Africa is the Continent of the Future ****************************************************************************************** * ****************************************************************************************** ****************************************************************************************** * An interview with the head of the newly-founded Centre of African Studies Markéta Křížov ****************************************************************************************** By Jan Velinger The Centre of African Studies, founded on May 15th, 2019 brings together experts and acade over the Czech Republic studying Africa from a wide range of perspectives - from zoology t science to political science and linguistics. I spoke to the head of the newly-founded centre, Vice-Dean at Charles University’s Faculty Křížová, about the founding and the history of former African Studies at the university, w 1961 to 2005. The Cold War, Czech contributions in linguistics and why interest in Africa a big way, are all discussed. “Despite there being a long interest in Oriental and exotic cultures in Czech academia goi back to the 19th century, the study of African culture, history and languages was formalis Globally, a third wave of university reform was underway in the 1960s: the first wave came half of the 19th century, then there were many changes after the Second World War and then other things, an interest in area studies, motivated by the geopolitical interests in the at the West. This was also the background for the founding of the Dept. of the Sciences of Asia and Africa in 1961. “The department was not huge in numbers but was definitely very large in scope: there woul students of Chinese, five students of Japanese, similar numbers for African studies and so department was divided and African history and culture were studied at the Dept. of Near E What was the main focus in African Studies at the start? “I would say the driving force from the time of Bedřich Hrozný, or even before, was lingui were very prominent in the study of “exotic” languages. But it didn’t end there: as it was Cold War, and decolonisation was under way, the Third World, and not just Asia but Africa battlegrounds for political influence, and was thus approached from Western as well as Eas It was also attractive for modernisation projects or projects exploiting domestic natural the study of African languages and culture was understood as a tool of soft diplomacy towa decolonized countries.” So many different areas were covered but linguistics was the cornerstone… “Yes. I talked to some of the last graduates from before 1989: they had had a lot of theor linguistics, they studied literature and also did, for example, the study of religion. The interesting. Czech Africanists very early on were interested in Islam and its political an dimensions. “Then we had ethno-history working with colonial and precolonial sources. One of the limit challenges of African history is the scarcity of sources. In the 1960s, a historical criti was still lacking, which were besides unevenly preserved; so that was needed and one benef was something that could be done from central Europe. There was, for example, a highly praised project in the 1960s instigated by Ivan Hrbek cal Historiae Africanae (Sources for African History), contributing in an important way to his about Africa in various languages – colonial as well as local. “One other aspect is important to point out: In those days under the communist regime, lon aboard were problematic or difficult to organize – so when students or academics got an op travel to Africa they grabbed it. Which of course, meant sometimes going to areas they had specializing in, to areas of research. Opportunities arose not just dictated by the intere scholars.” So were there were specific parts of the continent where Czechs or Slovaks were more activ haphazard? “More the latter: the mechanism was the same whether we are talking about Africa or the Am it was like ‘Oh, you have a chance to go to Ghana – it doesn’t matter if you are francopho opportunity, so go’. If there was an opportunity you simply took it, you didn’t pass it up “Communist Czechoslovakia, meanwhile, welcomed many Third World students and gave them sch study everything from medicine to the humanities. It sounds rather colonialist to put it l the beginning there was great interest in using these students also as ‘study material’, a and so on. But as not all of them were from “proper” ideological backgrounds, they were so the rest of academia. “Certainly interest in Africa cut across disciplines and departments and institutions: the Department of Ethnology and Folklore, where in the 1960s worked Ladislav Holý,a prominent who worked as the director of Livingstone Museum in Zambia in 1968–72 (later, he did not r Czechoslovakia and instead took position at Queen’s University in Belfast). There was also Institute of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, which was more interested in contempora as decolonisation and revolution, and then there was the Náprstek Museum of Asian, African Cultures. “That museum has a valuable collections of African culture and art. By the way the permane of this museum was closed in 2013, and is supposed to reopen within a couple years, after reconstruction. So all these institutions were doing something with respect to Africa.” If we come back to ideological questions in those days, how much was everything viewed thr ideological lens? I guess some people avoided it if they could, they simply fell in love w given country and they were happy if they could just do their work and study those culture were others who saw it through the prism of socialism… “Of course there were ideological limitations. In fact, their extent and their impact upon practice, and in turn the role the academia played in the political competitions of the Co the topic of study throughout Europe now. “For example, in there is a project in Leipzig currently under way that studies the role o both in the East and in the West. And at the Faculty of Arts we are reflecting the same pr the frame of the Cold War Research Group, a platform for collaboration in research that ex Faculty of Arts and is composed of historians from various departments.. There is a lot of university archives, and in other archives as well. “Before 1989, Prague was the seat of numerous international organizations aiming at involv World Countries and attachment to the Soviet system. There is a lot of material to dig thr “Simply put, our understanding of the Cold War is changing and there are new perceptions t precisely by looking beyond the borders of Europe or the North Atlantic. Originally I am Latin Americanist and I studied the case of Latin American studies that al 1960, especially in response to the Cuban Revolution. “I think that African Studies were under more strict ideological control. Latin America ha being exotic and sort of an ‘unreal’ place, also thanks to the boom of Latin American lite 1960s. So my home for Ibero-American Studies served as a sort of intellectual asylum for s could not pursue their careers in more ideologically controlled departments. It was deemed ‘do no harm’ with Latin America. “But African Studies, it seems so far from the available documentation, were more strictly although most of the students probably didn’t feel the pressure. Politics aside, I think t African languages and of history was first class.” What were some of the languages that were prominent? “Swahili, Amharic… plus of course the languages of the colonial or post-colonial countries enough to know English or German.” So Dutch, French, Portuguese… “Yes.” Did the program have a natural peak or a golden age? “I wouldn’t say so. There were always more students who applied than could be accepted.” One of the things that strikes me as unusual is that after 1989 it continued through the p transition and changes and then ended in 2004/2005: what happened? “Well there were many changes. Some of them were administrative: the large Department for on the Lands of Asia and Africa split into several – now for example we have departments f and Southeast Asia, and African Studies were somewhat inorganically joined into the depart Near East. Also, there was a temporary loss of interest from part of the students. One of post-1989 was that people could suddenly travel. “Before, under the communist regime, enrolling in one of these programs was one of the few could actually go abroad. And suddenly no one had to study for five years to be able to tr Also, several professors were offered diplomatic positions, and in fact proved to be very “Then, students began to get scholarship opportunities elsewhere and that led to a decline studying African Studies here in Prague. And finally, there wasn’t a huge amount of suppor Simply put, Africa was not a priority in the ‘90s. “It’s a world of difference to teach a history course which is largely frontal teaching an language like Swahili. You have to have small groups of students so that everyone gets to possible, say five to 10 students. “And this kind of program was very expensive for the faculty, and such programs were diffi But that is what we are trying to change. In our view, Africa was relevant then and it is relevant now. It is a whole continent and it is a continent of the future, with enormous p political, economic, but also cultural and academic.” But there is this gap of more than 10 years… “That’s right. Now we don’t have habilitated professors but what I started seeing was a re in African Studies among students and young academics and it occurred to me that we needed about it. The more I looked across departments, the more obvious it became that there real interest across different fields in Africa: in archival science there is a young woman wri thesis about the Czech traveller in Africa Emil Holub. There are others who are writing ex post-colonial literature in Africa and the list goes on. “I realised that we needed to promote Africa more among students, that we needed to coordi already being taught and also to communicate with academic institutions that are already s problems. “So we decided to establish a platform to promote Africa within the faculty and also to co the public. The third role of universities is very important in this respect. “This stood at the root of the establishment of the Centre of African Studies.” “Africa is of course a huge subject and we are careful to start ‘small’. At this moment th not offer a degree-program, but we would it to be aimed at coordination and promotion of c occasional lectures on various topics on Africa in a global context, to instigate the inte at all levels of study in addressing these topics in their theses and dissertations, and a interdisciplinary research of excellence. “What is needed is cooperation not only among departments of our Faculty but also close co other universities and with the colleagues abroad. We can’t do this all ourselves. One of ways we opted to promote the new centre were recently daylong activities at Kampus Hyberns 2019) and interest was high.” Published by UNIMEDIA on June 4, 2019.