"Cahiers d'Études africaines" – Permanent call for paper
« Cahiers d'Études africaines » – Appel permanent à contribution
Published on Friday, July 19, 2024
Abstract
The aim of this permanent call for papers is to encourage proposals for publication in Cahiers d'Études africaines on a variety of innovative themes, approaches, spaces and modes of writing. Cahiers d'Études africaines is a bilingual (French and English), international, interdisciplinary journal that publishes original articles on Africa in all its dimensions around the world, reflecting cutting-edge research trends and discussions, both theoretical and methodological.
Announcement
Presentation
The aim of this permanent call for papers is to encourage proposals on a variety of innovative themes, approaches, spaces and modes of writing. In particular, but without exclusivity, it invites the submission of articles that:
1- thoroughly reflect on the decompartmentalization of the area 'African worlds' and its academic corollary, 'African studies'; this area is put under pressure by its extensibility, if not its anthropological, historical and geographical splitting, due to the fact that the contours of the Afro-American and Afro-European worlds, but also the Afro-Arab and Afro-Asian worlds, are the very object of discourses whose motives require close scrutiny; shifting the boundaries of areas studies can lead us to embrace various notions and their uses, such as ‘diaspora’—which is a historical product of migration or deportation, but also a rhetoric used to think and imagine unity in dispersion and continuity, as well as irreversible ruptures, such as that produced by the slave trade—and to look at little-explored cases of practical, discursive or ideal networks and connections through which to rethink the idea of African worlds and the diaspora;
2- examine pan-Africanism in its various forms and over time, in relation to the above-mentioned objective of decompartmentalising African worlds; the aim is to examine pan-Africanism as a discourse and as a practice that, depending on where, when and by whom it is produced, refers to a shifting and non-consensual idea of Africa, including or excluding the diasporas, North Africa or the Indian Ocean islands. The tension—which one can see in the history of Pan-Aricanism as well as in the new forms it currently takes—between an Afrocentric pan-Africanism that is sometimes tied to patriotic visions, and an open and inclusive pan-Africanism, depending on the objectives that the actors assign to Pan-Africanism, can be usefully studied; it is advised to do this not by favouring approaches centred on the great political or intellectual figures of pan-Africanism, as is often the case, but by starting from decentred political objects and figures, and by also asking what gender, class and belonging do to pan-Africanism and vice versa;
3- study the figures, places and institutions involved in the production of knowledge in the African worlds; the focus will be as much on the companionship of research and its multiple and often intertwined facets and issues, depending on the role and status of the players involved: assistants, collaborators, companions, intermediaries, interpreters, guides, local or homespun scholars and writers, collectors of sources and materials, inspirers and even inventors of ideas and concepts, sometimes also friends or even loved ones.... as on relatively autonomous initiatives and projects, i.e., more or less detached from participation in research carried out in environments with which these players are familiar, but with which they may also have a relationship of estrangement or distancing; these statuses and forms of knowledge production intertwine, outlining the contours of collaborations made up of shared interests and asymmetries of all kinds;
4- reflect the biographical (re)turn in the humanities and social sciences: Starting with the life of an individual (or a small group of individuals), the aim is to relate the intimate and personal aspects of life experience to a political and social situation; rejecting any teleological vision, the papers will seek to move away from the traditional formats of the linear and strictly descriptive biography or life story—which, moreover, tends to produce constancy, coherence and unity—in order to show the construction and subjectivation of the individuals, which are always fragmented and situated processes, full of asperities and contradictions; such an approach makes it possible to draw up what might be called ‘biographical portraits’ made of bits and pieces, incorporating the jolts and bifurcations of life experience, and this, by always placing these portraits in an era and a socio-political situation characterised by asymmetries and principles of division that the case under study makes it possible to depict, if not to explain afresh;
5- in connection with such biographical portraits, focus on famous but secondary political men and women (or even ‘political couples’), i.e. individuals who were heavily involved in the politics of their time, but who were neither ‘great men’ (heroes, heads of war or kingdom or state, fathers of the nation, etc.) nor marginal or even less voiceless. Having played a role in political life without, however, having been able to fully influence the course of events, these political figures can be related to the well-known cases of the big man and the entrepreneur in politics straddling the economic world, but who have been partially prevented or even abused or ousted, if not subjected to opprobrium or faced with declassification; their biographical portraits make it possible to explore the singularity of each case and to describe and explain the class and gendered as well as racialised and ethnicised workings of the social and political world;
6- finally, allow themselves original formats and modes of writing: presentation of documents, sources and materials; publication of drafts, field notebooks and their accompanying notes; co-writing, in particular by authors from different fields or professional worlds; use of mixed qualitative and quantitative approaches; interviews; fieldwork feedback and methodological reflexivity; multiple book review essays, etc. Proposals of new formats are welcome.
Submission guidelines
Abstracts, in French or English, or first drafts of articles, in French or English, may be submitted under this permanent call without a submission deadline.
They should be sent as a Word document written in Times New Roman font, size 12, single-spaced.
Authors' surnames, forenames, affiliation(s), status and contact details must be given, together with a proposed title and, for articles, abstracts and keywords.
Proposals should be sent (without time limit) to the following address: cahiers-afr@ehess.fr
Evaluation
The Editor-in-chief and members of the editorial board of Cahiers d'Études africaines are responsible for selecting or rejecting proposals for articles submitted.
There is no submission deadline for this permanent call for papers. Authors will be informed of the pre-selection of their proposals no later than 15 days after receipt. Articles will then be sent for double-blind peer-reviewing and, based on the recommendations of the review reports (sent to the author), will be either rejected, accepted with minor modifications or accepted with major modifications. If the revised versions, checked by the editorial team, are accepted, they are taken over by the journal’s editors for copy-editing and formatting. The whole process can take a year or more.
Editor in chief
- Marie-Aude Fouéré
Editorial secretary
- Nadège Chabloz
- Sophie de Quillacq
Editorial board
- Pascale Barthélémy, Ecole normale supérieure de Lyon
- Anna Dessertine, IRD, Paris
- Jean-Pierre Bat, ministère de l’Europe et des Affaires étrangères, Paris
- Gaetano Ciarcia, CNRS, Paris
- Denis Cogneau, IRD, EHESS, Paris
- Anne Doquet, IRD, Paris
- Sandra Fancello, CNRS, Aix-en-Provence
- Augustin Jomier, INALCO, Paris
- Nadia Yala Kisukidi, Université Paris 8, Vincennes-Saint-Denis
- Maëline Le Lay, CNRS/IFRA, Nairobi
- Marianne Lemaire, CNRS, Paris
- Catarina Madeira Santos, EHESS, Paris
- Didier Nativel, Université Paris Diderot
- Fabienne Samson, IRD, Paris
Subjects
- Ethnology, anthropology (Main category)
- Zones and regions > Africa
Date(s)
- Tuesday, December 31, 2024
Keywords
- études africaines, articles scientifiques
Contact(s)
- Nadège Chabloz
courriel : nchabloz [at] ehess [dot] fr
Reference Urls
Information source
- Marie-Aude Fouere
courriel : cahiers-afr [at] ehess [dot] fr
License
This announcement is licensed under the terms of Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal.
To cite this announcement
« "Cahiers d'Études africaines" – Permanent call for paper », Call for papers, Calenda, Published on Friday, July 19, 2024, https://doi.org/10.58079/121u7
