Nov 19, 2012

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ACAS meetings at African Studies Association (ASA) conference – November 2012

2012 marks the 35th anniversary of the founding of the Association of Concerned Africa Scholars! ACAS is holding a strategic planning session on Wednesday, November 28 at 8:30-10:30 pm in Room 413 of the Marriott Philadelphia Downtown Hotel in Philadelphia, in conjunction with the African Studies Association (ASA) annual meeting. The ACAS annual business meeting is on Thursday, November 29 at 8:30 pm in Salon K.

ACAS and the ASA Current Issues Committee are co-sponsoring a Roundtable on Friday, November 30 at 2:30: The 2012 American Elections and their Implications for U.S.-Africa Policy, chaired by Elizabeth Schmidt

ACAS is sponsoring three panels:
IX-E-6 (Sat 8:30 am) Research Frontiers: Analyzing African Land Grabs, with Carol Thompson as Chair and Jeanne Koopman as Discussant

XI-N-27 (Sat 2:30 pm) Militarizing Africa: Historical Perspectives (Part I), Chaired by David Wiley

XII-N-28 (Sat 4:30 pm) Militarizing Africa: African Studies, AFRICOM, & Current US Security-Focused Foreign Policy (Part II), Chaired by David Wiley

Apr 24, 2012

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New teachers’ resource on Kony 2012 campaign

A resource for teachers, React and Respond: The Phenomenon of Kony 2012, is now available on the ACAS webpage Resources on Uganda, the LRA, and Central Africa. The teachers’ packet is written by Barbara Brown (Boston University Africa Studies Center), John Metzler (Michigan State University Africa Studies Center), Patrick Vinck (Program for Vulnerable Populations at Harvard Humanitarian Initiative), and Christine Root (ACAS). Please share it with social studies teachers in your community. We also have been adding other materials to this ACAS Resources page.

Mar 14, 2012

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ACAS releases statement on the LRA and Central Africa

ACAS has released a statement and accompanying press release expressing its deep concern that the recent campaign in the United States to pursue and arrest Joseph Kony, leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), could have dangerous unintended consequences. Expanding U.S. military operations with the Ugandan army to capture Kony could increase the militarization of the region and lead to deaths of civilians who are caught in the crossfire or become targets of retaliatory attacks by the LRA, as has occurred in the past.

ACAS also is producing materials that scholars can use to engage with students on their campuses and with teachers and middle and high school students in their communities, who are a major audience of the Kony2012 video produced by  Invisible Children.

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Mar 09, 2012

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Two critical essays on the Invisible Children’s Kony2012 campaign

Two useful essays on African Arguments Online with a critical perspective on the “Kony2012” video by Invisible Children:

“#StopKony2012: For most Ugandans Kony’s crimes are from a bygone era” by Angelo Izama. a Ugandan journalist and writer who founded the human security Think Tank, Fanaka Kwawote based in Kampala, and “The Problem with Invisible Children’s ‘Kony 2012′”  by Michael Deibert, a Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Peace and Reconciliation Studies at Coventry University and author of the forthcoming Democratic Republic of Congo: Between Hope and Despair (Zed Books)

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Mar 09, 2012

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Critique of “KONY2012” Video by Ugandan journalist Rosebell Kagumire

This short video from Rosebell Kagumire, a Ugandan journalist, is an eloquent, coherent, and well-informed critique of the Invisible Children video, “Kony2012″. Read more from Kagumire at her blog.

The explosion of interest in this video this week has reignited the controversy about the Obama administration decision in October 2011 to send 100 US Africa Command (AFRICOM) soldiers, armed and with permission to kill, as “advisors” to support the fight against the Lord’s Resistance Army.

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Feb 13, 2012

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SIGN PETITION: US Aid to Ethiopia Supports Forced Relocations for Land Grabs

The ACAS Task Force on Land Grabs urges you to sign a petition to President Obama and USAID administrator Dr. Rajiv Shah to stop your tax money financing land grabs, forced removals of pastoralist peoples, and “cultural transformation” in Ethiopia.
Go to the petition (click on “Petition” tab to see text).

This initiative is from the Oakland Institute and Solidarity Movement for a New Ethiopia (SMNE).

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Oct 18, 2010

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Demand an end to the violence against teachers and students in Haiti

We the undersigned are responding to a call for international solidarity sent out by the executive committee of a coalition of education organizations in Haiti after the police killing of a protesting teacher, and signed on Oct. 11, 2010, by the coordinators of the coalition François Mario, CNEH (teachers’ union), Eugène Jean, UPEPH (parents’ organization), and Josué Mérilien, UNNOH (teachers’ union). We stand in solidarity with teachers, students, and parents in Port-au-Prince who are organizing for schooling for Haitian children abandoned by the education system, and for decent living and working conditions for teachers and students. We demand an end to the systematic violence against them.