it is of continuing importance to examineinformal aspects of economie power andpolitical governance in Africa, as well asthe contexts of globalisation in both thepolitico-economic and cultural sense, asthese impinge upon the very ideas of na-tion, state, society and social order.Conceptually and theoretically, the termsfor the study of politics, conflict and na-tional, ethnic, occupational and other so-cial identities have to be rethought andredefined. The emergent new frameworksof local economy, society and identity inAfrica will be studied at the level of na-tional elites, urban society and rural life.The third theme group 'Economy,Ecology and Exclusion' puts issues ofeconomy, ecology and exclusion at thecore of its work. In general, the economieCODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 3 & 4, 2005 Page 79and ecological context at the global,regional as well as local levels in whichpeople have to operate in Africa aremarked by a high degree of variability anduncertainty. Variability is a complex is-sue closely intertwined with poverty andexclusion. Exclusion can be seen as aresult of these fluctuating economie andecological conditions. It takes place atvarious politico-geographical levels andin a variety of socio-economic spheresand affects different social categories indifferent ways and to varying degrees.Obviously the ASC maintains institutionallies with many other organisations in theNetherlands, in Africa, in Europe andelsewhere. The various institutional tiesdiffer in content and character. Some areonly directed towards specific research orlibrary activities, others are broader. Someare more strategically oriented, i.e. at thelevel of the institute, directly linked to thecore of its mission and initiated for a lon-ger period. Others have more limitedoperational objectives; for example, allmembers of the research staff carry outtheir activities in Africa in closecooperation with colleagues from localuniversities or research Institutes andsometimes with staff of non-govemmentalorganisations and national or localgovernment officials. These operationalactivities are often embedded ininstitutional agreements between the ASCand the organisations concerned.At present at ASC, a number ofinstitutional cooperation agreements withindividual research Institutes anduniversities in Africa are in effect,providing the framework for the collabo-ration of ASC staff and their colleaguesin Africa in research and training, oftenwith an element of research capacity buil-ding. Moreover, the ASC supports thedevelopment of book collections of anumber of African libraries through theexchange and yearly shipments of publi-cations. The strategie partnership withCODESRIA creates a long-term andcomprehensive framework for the ASCfor research and library cooperation inAfrica that provides a more solid input inits strategie agenda and stronger feedbackon its activities than the commonindividual and operational types ofcooperation—which are considereduseful in their own right and will of coursealso be continued.At this point it is useful to consider inparticular cooperation in the field ofresearch. The research institutions inAfrica in collaboration with research een-tres outside Africa have an intrinsicinterest in promoting a new vision ofAfrica and avoiding stereotypes. Over thepast years there has been continuousdebate about African Studies and the va-lue of area studies concentrated in een-tres like the ASC. African Studies havecome under the spotlight as a result ofconjectural pressure emanating from theincreasingly marginal role of Africa in thenew global geo-political constellationsince the Cold War. A second source ofpressure on African Studies and socialscience in general is the anxiety about theacademie foundations of the discipline,i.e. the failure of theoretical approachesin social science to deal with Africanrealities, the impact of theoretical currentslike post-modernism and post-structuralism leading to a 'crisis' in so-cial science, and the question of whospeaks for Africa, and on what terms.Africanists have to continue what surelymust be at the heart of any study ofAfrican societies, namely carefulempirical research carried out in collabo-ration with African and internationalcolleagues, while being mindful ofAfrica's Situation in the world. Thequestioning of African Studies alsoprovides opportunities. It offers apossibility for students of Africa to learnabout a specific part of the world from aconcentration of specialists from differentdisciplines, as opposed to individualscholars grouped in disciplinarydepartments. African Studies must remainimportant because Africans constitute oneeighth of the world population and arealso increasingly present in diasporacommunities in other parts of the world.Whatever the rest of the world feels aboutAfrica, the continent must never beallowed to fall outside the scope of sensi-tive academie inquiry.CODESRIA and ASC agree to discussand share their visions on African Studiesto promote intellectual development andthe generation of new knowledge withrespect to Africa. Both organisations as-pire to determine a limited number ofresearch themes, which have the potentialto shift the terms of the scientific debate.Such research programmes will start withstocktaking exercises using the wealth ofavailable information and will then try topush scientific frontiers ahead. One suchresearch programme could be on alterna-tive statehoods or alternative Systems ofpolitical Organisation. Another potentiallypioneering theme could be the revisionof Africa's position in the world economy.A format is in development for mutualresearch agenda setting, through partici-pation in agenda setting meetings,seminars or conferences. From theseagenda setting exercrses commonresearch programmes or projects will bedefined. These could function within theexisting structures of CODESRIA andASC but could also mean the establish-ment of new CODESRIA transnationalworking groups and ASC's participationin those groups.CODESRIA and ASC agree on the im-portance of empirically based studies,with a scientific and policy relevance;research should be open for collaborationbetween African and non-Africanresearchers, i.e. the research programmesof both institutions under the terms of thecooperation are open to all researchers,and will aim at intellectual exchange, therenewal of the scientific debate andredefinition of concepts and theories toexplain and analyse new developments inAfrica.Reciprocity constitutes the importantunderlying principle of the strategiepartnership between CODESRIA andASC and its contribution to AfricanStudies. Reciprocity—working togetherand learning from each other—is in a ,nutshell how we will put into practice ourcooperation.

A strategic partnership between CODESRIA and the African Studies Centre (Leiden)

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A strategic partnership between CODESRIA and the African Studies Centre (Leiden)

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