Speaker: Professor David Mwambari (KU Leuven)
Title: The Politics of Vernacular Memory in Post-Colonial African Contexts

Part of the 2023-2024 Lecture Series in African and Global History at Ghent University, convened by Felicitas Becker, Samuel Coghe, Pieter De Coene, Gillian Mathys, and Eric Vanhaute, in collaboration with the research group Economies Comparisons Connections (ECC) and co-funded by the Ghent Centre for Global Studies

Event date: Thursday 28 March 2024, 2.00 – 4.00 p.m.
Location: Auditorium Vandenhove, Centrum voor Architectur en Kunst, Universiteit Gent, Rozier 1, 9000 Gent

Abstract: In this lecture, Prof. David Mwambari  will explore the evolution of memory politics in post-colonial Africa over the last two decades. Societies take different paths when coming to terms with violent pasts. Some undertake active commemorations (e.g., rituals, memorials, and ceremonies), while others elect for silence, forgetting uncomfortable memories or remembering privately through vernacular platforms for many reasons. These memories and silences interact in public—in national, regional, and international politics. They shape the memory politics of the past and modern lived experiences as societies negotiate transitions. They influence peace and (in)security for these societies and beyond. This lecture will draw on empirical examples from research in postwar states in East, Central, and West Africa and beyond.

Bio: David Mwambari is an associate professor in the Faculty of Social Sciences at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium and the principal investigator for the European Research Council (ERC)-funded TMSS project. He is core faculty and a board member at the Oxford Consortium on Human Rights, University of Oxford.

For furter information please contact Professor Samuel Coghe.