Agenda 27 Januari - 02 Februari 2019

This lecture places dogs into the centre of the politics of the everyday within late colonial and postcolonial Kenya and Zambia, focusing upon how colonial systems of racialisation relied upon the animal to naturalise and legitimise tenuous structures of power. The legacy of this colonial racialisation of dogs continued after Independence through the widespread discourse of - and belief in - ‘racist dogs’. Engagement with the idea of ‘racist dogs’ is the central development in the paper and begins to unpack why dogs are considered racist in certain contexts and what these ‘racist dogs’ can tell us about their owners’ postcolonial positionality. Joshua Doble is the Royal Historical Society Marshall Fellow at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London. He is also a doctoral candidate at the University of Leeds, where he researches the social history of settler colonialism within the context of decolonising territories of Kenya and Zambia. This research examines the intimate relations between white settlers and the African people and environment around them to question what decolonisation means in these pseudo-settler postcolonial territories.

uva

Wat zijn de mechanismen die zorgen voor in- en exclusie van extreem arme mensen? Wat zijn de structurele oorzaken van extreme armoede. En hoe kunnen we extreme armoede definiëren? Anika Altaf wil bijdragen aan een beter begrip van extreme armoede. Hiertoe maakt zij een analyse van extreem arme mensen en de verscheidene dimensies – materieel, relationeel en cognitief – van hun welzijn. Ze bekijkt hoe extreem arme mensen worden uitgesloten of betrokken in ontwikkelingsinterventies. Ook onderzoekt zij welke lessen kunnen worden getrokken uit de discoursen en praktijken van ontwikkelingsorganisaties in Bangladesh, Benin en Ethiopië. Mw. A. Altaf: The Many Hidden Faces of Extreme Poverty: Inclusion and Exclusion of Extreme Poor People in Development Interventions in Bangladesh, Benin and Ethiopia. Promotor is prof. dr. A.J. Dietz (Universiteit Leiden). Copromotor is dr. N.R.M. Pouw.

uva

Kweneng is a dense agglomeration of stone-walled structures in the western foothills of the Suikerbosrand massif, some 30 km south of Johannesburg. The hundreds of Molokwane-style homesteads, large livestock enclosures, monumental ash heaps, stone towers, and other impressive architectural features attest to the economic wealth and political importance of this pre-colonial city during its classic phase of occupation. The northern end of the city contains architecture of an older style, while a number of homesteads in the southern sector are built in late pre-colonial styles. It remains to be seen whether parts of Kweneng were still inhabited when the first European settlers reached this area in the mid-1800s. With a complete sequence from formation to collapse, the well-preserved ruins of Kweneng can shed light on the birth of urbanism in more distant times where the evidence might be considerably less intact. This seminar by Prof. Karim Sadr, University of the Witwatersrand, presents details of current research on Kweneng and introduces the settlement pattern and the principal features of this ancient city. Please register

ascleiden leidenuniv