ECAS 2027: African Prisms
The 2027 European Conference on African Studies (ECAS) will take place under the theme “African Prisms”, highlighting the diversity of perspectives, disciplines, methods, and histories that shape the study of Africa.
Drawing on the metaphor of a prism, which refracts light into multiple colours, the conference aims to explore the continent through different intellectual and analytical perspectives. It will bring together scholars from the social sciences and humanities to examine Africa’s intellectual traditions, political institutions, social movements, ecological challenges, technological innovations, cultural expressions, and everyday experiences.
The conference will also encourage critical reflection on how Africa is studied, represented, and understood, particularly in relation to questions of identity, power, colonial legacies, and knowledge production. Emphasising interdisciplinary collaboration and African-centred scholarship, ECAS 2027 seeks to create a platform for exchanging ideas, challenging conventional approaches, and developing new ways of understanding the continent within a rapidly changing global landscape.
IDCPPA scholars are organising two panels at the 11th European Conference of African Studies (ECAS), to be held in Lisbon in June 2027. Chris Saunders (together with Lena Dallywater of FSU Jena and Helder Adegar Fonseca of the University of Évora) is hosting a panel on “Southern African Liberation Struggle Prisms”. This will focus on shifting expectations of what liberation would entail, including through the use of new archival sources (including Portuguese ones). Jeremy Seekings and Hangala Siachiwena (together with Marianne Ulriksen of the University of Southern Denmark) are hosting a panel on “External actors, national governments and the 'negotiated' reform of social protection. The call for papers is now open. The conference will be hosted by the Centro de Estudos Internacionais at the Instituto Universitário de Lisboa.