Zentrum für Afrikastudien Basel / Centre for African Studies Basel

30/03/2026

🚨 SGAS-VAD 2026: Early-brid registration extended to 7 April 2026
➡️ Register now and join us for three days of engaging discussions and international exchange at the joint SGAS-VAD 2026 conference.

🌍 African Perspectives on Global Transformation
🌟 Keynotes by Lyn Ossome, Makerere University, and Nomusa Makhubu, University of Cape Town
❗80+ panel, workshop and roundtable sessions
‼️ 500+ paper presentations

🗓️ 26-28 Aug 2026 📍 Basel, Switzerland
🔗www.africanperspectives.ch

28/03/2026

Graduation ceremony at the Faculty of the arts, University of Basel. Congratulations to Benedikta Spannring-Salzgeber and Wahab Lawundeh, Raluca Marcu, and Saleh Saleh (MA in African Studies), Samuel Bachmann (Phd in African Studies), as well as Julia Hohn and Laura Kämpfen (MA ln Social Anthropology, Jennifer Giroux (Phd in Social Anthropology, Samantha Gamez (Phd in Political Science), and Eva Kocher (Phd in History)!

27/03/2026

Apply now for our biennial CODESRIA/ZASB Summer School in Dakar, Senegal!

📢 Call for Applications | 7th CODESRIA/ZASB Summer School

The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA), in partnership with the Centre for African Studies Basel (.unibasel), invites applications for the 7th Summer School in African Studies and Area Studies in Africa.

🎓 Designed for PhD students and emerging scholars, this Summer School offers a unique platform to:
• Engage with cutting-edge theoretical and methodological debates
• Strengthen interdisciplinary research approaches
• Join a vibrant community of African and international scholars

📍 A flagship initiative that places Africa at the center of knowledge production and global scholarship

👉 Apply now: http://codesria.org/7th-codesria-zasb-summer-school-in-african-studies-and-area-studies-in-africa/


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📢 Appel à candidatures | 7ᵉ université d’été CODESRIA/ZASB

Le CODESRIA, en partenariat avec le Centre d’études africaines de Bâle (ZASB), lance un appel à candidatures pour la 7ᵉ université d’été en études africaines en Afrique.

🎓 Destinée aux doctorant·e·s et jeunes chercheur·e·s, cette université d’été offre l’opportunité de :
• Approfondir les débats théoriques et méthodologiques.
• Renforcer les approches interdisciplinaires.
• Intégrer une communauté scientifique panafricaine et internationale.

📍 Une initiative majeure qui place l’Afrique au cœur de la production des savoirs

👉 Postulez ici : http://codesria.org/7th-codesria-zasb-summer-school-in-african-studies-and-area-studies-in-africa/

05/01/2026

⏰Reminder: Call for Papers (SGAS & VAD 2026 Conference)

📢Only a few days left until 11 January 2026 to submit your paper proposal for the joint conference of the Swiss Society for African Studies (SGAS/SSEA) and the Association for African Studies in Germany (VAD), taking place 26-28 August 2026 at the Universität Basel.

🌍Under the theme “African Perspectives on Global Transformations”, the conference invites scholars at all career stages to contribute to one of 77 panels across nine thematic streams. The conference theme responds to increasingly urgent calls for decolonization, epistemic justice, reparations, climate justice and restitution, under the conceptual header of planetary health and cosmopolitan flourishing. Based on this framework, the conference brings together approaches to examine past, present and future global transformations from a broad spectrum of disciplines and thematic areas.

🔗https://www.africanperspectives.ch/cfp

22/10/2025

📢 Call for papers: "African Perspectives on Global Transformations"

From 26 to 28 August 2026, the ZASB will host the joint conference of the Swiss Society for African Studies (SGAS/SSEA) and the Association for African Studies in Germany e.V. (VAD). Scholars from all career levels are invited to submit paper proposals to one of the 77 panels within the nine thematic streams of the conference.

‼️The deadline for submission is 11 January 2026. ‼️
🔗www.africanperspectives.ch/cfp

14/10/2025

On Friday, October 17, from 4:15–6:00 p.m., Charles D. Piot will speak on “Is the African Informal Economy Decolonial?” We are happy to invite you to the public lecture in the framework of the course “Africa, Method, Theory,” which will be followed by refreshments.

13/08/2025

We warmly invite for the 11th Namibia Research Day on the 17th and 18th of October in Basel.

The annual event brings together graduate students, early-career researchers, scholars and cultural workers from diverse disciplines and practices to share their work, engage in dialogue, and build vibrant networks.

To participate, please consult the details in the Call below 👇

31/07/2025

‼️Deadline extended to 15 Aug 2025‼️
📢 Call for Panels
🌍 "African Perspectives on Global Transformations"
🔗 Submit your proposal now: www.africanperspectives.ch/cfpanels

➡️ Joint conference of the Swiss Society for African Studies (SGAS) and the Association for African Studies in Germany (VAD)
📅 26-28 August 2026
📍 Basel, Switzerland

10/07/2025

📢 Reminder: Call for Panels
🌍 "African Perspectives on Global Transformations"

We invite you to propose a panel for the upcoming joint conference of the Swiss Society for African Studies (SGAS) and the Association for African Studies in Germany (VAD), taking place 26-28 August 2026 in Basel, Switzerland.

‼️Panel submission deadline: 31 July 2025
🔗 Submit your proposal now: www.africanperspectives.ch

Panels should allow for contributions engaging with global transformations from different disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives as well as non-academic approaches (artistic, activist or entrepreneurial, among others).

Thematic streams:
🔸Studying Africa Understanding the World
🔸Diaspora, cosmopolitanism, and African identities
🔸Politics and Governance
🔸African Positions in Changing World Orders
🔸Planetary Health, urbanization and natural resources
🔸Technology and digitalization
🔸Lifeworlds and sociality
🔸Arts, language and cultural expression
🔸Memories, histories, archives, museums

We look forward to your panel proposals!

02/06/2025

📣 The Zentrum für Afrikastudien Basel / Centre for African Studies Basel calls for applications for the 7th Basel Summer School in African Studies. This year’s Summer School honours Valentin-Yves 's work and engages with the contributions of not only to knowledge about Africa, but also to the renewal of the very tools through which we produce knowledge, namely concepts, theories, and methods.

🗓 8-12 September 2025
📍 Basel, Switzerland
‼️ Application deadline: 6 July 2025
🔗 https://zasb.unibas.ch/en/summer-school/2025

05/05/2025

Workshop: "Liquid Urbanisms in Africa: Thinking Climate Adaptation with and through Water"

📅12-13 June 2025
📍Basel, Switzerland
‼️Registration is open until 15 May 2025.

Using water as a way of seeing through, with and about climate-related urban issues, this workshop invites a critical examination of the urban/water interface in African coastal cities, particularly in the context of climate change. African coastal cities are at the cutting edge of water-borne climate change, as they are forecast to attract the highest urban growth and commercial investment, but also persistently scripted as the least well-equipped to deal with climate-related disasters, making manifest the tension between the imperatives of economic growth and sustainable urban development. The workshop, co-organized by the PRECURBICA project (Precarious Urbanism in Coastal Cities in Africa) and the Swiss Society for African Studies, aims to bring together urban planning and critical social theory by exploring the diverse ways African urban communities are adapting their lives and environments to these challenges.

Schweizerische Akademie der Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften
Social Sciences - University of Basel

International Workshop in Critical Urbanism, University of Basel, 12-13 June 2025