News

Call for Papers – “Through the generations: youth, ageing and African Studies collections” – (SCOLMA Conference 2025)

SCOLMA Logo

CfP: Through the generations: youth, ageing and African Studies collections

30th June 2025

A one-day conference at the University of  Oxford

 

Keynote speaker: Dr Buhle Mbambo-Thata, University of Lesotho

 

It is well known that the African continent has the youngest population in the world, and is sometimes described as the ‘continent of the future’. What impact does this have on the role of archives and libraries that document the continent’s past?

This conference will explore the role of library and archive materials in African Studies in understanding generational change and in meeting the opportunities and challenges that it brings. How have generational change and the experiences of different generations been understood and recorded in the past? How do shifts in technological expectations shape how different generations expect to ‘access’ the past? How do digital technologies change the balances between written records and oral tradition and how can collecting practices adjust accordingly? How can archive or library materials be mobilised to be useful in schools and education for different age groups?

We welcome papers from librarians, archivists and researchers in a number of disciplines, including African Studies, Youth and Ageing Studies, History, Geography, Education, Heritage, and Refugee and Migration Studies. Papers may address a range of media including documents and manuscripts, photographs, newspapers, historical printed collections, audio-visual material and born-digital material. Equally they may describe projects that explore new methods or technologies focused on engaging different generations with archival and library collections.

Subjects may include, but are not limited to:

  • Activities or projects that have sought to engage younger or older people with archival records and collections in/about the African continent
  • Research or collections that have sought to capture particular generational perspectives or experiences
  • Research or collections that have sought to document campaigns for rights by particular generations: youth/student movements, children’s organisations, or protests by older generations
  • The creation of educational materials from archive and library collections for younger or older people
  • Studies or reflections on use-patterns in archives and libraries by younger or older generations

The conference will be in-person.

With agreement from the speakers the papers will be recorded and made available online after the event.

Please submit abstracts of up to 350 words and a one-paragraph biography to Sarah Rhodes: sarah.rhodes@bodleian.ox.ac.uk by Friday 17th January, 2025.

 

SCOLMA/IAI journal ABRD wins the Conover-Porter Award!!

We are so pleased to announce that Africa Bibliography, Research & Documentation (edited by Terry Barringer) has been awarded the African Studies Association’s 2024 Conover-Porter Award for Africana Bibliography or Reference Work!!  Congratulations to the Editorial Team consisting of Terry Barringer, Stephanie Kitchen, Barbara Spina, Richard Bartholomew and Ben Carson, for their excellent work and contributions to the journal.  Also IAI and Cambridge University Press for all of their support.

“The Conover-Porter Award was established in honor of two pioneers in African studies bibliography: Helen F. Conover and Dorothy B. Porter Wesley. The Award is selected every two years by the Africana Librarians Council of the African Studies Association. The award recognizes outstanding achievement in Africana bibliography and reference tools among works published in the preceding two years.”

The Award will be presented at the 67th Annual Meeting of the African Studies Association in Chicago, Illinois in December this year.

Please see the official press release for more winners in the ASA prize-winning categories!

“Online engagement, African archives & digital public history” – SCOLMA 2024 Online Seminar Series

Join us ONLINE for the last of five seminars in “African Studies in the Digital Age” – SCOLMA’s 2024 Seminar Series

Poster with details of Apr 24th seminar

About the seminar: Online engagement, African archives & digital public history

Wednesday April 24th Online from 13:00-14:00 BST. Register now!

If you’ve enjoyed our past seminars, conferences, or simply would like to support SCOLMA, please consider donating any amount you can when you get your free ticket to this seminar.

“The exponential development of digital tools and platforms from Whatsapp to Digital Humanities have radically shifted opportunities for public history – new opportunities for collective sense-making and narrating the past. This final round table in the SCOLMA seminar season addresses the work involved in engaging discussion around African collections through these platforms, re-mixing and connecting collections, short-circuiting colonial logics.

In very diverse ways our three panellists have developed projects that have brought together transnational audiences and African collections: Érika Melek Delgado (King’s College, London) co-director of the Freedom Narratives Database, JC Niala (History of Science Museum, Oxford) who has led UK discussion on transforming community access to African collections, and Anne Samson (independent historian) founder of the online Great War in Africa Association. We’ll hear from them about the successes and difficulties of virtual collaboration, in creating and sustaining online audiences and projects, and what they have learned through their processes about the needs and interests of online audiences for UK African collections.”

About the series: This seminar has been added to a series page where you’re able to see all past events in the series. The recordings of all 5 seminars will be posted to the SCOLMA YouTube channel in due time following our last seminar.

Due to unforeseen circumstances, the SCOLMA committee had to change the final seminar date from April 17th to April 24th. We look forward to having you join us on Wednesday April 24th at 13:00 BST, and apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused.