Call for papers (closed)
Urban Africa - Urban Africans: New encounters of the rural and the urban
The Centre for African Studies Basel and the Swiss Society for African Studies on behalf of AEGIS (Africa-Europe Group for Interdisciplinary Studies) invite you to submit paper proposals for the 7th European Conference on African Studies ECAS 2017 with the theme: Urban Africa - Urban Africans: New encounters of the rural and the urban.
African urbanization trends raise several issues that are of interest to scholars. These range from politics, through economics, all the way to social and cultural issues. The key issue, however, is how urbanization processes in Africa transform conventional objects of African Studies and how do scholars of Africa gear up to face such changes? These are the questions which we have invited scholars of Africa to engage with in a more conscious and systematic manner.
While among the 223 accepted panels the urban is prominent, many also look into the entanglements of the rural with the urban, especially with a view to addressing an implicit assumption underlying the study of Africa and which concerns the supposed rural ‘nature’ of the continent as well as the constitutive nature of the tension between tradition and modernity. Over the past few decades a self-critical attitude within many disciplines has led to a weakening of these assumptions, the urban continues arguably to be seen as the exception or, at any rate, as analytically less consequential than the rural. ECAS 2017 “Urban Africa – Urban Africans” will, therefore, be an occasion for rethinking African Studies, but also for exploring and deepening research avenues that many researchers working on urban and rural issues have taken up over recent years. There is a critical mass to be harnessed in the effort to push the frontiers of critical European knowledge production on Africa.
The call for papers is now closed and the more than 1500 proposals received are being reviewed by the panel convenors.
On submission of the proposal, the proposing author (but not the co-authors) have received an automated email confirming receipt. If you have not received this email, please first check the Login environment - Cocoa (see toolbar above right) to see if your proposal is there. If it is, it simply means your confirmation email got spammed/lost; if it is not, please contact ecas2017@unibas.ch. Co-authors cannot be added/removed nor can papers be withdrawn by the proposers themselves – for that, please email ecas2017@unibas.ch.
Convenors are asked to make their decisions over the papers proposed to their panel by 29 January 2017 and to communicate those to the proposers, marking them up within the login environment (Cocoa). Papers which are neither accepted nor rejected, but marked for 'transfer', will be given the opportunity to be re-housed. We aim to resolve all transfers by the 2 March 2017.
Useful information for later in this process
Editing your paper
Paper authors can use the login link in the toolbar above to edit their proposals.
Pre-circulation of papers
ECAS has no rule about this; however many convenors are keen to pre-circulate completed papers. To facilitate this and save on email traffic, if requested by convenors, authors can upload PDFs of their papers within the online system, which will then show as a downloadable file beneath their abstract on the public panel page on this site.
Timing of presentations
Panels will last an hour and a half and will include a maximum of 5 participants, including the panel convener and/or discussant. Panels are required to be open for paper proposals through the website: panels shall not be organized as 'closed' sessions. Each participant shall present one paper only but may be involved as convener of a further panel, plenary session or roundtable, or be involved as discussant in one of these (i.e. one additional role).
Communication between authors/convenors
Convenor/author email addresses are not shown on the panel pages for anti-spam reasons. However there is an in-built secure email messaging system. If you cannot work that, please email ecas2017@unibas.ch to obtain relevant email addresses.
Any queries with the above please email ecas2017@unibas.ch.