Managing Uncertainty: Death and Loss in Africa
An International Conference

8-10 April 2010
Johannesburg, South Africa

Co-hosted by:  
•    Faculty of History, University of Cambridge
•    Department of History, Goldsmiths College, University of London
•    Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WISER), University of the Witwatersrand

Location:  WISER, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

[Download conference abstracts HERE]

[Secure link to conference papers HERE]

FINAL PROGRAMME

Thursday 8 April

9.30am – 10 am    Welcome:  Abebe Zegeye (Director, WISER) and Rebekah Lee (History, Goldsmiths College, University of London)

10am – 11am        Politics:  (chair Megan Vaughan) 

• Walima Kalusa (History, University of Zambia), The Killing of Lilian Margaret Burton and Black and White Nationalisms in Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) in the 1960s
• Garrey Dennie (History, St. Mary’s College of Maryland), The Politics of Funerals in South Africa, 1982-1990: The Contested Corpse

11am – 11.30am    Coffee

11.30am – 1pm        Suicide:   (chair Mark Lamont)

• Megan Vaughan (History, University of Cambridge), The ‘Discovery’ of Suicide in East and Southern Africa
• Victoria Mutiso (African Mental Health Foundation)

1pm – 2pm        Lunch  (for conference speakers only)

2pm – 3pm        Migrants and Migration:  (chair Abebe Zegeye) 

• Lorena Nunez (Forced Migrations Studies Programme, University of the Witwatersrand), Managing the Migrants’ Dead in Southern Africa: The Transcendental and the Mundane of a Migrant’s Last Journey Home
• Reason Beremauro (WISER), “If you are sick, go home.” Negotiating Dying and Death Among Zimbabwean Migrants in Johannesburg

3pm – 3.30pm        Coffee

3.30pm – 5.30pm    Religious Responses:  Clergy  (chair Rebekah Lee)

• Brian Koela (Muizenberg Community Church, Cape Town)
• Ishmael Gqamane (Muslim Information Centre and Masakhane Muslim Community, Cape Town)
• Olufunke Adeboye (Redeemed Christian Church of God, Lagos)

Friday 9 April

9am – 11am        Grief and Loss:  (chair Pamila Gupta)

• Joel Noret (Fonds de la Research Scientifique, Universite Libre de Bruxelles) Grief as Social Fact. Notes from Southern Benin
• Lauraine Vivian (Primary Health Care Directorate, University of Cape Town) and Andrew Argent (Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, Red Cross Children's Hospital), “We didn’t do anything wrong, we tried our best, but they just died…we tried, we really tried.”.  End-of-Life Decisions in the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU), Red Cross Children’s Hospital, Cape Town, South Africa
• Lali Mili (EDUCO Africa)

11am – 11.30am    Coffee

11.30am – 1pm        Gender and Embodied Knowledge:  (chair Rebekah Lee) 

• Mieke deGelder (Anthropology, University of Toronto), Arcane Knowledge as Gendered Knowledge: Living with Death in Tshwane, South Africa
• Zethu Matabeni (WISER), Notes on Violence and the Murder of Black Lesbians in South Africa
• Lauraine Vivian (Primary Health Care Directorate, UCT), Dropping the Pot - The Death of Abakhwetha

1pm – 2pm         Lunch  (for conference speakers only)

2pm – 4pm        Politics and Public Memory:  (chair Walima Kalusa)

• Joost Fontein (Social Anthropology, University of Edinburgh), Between Tortured Bodies and Resurfacing Bones: The Politics of the Dead in Zimbabwe
• Olufunke Adeboye (History and Strategic Studies, University of Lagos), From Intramural Sepulture to Public Cemeteries: The Dynamics of Mortuary Politics in Ibadan, 1853-1960
• Howard Phillips (Historical Studies, UCT), A Perspective on Explaining Mass Death in South Africa:  The ‘Spanish’ Flu Pandemic of 1918 in the Transkei
• Marja Hinfelaar (National Archives of Zambia) and Lawrence Michelo (Political Studies, University of Cape Town), “The Mwanawasa Legacy”: Politicising a President’s Death in Zambia

4pm – 5pm        Coffee

5pm – 7pm        Film Screening Event:  (chair Megan Vaughan)

‘Cemetery State’
Introduction and Question/Answer session with film director, Filip deBoeck (Institute for Anthropological Research in Africa, Catholic University of Leuven)

8pm    Conference Dinner:  (for conference speakers only) Lucky Bean Restaurant, 16 7th Street, Melville (011 4825572)
 

Saturday 10 April

9.30am – 10 am        Coffee

10am – 11am        Funeral Economies:  (chair Olufunke Adeboye)

• Fraser McNeill (Anthropology, London School of Economics), From Gogos to Gravediggers: Paying for Funerals and Reading Rumours in Post-Apartheid Venda
• Rebekah Lee (History, Goldsmiths College, University of London), Death ‘on the move’: Funerals, Entrepreneurs and the Rural-Urban Nexus in South Africa

11am - noon        Accidental Death:  (chair Joost Fontein)

• Webby Kalikiti (History, University of Zambia), Road Traffic Accidents and Sudden Death in Zambia: Nature, Causes and Explanations, 1980-2010
• Mark Lamont (Anthropology, Goldsmiths College, University of London), Accidents Have No Cure: Road Deaths and Material Witnessing in East Africa

noon            Closing Remarks and Discussion

• Filip deBoeck (Institute for Anthropological Research in Africa, Catholic University of Leuven) and Megan Vaughan (History, University of Cambridge)

The conference organisers gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Arts Humanities Research Council (AHRC) of the United Kingdom.