So as much as I am all for African Studies conferences having a base in Africa, I have to say the registration charges for the upcoming African Studies Conference by the African Studies Association in Africa (ASAA), make me question which Africa the conference – whose focus is on African and Africana knowledges – is aimed at.
Tickets range from $45 for an Africa based student’s daily entry (which students have $45 abeg?), to $205 for an Africa based non-ASAA member 3 day registration…… For presenters and attenders alike.
Which Africans are in and which ones out in this theorising and academicising?? Which Africans are *by design* already imagined out of this space that is supposed to be on African and Africana knowledges (on their knowledges!)?? Imagined out of the possibility (of having any knowledge) to contribute?
I am not a student nor an ASAA member but even the lowest ticket price is half my month’s rent – for a day’s attendance….
Sometimes I am reminded, for all we complain about Western institutions, that there is a woeful lack of class and economic privilege consciousness in Africa/African ones.
Talk to me