Africa is fascinating! In today’s globalised world, the continent plays an increasingly important role in international social and cultural developments. Would you like to explore the many sides of Africa and its impact on the rest of the world, while also learning one of its languages? Our African…

Africa has a population of 1.5 billion people. By 2050, this number is projected to rise to 2.5 billion. The continent’s impact on the global economy, societies but also on the environment, will therefore increase drastically.

The master’s in African Studies at Leiden University is an advanced area studies qualification that combines world-class scholarship with practice-based learning.

The research master's in African Studies at Leiden University is unique in continental Europe for the interdisciplinary range of subjects offered and the long-term fieldwork in Africa.

Subproject of the ERC project 'Challenging the Liberal World Order from Within: The Invisible History of the United Nations and the Global South'.

African Studies Centre Leiden

In this unique collaboration between Leiden University, Delft University of Technology and Erasmus University Rotterdam and building on the goals set in the African Union Agenda 2063 the United Nations Agenda 2030, the multidisciplinary minor African Dynamics fosters a deeper understanding of integrated…

In the last couple of decades an ‘animal turn’ has taken place in the social sciences. This has led to a call to study social issues by including non-human animal perspectives. This Collaborative Research Group thinks it's high time that African Studies joins the chorus of minds that try to contribute…

Are you thinking about studying African Studies? Learn more and watch the introduction video.

The ASCL Research Programme for the years 2019-2024 is called ‘Strident Africa: Societal and Environmental Change in the Context of 50 Centuries of History’. It examines the dramatic changes taking place on the continent in terms of population growth, urbanization, the role of external actors and the…

How did African actors engage with the idea of Eurafrica?

This Collaborative Research Group acts primarily as a platform for discussion of historical issues related to the African continent, its place in the world and in African Studies.

This collaborative research group (CRG) facilitates the synergies of researchers engaged with African languages and documentation of texts conducted in East Africa, paying particular attention to ‘endangered archives’ and ‘endangered languages’.

Humanities, Centre for Linguistics

African oral literatures, new media and technologies: challenges for research and documentation

This project aims at studying the social media reception of African publications as covered by the most important “altmetric” sources.

Published by Brill Nijhoff and written by leading experts including national judges, academics and practitioners East African Community Law is the first comparative as well as open access textbook on EAC law. The book provides a key resource for the research, teaching, and practice of EAC law. It also…

How do Central African refugees navigate through uncertainty in a new and hostile environment in the DR Congo?

Conference

Madeleine Hosli, Professor of International Relations at Leiden University, together with two other authors, wrote a chapter in Group Politics in UN Multilateralism. This chapter assesses the composition and functioning of the African Union (AU) within the United Nations.

In the South African context, certain iconic images have been a dominant source for public understandings of historical events. The emphasis given these images tends to overshadow the historical value of other more personal photographic sources – like studio or amateur photography. This project looks…

Who is funding African science? How are different African and international funders interacting and contributing to develop scientific research in the continent? Are there potential inadvertent synergies among research funders that can be identified? These and similar questions are at the heart of this…

It is our goal to deliver a convenient, enjoyable, learning experience that goes beyond the basics. All of the apps are an initiative of the HANDS! Lab for Sign Languages and Deaf Studies at Leiden University, as part of the Language Socialization in Deaf Families project funded by the Leiden University…

The project Multimedia Research and Documentation of African Oral Genres: Connecting Diasporas and Local Audiences (Director: D.Merolla) focuses on multimedia as technology that allows scholars to share documentation and scientific knowledge with the cultural owners of the collected oral genres.

On 13 January 2022, Pie Habimana defended the thesis 'Harmful Tax Competition in the East African Community'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. H. Vording and Prof. S.C.W. Douma (UvA).

Promotie van Joanka van der Laan: "Enacting Devotion: Performative Religious Reading in the Low Countries (ca. 1470-1550)" Promotoren: Prof. dr. B.A.M. Ramakers en Prof. dr. S. Corbellini Plaats en datum: Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, 26 augustus, 16.15 Vanwege de coronamaatregelen is het aantal…

How has interreligious encounter in Ogbómòsó created multiple religious belongings and identities among individuals and groups?

On the 27th of February, Marta Morgado successfully defended a doctoral thesis. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Marta on this achievement!

Promotores: H.A. Udo de Haes, H.H.T. Prins, Co-promotor: H.H. de Iongh

This book celebrates Maarten Mous, professor of African Linguistics at Leiden University.

In African societies today, growing inequality and continued exclusion due to ethnicity, gender, religion, disability or sexual orientation give rise to both contestation and cooperation for social change. How does the written or spoken word lead to collaboration and contestation in areas of social…

Part of ‘Moralising Misfortune: A comparative anthropology of commercial insurance’, an ERC Consolidator project of Erik Bähre.

What categories exist in the languages of pastoralists? Do these semantic concepts reflect universal or languagespecific tendencies? What (environment? culture?) governs the similarities (or the differences) attested crosslinguistically in cattle colour systems?

How do old and new Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) relate to new social and political movements in Central Africa? What does this tell us about Africa and the Information Age?

The Rabobank has awarded Leiden University 50,000 euro for a ‘study-related' purpose. The gift is to be used to allow two African students to follow the research master’s programme in African Studies in Leiden.

This study seeks to partially fill the knowledge gap about national culture in Africa, basing its research on data on ethnolinguistic groups (instead of administrative regions).

How does the management of Elephant Marsh Fishery in Malawi relate to wider contexts of policies, theories and regions? And how can the current management system be adapted to achieve long-term sustainability of the fishery?