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I'm with you Mike. As I signed up for the conference, which I am looking forward to, I thought that 48 years ago when Zambia was approaching Independence the watchword was "Kwacha"; this means the dawn, encapsulating the idea of waking up and coming out of the darkness. Of course the kwacha became Zambia's unit of currency (divided into 100 ngwee - translating as something near to "brightnesses"). At Independence there were 2 of these to the £1, now there are about 7,000 so perhaps a we can stretch the metaphor a little. It is always hard to come up with conference, course or book titles that don't suggest a trace of something one doesn't really mean. Pam Dr Pamela Shurmer-Smith ________________________________ From: Michael Thomason <[log in to unmask]> To: [log in to unmask] Sent: Friday, 29 June 2012, 18:18 Subject: Re: Event - African Awakenings? Interpreting contemporary African protest I don't want to be the kill-joy, because the issues raised by the conference seem important ones, yet I'm worried about the disciplinary context that could produce such a problematic naming. I wonder what African social movements present before the recent period the conference orients itself towards might think about being implicitly portrayed as slumbering. It seems to me that a means by which heterodox colonialist discourses sustain themselves in the West is through the reduction of whole continents - specifically Africa and Latin America, and the geographically promiscuous 'Orient' - to generalizable qualities, if not essences. Those qualities typically work around the notion that those spaces reside in a temporality 'before' that of Europe and North America, and have yet to reach their full potential. While perhaps "African Awakenings" recognizes a little plurality, it's not really that far from "Africa Awakes." The metaphor seems really unhelpful in addressing what are complex and multifaceted movements which probably (I'm not familiar with any of them) possess genealogies as long as social movements in other parts of the world. Am I making a mountain out of a mole-hill? Someone help. Mike On Fri, Jun 29, 2012 at 1:37 PM, Jonathan Pugh <[log in to unmask]> wrote: Apologies for cross-postings …. > >African Awakenings? Interpreting contemporary African protest >This event explores the rash of anti-government and anti-capitalist protest which has exploded across Africa in the wake of the global financial crisis. The ‘Arab Spring’ has taken most of the attention during this period, but we should not forget that these events also occurred on African soil. What then of protests we have seen taking place in Malawi, Cote D’Ivoire, Nigeria, Gabon, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Swaziland, Uganda and Mozambique, to name a few? >As well as their national significance, do these protest movements have implications for broader pan-African peoples’ movements? Do they represent a new stage in African peoples’ democracy? Queen Mary College, University of London, is pleased to bring together this collection of activists and scholars who can give up-to-the-minute analysis of currents in contemporary African protest movements. >Panel:Firoze Manji (Pambazuka Press); Yash Tandon (South Centre, SEATINI); Bayo Oyenuga (Enough is Enough/Occupy Nigeria); Ayanda Kota (Grahamstown Unemployed Peoples’ Movement (South Africa)); Patricia Daley (University of Oxford) >More details here: African Spring >To book: email; [log in to unmask] > > -- 11 Station Road, North Ferriby, East Yorkshire, HU14 3DG, United Kingdom. +44 1482 631527 / +44 7720 650738 http://www.flickr.com/photos/mjthomason/