Networks: The Africanist Network

The Africanist Network was inaugurated on the initiative of Petr Skalnik at the 2002 EASA Conference in Copenhagen. Since then the Network has organized workshops and business meetings at the EASA Biannual Conferences in Vienna in 2004, Bristol in 2006. The same is planned for the forthcoming 2008 Conference in Ljubljana.

The most recent Business Meeting held in Bristol on September 20, 2006 summoned Africanists from Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Russia, Slovenia and the UK. It was decided to recognize as the central problematics for the next several years that of migrations from Africa to Europe, including not only the problems of the Africans' adaptation in the European countries but the processes on the African continent as prerequisites for the migration as well. This theme was considered as not only academically and socially significant but also broad enough to integrate most of the EASA Africanist members and the colleagues doing research into the topics of mutual interest ranging from European and elsewhere migration studies to comparative studies to theoretical issues of different sort. The list of the EASA Africanist members and of those members that could be interested in involvement in joint projects shows clearly that African studies in Europe have immense potential, as far as the list had turned out really very extensive. This gives good reasons to hope that Africa will remain on the forefront of research in European anthropology.

The Network Steering Committee elected at the Bristol Business Meeting includes four colleagues: Dmitri Bondarenko (Convenor; Institute for African Studies, Moscow), Armando Cutolo (University of Siena), Sarah Lunacek (University of Ljubljana) and Petr Skalnk (University of Pardubice and University of Wroclaw).