CAS News Bulletin: Week of February 13th, 2017

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Takoradi Harbor, Ghana. Photo provided by Felicity A. Tackey-Otoo.

February 13th, 2017

Talks This Week

Friday 02/17- Baraza, Daniel Mains, University of Oklahoma: "Governing Three-Wheeled Motorcycle Taxis in Urban Ethiopia: States, Markets, and Moral Discourses of Infrastructure." 3:30pm in 404 Grinter

Next Week:

Monday 02/20- Social Change & Development Working Group, Benjamin Burgen, UF: "Transnational Hometown Development in the Senegal River Valley." 12:50pm in 471 Grinter

Thursday 02/23- NRM in Africa, Nyeema Harris, University of Michigan: "Vulnerability and Viability in Ecological Communities." 12:50pm in 471 Grinter (canceled- postponed until Fall 2017)

Thursday - Saturday 02/23 - 02/25- Gwendolen M. Carter Conference: "On the Edge: What Future for the African Sahel?" Reitz Union

In this issue:

· 2017 CARTER CONFERENCE

· AWARDS & PUBLICATIONS

· EXHIBIT @THE HARN- SHORE LINES: ART ACROSS THE SAHEL

· LADYSMITH BLACK MAMBAZO - TUES. FEB 21ST

· FULBRIGHT- HAYES DOCTORAL AWARDS

· UF PETITION AGAINST IMMIGRATION EXEC. ORDER

· JOIN ASQ

· UF CAS @ OAK HALL

· MDP PROGRAM

· LAST WEEK'S RECAP

· GRADUATE STUDENT SPOTLIGHT- Ben Burgen

2017 Carter Conference-
On the Edge: What Future for the African Sahel?

Dates: Thursday February 23rd - Saturday February 25th, 2017

Location: Reitz Union

Keynotes: (1) Jean-Pierre Olivier de Sardan, Thursday 02/23, 6:30-7:30pm, &

(2) Augustin Loada, Friday 02/24, 2:15-3:15pm

Conference Schedule (tentative)

This conference brings together an interdisciplinary set of scholars from Europe, Africa, and North America to offer perspectives on key issues shaping the region. The focus is on the six Francophone countries at the heart of the geographic space of the Sahel - Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad - considered in the context of their neighbors, notably Nigeria to the south and the countries of the Maghreb to the north. An important contribution of the conference will be to explore the historical and contemporary interconnections that make this set of countries, collectively, an identifiable sub-region.

Awards and Publications

Awards:

Publications:
Fame:

Oumar Ba (PhD, Political Science) successfully defended his dissertation, "Outsourcing Justice: Africa and the Politics of the International Criminal Court."

Terje Ostebo, Director of the Center for Global Islamic Studies and Associate Professor in Religion and the Center for African Studies, wrote an op-ed in the Sunday edition (2/12) of the Gainesville Sun, titled, "Trump's Muslim Ban is the Wrong Step."

Please send citations for your recently published articles, book chapters, book reviews, or op-ed pieces to ufcasbulletin@gmail.com for their inclusion within the news bulletin.

Harn Exhibit- Shore Lines: Art Across the Sahel

Dates: Now through July 2017

For more information, visit the Harn Website here.

Ladysmith Black Mambazo @ The Phillips Center, Tues Feb. 21st, 7:30pm

A South African male choral group that sings in the vocal styles of isicathamiya and mbube.

For more information, visit the facebook event page here.

Reminder: Fulbright-Hayes Doctoral Awards
First Internal UF deadline- March 10th

The Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad (DDRA) Program provides funding that enable doctoral students enrolled in modern foreign language and area studies programs at U.S. institutions of higher education to conduct dissertation research overseas for 6 to 12 months.

The program estimates 98 fellowships will be awarded at amounts ranging from $15,000 to $60,000, with an average size of $33,461.

A doctoral student is eligible to receive a fellowship if he or she:
-Is a citizen or national of the United States or is a permanent resident of the United States;
-Is a graduate student in good standing at an institution of higher education in the United States who, when the fellowship begins, is admitted to candidacy in a doctoral program in modern foreign languages and area studies at that institution;
-Is planning a teaching career in the United States upon graduation; and
-Possesses adequate skills in the language(s) necessary to carry out the dissertation project

UF Internal Procedures:
-To coordinate the final University submission, we ask all doctoral student applicants follow the UF internal application procedures outlined below.
-Doctoral students must complete their individual electronic DDRA application using the G5 e-Application system, accessible through the G5 site: https://www.g5.gov. Students register in the G5 system as a fellow.
-Doctoral students must complete a UFIRST – Proposal and submit their applications to one of the following UF Centers or through a Department where no Center affiliation is needed.
-Center for African Studies – contact: Todd H. Leedy, tleedy@ufl.edu

Deadlines:
-March 10: Doctoral students must complete and submit the UFIRST-Proposal submission with a copy of the DDRA application to their affiliated Department or Center, no later than close of business Friday, March 10, 2017.
-March 10: Doctoral Students must submit their Human Subjects word doc to Prindle@ufl.edu.
-March 13: Department or Center staff will submit to DSP the UFIRST–Proposal for each individual application no later than close of business Monday, March 13, 2017.
-March 13: Doctoral students must submit their electronic DDRA application in the G5 system, no later than close of business Monday, March 13, 2017.
-March 14: The final University of Florida DDRA electronic application, which includes all the individual student DDRA applications, will be submitted to the U.S. ED on Tuesday, March 14, 2017, no later than 3:00 pm, NO EXCEPTIONS.

Application Kit:
-For the Fulbright-Hays DDRA Application Instructions, including; page limitations, font type and size, required forms, see http://www2.ed.gov/programs/iegpsddrap/applicant.html.
-You may obtain a complete application package kit online in the G5 system.
-UF's DUNS number for this application is: 969663814

UF Students, Faculty, Staff, and Alumni Against the Immigration Executive Order

An open letter from UF students, faculty, staff, and alumni to the President of the University about the current administration's Immigration Executive Order. Sign the petition here.

Invitation to Join African Studies Quarterly (ASQ)

The editorial staff of the African Studies Quarterly cordially invites all graduate students, including first and second year students, to join the ASQ Editorial Committee, which undertakes the initial review of papers submitted for publication. Meetings are on Wednesdays at 2:00pm in Grinter 471.

Why join the Editorial Committee? Participation on the Committee will offer you excellent insights and experience as to how the editorial process of a major academic journal works. This is invaluable experience for anyone intending to publish their research in peer-reviewed journals.

For more information, contact ASQ Managing Editor Fezile Mtsetfwa at africanstudiesquarterly@gmail.com.

Sheila Maingi, Martin Nwodo, and Felicity Tackey-Otoo (pictured left to right)

UF CAS @ Oak Hall School International Festival

On Saturday January 28^th, 2017, the African Student Union at UF represented the Center for African Studies at the International Festival at Oak Hall School in Gainesville. Felicity Tackey-Otoo – Ghana, Martin Nwodo- Nigeria (both Ph.D Construction Management Students) and Sheila Maingi- Kenya (MDP Program) participated in the festival. After setting up a 10x10 exhibition tent and decorating their table with cultural items from their respective countries, a music station playing African music engaged festival participants to dance.

Felicity was dressed as an Anlo from the south-eastern part of Ghana; Sheila was outfitted in native Maasai attire from Kenya; Martin was dressed in traditional Igbo attire from Nigeria. They had many visitors coming to their booth to learn more about Africa and the represented countries in particular.

Master of Sustainable Development Practice (MDP) Program

The MDP program is committed to helping students understand the multidimensional nature of development challenges, to gain the analytical capacity and tools to apply to development challenges, and to become critical thinkers about the development process and its implications.

Courses are designed to bridge academic, practice, and skills training. In addition to on-campus instruction, students benefit from field-based training in collaboration with partners in regions of Africa and Latin America. Their practicum field and research experience is designed to help students build strong networks with practitioners and to apply their skills to real development challenges.

Please find the MDP Fall 2016 Newsletter available here.

Dr. Kathleen Klaus

Last Week’s Recap

On Friday February 10^th, Kathleen Klaus gave a Baraza presentation titled “Claiming Land: Institutions, Narratives, and Political Violence in Kenya.” Dr. Klaus received her PhD in Political Science from Wisconsin University in 2015 and is currently the Buffett Institute Postdoctoral Fellow at Northwestern University. The talk introduced Klaus’ book project which is focused on the relationship between access to, and narratives surrounding, land and the occurrence of electoral violence in Kenya. Electoral violence resulted in 1,500 deaths in 1992, 300+ deaths in 1997, few if any in 2002, and at least 1,300 in 2007. Additionally, hundreds of thousands were displaced during the 1992 and 2007 elections.

Though the study of political violence has received an increasing amount of attention within the political science discipline, the cross-national work which examines violence tends to attribute its occurrence to national-level factors (i.e., state capacity, political consolidation, electoral rules, ethnic heterogeneity, etc.). Klaus focuses on the sub-national level, however, and finds significant variation within sub-national boundaries, even within places with similar ethnic composition.

Using a mixed-methods (3-stage comparative case design, household survey with 750 respondents, archival research and key informant interviews), Klaus argues that the distribution and control of land shapes the process and organization of electoral violence in three stages: land rights inequality -> continuous land narratives -> escalation of election violence. First, Klaus identifies political incentives, security incentives, and logistical capacity as variables affecting whether leaders have the incentive or capacity to allocate land rights to supporters. Second, salient and contentious land narratives form as the result of relative land inequality, illegitimate land allocation processes, and individuals or communities’ experience with prior evictions. Finally, elites can mobilize electoral violence where a subset of citizens link the outcome of the elections with the ability to gain or secure land.

Dr. Goran Hyden (far right)

On Monday February 6^th, Goran Hyden gave a Social Change and Development Working Group talk titled, “Who Owns What? Ownership in Partnership”. Dr. Goran Hyden is Emeritus Professor of Political Science at UF. His talk introduced a study of ownership, which promotes a reconceptualization of the international aid in terms of ownership, which has historically disadvantaged recipient inputs in the donor-recipient relationship. Below is an excerpt from a manuscript Hyden distributed to the CAS listserve.

“The story of ownership in international development cooperation is about how to balance the concerns and interests of partner countries with the objective of donors to achieve an effective outcome of their aid. This is a dynamic that has played out in diverse ways since its early days in the mid-20^th Century. Because the notion of ownership in development cooperation is political rather than legal, its application in aid relationships is both complex and contextual. There is no single definition that applies to all actors or all situations…

As the ownership concept is becoming increasingly prominent in development discourse, it is also becoming more contested. It is no longer just a cardinal principle of ensuring aid effectiveness but more and more a principle for enabling partner countries to choose their own way forward (Carothers 2015). Since the partnership model was adopted, donors have operated on the assumption that recipients share the same values as theirs, pointing to international agreements like the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as justification for their position. Ownership, therefore, has been interpreted primarily as a matter of controlling resources for policy implementation. Donors have downplayed or even ignored the politics of the relationship and treated it in “principal-agent” terms with the objective of achieving what is in their primary interest: evidence that aid is used in an integral manner and shows measurable degrees of effectiveness (CABRI 2014). The more inclusive approach to ownership that is now emerging is changing this by suggesting that the most important thing is for policy initiatives to yield results for local stakeholders and their prospective beneficiaries regardless of whether they conform with donor values and norms. The concern among the partners begins to shift from aid to development effectiveness. It brings the equation back to where it was in the ownership period of the 1960-70s when countries in the South chose their own development models and donors had to respond accordingly.”

References

Collaborative African Budget Reform Initiative (CABRI) 2014. Towards a Greater Use of Country Systems in Africa: Recent Trends and Approaches. Synthesis. Pretoria: CABRI.

Carothers, Thomas 2015. ‘The Deeper Struggle over Country Ownership’, A Governance Practitioner’s Notebook: Alternative Ideas and Approaches. Paris: OECD.

Graduate Student Spotlight

Ben Burgen is a PhD candidate in cultural anthropology. His research focuses on the motivations for and impacts of migration from the rural Senegal River Valley to urban and transnational destinations. He is particularly interested in the variety of ways that migrants and non-migrants work together to promote the development of their hometowns in Senegal (both through formalized hometown associations and as individuals) and their visions for the future.

From the Fall of 2015 through the Fall of 2016 Ben spent 11 months in rural Senegal performing ethnographic research, developing a case study of one rural migrant-sending town. This research was immediately followed by a month spent with Senegalese migrants living in France and Italy.

His dissertation will address the ways that evolving patterns of labor migration are impacting individuals’ worldviews and aspirations, household dynamics, community organizing, and the local economy in the town where his research was focused. This work will highlight the persistent centrality of hometown sociality and affiliations within the context of increasing fragmentation and precarity of migrant life abroad.

Ben’s research has been funded by the Department of Anthropology, the Center for African Studies, the UF Graduate School, the Sahel Research Group, and a Fulbright Hays fellowship.

The Weekly News Bulletins are curated by Jennifer C. Boylan,
Programs & Communications Officer, Center for African Studies.

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