Chad-born youngsters in Paris come into contact with youngsters actually in Chad via Facebook: it would be difficult to find a better way to demonstrate the possibilities social media offer for people scattered across the world by war. Mirjam de Bruijn has been awarded a Vici grant for a study of the…

Commonplace - Photographs from the Drummond-Fyvie Collection and the Ngilima Collection. By Tamsyn Adams and Sophie Feyder.

This dissertation provides a description of the phonology and morphology of Mambay, an Adamawa (Niger-Congo) language spoken by 15,000 people in Chad and Cameroon.

French title: Entre la “détresse’’ et l’inter-connectivite : le case de Mbororo réfugies sur les frontières Cameroun-Centrafrique. This research project investigates the meaning of duress in the lives of nomadic refugees in Cameroon and investigates if and how the accessibility of new ICT’s allow them…

In August 2014 Stefano Bellucci started working as Senior Lecturer in African History at the Institute for History.

In Luganda, the widest spoken minority language in East African country Uganda, the word for photographs is Ebifananyi. However, ebifananyi does not, contrary to the etymology of the word photographs, relate to light writings. Ebifananyi instead means things that look like something else. Ebifananyi…

SciSTIP was established on 1 April 2014 as part of the DSI-NRF Centres of Excellence Programme funded by the South Africa’s National Research Foundation (https://www.nrf.ac.za/). SciSTIP is hosted by the Centre for Research on Evaluation, Science and Technology (CREST) at Stellenbosch University and…

The aim of this project is the linguistic documentation of Bakola, a Narrow Bantu language.

This dissertation investigates the grammar of Makhuwa-Enahara, a Bantu language spoken in the north of Mozambique. The information structure is an influential factor in this language, determining the word order and the use of special conjugations known as conjoint and disjoint verb forms.

In the African Studies BA programme you will obtain in-depth knowledge about Africa and the specific theme of your choice. At the same time, you will develop valuable academic and digital competences, as well as personal skills.

Arts and leisure, Arts and leisure

History can be found in utensils and in interviews with ordinary citizens. ‘With the reconstruction of everyday life, an anthropological approach works better,’ thinks historian Jan-Bart Gewald. Inaugural lecture on 6 June.

This book presents the first comprehensive description of Tafi, one of the fourteen Ghana-Togo Mountain (GTM) languages, spoken by approximately 4,400 people in the southeastern part of Ghana. The description consists of thirteen chapters and is based on a corpus gathered during two fieldwork periods…

This thesis investigates the syntax of object marking in Sambaa and the Bantu languages in general, with particular focus on Swahili and Haya, as points of comparison.

The subject of motherhood is interwoven with themes of survival, power and identity. It is also at the heart of any consideration of women’s writing. Conversations of Motherhood sensitively charts common themes, intersecting experiences and related topics within the cultural specificities of South African…

This recently released book takes a critical view of conceptual issues and practical problems that inevitably emerge when ‘excellence’ takes center stage in science systems in the Global South. What is ‘excellent science’? And how to recognize and assess it? After decades of inquiry and debate there…

This initiative is intended to support generative research collaborations between and among scholars located in different geographical regions who wish to pursue focused, joint projects in any area of the study of religion.

On the occasion of the retirement of Robert Ross, Professor in African History at Leiden University, his successor and former student Jan-Bart Gewald wrote a valedictory note.

In March 2015 Jonna Both started working as a postdoctoral researcher within the VICI project ‘Connecting in Times of Duress’ of professor Mirjam de Bruijn.

With the aid of the General History of Africa (GHA) series of books, PhD candidate Larissa Schulte Nordholt researched what it meant to decolonise the history of Africa. This proved to be a tricky process, which was hampered by politics and lack of funding. PhD defence on 1 December.

If you follow the western media, you are likely to think of ‘Africa’ as the continent of origin of desperate migrants, a continent of hunger and disease and a breeding ground for international terrorism. But if you want to see the bigger picture, you should look no further than the African Studies scholars…

Academic studies or an academic career are a big challenge if you are deaf. Particularly in Africa, where many countries don’t even have secondary schools for the deaf. A team of Leiden academics has organised the first summer school for and by deaf academics on the African continent, in Ghana. We spoke…

Course, Terra Incognita Masterclass

What Determines Perceptions of Bias toward the International Criminal Court? Evidence from Kenya. In this article, published on the website SAGE Journals in the Journal of Conflict Resolution, the authors Geoff Dancy, Yvonne Marie Dutton, Tessa Alleblas, Eamon Aloyo examine the attitude towards international…

The Leiden University Institute for History has a wide-ranging academic scope unique for the Netherlands. This is directly reflected in the participation of her staff in various Master's and Bachelor's programmes at Leiden University.

In the eighties the Umhlatuzana rock shelter in Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa, was excavated. Results from this excavation led to an understanding when the Later Stone Age started in this area. This archaeological period is often associated with the structural presence of modern human behavior. Now a…

The second authors' conference of the General Labour History of Africa (GLHA) project will be held from 10 to 12 December 2015 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

The Swahili coast has a long-standing history of transoceanic Islamic connections dating back to the 25th century. Yet, print, has changed the world – not only ours. This project unravels unique forms and archives of intellectual history emerging from within South-South connections. In East Africa Indian…

Africa is online. Leiden Africa expert Mirjam de Bruijn is fascinated by the fast development of mobile telephony and social media in Africa. She maintains a website on the topic, focusing on isolated, marginalised and conflict-ridden areas in Middle Africa.

The first comprehensive and authoritative history of work and labour in Africa; a key text for all working on African Studies and Labour History worldwide.

The production of history is a process of power. This is particularly relevant in Africa, where during both the colonial and the post-colonial era history has been written by hegemonic regimes. This historiography has in turn (re-)produced structures of domination, social exclusion and division.…

Cambridge History of South Africa, volume 1: From early times to 1885 (edited by Carolyn Hamilton, Bernard K. Mbenga, and Robert Ross) made Choice magazine's list of Outstanding Academic Titles for 2010.

CompaRe aims to conduct and stimulate research on comparative regional integration in Europa, Asia, Africa and Latin-America. To this end, CompaRe organizes conferences and workshops, and CompaRe members contribute to conferences, research papers, publications and reports on comparative regional…

Taal als sleutel tot het begrijpen van de mens.

Promotor: Prof.dr. G.R. de Snoo

Since August 2013, Alanna O’Malley is the new Assistant Professor for International Studies at the Institute for History, Leiden University.

Get the most out of your studies at Leiden University by taking part in our extracurricular activities.

What is a refugee? This question might seem easy to answer, but it is not, concludes Catherina Wilson. For 7 years she did research in The Democratic Republic of the Congo near the Ubangi river, on refugees from the Central African Republic. The research shows that among refugees there exists a wide…

The emergence of new players on the world market such as India, Brazil, China, Turkey and the Gulf States gives Africans more choice in who they work with and under which terms. At the same time, African multinationals are choosing to work with regional partners and are thus furnishing old political…

Leiden University and African Child Policy Forum hold ‘ground-breaking’ workshop on antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and human rights 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'.

This book is the first systematic analysis of the changes in the use of goods and services by households of Black South Africans since the early nineteenth century.

In June of this year, LL.M student Matthijs de Meer visited the East African Court of Justice for an internship.

This project looks at the ways in which youth in southern Nigeria navigate their lives in a context of experiencing long-term socioeconomic uncertainty and political insecurity (duress).