Tessera

Association for Africanist Anthropology

@afaa-africananthro.bsky.social

Our mission is to stimulate, strengthen, and advance anthropology by promoting the study of Africa, Africanist scholarship, and the professional interests of Africanist anthropologists both in and outside of Africa. https://afaa.americananthro.org/

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Association for Africanist Anthropology @afaa-africananthro.bsky.social · last mo.

We’re pleased to announce the 2026 Elliott P. Skinner Book Award Shortlist from the Association for Africanist Anthropology! Congratulations to the shortlisted authors. Winner to be announced at the AfAA reception during the 2026 AAA Annual Conference. #AfAA #AfricanistAnthropology #AAA2026

Association for Africanist Anthropology @afaa-africananthro.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Recipients of the 2026 Ivan Karp Doctoral Research Awards: • Lari Chanel Hallowes-Welman (Rhodes University) • Motselisi Edith Khabo (Stellenbosch University) • Jackline Maina (University of Cape Town) Their projects explore history, identity, memory, and music Congratulations to all three! #ACIP

Association for Africanist Anthropology @afaa-africananthro.bsky.social · 2mo ago

The African Critical Inquiry Programme (ACIP) announces its 2027 workshop: African Pedagogies of Restitution: Return, Repair, Rehumanisation, to be held in Cape Town, South Africa, in March 2027. Learn more: gs.emory.edu/guides/stude... www.facebook.com/ivan.karp.co...

Association for Africanist Anthropology @afaa-africananthro.bsky.social · 5mo ago

🎓 AfAA Travel Grants for the American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting 🧑🏾‍🎓 Students & recent PhDs in Africanist anthropology 📅 Deadline: July 12, 2026 #AfricanistAnthropology #AAA2026 #Anthropology #GradStudents #TravelGrant

Association for Africanist Anthropology @afaa-africananthro.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Deadline extended! The 2026 AfAA Student Paper Awards are now accepting submissions until July 20, 2026. Undergraduate & graduate awards recognize outstanding scholarship in Africanist anthropology and include cash prizes. Details: afaa.americananthro.org/awards/ #Anthropology #AfAA

Association for Africanist Anthropology @afaa-africananthro.bsky.social · 5mo ago

The Association for Africanist Anthropology is now accepting submissions for: • Nancy “Penny” Schwartz Undergraduate Essay Award • Bennetta Jules-Rosette Graduate Student Essay Award Deadline: June 30 More info: afaa.americananthro.org/awards/ #AfricanistAnthropology #StudentResearch #AAA2026 #AfAA

Association for Africanist Anthropology @afaa-africananthro.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Save the date: Memorial for Distinguished Professor Bennetta Jules-Rosette (May 29, 2026, UC San Diego). Sharing memories/photos? Submit via Google Form at tinyurl.com/mr2h6zbt or email j.r.osborn@georgetown.edu Please share with others. #ProfBennettaJules-Rosette #memorial

Association for Africanist Anthropology @afaa-africananthro.bsky.social · 6mo ago

A great opportunity for African PhD students: ACIP’s Ivan Karp Doctoral Research Awards (2026) 📌 For African PhD students at South African universities 📌 Up to ZAR 50,000 for dissertation research 📅 Deadline: May 1, 2026 Details: gs.emory.edu/guides/stude... #PhDOpportunities #AfricanScholarship

Association for Africanist Anthropology @afaa-africananthro.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Working on public culture and African studies? The African Critical Inquiry Programme invites proposals to organize interdisciplinary workshops on public culture in Africa (2027). 📅 Deadline: May 1, 2026 💰 Up to ZAR 75,000 More info: gs.emory.edu/guides/stude... #AfricanStudies #PublicHumanities

KD Thompson @phdeviant.bsky.social · 6mo ago

CFP for @americananthro.bsky.social panel on ethnographic work from the Swahili Coast/East Africa. Themes: memory, authority, belonging, verge-like moments. Send title + 300-word abstract to kd.thompson@wisc.edu by 1 April. Open to scholars at all stages. Join us! @afaa-africananthro.bsky.social

Call for Papers for a panel "On the Verge: Ethnographic Worlds Along the Swahili Coast and Beyond."

We invite paper submissions for a proposed panel at the 2026 American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting. Our panel brings together ethnographers working along the Swahili Coast and across East Africa whose research explores lives lived in moments of transition, tension, anticipation, or emergence. We are especially interested in scholarship that examines how people articulate meaning, identity, authority, and belonging as they navigate shifting social, political, ecological, and moral landscapes.

The 2026 theme, On the Verge, speaks to thresholds—political, environmental, technological, and affective. Across East Africa and the wider Indian Ocean world, communities confront climate precarity and its tipping points; reconfigured mobilities and global realignments; transformations in media, religion, gender, and kinship; and evolving forms of state power, economic possibility, and collective imagination. These conditions make the coast and hinterland sites where endings and beginnings hinge on one another, and where ethnography must dwell in the unstable space in between.

This panel asks:

How do people along the Swahili Coast—and in East Africa more broadly—live, narrate, theorize, and navigate such verge-like conditions?

We welcome papers that engage one or more of the following (non-exhaustive) themes:

Memory, history, and the poetics of belonging
Gender, authority, and emergent forms of Islamic or Christian practice
Indian Ocean mobilities, diaspora, and transoceanic imaginaries
Media worlds, sound, and communicative politics
Climate precarity, ecological knowledge, and coastal futures
Race, biopolitics, and the shifting terms of global power
Everyday negotiations of state authority and institutional fragility
Fiction, storytelling, and narrative ethnography as analytic tools

The panel will include the following papers:

• Rachel Maina, University of Wisconsin–Madison — On the Verge of Memory: Narrating Swahili‑Chinese Identity through Ethnography and Fiction

This paper examines how residents of Siyu, in Kenya’s Lamu archipelago, narrate Chinese ancestry through intersecting oral histories, fragments of memory, and literary representation. By pairing ethnographic interviews with The Dragonfly Sea, Maina shows how Swahili‑Chinese identity emerges not as fixed lineage but as a narrative practice through which communities reinterpret Indian Ocean histories to negotiate belonging in the present.

• K.D. Thompson, University of Wisconsin–Madison — “Our Jamvi Has Pens and Papers”: Metapragmatic Authority and Women’s Islamic Pedagogy on the Swahili Coast

This paper analyzes how women broadcasters on Radio Nuur in Tanga, Tanzania, transform a feminized domestic speech genre—conversation on the jamvi—into a platform for public Islamic pedagogy. Through metapragmatic labor, strategic vocal stance, and the crafting of a discursive sitara, Thompson shows how domestic communicative authority is scaled into the public sphere while navigating the institutional limits placed on women’s religious voice.

We welcome additional ethnographically grounded papers from scholars at any career stage whose work touches the Swahili Coast, mainland East Africa, or related transoceanic worlds. We especially encourage submissions from graduate students, early‑career scholars, and researchers based in East Africa.

To submit:

Please send a paper title, 300‑word abstract, affiliation, and contact information to

📧kd.thompson@wisc.edu

by 1 April 2026.

If you have questions about fit or wish to discuss your idea, please reach out. We look forward to building a vibrant conversation on verges, thresholds, and emergent futures across the Swahili and East African worlds.

Association for Africanist Anthropology @afaa-africananthro.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Hello AfAA members 👋 📢 The AAA Call for Submissions is now open! If you are submitting a panel or individual paper, please remember to select AfAA as the section you would like to review your submission. Submission details: annualmeeting.americananthro.org/submit/ #Anthropology #AAA2026 #AfAA

Association for Africanist Anthropology @afaa-africananthro.bsky.social · 8mo ago

📢 Call for Applications ACIP Ivan Karp Doctoral Research Awards 2026 For African PhD students enrolled at South African universities (humanities & humanistic social sciences). 💰 Up to ZAR 50,000 🗓️ Deadline: 1 May 2026 🔗 gs.emory.edu/guides/students/acip.html #PhDFunding #AfricanStudies #SouthAfrica

Association for Africanist Anthropology @afaa-africananthro.bsky.social · 8mo ago

📣 Call for Proposals The African Critical Inquiry Programme invites proposals to organize a 2027 workshop on public culture and scholarship in Africa. Deadline: 1 May 2026 Max award: ZAR 75,000 🔗 gs.emory.edu/guides/students/acip.html

Association for Africanist Anthropology @afaa-africananthro.bsky.social · 9mo ago

In Memoriam: Bennetta Jules-Rosette (1948–2025). AfAA mourns the loss of a pioneering scholar of African religious movements and expressive culture. Read the obituary by her longtime friend and collaborator, J.R. Osborn, on our website.

In Memoriam: Bennetta Jules-Rosette (1948 – 2025)

Written by J.R. Osborn A powerful and wonderful spirit, Bennetta Jules Rosette passed away on Sunday 7 December, 2025 at her home in Encinitas, California. Bennetta was a passionate academic with an i...

afaa.americananthro.org

Association for Africanist Anthropology @afaa-africananthro.bsky.social · 9mo ago

📢 Call for Abstracts! AfAA–University of Ibadan Conference 2026: Theory & Praxis: Rethinking Anthropological Engagements in Africa. 🗓 July 2–5, Ibadan, Nigeria. Deadline: Feb 20. Details 👉 afaa.americananthro.org/call-for-abs... #AfAA #Ibadan2026

Call for Abstracts: AfAA–University of Ibadan Conference 2026

The Association for Africanist Anthropology (AfAA), in collaboration with the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, invites scholars to submit abstracts for ...

afaa.americananthro.org

Association for Africanist Anthropology @afaa-africananthro.bsky.social · 9mo ago

We mourn the loss of Bennetta Jules-Rosette, one of the founding members of the AfAA. networks.h-net.org/group/announ...

Obituary: Professor Bennetta Jules-Rosette | H-Net

Bennetta Jules-Rosette (1948-2025). In Memoriam

networks.h-net.org

Association for Africanist Anthropology @afaa-africananthro.bsky.social · 10mo ago

The harvest has arrived!

A word cloud titled “Most Used Words” features academic and professional terms in varying font sizes. Most prominent are “2025,” “afaa,” “african,” “award,” “anthropology,” “call,” “research,” and “apply.” Smaller words include “doctoral,” “student,” “conference,” “essay,” “undergraduate,” “acip,” “annual,” “programme,” and “opportunities,” suggesting a focus on African studies, research, and academic programming.

A black-background graphic titled “Top Emojis” displays seven emojis in a loose cluster: stack of books 📚, clapping hands 👏, party popper 🎉, chain link 🔗, compass 🧭, pointing finger 👉, and megaphone 📣. Below the cluster, usage statistics read: Total: 9, Unique: 7, Per Post: 0.26.

Anisota@anisota.net · 10mo ago

Hello moths, The harvest has arrived: anisota.net/harvest It's like Spotify Wrapped, but for Bluesky and the ATmosphere. 🌾 See your most-used words, discover who you interact with most, explore your posting patterns, and find all sorts of fun insights.

Association for Africanist Anthropology @afaa-africananthro.bsky.social · 10mo ago

Congrats to @chuckgski.bsky.social! Last night, his book God's Waiting Room was awarded AfAA's Skinner Prize for "the book that best furthers the global community of Africanist scholars & the broader interests of the African continent, as exemplified in the work of Elliott P. Skinner." #AAA2025NOLA

AfAA President Wale Adebanwi shaking hands with Casey Golomski after announcing that God's Waiting Room won the 2024 Skinner Prize.

Association for Africanist Anthropology @afaa-africananthro.bsky.social · 10mo ago

bsky.app/profile/rutg...

Rutgers University Press@rutgersupress.bsky.social · 10mo ago

We will be exhibiting at the annual conference so stop by to visit us. 30% Off Conference Special Whether you are attending or not, you can order our books for 30% off with free U.S. shipping. Discount code: RAAA25. www.rutgersuniversit... #AAA25

Association for Africanist Anthropology @afaa-africananthro.bsky.social · 11mo ago

bsky.app/profile/wenn...

wennergrenorg.bsky.social@wennergrenorg.bsky.social · 11mo ago

On Dec. 10, 5:30 pm, the New York Academy of Sciences will be hosting their anthropology graduate student speed networking event. RSVP: www.eventbrite.com/e/anthropolo...

Association for Africanist Anthropology @afaa-africananthro.bsky.social · 11mo ago

The African Critical Inquiry Programme invites proposals to organise the 2027 ACIP Workshop in South Africa. Up to ZAR 75,000 available for projects exploring public culture, institutions, and scholarship in Africa. Deadline: 1 May 2026 🔗 gs.emory.edu/guides/stude... #ACIP #ResearchFunding #Africa

Association for Africanist Anthropology @afaa-africananthro.bsky.social · 11mo ago

Applications are open for the 2026 Ivan Karp Doctoral Research Awards! African PhD students in the humanities and humanistic social sciences at South African universities can apply for up to ZAR 50,000 for dissertation research. Deadline: 1 May 2026. 🔗 gs.emory.edu/guides/stude... #ResearchFunding

Camilo Leon-Quijano @camilolq.bsky.social · 11mo ago

Our book STRATA: Unruly Ethnographies of Troubled Worlds is out today 🎉 by Aurelie Darbouret, Petna Ndaliko, Daniela Rodrigues, Jeff Daniel Silva & Laurent Van Lancker, it reimagines how anthropology is written, shared, and felt. 📖 sunsun.fr | Launch: Nov 3 @ Mucem | 196 pages | 400 copies

wennergrenorg.bsky.social @wennergrenorg.bsky.social · 11mo ago

Call for Participation! AAGE Biennial Conference May 8 – 10, 2026, Hosted at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Deadline Extended: Submit by November 25, 2025. anthropologyandgerontology.com/conferences/...

The Archaeology Centre @ U of T @archaeologycentre.bsky.social · 11mo ago

The Graduate Office for the Department of Anthropology at the University of Toronto will be holding an information session on their graduate programs (Master of Arts, Master of Science, Direct Entry-PhD and PhD). The session will be held online via Zoom. See poster for details.

Nathaniel M. Smith @nathanielmsmith.bsky.social · 11mo ago

local academic types: looking for a Kansai local who can teach Intro to Anthropology spring/fall 2026 term in English here at Ritsumeikan in the College of IR (Kinugasa campus NW Kyoto). flexible on which day of the week. students are very international and eager. enrollment ranges from 20-40.

Signs and Society @signsandsociety.bsky.social · 11mo ago

🆕New Article Check out Dr. KD Thompson's @katrinadalythompson.com new article examining ✨nearly a century of Swahili-language Islamic marital booklets✨ 🧵 1/4

Association for Africanist Anthropology @afaa-africananthro.bsky.social · 11mo ago

🧭Calling all members of the AfAA! Before the AAA 2025 Annual Meeting, we we'd love to hear from you. What kind of future do you envision for the AfAA? Share your thoughts 👉 forms.gle/aoLmbK5TYf3X... Let’s shape the next chapter together. #Anthropology #AfAA #AAA2025

Nisrin Elamin @nisrinelamin.bsky.social · 12mo ago

The Sudan Solidarity Collective is doing a big fundraising push to support our partners in El Fashir to support food distribution, evacuation and medications. Please help us boost our support. Please share and donate 👇🏾 . sudansolidarity.com

Home - Sudan Solidarity Collective

Solidarity with Sudan! Support the Emergency Response Rooms doing life saving work in Sudan by donating to the Sudan Solidarity Fund. Workshops4Sudan is a new fundraising initiative of the Sudan Solid...

sudansolidarity.com