On Friday November 23 the Belgian Association of Africanists organizes its biannual colloquium, this time under the title “borderlands and frontiers in Africa”. The event is sponsored by the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO-Vlaanderen), the Royal Museum for Central Africa, and by the project “beyond the border” of the Institute for Anthropological Research in Africa (IARA, K.U.Leuven). We are very pleased that professor Vigdis Broch-Due (University of Bergen, head of the Poverty Politics Program) accepted to deliver the colloquium’s keynote address, but also that the program brings together a choice selection of national and international scholars, in a challenging mix of established and upcoming researchers, all this from a wide variety of disciplines. One of the major considerations in choosing this year’s theme, was the thought that many national and, of course, international conflicts were and are being fought in Africa’s borderlands; think in this regard of eastern Congo or Darfur, or remember the conflicts in Angola or Eritrea. In these borderzones, too, one finds most refugees and displaced persons: border zones are often considered as buffer zones, where the most marginalized on the continent are massed together, at a considerable, ‘safe’ distance from the political and economical centre.

But borders offer more than just the sight of hungry refugees or stilled corpses; borders are about more than conflicts between central authorities and rebel movements. Whether or not shaped by the need to access vital resources, borders are about the extent and influence of the state, about citizenship and identity, or, ultimately, about the often violent encounter of different subjectivities. Hence, a thematic focus on boundaries and margins – which, it follows, are by no means restricted to geographical borders – might provide us with a handy prism to look at the tensions and paradoxes that are tearing apart the African continent.

Yet, not everything is as grim as suggested in the above. How awkward it may sometimes sound, borders and margins also provide people with economic or political opportunities. Barbed wire can be cut, border patrols fooled, and import taxes evaded. The notions of borders and frontiers hence point towards a reality-in-the-making, even if this reality often is violent. The point is that margins and borders cannot be reduced to a few symbolic lines on a coloured sheet of paper. Borders are everywhere, and in everyone of us. Finally, borders are also imagined, and this frontier imaginary plays an important role in thinking Self and Other.

Practical Information:
The conference takes place in the Okapi-room of the Royal Museam for Central Africa, on Friday November 23.
To attend, you must register, since places are limited. This you can do by filling out a form (Dutch or French), which is available on the website, and sending it to Valerie Paulus Université de Liège, Faculté de Philisophie et Lettres, Dép. d'arts et Sciences de la Communication, Place du 20 Août 7 (bât. A1), Be-4000 Liège or mailing it to V.Paulus@ulg.ac.be.

Registration costs 15 euro (10 for members and students). This amount should be transfered the the BAA's account (979-0788488-77), mentioning "borderlands" and the name(s) of the registrant(s).