Conference Report: International Conference on AFRICA’S MOBILITY STRUGGLES

From 22nd and 23rd February 2023, the international conference on Africa’s Mobility struggles entitled “Infrastructuring (Im)mobilities: Technologies of restraint and fluidity in Africa’s mobility struggles” took place at ACC Moi University, in Eldoret, Kenya. It was organised by Dr. Paddy Kinyera and Dr. Jochen Lingelbach.

by Dr. Jochen Lingelbach

Organizing an in-person conference involves a lot of struggling with mobility. Getting people, and the things they need, from around the world to convene in one place requires work. Flights have to be booked, paperwork has to be done, visas need to be applied for, rooms to be equipped with technics, food, coffee and tea arranged, and name tags, posters and programs printed and distributed. And then the unforeseen troubles start. Some participants do not get their visas, and others in the last minute or twenty minutes after their flight has left. Luggage gets lost and needs to be chased. In the end, however, we managed to gather twelve presenters in person and hear another four via zoom. Two remote keynote speeches completed the program. We gathered quite an international, pan-African crowd with Kenyan, Egyptian, Tanzanian, Nigerian, Brazilian, Burkinabe, Ghanaian, Ugandan, Zimbabwean, American, British and Cameroonian presenters based at universities in Kenya, Germany, Hong Kong, Nigeria, South Africa, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Uganda, Canada, the US, the UK and Cameroon. Ranging from junior to senior scholars and covering the disciplines of history, geography, political science, sociology, social anthropology, migration and urban studies. But what is equally important as gathering persons are the ideas that move with the people and these spoke to the manifold aspects the research section Mobilities is engaging with: the (im)mobilities of people, things and ideas.

Two packed days

After the welcoming speeches, the conference started with a keynote speech by Peter Adey, one of the key thinkers in the “new mobilities” paradigm, joining remotely from London. Adey introduced the audience to thinking through mobility about emergencies, the porosity of bodies and much more. His speech was followed by the first panel on mobility visions with presentations on the visions for more just, sustainable and gender-sensitive transportation infrastructures. The second panel on the production of (im)mobilities focused on infrastructures of waste recycling, bridge building, urban transport and the role of mobile technology in migration. The inspiring day concluded with a conference dinner giving room for further discussions and personal exchange in a more relaxed setting.

The second day started again with a remote keynote, this time coming from currently Bayreuth-based Cluster fellow Faisal Garba Muhammed from the University of Cape Town. Faisal took mobility at the centre of his thinking about a way to reconfigure African studies and theorise from Africa. His inspiring talk brought up issues of class, organic theory building and the role of researchers in all this; speaking directly to many issues raised in the panel presentations. Speakers in the following, third panel on mobility control engaged with infrastructures aiming to assist states in the control of mobility like colonial labour, internment and refugee camps as well as today’s border control spaces. The fourth panel dealt with mobility struggles and focused mainly on the experiences of migrants and the infrastructures that can assist or hinder their mobility. A final discussion and the issuing of certificates of participation rounded the second day off.

A Bayreuth-Eldoret collaboration

The whole conference developed out of an idea by researchers in the research section Mobilities who had planned a workshop on Africa’s mobility struggles in Kampala in March 2020.  Back then, the Covid-related mobility restrictions forced the organizers into an abrupt cancellation. Fortunately, after nearly three years, this follow-up event could finally happen in Eldoret. It was organized by Dr Paddy Kinyera and Dr Jochen Lingelbach and made possible by the considerable support from the African Cluster Centre at Moi University. The ACC Moi spokesperson for the Mobilities research section Prof Joram Kareithi, ACC Director Prof Peter Simatei, Academic Coordinator Prof Tom Michael Mboya and the supporting staff of the ACC did not only help with the logistics but contributed intellectually as well. Dr Frederick Okaka and Dr Dulo Nyaoro from Moi University chaired two of the panels and it was thus a real collaboration between Bayreuth- and Moi-based members of the Cluster of Excellence “Africa multiple.” The conference was a milestone for further collaborative work and intellectual debate on the infrastructuring of mobility struggles in Africa. Let us see what develops out of these two intense and fully packed days of thought-provoking presentations and debates.

The program with all abstracts can be found here [link]
The concept paper for the conference is here [link]
A reflection on the canceling of the 2020 Kampala workshop here [link]