Stefan Esselborn (université technique de Munich), Experts for Africa. The International African Institute and the Global History of African Studies, 1926 to 1980
Conférence en langue anglaise
Résumé (en anglais):
In 1926, a motley group of scholars, missionaries and colonial administrators with an interest in African languages, cultures and societies met in London to found the International Institute for African Languages and Cultures (IIALC), later also known as the International African Institute (IAI). Rooted in the colonial reform movement of the 1920s and its quest for a culturally »adapted« colonial development of Africa, the new Institute soon grew into a central hub for Africanist research. By connecting scholars from different nations and disciplines, distributing funds and setting research agendas, the IAI played a pivotal role in the emergence, professionalization and institutionalization of African Studies as a specialized field of knowledge. The Institute’s history serves to illustrate the field’s changing topography and disciplinary composition, its entanglements with colonialism, the vital role played by transnational actors such as missionary societies or American philanthropic foundations, as well as the often-complicated relationship between Africanists and Africans.
La conférence est organisée en lien avec une rencontre d’un groupe de travail franco-allemand sur l’histoire du International Institute for African Languages and Cultures (IIALC) (direction: Anne Kwaschik (université de Constance) et Céline Trautmann-Waller (université Sorbonne Nouvelle)).