Antonio Polo Monzo is currently a PhD student in Anthropology at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris. His doctoral thesis deals with the construction of political counter-discourse in contemporary Angolan music and artistic creation. He specifically focusses on the making of a new “angolanity” by young committed artists in Luanda. […]
Poverty and pandemic in South Africa Economists have begun to evaluate the economic consequences of Covid-19 already present in South Africa, and to analyse those that will be most likely in the near future. Although it is still early, in the midst of the crisis, to assess how the situation will actually evolve, some fear […]
We would like to draw your attention to this site, which brings together a wide range of helpful ressources, articles, and forums on Covid-19 in Africa: University World News An interesting contribution on the role of social sciences in solving the crisis can be found here.
How a People’s Science Helped End an Epidemic is the title of a recent book dedicated to the role played by social scientists in the fight against the last great epidemic in Africa. Leslie Bank, a professor of social anthropology at Walter Sisulu University (Mthatha, South Africa), supports the idea that social sciences are an important […]
Since the beginning of the epidemic, implementing lockdown and ‘social distancing’ seems to be a real challenge in the economic and social context of South African townships. The outright imitation of measures taken elsewhere (China, Korea, European countries…) raises insoluble problems in the country’s poorest neighbourhoods. Godfrey Maringira pleads for a different approach : more […]
« Do you also think of any optimistic scenario ? » Asked this very question in a meeting about Angola’s situation during the pandemic, Chloe Buire, a French geographer, offers some thoughts in her scientific blog, Luanda Micro Lab. As a specialist of Angolan urban society, and of Angolan citizens’ mobilisation and empowerment, she reflects on the tools available […]
Chloé Buire is a researcher at the CNRS (Centre national de la Recherche scientifique — the main French Research agency). She is a geographer and an urban anthropologist. Affiliated to IFAS-Research, she is based in Angola and her research themes revolve around Angolan civil society’s mobilization and empowerment. She is currently living in downtown Luanda. A lockdown has been implemented in Angola at the end […]
Thomas Beard is a Master of Science candidate in the Department of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Sciences (University of the Witwatersrand) and a specialist of geoarchaeology. His research themes focus on fabric and spatial analysis. He shares his reflections on the lockdown in South Africa from Johannesburg. Just before the lockdown, the excavation team was […]
The untold struggles of foreign nationals working in private security companies during the nationwide lockdown in South Africa Dostin Lakika Dostin Lakika is a Research Associate at the African Centre for Migration & Society (ACMS), Wits University, and at the French Institute of South Africa (IFAS-Research). Since the outbreak of coronavirus many countries around the […]
Ndipiwe Mkuzo is a Master’s Degree candidate and a research intern at the Human Sciences Research Council. As an anthropologist and a political scientist, he is currently working on cultural mobilization and empowerment in Khayelitsha, Delft and Langa, in the Cape Flats. He shares his reflections on the lockdown in South Africa from Cape Town. […]
