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ANU Africa Network
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This website was established in 2013 by David Lucas, and renovated and relaunched in 2020 as part of a project to increase awareness of Africa and African studies in the ANU and the ACT, funded by the Australian Government’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
Another outcome of that project was a major research report, published in August 2021, African Studies at the Australian National University and in the Australian Capital Territory, analyzing the past, present and future of the study of Africa at the Australian National University and the wider Australian University sector.

The major innovation on this updated website is the creation of the ACT Africa Expert Directory which lists experts on Africa from institutions around the ACT, primarily the ANU. We will continue to curate this list, offering a key resource for media, government and non-government organizations seeking expert facts and opinions on Africa. Individuals can request to be added to the list by contacting the website managers.
Another notable addition is the expanded directory of PhD theses on Africa produced in the territory’s universities, a solid measure of the vitality of the study of Africa in the city of Canberra.
Reviewing these directories, it is revealing to note that the vast majority of research on Africa is produced by disciplinary experts (environmental scientists, economists, demographers, etc.) rather than area studies experts. This means that the study of Africa is woven into the fabric of the research culture of the ANU and the ACT’s other universities in ways that are not necessarily apparent.
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Tracking population, health and social transitions in Agincourt, rural South Africa
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Tracking population, health and social transitions in Agincourt, rural
South Africa:
Overview of the Agincourt Health and Demographic
Surveillance SystemSPEAKER: Chodziwadziwa (Cho) Whiteson Kabudula –
2017 John C Caldwell Visiting Scholar,
MRC/Wits Rural Public Health & Health Transitions Research Unit (the MRC/Wits-Agincourt Research Unit) at the School of Public Health, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South AfricaDATE: Wednesday 13 September 2017, 12.30-1.30pm
VENUE: Bob Douglas Lecture Theatre, Building 62 NCEPH (entrance on Eggleston Road)
ENQUIRIES
rachael.rodney@anu.edu.au; Chatu.Yapa@anu.edu.au
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Senator Lucy Gichuhi joining the Q&A panel for the first time.
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I am passing on the message from Tanya Lyons ‘president@afsaap.org.au’ It is really for information only since the event is in Sydney. However if you want to register and attend please email david.lucas@anu.edu.au and Tanya’s message with a working link will be sent
Dear AFSAAP,
Hello, Anne Worthington here from Q&A at ABC TV.
This Monday September 11th we have Senator Lucy Gichuhi joining the Q&A panel for the first time.
I thought some of your members and other contacts who are based in and around Sydney might be interested in coming along and being part of the studio audience.
Can you please pass the below information out amongst your contacts?
Thanking you in advance.
Kind regards,
Anne WorthingtonKenyan born Independent SA Senator Lucy Gichuhi will join the Q&A panel on Monday 11th September from the ABC’s SYDNEY studios from 8.30pm.
Also joining host Tony Jones on the panel to answer YOUR questions;
Zed Sesilja – Liberal Senator & Assistant Minister for Social Services and Multicultural Affairs
Mark Dreyfus – Shadow Attorney General & Shadow Minister for National Security
A.C. Grayling – Author and Philosopher
Merav Michaeli -Visiting Israeli MPWe are currently taking audience bookings for the show.
To join the audience here’s what you need to do:
Register here.
In Q.13 (how did you hear about us) please write “AFSAAP” as a reference.
Someone from Q&A will then be in touch with more details.
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Primary Education in Mauritius
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Vijetta Bachraz is a PhD scholar in the Crawford School and was awarded an Australian Postgraduate Scholarship with the Australian National University in 2015 to undertake a study on the institution of primary education in Mauritius and its influence on the positioning of children. This study will contribute to the policy landscape to promote more equitable outcomes for all children enrolled in government schools. Her research methodology identifies with the view that children are not only right-bearing citizens but also important social actors who can express views about their own lives given the opportunity.
Abstract:
The trajectory towards ‘a good life’ is said to rely on the ability of the citizen to amass cultural, social and cognitive capital, with childhood representing a fundamental life phase where parental and societal investments interplay to secure the future of children. This has led to a greater focus on education for the development of human capital to ensure future economic productivity. Mauritius is no exception to this trend. The race to the best secondary schools starts even before children turn five, when the greatest concern for most parents is to secure admission for their children in primary schools with a good track record. Parallel to this competitive nature of primary education, the private tuition ‘industry’ has flourished and further contributes to socio-economic inequalities.
Education is a powerful institution where goals towards ‘a good life’ are realised and reproduced; where children’s bodies are controlled and shaped through regimes of discipline, learning and development, maturation and skill. However, contemporary childhoods are also moving towards individualisation with children increasingly experiencing relative independence, autonomy and choice. We know very little about the ways in which children are positioned and position themselves as dependent/independent and regulated/unregulated within and between their home and school lives; being subject to and reproducing a particular construction of childhood whilst at the same time actively engaged in its alternative construction. This study aims to explore these tensions to provide insights into the ways in which the institution of primary education shapes children’s sense of self, their sense of belonging to their families and wider community and how it influences the broader construction of who children are in the present.
