“What's Culture Got to Do with it?”
A conference in Uppsala 15–18 June 2009
Three out of the four African guest writers hosted by NAI were present at the conference: Shailja Patel from Kenya, Tolu Ogunlesi from Nigeria, and Gabeba Baderoon from South Africa.
Taiwo Oloruntoba-Oju from Ilorin, Nigeria, one of the African guest researchers who have been attached to the Cultural Images programme, hands over an embedded secret, the preview of a Festschrift for Mai Palmberg.
Aims
The main aim of the conference is to discuss what role the study of culture – here creative cultural expressions – plays and could play in understanding change in contemporary Africa. The title of the conference should read as: What’s culture got to do with African studies, which in the North almost invariably has been synonymous with social sciences and a utilitarian view on how to contribute to the solution of development problems. There will also be room for discussion on how to continue and strengthen the Nordic-African network created by the Cultural Images programme. We invite both reflection papers and essayistic overviews and academic research results. Papers should not be previously published. The best papers will be edited in collaboration with their authors to form an anthology to be presented for publishing through the Nordic Africa institute. Both researchers and artists are invited.
Background
This conference concludes the long-lived “Cultural Images in and of Africa” programme at the Nordic Africa Institute, started 1995. It has built up a large network of scholars and cultural workers in the Nordic countries, Africa and the African diaspora. These activities have been led by Mai Palmberg, whose work at the Nordic Africa institute will end January 2010. The activities and research have spanned the genres of music, film, literature, dance, pictorial arts, and theatre. It has resulted in five books, countless articles, a tricontinental mailing list (NAI-Images list), four African guest writers’ grants, a website publication with interviews with artists in Zimbabwe. A book in Swedish on cultural dynamics in Africa is forthcoming. The conference looks ahead to make cases for a continued and strengthened role for studies on culture in the Nordic countries and elsewhere.