MA Francophone Africa: study days, guest speakers and conferences

A distinctive feature of the MA Francophone Africa is the wide range of study days, guest speakers and conferences which we organise at the University of Portsmouth every year as an integral part of the course. These enable students to engage with a network of international experts on Francophone Africa, developing their knowledge, skills and contacts for future research and employment.

• Researching Francophone Africa: emerging themes and methodologies

  In November 2011, students participated in a one-day symposium on Researching Francophone Africa: emerging themes and methodologies. Dr Alexander Keese [hyperlink to his Ceisr profile], visiting scholar at the University of Portsmouth from Humboldt University of Berlin, drew on his comparative knowledge of French and Portuguese empires to engage students in the question ‘What was ‘French’ about French colonial policy in sub-Saharan Africa?’ This was followed by a presentation from Dr Marie Rodet (SOAS), specialist on questions of gender, slavery and migration, who talked to students about her experiences of creating an archive in Mali. The day also included presentations from University of Portsmouth PhD student Joanna Warson, who works on French policy in Anglophone Africa, and Professor Tony Chafer, who discussed his experiences of interviewing senior figures in African and European institutions as part of his research project on Anglo-French cooperation in Africa. This research culminated in Prof Chafer’s recent publication From Rivalry to Partnership? New Approaches to the Challenges of Africa (with Gordon Cummings, Ashgate, 2011).

• Interdisciplinary and comparative workshop on Algerian and Indian nationalism

  To mark 50 years of Algerian independence in 2012, we organised a series of events around the theme Year of Algeria. This began with the book launch of Prof Martin Evans’s Algeria: France’s Undeclared War (Oxford University Press, 2012 – hyperlink to OUP) – selected by the Financial Times as one of the books of the year. In early March, Dr James McDougall from the University of Oxford, alongside the University of Portsmouth’s Development Studies specialist Dr Tamsin Bradley provided students with an Interdisciplinary and comparative workshop on Algerian and Indian nationalism.

• Algerian and Arab Revolutions in an International and Comparative Perspective

  On 15-17 March 2012 we held a major international conference on Algerian and Arab Revolutions in an International and Comparative Perspective. This placed key themes in the history, politics and culture of contemporary Algeria in a comparative and transnational perspective. Scholars, journalists and activists from Algeria, France, the UK, Canada, Germany and Ireland addressed themes such as gender, communism, colonial repression, counter-insurgency, contested legacies, education and transmission, visual representations and violence. One of the highlights of the three days was an interview session with historical witness Sadek Hadjeres, member of the Algerian Communist Party, veteran of the Algerian War, and post-independence opponent of the single-party regime. The full programme of the day can be found here. The conference was written up in highly respected French newspaper Le Monde Diplomatique and our roundtable on the Arab Spring, as well as a series of other articles, will be published on e-zine and discussion forum Open Democracy.

• The issue of territoriality in the south of the Sahara

  Just two weeks later, students on the post-colonial memory unit benefited from the expertise of Dr Khaled Sabeur Chérif of the University of Algiers, who provided fascinating insights into the issue of territoriality in the south of the Sahara, and notably the ways in which current Tuareg territorial demands have adopted the geographical boundaries of the Organisation commune des régions sahariennes (OCRS) which briefly existed 1956-1962. The very next day, the army seized power in Bamako, accusing the government of being soft on the separatist rebels...

• Doing research on and in Algeria

  In May 2012, we held a postgraduate study day on Doing research on and in Algeria. This included a presentation from Isabelle Chiavassa, from the Archives nationales d’outre-mer in Aix-en-Provence about the resources available for research and presentation by Portsmouth’s Dr Natalya Vince on doing field research in Algeria. This was followed by papers from postgraduates at universities in the US, Canada, France and the UK. The day ended with a roundtable on conducting history and research in regimes which are neither totalitarian nor entirely democratic, and included contributions from Russia specialist Dr Paul Flenley (Portsmouth) and History Today editor Paul Lay. The Doing Research on and in Algeria day has led to a website with useful links and follow up materials here.[this will come soon!]

• African oral history

  June 2012 sees a three day workshop on African oral history, sponsored by the British Academy. This will bring together colleagues and students from the University of Dakar West African Research centre, the University of Algiers, the Ecole normale supérieure de Bouzaréah Algiers and the University of Portsmouth to work on a trilingual oral history manual (French, English, Arabic).

 Doing the MA Francophone Africa is much more than weekly seminars.