AFRICAN STUDIES ASSOCIATION OF AUSTRALASIA AND THE PACIFIC

43rd Annual Conference

“Youthful Optimism for Africa”

University of New England, Armidale, NSW

03-05 December 2020

Call for Papers

The African Studies Association of Australasia and the Pacific (AFSAAP) calls for proposals for preorganized panels, roundtables, thematic conversations, and individual papers for its 43rd annual meeting to be held at the University of New England (UNE), Armidale, NSW, December 3-5th 2020.

If COVID 19 permits, there will be a physical conference at the University of New England in Armidale, NSW. If not, and for anyone who is not able to travel, there will be a ZOOM facility for presenting your papers and getting feed-back (UNE has more experience with distance education than any other Australian University).

60% of the population of Africa is under 25 – [sadly, this proportion may even increase if many older people die of COVID 19]. Whilst you are welcome to submit abstracts on any African topic you choose, we are encouraging you to think about youth and a brighter future.

We would welcome suggestions for panels. There will certainly be panels for peace/conflict, Afro-feminism, and environmental issues.

The deadline for abstracts is 01 September 2020. Abstracts should be 300 words maximum and cover question, methodology, findings. Paper presenters will be allowed 20 minutes for presentation plus 20 minutes for questions.

AFSAAP Postgraduate Day

A special feature of AFSAAP Conferences is our work with post-graduate students. PhD and other post-graduate students who submit a thoughtful abstract and wish to participate in the post-graduate day will be assigned an AFSAAP member with experience in their area as a mentor to help them work on their paper. Post-graduate work on African topics in Australia can be a rather lonely experience and it is good to be able to turn to a friend who can give you advice on how to get your ideas into shape and where you should be heading. December 3rd is post-graduate day and will be devoted to presentations in a warm and encouraging setting. Those presenting their work on that day will also be encouraged to submit their finished papers to a special post-graduate ARAS edition.  Details forthcoming.

Abstracts of proposed papers, panels and roundtables should be sent by to Professor Helen Ware at: vice-president@afsaap.org.au

A preliminary program will be announced in October 2020. Registration and conference fees must be paid before the start of the conference.