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CODESRIA's 30th Anniversary Conference
December 8 - 11 2003

Call for Absracts
The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa
(CODESRIA) is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. It will be
recalled that the Council was established in 1973 out of the collective
will of African social researchers to create a viable forum in Africa
through which they could strive to transcend all barriers to knowledge
production and, in so doing, play a critical role in the democratic
development of the continent. As part of the series of events planned to
mark the anniversary, the Council is organising a major international
conference at its headquarters in Dakar, Senegal, from 08 to 11
December, 2003. The theme of the conference is:

Intellectuals, Nationalism and the Pan-African Ideal
The interconnection between knowledge and identity has been a
recurring theme in African social research and knowledge production.
Indeed, this interconnection loomed large in the founding principles that
informed the establishment of CODESRIA and other similar African
regional networks. The central question posed could be summarised as
follows: What kind of independent Africa should be built through the
collective efforts of the people and what role should intellectuals play in
this? It was a complex question which covered the entire spectrum of
the African experience, as defined historically and contemporaneously,
and it was clear from the outset that no easy, formulaic answers could
be proffered. However, engagement with such a question also
suggested the existence of a broad consensus that the basic principles
and goals that underpinned African nationalism and the pan-African
ideal were impeccable although the mechanisms and instruments for
their operationalisation into a strategy for democratic development were
open to negotiation and contestation.

The earliest generation of African scholars cut their teeth in the context
of the nationalist struggles for self-determination and independence,
struggles underpinned by a broad-based quest for an African
renaissance and the unity of African peoples. In the immediate
aftermath of independence, with the fire of nationalism and pan-
Africanism still burning strongly, intellectuals were called upon to
respond to the challenges of sustaining independence and making it
meaningful for the broader populace in the medium and long terms.
Whilst these challenges provided scholars with a clear historical context
for the definition of their identities and role, the record of the post-
independence nationalist period, including especially that of the
politicians who inherited state power, and the organisational framework
they adopted for the realisation of the dream of pan-Africanism, left a
great deal to be desired. Little wonder then that the scholarly
community's relationship with the nationalist and pan-Africanist projects
gradually became strained. Matters were not helped by the
crystallisation, in the post-independence period, of myriad political,
economic, and social problems that together resulted in direct
challenges to post-independence nation-statism by social movements
of the disenchanted and intellectuals sympathetic to their claims.

There is a considerable range of theoretical, methodological and
empirical questions which need to be revisited as part of our quest to
deepen our understanding of the knowledge and identity nexus in Africa
today. Fortunately, such an enterprise can draw on the rich output of
some of the key pillars of African nationalism and the pan-African ideal,
many of whom were intellectuals in their own right, in order to produce a
harvest of reflections and debate. Indeed, a re-reading of some of the
classical and canonical texts produced on nationalism and pan-
Africanism in the light of recent experience and challenges is a step
which is long overdue; so also is a re-thinking of the assumptions that
pervaded most of the literature on the origins, growth, decline and
revival of the nationalist and pan-Africanist projects. Furthermore, the
conference is expected to offer participants an opportunity to critique
the different variants of the nationalist and pan-Africanist historiography
that have been produced and the alternative historiographies offered by
Marxism, the dependency school, the neo-patrimonialist/rent-seeking
approach, neo-liberalism and more recent studies on the post-colony.
Similarly, landmark experiences that offered an impetus to the growth of
African nationalism and the pan-African movement at critical moments
in the history of the continent and its peoples such as the slave trade,
the so-called legitimate trade, colonialism, institutionalised racism on
the continent and in the Diaspora, neo-colonialism, and the Cold War
and its aftermath will also be considered in the conference.

From frameworks that are either decidedly celebratory or cautiously
critical to those which are content to dismiss outrightly or caricature the
entire nationalist project and the dream of African unity, a wide scope
exists for a serious, multidisciplinary discussion to be joined on the
interface of nationalism and pan-Africanism in the process of
knowledge production and identity formation. The practices of African
governments in their quest to give content and meaning to the
nationalist and pan-Africanist projects, as well as the consequences of
the economic, political, social, ideological and cultural choices they
made, also deserve to be explored. The efforts being deployed across
the continent to revive sub-regional cooperation and integration
projects, the transformation of the Organisation of African Unity into the
African Union amidst renewed calls for an African renaissance, the
intellectual challenges arising from the crises of the post-independence
nation-state system (including the resurgence of micro-nationalism,
xenophobia, and racism), the acceleration in the pace of globalisation
and current challenges to the international multilateral system under the
post-Cold War Pax Americana suggest the need for a bold re-thinking
and re-reading of the nationalist experience and the pan-African ideal.
Such an exercise is made all the more necessary by the concurrent and
simultaneous dialectic of micro-nationalism, nationalism, regionalism
and globalism which define the African world today and which are
forcing a serious reflection on the ways in which citizenship can be re-
conceptualised beyond the confines of the existing national-territorial
order. CODESRIA's 30th Anniversary Conference is proposed as a
forum for the facilitation of the retrospective and prospective reflection
that is required.

Scholars interested in participating in the conference are invited to send
in abstracts of their papers to the CODESRIA Secretariat by 31 August,
2003. The authors of abstracts selected will be notified by 15
September, 2003 and they will be expected to send in their full papers
by 15 November, 2003. All abstracts and full papers should be
addressed by post, E-mail or Fax to:
The Secretary,
CODESRIA 30th Anniversary Conference,
PO. Box 3304, Dakar, Senegal
Tel: +221-8259822/23 - Fax:+221-8241289
E-mail: [email protected]