Annual Spring Workshop on the Theme of
African Environments and their Populations

Featuring
Nancy Jacobs, Brown University
Sandra Swart, Stellenbosch University
And Guest Panelists

Humanistic approaches to the study of environments over the last several decades opened intellectual space for new fields of humanities and social science research on topics like climate change. Indeed, the anthropocentric approach dominates both environmental and climate studies in disciplines ranging from history to anthropology to critical theory. Consensus is growing around the value of concepts like the Anthropocene and the place of the humanities and social sciences in contributing to the research agenda undergirding policy about the environment and the changing climate. But, these developments have generally unfolded in isolation from other developments in the humanities and related fields that take seriously the study of non-human populations of environments, often in changing climate regimes. Scholars in a number of humanistic disciplines have recognized the need to study animals, pathogens, and even trees through humanities approaches. New thematic fields of research (and journals) are emerging for these approaches, of which the best known is Animal Studies. We seek to put into conversation traditionally anthropocentric approaches to the study of African environments—including under new and historical climate regimes—with emerging humanities approaches to the many other kinds of non-human populations that also live in African environments. We hope some of these connections will emerge in individual papers, while others will develop as we draw out links between papers during the workshop.

This workshop is sponsored by Georgetown University's Office of the Vice President for Global Engagement and by the Georgetown Institute for Global History through the Department of History.

The Workshop Schedule

8:45-9:00
Welcome

9:00-10:00
Opening Keynote
Nancy Jacobs, Brown University
Animal Studies and African Studies in Conversation

10:00-11:00
Panel One
Of Game and Wildlife: Meanings and Contests
Tom Robertson, Worcester Polytechnic
Boundary Making and the Origins of Namibia’s Contentious Community-Based Natural Resource Management Programs

Dylan Atchley Proctor, Boston University School of Medicine
Women prefer elephant, men gorilla: Tasting the Anthropocene in the Congo River Basin

Allison Hahn, CUNY—Baruch College
Conflicting Standards of Human-Wildlife Conflicts in Narok, Kenya

11:00-11:15
Morning Coffee and Tea Break

11:15-12:15
Panel Two
Ideologies of Environmental Exploitation and Development
Andrea E. Williams, Colorado State University
“Civilizing through Cork: A Social Sustainable Enterprise in French Colonial Algeria”

Keri Lambert, Yale University
Tapping Ghanaians: Kwame Nkrumah’s Rubber Scheme, 1957-68

Geoffrey Traugh, New York University
Cash Cows: The Business of Cattle Keeping in Malawi, 1960s-1980s

12:30-2:00
Lunch Break

2:00-3:00
Panel Three
Arachnida, Insecta, & Ovis: African Environments and their Many Populations
Admire Mseba, University of the Free State
Locusts and Power: Pestilence and the Making of a Colonial Society in Northeastern Zimbabwe

Ben Hurtwiz, George Mason University
Sheep and Shepherds in the Cape Region of South Africa

Christopher R. Conz, Boston University
“Urging the People to Clean up their Country:” People, Sheep, and Psoroptes in Lesotho, c. 1900-1930s

3:00-3:30
Afternoon Coffee and Tea Break

3:30-4:30
Closing Keynote
Sandra Swart, Stellenbosch University
Title, TBA