First International Conference

Death in African History: An Interdisciplinary Conference

This AHRC-funded international conference on Death in African History was hosted by the University of Cambridge and Goldsmiths, University of London. The conference brought together scholars from a number of disciplines (history, social anthropology, archaeology, cultural studies and politics) to advance the study of death in Africa. Participants included representatives of NGOs working with communities dealing with HIV/AIDS in South Africa, as well as academics from African universities. The themes that emerged from papers to the conference included the politics of violence and death in Africa, the relationship between sex and death in African belief systems, the 'modernisation' of death practices, the politics of Islamic burial practices, and the impact of epidemic disease. Unsurprisingly, we spent a significant amount of time discussing the management and representation of death in the context of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, but participants were very clear about the importance of not allowing AIDS to over-determine the study of death in Africa.

The conference confirmed the need for an interdisciplinary approach and a grounded historical account of death practices and understanding of death in Africa.  Feedback from participants was very positive indeed, and we look forward to a continued conversation with them. We are pleased to report that a selection of conference papers was published in a Special Issue of the Journal of African History, vol. 49 (2008).

Co-organisers: 
Megan Vaughan, mav26@cam.ac.uk, History, University of Cambridge
Rebekah Lee, r.lee (@gold.ac.uk), History, Goldsmiths, University of London