The Past in the Present

The Past in the Present: History, Memory and Power in Africa (10 ects)

Lecturer: Niels Kastfelt

Throughout the African continent we experience a dramatic resurgence of history and memory as a powerful political resource. The past is mobilized as a source of creating identities or legitimating power – be it at the level of individuals, a community, an ethnic group, or a nation. The course will discuss this development through selected case-studies illustrating general themes such as:

• Notions of memory, social memory and ‘sites of memory’
• Memories of colonialism and their role in post-colonial politics (Congo, Madagascar)
• Memory as a means of post-conflict reconstruction (post-apartheid South Africa)
• The rise of ‘patriotic history’ (Mugabe’s Zimbabwe)
• Who belongs to the nation? Who is a citizen?
  The definition of rights and citizenship on the basis of ideas of origin and ‘autochtony’ (the ‘settler/indigene’ debate, the inclusion or exclusion of particular ethnic or national groups, social exclusion and xenophobia)
• Colonialism and the Atlantic Slave Trade as history and memory, and the debate about slave trade reparations to Africa
• History and ethnic identity
• History and community politics.