Afrasian Interactions: Current Dynamics, Future Perspectives
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Date
2018-06
Authors
MAKOKHA, JUSTUS KIZITO SIBOE
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Abstract
This conference was organized under the aegis of AFRASO, an interdisciplinary and
transregional research project which comprises scholars from various disciplines at Goethe
University in Frankfurt a.M. AFRASO is the acronym of AFRICA’s ASIAN OPTIONS.
AFRASO started on 1st February 2013. With the support of the Federal Ministry of Education
and Research (BMBF) the two area studies centres: ZIAF (Center for Interdisciplinary
African Studies) and IZO (Interdisciplinary Centre for East Asian Studies), both based at
the Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main, have organized a six-year research programme.
The symposium above was part of this intinerary. It was the final conference that brought
the project above to conclusion. It was co-hosted with the CoHaB IDC (The Diasporic
Construction of Home and Belonging Centre of the University of Mumbai, India. The
conference was hosted at the Kalinas Campus, University of Mumbai, India 26th – 27th June,
2018. A third co-organiser of the conference was the Gandhian Studies Centre at the Dr.
BMN College of Home Science, Mumbai. The conference brought together a team of experts
from Africa, Asia and Europe whose research work over the years demonstrates national and
international scope focusing on the complexity of African-Asian interactions. Their work seen
as a corpus generates new knowledge on contents, forms, and implications of interactions
between African and Asian protagonists on both continents and contributes to an innovative
reconceptualization of Area Studies through its transregional focus on „Afrasian spaces“. The
conference was a cogent platform for me to: share my recent interests in psychocriticism as
an approach to decoding aesthetic value of historiographical narratives of the Indian diaspora
in East Africa. It provided me with a platform to share with a phalanx of researchers working
in the same fields of Diaspora Studies and Memory Studies where my current research
interests are located. My paper has been selected, among others, for publication as a journal
article in a special issue of Matatu: Journal for African Culture and Society. The distinguished
academic journal is published by the equally distinguished publisher, Brill, based in The
Netherlands since 1683. www.brill.com. The papers from the conference have been peerreviewed
through a double-blind peer review process. They are being prepared for
publication in summer, 2019. This journal article publication is part of my career
growth and professional maturation as a scholar of Humanities, and Literary studies.
Description
POST WORKSHOP/CONFERENCE REPORT:Afrasian Interactions: Current Dynamics, Future Perspectives
Keywords
India-Africa, anthropology, history, political science, literature, University of Mumbai