The Question of Agency in African Studies

Antonio Pezzano; Daniela Pioppi; Varona Sathiyah; Pier Paolo Frassinelli

doi:10.6093/978-88-6719-243-4

The Question of Agency in African Studies

Authors

Antonio Pezzano

University of Naples L'Orientale

Daniela Pioppi

University of Naples L'Orientale

Varona Sathiyah

University of Johannesburg

Pier Paolo Frassinelli

University of Johannesburg

DOI: https://doi.org/10.6093/978-88-6719-243-4

Keywords:

African Studies, Agency, social and political sciences, media, cultural and gender studies

Synopsis

Publisher: UniorPress

Series: Il porto delle idee

ISSN: 2785-4191

Pages: 350

Language: English

NBN:

Abstract: The idea and material for this book on the question of agency in African studies came from an international workshop organised by the Centre for Contemporary African Studies (CeSAC), University of Naples “L’Orientale”, held at the Scuola di Procida per l’Alta Formazione, in October 2019. The topic was tackled from different perspectives and approaches to African studies in the humanities and social sciences.

The first part of the volume collects nine chapters based on nine empirical research in the field of social and political sciences with very diverse spheres of enquiry such as migration and urban studies, religious practices, informal labour, elites, and analysis of public policies. The second part consists of six chapters focusing on media, cultural and gender studies, and analysing the culturally mediated versions of agency, revealed in specific practices and sites, as well as in activist, theoretical and (auto)ethnographic interventions.

The book is the product of the collaboration between the University of Naples “L’Orientale” (UNIOR) and the University of Johannesburg (UJ) and was edited by Antonio Pezzano and Daniela Pioppi from the CeSAC at the Department of Asian, African and Mediterranean Studies, at UNIOR, and Varona Sathiyah and Pier Paolo Frassinelli, from the Department of Communication and Media at UJ.

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Author Biographies

Antonio Pezzano, University of Naples L'Orientale

Antonio Pezzano is researcher and lecturer in African Politics and Society in the Department of Asian, African and Mediterranean Studies at the University of Naples “L’Orientale”. He is Vice-President of the Centre of Contemporary African Studies (Centro Studi sull’Africa Contemporanea, CeSAC) at “L’Orientale” and a member of the Scientific Committee of the Italian Society of International History (Società Italiana di Storia Internazionale, SISI). He is on the editorial board of the journal afriche e orienti. His research interests are urban informality, and local politics and policies in Africa. He has conducted research in South Africa as a visiting research associate at the University of the Witwatersrand and the University of Johannesburg.

Daniela Pioppi, University of Naples L'Orientale

Daniela Pioppi is Associate Professor of contemporary history of Arab countries in the Department of Asian, African and Mediterranean Studies at the University of Naples “L’Orientale”. Trained as an Arabist and a political scientist, she has a vast experience of field research in the Arab world. Her main research interests are comparative politics of the Middle East and North Africa with a special emphasis on the recent evolution of Islamist movements and parties. She is a scientific advisor to the International Affairs Institute (IAI) of Rome, where she worked as senior researcher from 2004 to 2014, directing several international research projects, among them power2youth, a research project funded under the seventh programme framework of the EU.

Varona Sathiyah, University of Johannesburg

Varona Sathiyah is a lecturer in the Department of Communication and Media Studies at the University of Johannesburg. She is interested in investigating representations of Indian South African identity in post-apartheid cinema. She is currently working on an article that interrogates the heteronormative and pronatal depictions of Indian South Africans in a locally produced film trilogy, Jayan Moodley’s Keeping Up with the Kandasamys (2017), Kandasamys: The Wedding(2019) Trippin’ with the Kandasamys (2021).

Pier Paolo Frassinelli, University of Johannesburg

Pier Paolo Frassinelli was Professor of Communication and Media Studies at the University of Johannesburg and Professor at the Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study. His recent publications include Borders, Media Crossings and the Politics of Translation: The Gaze from Southern Africa (Routledge, 2019) and Sovvertire i confini. Traduzioni, media e lo sguardo dal sud del mondo (ombre corte, 2022).