The Boston University African Studies Center co-hosted the first ever African Diaspora & Governance Symposium at Boston University last Saturday. The event brought together African diaspora activists from the greater Boston area to discuss the issues of diaspora organizing and networking for effective participation in governance and political life. The Symposium, co-hosted with Africans in […]
By Jesse Singal It’s understandable why some people are concerned that there will be violence during or immediately after tomorrow’s presidential election. After all, for the entire final stretch of the campaign, Donald Trump has been pre-complaining that the results of tomorrow’s election will be “rigged,” and has repeatedly refused to say that he will accept the results, […]
Marc Sommers’ interest in Africa’s youth dates back more than three decades to his work in Kenya, where he was headmaster of a girls’ secondary school. In the ensuing years, he has returned to Africa routinely as a scholar and analyst, and his growing body of research suggests that the prevailing wisdom about the continent’s […]
Boston University African Studies Center’s Land Mortgage Working Group introduces a collaborative research report “Mortgage across Cultures: Land, Finance, and Epistemology,” edited by Daivi Rodima-Taylor and Parker Shipton. The Working Group studies the novel potentials and challenges that surround land mortgage, aiming to achieve a human-centered view of expanding rural financialization. The Research Report is an […]
By Daivi Rodima-Taylor The workshop “Mortgage across Cultures: Land, Finance, & Epistemology” took place on April 14, 2016 at BU African Studies Center. The all-day workshop was funded by the BU Center for Finance, Law and Policy, and co-organized with the African Studies Center and the Anthropology Department. The BU Working Group on Land Mortgage […]
Hundreds of billions of dollars are transmitted as private remittances globally every year. Remittances follow migration, and the ongoing global refugee crisis inevitably will lead to more need for migrants to send funds back to their homelands. Nowhere is the role of diaspora in sustaining local livelihoods and supporting national development as evident as in […]
In July 2015, the Center for Remote Sensing began a two-year research project to map potential groundwater resources for use in urban and agricultural development in the landlocked Republic of Chad in north Africa. More
From Dan Connell, Visiting Researcher, BU African Studies Center Thousands of refugees have made their way to eastern Ethiopia across Eritrea’s porous southern borders in recent years. Many traveled by foot through the Danakil Depression, one of the lowest and hottest places on earth. Others slipped across the heavily militarized frontier with Djibouti. Still others […]
James McCann, professor of history and associate director of the African Studies Center at Boston University. He is winner of a John S. Guggenheim Fellowship and the 2014 Distinguished Scholar of the American Society of Environmental History. In his latest book he turns his gaze on malaria and its pernicious history. Malaria is an infectious […]