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Sent: Monday, August 08, 2005 Please contact Dr. Derek Peterson offlist at drp31@cam.ac.uk Dear Friends and Colleagues, 'Ethno-History and the Construction of Identity in Twentieth-Century Africa' This is the title of a workshop that will take place in the University of Cambridge on 31 March - 1 April 2006. Drawing inspiration from a growing body of specialist literature (see, especially, A. Harneit-Sievers [ed.], A Place in the World. New Local Historiographies from Africa and South Asia [Leiden: Brill, 2002]), the proposed gathering will provide an opportunity for presenting new and ongoing research on the intellectual roots and enduring vitality of local African historiography; the genre's changing political dimensions and contributions to the construction of local and ethnic identities; the social profiles and biographies of the genre's practitioners and their relationships with academic historians. The main aim of the workshop is to join the blossoming scholarship on the 'invention of tribalism' with the study of ethnographical and political thought in Africa. During the conference, academic historians, anthropologists and ethnographers will interact with actual practitioners of the ethno-historical form and discuss the ways in which historical writing is used in the construction of contemporary ethnic identities. Ethnicities are, as John Lonsdale has shown, forums for discourse, where people sharing a vernacular language debate standards of morality and social order. The workshop intends to bring out the ways in which the discipline of history-writing helped widen existing oral discourses, allowing people to imagine themselves as parts of bigger ethnic constituencies. The tensions between moral argument and political solidarity lie at the heart of any ethnic community; they will provide the fodder for this conference. Funded by Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities and by the Centre of African Studies, Cambridge, the workshop will be as inclusive as possible. Submissions by graduate students are particularly encouraged. A number of bursaries will be available to cover some presenters' travel and accommodation costs. Expressions of interest and abstracts should be forwarded to any of the organizers not later than 15 Oct. 2005 Prof. Megan Vaughan (mav26@cam.ac.uk) Dr. Derek Peterson (drp31@cam.ac.uk) Dr. Giacomo Macola (gm333@cam.ac.uk)
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