By Emily Putnam

杏吧原创鈥檚 own Sarah Phillips Casteel will be launching her new book, , published in Columbia University Press’ new , at the on Thursday April 11.

The first-of-its-kind book delves into a variety of often neglected literary and artistic creations that illuminate Black wartime experience in Nazi Germany and occupied Europe.

This work underscores the importance of African diaspora experiences and artistic expression for Holocaust history, memory, and representation.

Casteel says that within Holocaust studies, there has been increasing attention to neglected or overlooked victim groups. 

鈥淏ecause the numbers of Black victims were relatively small, they have tended to be overlooked or to be perceived as less significant. I don’t agree with that perspective, but I think it has played into the invisibility of Black experience during World War II.鈥�

She says a number of other components contributed to the lack of acknowledgement thus far.

In an often-overlooked aspect of World War II history, Black people living in Nazi Germany and occupied Europe were in some cases subjected to ostracization, forced sterilization, and incarceration in internment and concentration camps.

Casteel explains that it was artworks, in particular the 鈥檚 and Ghanaian Canadian writer 鈥檚 novel that initially got her interested in this neglected topic.

“I think there has been a systemic erasure of Black historical experience in wartime Europe as well as more broadly,” says Casteel. “I became really intrigued with what writers and artists have done to draw attention to a chapter of the war that scholars, museums, and other institutions had overlooked.”

Emphasizing Black agency, Casteel鈥檚 book explores both testimonial art by Black victims of the Nazi regime and creative works by Black writers and visual artists that imaginatively reconstruct the wartime era. 

In the absence of public recognition, African diaspora writers and artists have preserved the stories of overlooked Black victims of the Third Reich. Their works shed light on the relationship between creative expression and wartime survival and the role of art in shaping collective memory.

鈥淚t’s been an interesting research challenge, just trying to find traces of these Black wartime stories,鈥� says Casteel. 鈥淧art of the challenge is that the Nazis didn’t have a designated category for Black prisoners. So that makes it harder to trace their presence in the camp system and in the archive.鈥�

Among the artworks Casteel examines in the book are the internment art of Caribbean painter Josef Nassy, the survivor memoir of Black German journalist , the jazz fiction of African American novelist , Black Canadian novelist Esi Edugyan, and the photomontages of Scottish Ghanaian visual artist .

Casteel hopes that people will take away from the book a greater understanding of the interconnectedness of different histories of oppression and the diversity of experiences of Nazi persecution. 

She notes that utilizing visual sources enables new narratives to surface.

“Because this is a hyper-visible victim group, it’s sometimes easier to find traces of Black stories in the visual documents as opposed to the textual ones because the archive has not always recorded their presence well. Whereas when you have something like the Josef Nassy Collection, you can access a story that wasn’t recorded in written form.”

Casteel says that she is struck by how artists have often pointed to underrepresented narratives before scholars have.

She explains that a combination of storytelling mediums was essential to uncovering these histories.

鈥淚 came to the conclusion that when you’re faced with a history that’s been so invisible and so suppressed, you end up having to draw on all the resources of all the different media that you can in order to try to recover it. I think that’s why I ended up putting the book together in this way鈥攚hy the book is so eclectic in terms of the range of artistic genres and mediums that it addresses.鈥�

Casteel hopes that her work will reach beyond academia and help to bridge gaps in the historical awareness of who was affected by the Holocaust.

Casteel was also interviewed in where she discusses the book in-depth.

Those looking to celebrate the release of Sarah Phillips Casteel’s new book can on April 11 at 5:30 p.m. Casteel will be in conversation with Aboubakar Sanogo, and Ming Tiampo will moderate the conversation.

Organized by the Centre for Transnational Cultural Analysis in partnership with the National Gallery of Canada, the event will be presented in English with simultaneous French translation. Following the talk, Casteel will be available to sign copies of the book.

Sarah Phillips Casteel is a professor of English at 杏吧原创 University, where she is cross-appointed to the Institute for Comparative Studies in Literature, Art and Culture and the Institute of African Studies. She is a member of the鈥檚 Academic Council. Her previous books include  (Columbia University Press, 2016) and the coedited volume  (University of Virginia Press, 2019).

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杏吧原创 University鈥檚 Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Advanced Scholars West Africa (QES-AS-WA) program is pleased to announce the selection of nine scholars for its second and final cohort in the current funding cycle. The selection of the nine distinguished West African late doctoral and early career women scholars from an impressive 297 applications followed a detailed evaluation by the esteemed governing committee members and Research Placement Partners. 杏吧原创 University is delighted to unveil the nine outstanding scholars who will be joining the program in early spring 2024:

• Adwoa-Owusuaa-Bobie: Early Career Researcher, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Ghana 
• Celina Onyawoibi Aju-Ameh: Early Career Researcher, Federal University of Health Sciences, Otukpo (FUHSO), Benue, Nigeria
• Chimaobim Ijeoma Enendu: PhD candidate, Ignatius Ajuru University of Education, Nigeria
• Eugenia Ama Breba Anderson: Early Career Researcher, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Ghana 
• Gloria Boko Epse Agbo: PhD candidate, Universit茅 d鈥橝bomey-Calavi, Benin
• Jane Chinyere Ezirigwe: Early Career Researcher, Nigerian Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, Nigeria
• Louka茂ya Zorobouragui: PhD candidate, Universit茅 de Parakou, Benin
• Ruth Aba Tobi Sawyerr: PhD candidate, University of Ghana, Legon
• Zainab Musa Shallangwa: PhD in Cultural Studies, University of Maiduguri, Nigeria

Carlerton鈥檚 QES-AS-WA program, Wurin ta na yin rubutu 鈥� Her own room to write, is designed to provide an opportunity to gain experience through travel to 杏吧原创 University and/or across West Africa to one of our research placement partners. The scholarship provides for research supervision, focused seminars, experiential learning through aligning the research proposal with research placement opportunities (see Placement Partners), leadership, and network building. There were six scholars in the first cohort of scholars who were in residence in the summer of 2023.

杏吧原创 University is one of 11 Canadian universities that receive funding from the new  to work together to find solutions to the world鈥檚 increasingly complex challenges. The project is led by Nduka Otiono, a distinguished scholar and Director of 杏吧原创鈥檚 Institute of African Studies in collaboration with colleagues at 杏吧原创, various African partners including and Professor Aisha Ibrahim, assistant deputy vice-chancellor of Fourah Bay College at the University of Sierra Leone. Others include Heloise Emdon, Manager, International Projects, and Farhana Moshira, the International Project Coordinator. 

The external project partners include , , , ,  and . 

The Canadian Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Scholarships (QES) is managed through a unique partnership of Universities Canada, the Rideau Hall Foundation (RHF), and Canadian universities. The QES-AS West Africa program is made possible with financial support from IDRC. The QES program was created in 2014 to improve global talent exchange between Canada and other nations. The program aims to develop the next generation of innovative leaders and community builders by providing enriched academic, professional, and cross-cultural experiences and by facilitating lasting local and global community engagement.

Speaking on the selected scholars for the final round of the 杏吧原创 QES-AS-WA program Professor Otiono noted that the new set is more competitive and covers a wider geographic spread. He underscored the large number of entries as indicative of the popularity of the 杏吧原创 QES-AS-WA program and regretted that only nine spots could be offered. 鈥淚 wish we could extend more opportunities to the extremely qualified women applicants,鈥� he said, adding: 鈥淲e hope to pursue related opportunities in the future.鈥�

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Professor Nduka Otiono’s first book was first published in 1995. On April 8, 2021, a silver jubilee anniversary edition will be released. It will feature a new cover designed by and a new Afterword by author Frank Uche Mowah. Congratulations, Professor Otiono!

Praise for The Night Hides With a Knife

鈥淎 respectable collection of short stories written in elegant and piquant style and demonstrates profound insight into human psychology.鈥�
鈥� Jury, ANA/Spectrum Prize

鈥淲ith this first collection of short stories, Nduka Otiono takes us on an impressive, multi-textual journey of resourcefulness and creativity that combines the best of the oral and scribal in Nigeria literary culture: traditional storytelling strategies and conventional narrative forms are overlaced with a fragmentary, postmodern reflexivity; the voice propels the pen, only to get trapped in the tape recorder鈥�
鈥� Harry Garuba, poet and Professor, University of Cape Town, South Africa

鈥�…a synthesis of the archetypal forms of the oral tradition with modern urban realism.鈥�
鈥� D.S. Izevbaye, Emeritus Professor of English and Fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Letters

鈥淭he issue in Nigerian fiction is no longer that of good and evil. Our experience in the postmodern and postcolonial times has driven us beyond those fringes. As The Night Hides with a Knife has clearly symbolized, the issue is that of the beautiful and the ugly, the dark and the light, a distinction which must remain foregrounded in the consciousness of every Nigerian in order to remind us of our vanishing beauty and dream as a people.鈥�
鈥� Frank Uche Mowah, writer and former Head of Department of English, Ambrose Alli University, Nigeria

鈥�…challenges the stereotype notion that modern African prose lacks experimental forms. The…collection defies, and indeed straddles genre classification.鈥�
鈥� Monitor Review

鈥淪everal years of craftsmanship have transformed the ten short stories in this collection into gems of chiseled prose…In these stories, we see the dreams of an entire generation reaching up for the lights or sinking into the fetid swamp of the nation鈥檚 grave.鈥�
鈥� The Guardian

鈥淭here is鈥 deeply autobiographical tenor in the short stories, for they tend to proclaim the geography of Otiono鈥檚 times鈥� The greatest achievement鈥s his deep and significant power of observation, in the surprising detail of his narrative.鈥�
鈥� Vanguard

鈥淭he Night Hides with a Knife is a collection of familiar and somewhat absurd experiences鈥duka Otiono is unique because his exploration of experiences is stylized. In essence, he is a stylist at heart: manner matters a lot to him.鈥�
鈥� TheNews magazine

鈥淥tiono鈥檚 painstaking assemblage of the loom of existence with its strands drawn from the nation’s socio-political realities is the staple of everyday life鈥� By giving free reign to his imagination and inventiveness and by drawing on the rich and time-tested resources of the oral tradition and heritage of African literature, Otiono makes The Night Hides with a Knife an irresistible work in the narrative genre.鈥�
鈥� Weekend Times

鈥淥tiono鈥檚 ability to capture true life experiences manifests in stories like 鈥楢 Will to Survive鈥�, 鈥榃ings of Rebellion鈥�…鈥�
鈥� Sunday Times

鈥淭hese stories are experimental, displaying an awareness of modern currents and a delicate narrative sensitivity to autochthonous structures鈥� Part of the assets [Otiono] displays are his sharp, smooth-flowing prose and his sense of adventure and experimentation鈥e is at his best when exploiting the structures of oral performance.鈥�
鈥� Wumi Raji, author of Long Dreams in Short Chapters: Essays in African Postcolonial Literary, Cultural and Political Criticisms.

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By Seyi Isbola

The first time I met the renowned professor and political commentator Pius Adesanmi was in 2010, when I first arrived at 杏吧原创 University.  Many of us took African studies courses as “easy electives;” little did we know! All I knew then was that he was a professor at the university and a well-known Twitter user. Fast forward to 2016, I returned to 杏吧原创 for a second degree and had the pleasure of being Pius’ student and mentee from then onward. It was an absolute honor to learn from such a distinguished African Professor. 

As this story goes, I saw Pius Adesanmi one last time on the afternoon of March 8, 2019. He stood tall by his office door at the Institute of African Studies in his bright blue jacket and wore his loud contagious laugh with so much joy. He hugged me goodbye and mentioned that he would see me soon as I owed him some pounded yam. Unfortunately, the tragic news came only two days later. Pius had been on the Ethiopian Airlines aircraft that crashed just outside Addis Ababa claiming the lives of 157 people. A shocking end to such a great story!

In Canada, friends, family, and colleagues gathered to celebrate his life at the Metropolitan Bible Church on the following Saturday. In other parts of the world, including Nigeria, many services were also held to celebrate his life.

We often take for granted the people we encounter daily. Pius Adesanmi was not just a professor but a fascinating storyteller, writer, poet, a well-known international speaker, political commentator, a husband, friend, and mentor. In 2001, his first book Wayfarer and the Other Poems won the Association of Nigerian Authors Poetry Prize. He went on to win the inaugural Penguin Prize for African Writing in the non-fiction category with his essay collection, “You’re Not a Country, Africa!” in 2010. In 2015, he took his passion for Africa to TEDx Euston, where he delivered his talk titled “.”

Prof; as often called, also taught an English course that many of his students would never forget. It is almost impossible to imagine an ENGL 2927 lecture (1) without hearing the story of an abiku. The story about a young boy whose mother and grandmother adopted many tactics in an attempt to keep him alive and on this earth.

The Yoruba legend describes abikus as spirits who come to earth as children but find our world dull and choose to return to their home – the other world. Abikus are known to leave their stillborn bodies behind to their mothers; causing them much grief.  The custom offers a solution of marking the body as a way to keep an abiku on earth. By doing so, the maker is unable to recognize him on returning to the other world. The abiku becomes a little boy.

Prof always started his semester off in African Literature with (t)his story.  He would share this story with all seriousness and then conclude with “I am abiku.” He would go on to teach the class, sometimes breaking into French almost forgetting that he stood in front of an English-speaking majority. 

He was deserving of the title as many of us will remember his passion for educating and inspiring fresh minds, and his war on mediocrity as something to strive for daily. We remember he rightfully claimed his position at the Institute by shamelessly staging photoshoots in the corners of Paterson Hall. Many will never forget his tweets and how he often offended the people with his undiluted opinions about the state of Nigeria, but yet managed to remain cordial with them shortly after.

Pius had a steadfast love for Africa and was very passionate about its future. To this, he worked tirelessly in his position as the sitting director of the Institute of African Studies at 杏吧原创 University creating a space for (African) students to connect, learn, and feel at home. His door was always left wide open as an invitation to students whenever the need arose. He used the Institute as a point of contact to draw in students at 杏吧原创 who felt a bit lost, and those who were seeking a space to grow and fully develop their potential. For many of us, our professor sowed in us the ability to reach beyond the Canadian academic scope. I am a product of his teachings. His lessons taught us that the paths we choose to take, and how we use the tools available to us have a bigger purpose beyond the conversations we engage in within the classrooms.

It feels like an impossible feat to memorialize such a brave spirit. We continue to piece together memories of an incredible man in the ways he taught us how; through stories and their lessons. Pius taught us never to underestimate the power of words carefully pieced together to reclaim space and to demand more of the world that surrounds us. We go on to use these lessons in our works and our lives. 

It is remarkable to see how many lives have been deeply impacted by Pius. He will forever be remembered for being a mentor to young African academics, writers, and creatives, and as one of the greatest intellectual to come out of Nigeria!

As I browsed online platforms, I came across the epitaph Pius wrote in 2013 as a request from Nwokolo Chuma:

“Here lies Pius Adesanmi who tried as much as he could to put his talent in the service of humanity and flew away home one bright morning when his work was over” (Nwokolo 2019)

You left too soon Prof.

Professor Pius Adesanmi Sun re o (rest in peace)!

Seyi Ishola was a student in Economics and African Studies at 杏吧原创 University.

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On Thursday, March 12, 2020, affiliated scholars, friends and supporters of 杏吧原创’s Institute of African Studies (IAS) gathered to celebrate its anniversary and reflect on a decade’s worth of achievements and shifting landscapes. The festivity also served as an opportunity to honour the inimitable contributions of the late Dr. Pius Adesanmi, former IAS Director. An in-depth piece on the 10-year history and impact of 杏吧原创’s IAS is forthcoming, but in the meantime, we invite you to enjoy this gallery of photos from the celebration.

[button title=”Visit the Institute of African Studies website” url=”www.carleton.ca/africanstudies” style=”red-solid” class=”center” /]

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杏吧原创 the Festival

When: February 9-16
Where: Alma Duncan Salon, Ottawa Art Gallery, 10 Daly Ave, Ottawa, ON K1N 6E2

For more information visit the .

Welcome to the fourth edition of the African Film Festival of Ottawa (AFFO). It is a pleasure to offer again to the Ottawa cinephilic audience a sample of some of the best in contemporary African cinema. This year marks a historic shift in the young history of the festival. For the first time it will be held during Black History Month. The idea is to be able to be part in this month-long celebration of the cultures of people of African descent in Canada. We consider cinema one of the most significant contributions of artists and cultural workers from Africa and of African descent to culture. Indeed, the cinema is one of the artistic forms that most illuminates what it means to live as human beings on this planet, one of the most thoughtful, sensitive and sensible spaces for reflections and meditations on the human condition. What better time to screen African films than in a month of intensified awareness of African and Afro-diasporic cultures and their indispensable role in shaping Canadian culture daily in a multiplicity of forms? Black History Month is thus one of the most propitious moments to have a conversation between Africa and Canada around culture, and more specifically film culture. It is part of an effort to make African cinema an indelible part of Canadian film culture and to broaden the cinematic palates of Canadian in a meaningful manner.

The Films

In continuity with our original project to represent the various regions of the African continent each festival, the films selected this year come from North Africa (Morocco), West Africa (Senegal and Nigeria), East Africa (Kenya) and Southern Africa (Zambia) with the Senegalese film set in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo (Central Africa).

While we focused on the question of film heritage during our 2017 edition, we thought we would return to some of the most vibrant experiments taking place in African cinema today. The films we have chosen for you definitely feature in that category. They all feature strong voices (some established, some emerging, but each compelling) which are poised to play a significant role in African and world cinema the years and decades to come.

贵茅濒颈肠颈迟茅&苍产蝉辫;(2017)

Our opening film  is a masterpiece by Alain Gomis, an original voice in cinema. He is returning to AFFO after the screening of Tey in 2016. This narrative of the journey of a single mother (played by newcomer and absolute revelation V茅ro Tschanda Beya Mputu) across Kinshasa, one of Africa鈥檚 most dynamic yet infrastructurally-challenged city, in an effort to find resources for her son鈥檚 leg operation is a mix of documentary realism, naturalism and surrealism, featuring the legendary Kasai All-Star Band and the Kinshasa Symphony Orchestra. A narrative of resilience, resistance and emergence if makeshift love in a context of extreme scarcity, this city symphony marks the increasing triumph of the Djibirl Diop Mambety school in African cinema. 贵茅濒颈肠颈迟茅won the Golden Stallion at FESPACO (Africa鈥檚 most important film festival), the Berlinale鈥檚 Silver Bear and was Senegal鈥檚 Oscar entry for Best Foreign Language Film.

Volubilis (2018)

We have been very much looking forward (for a number of years now) to introducing the Ottawa audience, to Faouzi Bensaidi, the Moroccan-born master of the film frame and sculpting bodies in space. His latest film  (2018) gives us the opportunity to do just that. Choosing to train his kino-eye on those socially marginalized globalization (this planetary equal-opportunity marginalizer), he examines the ways in which class inequality exacerbated by rampant consumerism and cultural leveling combine to crush the least of these but also provoke profound identity crises with reverberations far beyond the shores of the African continent and indeed throughout the other continents.  Bensaidi was one of the first to register this with his 2006 film What a Wonderful World. Premiered at the Venice Film Festival, Volubiliswon the Silver Tanit at the Carthage Film Festival and was voted Moroccan Film of the Year in 2018.

I am Not a Witch (2017)

Rungano Nyoni is truly one of the genuine emerging cinematic voices in African cinema. This was already clear with her 2009 short film Mwanza the Great. With , the Zambian-Welsh director offers us an absurdist, surrealist and feminist satire of this 鈥渂io-political technology鈥� of gender and age-based marginalization known as 鈥渨itchcraft鈥� through the compelling story of nine-year old Shula who is accused of being a witch and ends up quarantined in a witch camp.  Using primarily non-professional actors, this first major fiction and feature film from Zambia, featuring several Zambian languages (Bemba, Nyanja and Tonga) required the audition of over 900 children to find its protagonist played by Maggie Mulubwa.I am Not a Witchpremiered at the Directors鈥� Fortnight in Cannes and the UK鈥檚 2017 Oscar submission.

76 (2016)

Izu Ojukuw鈥檚 partakes in profound industrial shifts, which are transforming the world-renowned Nollywood industry. Indeed, it is part of what has been referred to as 鈥淭he New Nollywood,鈥� an increasingly formally and aesthetically rigorous auteurist tendency that seeks to lead the way in this intensely prolific cinematic tradition. Exploring the space of a national political trauma, the film revisits events around the both 1976 military coup, which saw the assassination of then President Murtala Muhammed. However, while coup d鈥櫭﹖ats are often the stuff of masculinity in its militarily-exacerbated form, Ojukwu chooses to also meditate the significance of said events through the experiences of the wives and families of those involved. Reportedly the first Nigerian film to be shot in army barracks, the film received support from the Nigerian military whose Defense Academy advisers were involved in training the cast over 21 days. 76was shot on super 16mm and, stars A-list Nollywood actors Ramsey Nouah and Rita Dominic and premiered at TIFF 2016 as part of the festival final City to City section, which focused on Lagos.

Kati Kati (2016)

What if you woke up one day in a hospital gown and were informed that you were already dead; that you were in the zone of in between-ness, in (the halfway passage) as it were, the space of the purgatory, free of material wants, where you needed to expiate your earthly faults before moving to the next stage?  This is the conceit of Mbithy Masya鈥檚 compelling and original exploration of the afterlife in his first feature film, which won the International Federation of Film Critics (FEPIRESCI) award at TIFF, and Best East African Film of the year 2017.  The film may be seen as partaking in a conversation with Alain Gomis鈥� Teywhose protagonist calmly sets out to meet his death on the last day of his life. The director of commercials and music videos, and member of experimental art collective and house punk group Just A Band, Mbithi Masya joins Judy Kibinge (Something Necessary), David Tosh Gitonga (Nairobi Half Life) and Wanuri Kahiu (Rafiki) among others, in contributing over the past decade to turning Kenya into an increasing powerhouse in African cinema.

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Professor in the Department of History Audra A. Diptee will be holding the post of Professeure Invit茅e at the in Paris (January 鈥� April, 2019).  While there, she will be undertaking archival research, working on her next manuscript, as well as continuing work on a collaborative project with colleagues at the .

She has been invited to give research presentations at both CIRESC and the in which she will be discussing early ideas on her current project.  Her presentation will be entitled 鈥淚maginer l’horizon des pays du Sud sous l’angle de l’histoire, de la m茅moire et du pouvoir.”

While in Paris she will be offering a graduate seminar at the that addresses themes related to race, colonialism, and imperialism in Caribbean contexts.

鈥淭his is a truly wonderful opportunity,鈥� said Diptee.

鈥淚 am looking forward to engaging with scholars and graduate students at the Universit茅 de Sorbonne-Nouvelle as I advance work on my current project.

“Being a Professeure Invit茅e at l鈥橴niversit茅 Sorbonne-Nouvelle provides me with precisely the environment I need to develop my ideas on building Caribbean 鈥榗ounter archives鈥� in response to the ways in which power shapes knowledge production, historicity, and memory.

This is not Diptee鈥檚 first significant honour in recent years. In 2018, Professor Diptee also won a prestigious Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Centre Residency Fellowship.

For more on Prof. Diptee鈥檚 work see .

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Professor in the Department of History Audra Diptee has won a for 2018. She will embark on a month long writing residency at the Bellagio Centre in Italy.

鈥淚 was delighted when I heard the news鈥攑rimarily because the objectives of the fellowship program align almost perfectly with my own research agenda,鈥� said Professor Diptee.

鈥淭he Rockefeller Foundation has a strong interest in projects that have a direct impact on the lives of poor and vulnerable populations around the world.鈥�

Central to her project New Strategies for the Battle Against Modern Day Slavery is an exploration of the ways in which historians can better contribute to the challenges facing the humanitarian sector in general and anti-slavery initiatives in particular.

鈥淚 feel quite fortunate that I will be able to write in a multidisciplinary environment with academics, activists, and artists who are trying to develop non-conventional approaches to real world problems,鈥� said Diptee.

New Strategies for the Battle Against Modern Day Slavery develops the ideas that have been laid out in her article The Problem of Modern Day Slavery: Is Critical Applied History the Answer? which is to be published in a forth-coming issue of the journal Slavery & Abolition. In short, through its analysis of anti-slavery discourses and initia-tives, this project will contemplate the ways in which power dynamics legitimate certain ways of knowing, interrogate the ahistorical tendencies of institutionally produced discourses, and problematize how various notions of the past come into conflict. This is a continuation of her ongoing research.

鈥淢y work on modern slavery is actually part of a larger project called History as Weapon: Writing Radical Caribbean Histories in which I argue that the methodology of Critical Applied History is a necessary tool for reorienting Western discourses about the region鈥攁nd the Global South more generally鈥攖hat are pervasive in politics, policy, as well as development and humanitarian discourses,鈥� explained Professor Diptee.

The Rockefeller Foundation awards these residencies to individuals who are on 鈥渁 strong upward trajectory鈥� and whose research aligns with the Foundation鈥檚 efforts. When asked to reflect on achieving this prestigious recognition, Diptee was quick to thank her students.

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Metropolitan Nomads. A Journey Through Joburg鈥檚 Little Mogadishu

Mayfair, a Johannesburg suburb, is a place where the lives of hundreds of Somalis intersect; a space of opportunity for some, a place of refuge for others, and a home away from home for the Somali diaspora in the city. This is a multi-layered site where Somali migrants, as urban refugees, renegotiate their cultural practices in a foreign, metropolitan context; where spaces and customs that were left behind are recreated in the daily life of the neighbourhood.

Using photography and an ethnographic approach, Metropolitan Nomads takes an intimate look at the everyday life of Somali migrants in Johannesburg, where collective stories of migration and survival
interweave with the individual desires and hopes of seeking a better life outside a country shattered by decades of internal conflict. Metropolitan Nomads: A Journey through Joburg鈥檚 Little Mogadishu is a collaborative project between researcher Nereida Ripero-Muriiz and documentary photographer Salym Fayad, supported by the (ACMS) at Wits University.

An exhibition by: Salym Fayad, Documentary photographer. +27 78 517 2132

When: TBD

Where: Paterson Hall, 4th Floor

–>

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