The Age of Infrastructure and the Infrastructure of Age:
Politics, Technology, and Citizenship in Africa
African Studies Workshop Conference
Wilder House — May 14-15, 2015
Keynote speakers:
Bianca Dahl (Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto – Scarborough)
Daniel Mains (Wick Cary Assistant Professor of Anthropology and African Studies, University of Oklahoma)
Thursday, May 14th
Keynote: Daniel Mains (Anthropology, University of Oklahoma) “Contingent Futures: Youth, Infrastructure, and Temporality in Urban Ethiopia.” 5:00pm Location: Wieboldt 310
Friday, May 15th
Wilder House (5811 S. Kenwood Ave)
8:30 am Breakfast
Panel 1: Governing Infrastructures: Gender, Youth, Nation 9:00am-10:30am
Erin Moore, Comparative Human Development, University of Chicago, “The Temporality of the Poster Child: Coming of Age in the Ugandan NGO Economy”
Beth Brummel, Anthropology, University of Chicago, “’We are not ousting anyone’: Debating a Soft Infrastructure in a Kenyan Youth Group”
Emily Lord Fransee, History, University of Chicago, “‘Women Can No Longer Be Kept On One Side’”: Gender and International Citizenship in French Cameroon, 1947-1960″
Hilary Leathem, Anthropology, University of Chicago, “The Hidden Imperial Hand: Fantasies of Empire in the International Criminal Court’s case against Uhuru Kenyatta”
Discussant: William Murphy, Anthropology, Northwestern University
Panel 2: Media Infrastructures 11:00am -12:30pm
Lesley Nicole Braun, Comparative Human Development, University of Chicago, “Viral Videos and the Production of Rumor in Kinshasa, DRC”
Brady Smith, English, University of Chicago, “Speculative Fictions: Sci-Fi, Infrastructure, and the Anthropocene”
Noosim Naimasiah, Social Studies, Makerere Institute of Social Research, “M-Pesa and Agelessness in Post – SAP Kenya”
Jorge A. Campos, Anthropology, University of Chicago, “The Infrastructure of the State: On Taxes and Suspicion in Hargeisa, Somaliland”
Discussant: Michael Fisch, Anthropology, University of Chicago
Lunch 12:30-1:30pm (food will be provided)
Panel 3: Memory and Infrastructure 1:30pm-3:00pm
Joshua Walker, Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research, “Infrastructures of Erosion: Subjectivity in the Aging Extractive City”
Kathryn E. McHarry, Anthropology, University of Chicago, “Aging Architecture: Investment, Abandonment, and Youth in the Saloum Delta’s Built World”
Discussant: Cécile Fromont, Art History, University of Chicago
Keynote: 3:30 pm
Bianca Dahl, Anthropology, University of Toronto Scarborough, “Inventing Orphans: The Anatomy of a New Social Infrastructure in Botswana” 3:30pm
7:00pm Reception/Dinner