Welcome to the Africa-Asia ConFest 3 Proposal Submission Portal

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Deadline Proposals should be in English, French or Portuguese: 1 October 2024.

Dakar is a thriving cosmopolitan city with a vibrant tapestry of history and creativity. It is the main cultural and intellectual hub of francophone West Africa, capitalizing on a long heritage of cross-cultural relations with the American, Caribbean, European, Middle Eastern and Asian world regions, and, of course, with the vast and diverse African continent itself. The city is located at the most western tip of the continent. The label ‘Teranga’ (hospitality in Wolof) best characterizes the capital of Senegal, where arts, music, dance, gastronomy, and the legendary Senegalese conviviality combine to capture any visitor’s imagination.

Senegal is one of the countries in sub-Saharan Africa most open to international cultural and economic interactions, including with Asian partners. It is among the most peaceful societies on the continent, one of its most vibrant and stable democracies. This is particularly true in the aftermath of the recent presidential elections, which again saw a peaceful political transition as well as new hopes of transformation for a predominantly young population. Geographically speaking, Senegal, with its capital Dakar, plays the role of a regional hub, located a relatively short flight away from other major airports in Africa, America, Europe, and the Middle East. It is now well connected to many Asian capitals as well. The climate is maritime with a warm sunshine weather throughout the year. Thus, Dakar offers an ideal location for the third edition of Africa-Asia, A New Axis of Knowledge, and we look forward to meeting you there!

Please click here for more information on all proposal formats (including the number of participants per panel/roundtable).

When submitting a proposal, you will be asked to select the theme that best suits your interest. The goal is to facilitate transdisciplinary conversations among participants. Each ‘thematic cluster’ corresponds to academic trends within the global context. We constructed these clusters in broad terms to make them as inclusive as possible without losing their discursive coherence.

Thematic clusters are meant to be general starting points for your intervention. Your submission may touch on only some, or even one, aspect of the theme, since your paper will enrich other contributions and be enriched by them. You may also find your topic relevant to more than one cluster or format, but we still ask you to select a single thematic cluster for your presentation.

As part of our goal to develop an Africa-Asia ‘axis of knowledge’, we encourage proposals that directly depict Africa-Asia interactions. Participants working in either Asian or African contexts who seek to draw comparisons and connections between the two continents are also welcome to submit proposals. Proposals that demonstrate a commitment to diversity are strongly encouraged.

The notes on local context included in the description of the clusters situate each theme in the local and regional environment of the Conference-Festival: Dakar, Senegal, West Africa and beyond, crossing the Atlantic. Your proposal need not specifically connect to these local realities, since a variety of conference activities will help to stimulate transregional conversations and also to ground global concerns in the local environments of Dakar/Senegal/West Africa/the Atlantic.

Please click here for more information on all Africa-Asia ConFest 3 (including the number of participants per panel/roundtable).

Africa-Asia ConFest 3 location in Dakar, Senegal

Building on the multiple encounters, interactions and dialogues initiated at the first Africa-Asia Conference (Accra, Ghana, 2015) and the second Africa-Asia Conference (Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, 2018), this third edition of the ‘Africa-Asia, A New Axis of Knowledge’ event seeks to deepen the explorations of new realities and long histories connecting Africa and Asia.

The collaborative mission of Cheikh Anta Diop University (UCAD, Dakar, Senegal), Collective Africa-Southeast Asia Platform (CASAP, Bangkok, Thailand) and the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS, Leiden, The Netherlands) aims to stimulate inquiry into the rich resources offered by the city of Dakar and its surroundings. In this way, the city itself enables the materialisation of an experiential Conference-Festival (ConFest) that celebrates diversity within academia, but that also extends beyond academia into civil society and the arts.

The ConFest aims to solidify an infrastructure of engagement, bringing together participants from a broad array of disciplinary backgrounds and regional specialisations including scholars, artists, intellectuals and educators based in Africa, Asia, and elsewhere around the world. Over the course of four days in Dakar, participants will be encouraged to think both comparatively and holistically about the challenges and possibilities of cross-continental and trans-regional encounters.

Information
For queries about Africa-Asia ConFest 3, please contact us at AfricaAsia@iias.nl
For the latest information on Africa-Asia ConFest 3, please visit the Africa-Asia ConFest 3 Cal for Proposals webpage.