Recontextualizing Self & Other Issues in Africa: The Practice of a Conference is a collective meditation on a joint Symposium organized by Kyoto University (Kyoto, Japan) and Makerere University (Kampala, Uganda), 2-3 October 2007, under the sponsorship of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS).  Without committing these Institutions in any way, this book that includes a few of the works presented and discussed in sessions of the Symposium, respectfully and gratefully recognizes the Sponsors.

The objective of the Conference was “to illuminate various creative practices and wisdom in African societies, and discuss our longing for emancipation.”  The volume presents a few contributions which deal with the thematics of sessions.  They are mainly from Africa based researchers, or engaged in dialogue with Kenyan, Ugandan and Zambian communities.  Organized in three sessions, the Conference dealt with three main questions: (a) What is the Self/Other in the Context of African Anthropologies and African Studies?; (b) How Can We Express the Self/Other’s Experiences in African Contexts?; (c) Practical Issues of African Anthropologies and African Studies.

“At a time when Africa and Asia are entering into new forms of mutual dialogue, commerce and exchange, this refreshing collaboration sponsored by Kyoto University and Makerere University between scholars on four continents is a welcome addition to the field. Whether engaging with issues of gun control, of the AIDS epidemic, of ethnic tensions, or the challenges posed by sculpture and the arts among others, all of the essays in the volume provoke us to think anew about scholarly practice and its potential contribution in making ours a better world.”

—Gaurav Desai, Tulane University

“Brilliance and diversity are the watchwords of these compelling essays whose topics range from conflict resolution to art and AIDS awareness, contemporary social identities to differing views of immorality. Able authors hail from Japan, Kenya, Uganda, UK, and the USA, and threading through their chapters are notions of the self and inside/outside politics of representation in the constantly changing circumstances of contemporary eastern Africa. An epilog essay by V-Y Mudimbe contextualizes the papers through reflections on a conference as practice—that is, as a convergence of insight and experience as communicated to and with others.

—Allen F. Roberts, University of California, Los Angeles

ABOUT THE EDITORS

V-Y MUDIMBE teaches at Duke University, USA. His publications include The Invention of Africa (Indiana University Press, 1988) and The Idea of Africa (Indiana University Press, 1994). He is also the editor of The Surreptitious Speech: “Présence Africaine” and the Politics of Otherness, 1947-1987 (University of Chicago Press, 1992).

ANTHONY SIMPSON is a Lecturer in Social Anthropology and Specialist of Central and Southern Africa studies in the School of Social Sciences at the University of Manchester, UK. He is the author of 'Half-London' in Zambia: Contested Identities in a Catholic Mission School (Edinburgh University Press, International Africa Library, 2003) and Boys to Men in the Shadow of AIDS: Masculinities and HIV Risk in Zambia (Palgrave MacMillan, 2009).

SUBJECT CATEGORIES

History, Philosophy/AFRICA