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| African Studies Center | |
|---|---|
| Name | African Studies Center |
| Type | Research institute |
| Leader title | Director |
African Studies Center is a multidisciplinary research institute dedicated to the study of the peoples, cultures, histories, languages, and contemporary affairs of Africa and its diasporas. The center supports scholarship across humanities and social sciences, fosters archival preservation, sponsors fieldwork and language training, and connects academic research with policy, cultural, and community stakeholders. It maintains partnerships with universities, libraries, museums, governmental bodies, and international organizations.
The center was founded amid postwar expansion of area studies alongside institutions such as School of Oriental and African Studies, Institute of African Studies, Institute of Commonwealth Studies, Columbia University, and Harvard University. Early collaborations involved scholars from University of California, Berkeley, University of Chicago, University of London, Oxford University, Cambridge University, SOAS, and Monash University. Influences included fieldwork traditions established by Margaret Mead, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Melville Herskovits, Bronisław Malinowski, and regionally focused projects like the Institut Français d’Afrique Noire, British Institute in Eastern Africa, and German Institute of Global and Area Studies. The center’s archives grew through donations tied to figures such as Frantz Fanon, Amílcar Cabral, Kwame Nkrumah, Jomo Kenyatta, Haile Selassie, Chinua Achebe, and Wole Soyinka. Institutional milestones mirrored global events including the Decolonization of Africa, the Non-Aligned Movement, the Cold War, the Rwandan Genocide, and the End of Apartheid in South Africa.
The center aims to advance research on African histories and societies, promote language instruction in languages like Swahili, Arabic, Amharic, Yoruba, and Hausa, and support policy-relevant analysis for partners including United Nations, African Union, Economic Community of West African States, Economic Community of Central African States, and Southern African Development Community. Objectives emphasize archival preservation reflecting materials from figures such as Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, Patrice Lumumba, Julius Nyerere, and Samora Machel, and engagement with cultural institutions like the National Museum of African Art, British Museum, Institut du Monde Arabe, and Museum of Civilization. The center commits to ethical fieldwork standards influenced by declarations like the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and protocols from International Council on Archives.
Academic offerings include graduate seminars, language instruction, fellowships, and postdoctoral appointments that connect to departments at Princeton University, Yale University, Stanford University, Duke University, University of Michigan, University of Pennsylvania, Johns Hopkins University, and University of California, Los Angeles. Research clusters address themes such as urban studies in Lagos, Nairobi, Johannesburg, and Cairo; agrarian change in Ethiopia, Nigeria, Kenya, and Ghana; conflict and peacebuilding in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Sudan, and Somalia; diasporic networks linking Haiti, Brazil, Cuba, and United Kingdom communities; and cultural production tied to writers like Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and artists associated with Fela Kuti and Yinka Shonibare. Grant-funded projects have been supported by National Endowment for the Humanities, National Science Foundation, Ford Foundation, Carnegie Corporation, MacArthur Foundation, Gates Foundation, and Rockefeller Foundation. Visiting scholars have included researchers from University of Cape Town, Makerere University, Cheikh Anta Diop University, University of Ibadan, Cairo University, University of Ghana, and University of Nairobi.
The center houses archival collections, oral history recordings, maps, photographs, rare manuscripts, and audiovisual materials with provenance linked to individuals and entities such as Patrice Lumumba, Thomas Sankara, Amin al-Husayni, Sékou Touré, Albert Schweitzer, and movements like Pan-Africanism and Negritude. Special collections include newspapers from The Daily Nation (Kenya), The Cairo Review, and The Nigerian Observer; colonial-era administrative records from British Empire, French West Africa, Belgian Congo, and Portuguese East Africa; and material culture objects comparable to holdings at the Smithsonian Institution and the British Library. Digital resources integrate catalogues with projects like WorldCat, HathiTrust, Digital Public Library of America, and regional repositories such as South African National Archives and National Archives of Zimbabwe.
Public programming features lectures, film series, exhibitions, and language workshops in partnership with organizations like Afrobarometer, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, UNICEF, and Doctors Without Borders. Community engagement connects diasporic groups in cities including New York City, London, Paris, São Paulo, and Toronto and cultural festivals such as FESPACO, Cape Town International Jazz Festival, Durban International Film Festival, and Lagos Book and Art Festival. Educational outreach collaborates with school systems, public libraries, and museums such as the Brooklyn Museum and the Field Museum.
The center maintains formal collaborations with higher-education partners including African Studies Association, Association for the Study of African American Life and History, Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa, Carnegie Mellon University, Brown University, Cornell University, New York University, and international research institutes such as Centre for African Studies (Zambia), Institute of African Studies (Ghana), Austrian Africa Institute, and Le Centre d’Études des Mondes Africains. Joint programs link to development agencies and multilateral institutions like World Bank, International Monetary Fund, African Development Bank, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, and European Union research networks.
Governance is typically overseen by a board of advisors and an executive director drawn from academia and policy fields, with support from university administrations like Princeton University, Columbia University, University of California, and Harvard University. Funding derives from competitive grants, endowments, philanthropic foundations including Ford Foundation, Gates Foundation, Open Society Foundations, government agencies such as United States Agency for International Development, British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Agence Française de Développement, and private donors. Financial oversight follows standards promoted by organizations like Council on Foundations and audit practices in partnership with institutional offices of sponsored research.
Category:Area studies institutes Category:African studies