Oxford University Africa Society 60th Anniversary: Pan Africanism, Learning from the Past, Looking to the Future

Written by Kuukuwa Manful. Posted in

by Temitope Ajileye, DPhil Computer Science, Wolfson College

In the evening of June 3rd, 1958, Lord Hailey gave the address of the Oxford University Africa Society. Since, the Society has become the foremost platform for African issues and a vibrant and supportive community for many African students. It brings together Africans and non-Africans alike, from an assortment of backgrounds, creeds, cultures, and ethnicities who share a desire for positive change in Africa.

In occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Society, celebrated on the 2nd of June of this year at St. Antony’s College, the Oxford Africa Society sought to bring together past and current members. Among the alumni who responded to their call were Prof. Patricia Daley, professor of Human Geography and the first black lecturer at Oxford University, Ambassador Busia, a pioneer in Black Feminist studies, Dr. Tunde Oseni, from the department of Politics in Ibadan, Nigeria and who graduated from the MSc in African studies, just like the newly appointed Prof. Simukai Chigudu, poised to take on the role left by the late Prof. Raufu Mustapha. The four of them, together with Dr. Phyllis Ferguson, former Senior Member of the Society and, briefly, Prof. Kole Omotoso, on a skype connection from Nigeria, helped them achieve the objective they set for themselves in organizing this event.

The Oxford Africa Society took advantage of the occasion to reflect on the shared history of the Society within Oxford University, and the history of the past decades of the African continent. Secondly, they re-asserted their presence in the University and their importance in the academic landscape. Finally, and most importantly, they were able to gather new ideas to reposition themselves in an environment where African voices and Afro-centric institutions are slowly but steadily increasing, to build a framework and a community that can help future generations of African students and to find inspiration for the way forward.

Notable were the invitation to connect with and appreciate the experiences of the African Diaspora, extended by Prof. Daley, the appeal to be present to our duties of care to each other, brought by Dr. Ferguson, the exhortation not to shy away from being political in academia, given by Prof. Chigudu, the proposal to Pan Africanise the Global and Globalise the Pan African, made by Dr. Oseni and the inspiration, embodied by ambassador Busia with her poetry and personal life, to consider new perspectives in history and literature.

• Continue Reading

New Appointments at the African Studies Centre

Written by Kuukuwa Manful. Posted in

Three African academics will be joining African Studies Centre, University of Oxford in different capacities this year. They are Katharina Oke (Nigeria) – Departmental Lecturer in African History, Miles Tendi (Zimbabwe) – Associate Professor in the Politics of Africa and Wale Adebanwi (Nigeria) – Rhodes Professor of Race Relations and Director of The African Studies Centre.

Katharina Oke is currently a DPhil Student in History. She holds a Beit Research Scholarship from the History Faculty and her thesis is titled: ‘Budding Forth in its Nascent Growth’: English-Language and Yoruba-Language Newspapers in the Lagos Printing Sphere. Her publications include ‘The Colonial Public Sphere in Nigeria, 1920‐1943’, and she is a 2013/14 Gerda Henkel Stiftung Fellow at Queen’s College, Oxford.

Blessing-Miles Tendi is also a writer and has taught African Politics in Department of International Development since 2011. Prior to joining the Department of International Development, Tendi worked as a risk consultant for Control Risks (London). His research interests include society and the state; the political role of African militaries; Southern African politics (especially Botswana, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Madagascar, Swaziland); and the role of regional organisations in crisis resolution in Africa.
His publications include ‘Politics, Patronage and Violence in Zimbabwe’ (book) co-authored with J Alexander, J McGregor) (2014), ‘Making History in Mugabe’s Zimbabwe: Politics, Intellectuals and the Media’ (book) and ‘Transnationalism, Contingency and Loyalty in African Liberation Armies: The Case of ZANU ’s 1974 –1975 Nhari Mutiny’

Wale Adebanwi is the first black Rhodes Professor of Race Relations since the chair was created over 60 years ago. He is moving on from his previous position as Associate Professor of African American and African Studies at University of California, Davis. He is the co-editor of The Journal of Contemporary African Studies. Wale has a BSc in Mass Communications from the University of Lagos, an M.Sc and a Ph. D. in Political Science from the University of Ibadan, and an MPhil and a Ph.D. in Social Anthropology from the University of Cambridge.
He has also worked as a reporter, writer and columnist for various publications in Nigeria including Nigerian Tribune and The NEWS. His publications include ‘Yoruba Elite and Ethnic Politics in Nigeria: Obafemi Awolowo and Corporate Agency’ (book), ‘Authority Stealing: Anti-Corruption War and Democratic Politics in Post-Military Nigeria’ (book), ‘Nigeria: The Predators Prepare to Pounce’, and ‘The Clergy, Culture and Political Conflicts in Nigeria’.
Wale’s research interests include Democracy; State-Civil Society Relations; Elites; Political Communication; Political Economy of Social & Cultural formations in Africa; Nationalism, Ethnicity & Identity Politics; Territoriality, Spatial Politics & Cities; Transnationalism & Migration; Religion & Cultural Politics; Citizenship & Civic service and Historical Anthropology.

• Continue Reading

Sydelle Willow Smith

Written by Kuukuwa Manful. Posted in

Sydelle Willow Smith, MSc African Studies (2015) St Antony’s College

“I challenged myself academically – having come from an Anthropology background – I gained a far wider scope of critical engagement and understanding through debates and learning from my peers who came from backgrounds such as International Relations, Economics, Political Science and Business.”

 

Sydelle is a photographer and filmmaker. She is the co-founder of the first solar powered mobile cinema in Africa – Sunshine Cinema – where she has developed a solar powered cinema that fits in a box, as an activist toolkit.

Sunshine Cinema runs media advocacy workshops using radio, photography and film with young people in partnership with The Children’s Radio Foundation focusing on issues of gender based violence, the effects of climate change, LGBTQI rights and access to HIV/AIDS services for young people across the continent. They host film screenings of advocacy focused content with the aim of turning solar power into social impact through grassroots engagements in partnership with various funders such as Open Society Foundations and brands like Red Bull.



Sydelle has worked as a photographer and filmmaker since her undergraduate degree at the University of Cape Town, where she focused on Social Anthropology, Film Theory and Video Production. She first worked as an editorial photographer after studying at The Market Photo Workshop, when she began documenting Johannesburg’s subcultures for Blunt Magazine in 2007. Since then Sydelle has worked for a wide range of publications, clients and brands, whilst continuing her personal projects focusing on aspects of memory, place-making and belonging viewed through a social justice lens, allowing her to better situate the struggles South Africa and the broader continent faces in a global and regional context.

After a BA (Hons.) degree in Visual Anthropology with a focus on participatory methodologies in a temporary relocation camp on the Cape Flats, she began working full time at her husband’s production company Makhulu as a director, videographer and photographer. She is now a partner in the company. During this time, Sydelle was awarded a grant to complete a 12 month body of work about foreign migrants and South Africans forging convivial relationships in 2012 called Soft Walls. The work led her to host a series of exhibitions and public engagement workshops focusing on xenophobia. She installed the work on aluminium boards embedded with augmented reality codes on a promenade that housed 1000 person foot traffic every day for 8 months – promoting dialogue amongst everyday South Africans about migration. After that project she was awarded a residency to complete a documentary film/photo project in Barcelona with African migrants from West Africa, called Making Neighbourhood. The project has been exhibited globally and the residency hosts an annual Making Neighbourhood participatory project focusing on new forms of community in its honour.



Sydelle came to the University of Oxford in 2014 to do a Masters of Social Science in African Studies, working with Dr Helene Neveu Kringelbach on a dissertation about the use of media advocacy methods amongst young people within the social movement, Equal Education, in Khayelitsha, South Africa. Her work involved a six week period of fieldwork through participant observation and a series of interviews with high school students, and media advocacy project managers in various international NGOs where she sought to understand the role of visual media training in young peoples’ lives within a context of a social movement forged out of particular struggle narrative legacies in a post-Apartheid context, highlighting the ways that personhood is shaped and particular narratives are constructed through the process of advocacy focused storytelling.

For Sydelle, the MSc degree itself was the most enriching academic experience of her life, and provided detailed insights and debate on issues facing African countries. The degree was academically rigorous and demanded a high level of original thought, and she felt challenged in every tutorial and lecture series. She gained a far deeper understanding of postcolonial dynamics from across the continent, and for the first time was challenged about South African notions of exceptionalism. This was coupled with extensive reading of contemporary debates around issues such as electoral democracy, the legacy of colonialism and the effects of international organisations such as the IMF on the countries of Sub-Saharan Africa that have fuelled her work as a visual storyteller.

The friends she made will be life long, as her class group – The African Legends – was very close during the Masters and they still maintain close contact on a regular basis. A whole bunch of her former classmates even attended her wedding last year, traveling from all four corners of the globe.

• Continue Reading

Baafour Otu-Boateng

Written by Kuukuwa Manful. Posted in

Baafour Otu-Boateng MBA (2012), Green Templeton College

Baafour is an Investment Manager at Investisseurs & Partenaires (I&P) responsible for the Ghana office and portfolio. I&P is a family of impact funds fully dedicated to SMEs in Sub-Saharan Africa. Over the last 15 years, I&P has invested in more than 60 SMEs located in 15 African countries across a range of sectors including microfinance, agribusiness, health, and services. In this capacity he serves as board director at a number of companies including VRS Africa, a fast-growing leasing service company with operations across 3 African countries, PEG Ghana, the leading pay-as-you-go financing company in West Africa, and Eden Tree Limited, a pioneering produce distribution agribusiness in Ghana.
He is also a member of the World Vision Ghana Advisory Council and is the Oxford Business Alumni (OBA) Ambassador for Ghana.

Baafour, a Chevening Scholar and Said Business School Bursary Fund Scholarship Award-winner, began his career at UBS Investment Bank in New York as an analyst in the Global Consumer Products & Retail group focused on M&A transactions, debt and equity financings. Before he came to Oxford, he studied for a Bachelor’s degree in Economics and Philosophy from Williams College, USA and also worked for a while as a volunteer consultant and project manager at TechnoServe Ghana, responsible for overseeing a national program focused on enterprise development for SMEs.

For Baafour, Oxford represented a compelling merger of journey and destination and this was a major factor in why he chose to attend. At the time, he was not completely certain about his career path and needed a challenging environment that would offer the intellectual and collegiate platform necessary to equip him for whatever complex decisions and issues he would face in whatever line of work he would find himself in later on. He was attracted to the enduring Oxford values of critical thinking, generosity among peers, and focus on impact.

• Continue Reading

Hashi Mohamed

Written by Kuukuwa Manful. Posted in

Hashi Mohamed MSc African Studies (2009), St Antony’s College

Hashi is currently practising as a barrister in England and Wales. One of his specialities is in Public Law, and predominantly in Planning and Environment. In addition to this, he is a part-time broadcaster for the BBC, presenting documentaries periodically on BBC Radio 4 such as The Boat Children and A Response to Terror.

He has been consistently listed as one of the highest rated planning barristers in England & Wales under the age of 35 in the Planning Magazine’s annual Planning Legal Survey, and serves as Special Adviser to David Anderson QC, the Independent Reviewer of terror legislation in his work reviewing the UK’s anti-terrorism laws. Hashi has acted in a number of cases related to public law and human rights issues. He has also been instructed to act on behalf of the Secretary of State for the Home Department at Immigration Appeals Tribunals, appearing in over 100 appeals.
Before Oxford he was worked as a broadcast journalist for the BBC after graduating from university where he studied Law and French. For Hashi, attending Oxford was the next natural step, to not only enhance his qualifications but to widen his intellectual and personal horizons as well. He enjoyed playing football and cycling most in his time in Oxford, and excellent debating was a close third. When asked what the most exciting thing he did at Oxford was, his response was “giving a hug to the Dalai Lama”

• Continue Reading

Yasmin Kumi

Written by Kuukuwa Manful. Posted in

Yasmin Kumi  MBA(2016), MSc African Studies(2015), St Catherine’s College

Yasmin founded Africa Foresight Group (AFG)  in 2015 to follow her passion of fostering local economic value creation in Africa. She is a Ghanaian-German senior business consultant with extensive working experience in the consumer goods  and financial services sector, the research of family business groups and agriculture in African markets. She is a Harambean (’16) and has also been appointed Executive Director of the Harambe Entrepreneur Alliance, the leading network for young talented entrepreneurs from Africa. AFG counters myths about doing business in Africa: that there is a talent scarcity in Africa, that reliable market data is difficult to find, and that there are no good African business models. Through its advisory practice, research desk, and think tank AFG provides access to high-quality talent, exchanges with successful business models, and connections to local industry champions. Prior to founding AFG, she worked as a senior consultant for McKinsey & Company for 5 years advising clients in Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon and South Africa in the consumer goods and banking industry.  She also led the monitoring division of an agricultural development project of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in Accra that promoted the integration of the cashew nut value chain in West Africa.  

• Continue Reading