Important Dates

Contestation Multiple. Power and its Critique in Postcolonial Africa 

If you wish to attend please register with Joel Glasman.

The workshop will explore the concepts of contestation and critique through the lenses of multiplicity. Although the workshop has an exploratory character, it will make a contribution to the Knowledge Lab through the “Theory Forum”. Contestation and protests, in African contexts, are often looked under an essentialistprism: In order to analyse revolts, the literature frequently isolates a single cause (forinstance the so-called “food riots” of 2008 in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Niger, Sudan, etc.), a single set of measures ("anti-austerity strike" in South Africa in 2012, in Gabon or Chadin 2018), a single instrument (“twitter revolution” of 2011 in Egypt) or a general process (“democratic revolution”, “African spring”, etc.). However, this reductionist view on protestsdoes not integrate sufficiently the critical capacities of actors and their multiple horizons ofaction. In this workshop, we will explore the added value of the “multiplicity” to understandcontestation. We draw on the conventional literature on social mobilizations, but we will reinterpretthis literature through the lenses of the “sociology of critique” and the “reflexiveturn” in humanities (Boltanski & Thévenot 1991, Lemieux 2018, Thévenot 2006). Thus, we will bring into dialogue questions from “moralities” (How do people perceive what islegitimate and what is not? How do actors deploy critical capacities? etc.) and questions from “mobilities” (Can we rethink Hirschmann’s influential “exit, voice, loyalty” paradigm and Asiwaju’s concept of “migration as revolt”?).

• Prof. Dr. Joël Glasman, Universität Bayreuth, Geschichte Afrikas
  
  
• Prof. Dr. Nadine Machikou, Université Yaoundé II
  
  
• Prof. Dr. Marie Emmanuelle Pommerolle,CNRS/IMAF, Université Sorbonne, Paris
  
  
• Prof. Dr. Pascale Laborier, CNRS/ISP Paris
  
  
• Dr. Abdoulaye Sounaye, Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin
  

Workshop Program (previsionary)

Venue: IWALEWAHAUS - Oval Office

13h-15h:  Présentation des participants et discussion des textes (Marie-Emmanuelle Pommerolle et Pascale Laborier)

15h-15h30: Pause café

15h30-17h30: Discussion des textes (Abdoulaye Sounaye et Joël Glasman)

17h30-18h: Conclusion

18h30: Dîner au restaurant "Wolffenzacher"