Call for Panel and Paper Proposals
NVAS 25th Anniversary Conference

Conciliation and Conflict:
The Role of Language in Bridging Social Differences in Africa

Friday 9 and Saturday 10 December 2022

Conference Description
The NVAS dedicates its jubilee conference to Africa’s most widely acknowledged contribution to the heritage of mankind: spoken mediation. This is a multimodal phenomenon that encompasses spoken words, songs,
bodily gestures and communicative silence. Each of these means of communication can serve to break up or cement social cohesion. As we know from premodern and modern history, often the fighting with words can be as harmful as fighting with swords. Polemics of religion, identity (of ethnic affiliation, sexual orientation, a.o.) or politics often precede or are cotemporaneous with physical violence. Similarly, in reconciliation and cooperation, speech (in all its expressive forms) is an essential resource. The conference will bring together specialists from different fields of studies (linguistics, anthropology, communication studies, literature, rhetoric, history, politics, social media studies, economics) to discuss the dual functions of language in social relations.

Panels and individual papers for general sessions are invited on the following themes (but not restricted to these):

• Public speech and argumentation
• Linguistic practices of reconciliation and peace-making
• Expressions of social inclusion and exclusion: taboo (transgression), curses, blessings
• The language of activism
• Persuasion, polemics, debates
• Expressions in monuments and public memorials
• Artistic and poetic performances (poetry, songs/rap)
• Humor as a weapon to convince or win arguments
• Metaphoric language in public contexts

All papers will be published if they meet standard criteria of academic work and if they are submitted in time.

Important dates

• 1 May 2022, deadline for panel proposals and paper proposals
• 1 June 2022, notification of acceptance panel/paper
• 1 December 2022, submission of [preliminary drafts of] papers

Partners

• African Studies Center Leiden, Leiden University.
• Collaborative Research Group at the African Studies Centre: Collaboration and Contestation in Words: dialogues and disputes in African social realities

Location

The conference will be held in the vibrant town of Leiden, home to Leiden University (venue). Leiden has won the competitive European City of Science status for 2022. Besides, 2022 is the start of UNESCO’s Decade of Indigenous Languages and Leiden is one of the major hubs in the Netherlands where language/culture studies flourish.

Registration fee (if conference will be 100% on campus):
NVAS members: €50,-;
Non-members: €100 euro;
Students: €60 euro

Organizers: Azeb Amha and Jan Jansen

Correspondence address for queries and for sending panel/paper proposals:
NVASConf@asc.leidenuniv.nl

(Re-)watch the presentations of NVAS Africa Day 2021 here!

Magnus Ekeland: Longing to break free: Ethnographic reflections on the Basic Income Grant in South Africa’s potential to boost entrepreneurship among young men in rural townships

Lotte Marie Brouwer: Adaptation strategies among successful women agri- entrepreneurs amidst the COVID-19 pandemic in Kenya

Corneill Spaapen and Lucia Ameli: Supporting entrepreneurs during Covid-19: Insights from African Entrepreneurship Support Organizations

Hanaa Benchrifa and Steven Kator Iorfa: Entrepreneurial intentions among Moroccan University students in times of crisis: A focus on the impact of COVID-19 pandemic

Dear members,

Our annual NVAS Africa Day will take place on line on Saturday 16 October. Would you like to attend? Please click on the registration link below. If you leave your postal address you will receive a stay-at-home package prior to the event!

Programme

12:00 – 12:45
Annual General Meeting/Algemene Leden Vergadering
(NVAS members only)

12:45 – 13:00
Opening and welcome

13:00 – 13:20
Lucia Ameli; Crosswise works
Corneill Spaapen; Crosswise works
“Supporting entrepreneurs during COVID: insights from African Entrepreneurship Support Organizations”i

13:20 – 13:40
Hanaa Benchrifa; Hassan II University
Steven Kator Iorfa; University of Nigeria Nsukka
“Entrepreneurial intentions among Moroccan University students in times of crisis: A focus on the impact of COVID-19 pandemic”

13:40 – 14:00
Magnus Ekeland; Radboud University
“Longing to break free: Ethnographic reflections on the Basic Income Grant in South Africa’s potential to boost entrepreneurship among young men in rural townships”

14:00 – 14:30
Plenary discussion

14:30 – 14:40
Coffee break

14:40 – 15:00
Lotte-Marie Brouwer; Women’s Entrepreneurship Lead at Bopinc/Utrecht University
“Adaptation strategies among successful women agri entrepreneurs amidst the COVID-19 pandemic in Kenya”

15:00 – 15:20
Susanne Roeloefsen; MDF Africa
“The importance of knowing your market and formalising your business”

15:20 – 15:50
Plenary discussion

15:50 – 16:00
Closing

16:00 – 16:15
Coffee break

16:15 – 17:30
Short film + Q&A with filmmaker Laura Molsbergen

“A-town – Moving towards visibility”
The film provides a glimpse of the lives of three dancers, who are part of the wider ViaVia dance community in Arusha. They all have their own dreams to pursue, their own money to make to survive on a daily basis. As a unity, they share their passion for dance and the willingness to take their dance practices to a higher level. But the Tanzanian government and its people do not value dance for the development of the country. A-TOWN: Moving towards visibility shows how the dancers try to use their talent to escape the shadow and instead search for the spotlight to be seen by their fellow Tanzanians – but are they able to do so without the help from outsiders?

The deadline for abstracts for our upcoming NVAS Africa Day: ‘Entrepreneurial Responses to Covid-19 in Africa’ has been extended to 15 July 2021. 

We very much welcome contributions from members of our community from both academia and practice. Feel free to share the extended call for abstracts with your network:

If you have any questions about the upcoming Africa Day please send an e-mail to nvas.africa.day.2021@gmail.com. 

We are happy to announce a call for papers for our annual NVAS Africa Day, which will take place in an online/hybrid format on Saturday 16 October 2021.

Both NVAS members and non-NVAS members can apply, and we encourage submissions from PhD and early career scholars from African institutions.

More information on the program and registration will follow. For questions, please contact nvas.africa.day.2021@gmail.com.

You can download the call for papers below. Feel free to share this with your network.

Sangu Delle’s versatility is undeniable. The Ghanaian born Harvard graduate is Chairman of Golden Palm Investments Corporation (“GPI”) and Managing Director of Africa Health Holdings, an innovative company based in West Africa focused on “building Africa’s healthcare future”. He is also co-founder of non-profit Cleanacwa, which is working to provide water and sanitation in underdeveloped communities in rural Ghana. As if that is not enough, Sangu spent the last seven years visiting 47 African nations, studying local entrepreneurial ecosystems and interviewing over six hundred young entrepreneurs. In his book ‘Making Futures: Young Entrepreneurs in a Dynamic Africa’ he discusses seventeen of them, telling stories of their entrepreneurial journeys and the social, economic, and political context in which they operate. The NVAS spoke with him about his writing debut and the future of entrepreneurship in Africa.

Read the entire interview here.