Important Dates

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International Conference of the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence

RECONFIGURING AFRICAN STUDIES THROUGH SPATIALITIES

Conference: 12. - 14. October 2023
Inaugural Event: 11. October 2023
Venue: Campus, University of Bayreuth

Over the last two decades, the conceptual and ontological rediscovery of the spatial dimension brought about by the spatial turn has created new and innovative perspectives on society and space, processes of socialization, spatial practices, and the modes of knowledge production within social sciences and beyond. This is the more important for the grand undertaking of Reconfiguring African Studies, as spatiotemporal topics evoke multiplicity, relationality and reflexivity. On an abstract level, the concepts of place, space and territory thereby help us to understand and analyze the human relations, connections and intersections in and with the world. On the level of the actual life-worlds, spatial experiences are bodily experiences - in matters of both socialization and knowledge production. Therefore, the reconfiguration of the social, interactional, ontological and epistemological modes of reconfiguring African Studies needs to be addressed through the lens of Spatialities.

With the notion of spatialities, we intend to inspire accounts of the ways in which different kinds of spaces, 'scapes'
or 'spheres' transgress the boundaries of "epistemic cultures' interconnections, and entanglements beyond 'North' and 'South'. Also, we anticipate that the concept of Spatialities can be employed to stress the processual and performative character of all embedded and dis-embedded social worlds and culture(s), whose multiplicity of practices and phenomena perpetually interact with space and constitutes space and spatial configurations and reconfigurations. A reviewed conference proceedings volume is planned.

The Annual Cluster Conference 2023 will bring together perspectives on spatial phenomena and the multiplicity of spatial arrangements in a cross- and interdisciplinary mode. We invite all contributions that address Reconfiguring African Studies through Spatialities through empirical and theoretical approaches. Possible topics for contributions are:

• Politics, institutions and the ordering of space
• Territory, conflicts and the governance of space
• Entangled spaces
• Geopolitics of Knowledge Production
• Reconfigurations on the ontology of space
• Multiple Spatialities of race, class and gender
• Language spaces
• Space and place in African philosophy
• Spatial Epistemologies
• Space, place and positionality in the knowledge
• production on Africa
• Spatialities, school and learning
• Spatialities of arts
• Radical spaces
• Informational spaces
• Digital spaces
• Environmental spaces

Please submit your abstract (150 words for individual papers, 250 words for planned sessions including names of participants if already set) to africamultiple-calls@uni-bayreuth.de

DEADLINE: 28. FEBRUARY 2023