African Studies Association

The African Studies Association (ASA) is a US-based association of scholars, students, practitioners, and institutions with an interest in the continent of Africa. Founded in 1957, the ASA is the leading organization of African Studies in North America, with a global membership of approximately 2000.^[1] The association's headquarters are at Rutgers University in New Jersey. The ASA holds annual conferences^[2] and virtual events for its members year-round.

As a result of racial and political disputes over exclusion from leadership positions of black academics and ASA leaders' ties with the US intelligence and military in the mid-twentieth century, the ASA split in 1968, when the Black Caucus of the ASA, led by John Henrik Clarke, founded the African Heritage Studies Association (AHSA).^[3]^[4]^[5]

The ASA is different from the African Studies Association of Africa (ASAA), which was founded at the University of Cape Town in October 1-2, 2012.^[6]

Awards given by ASA

ASA Best Book Prize

The ASA Book Prize is given annually for the best scholarly work (including translations) on Africa published in English in the previous year and distributed in the United States.^[7] The award was originally named after Melville Herskovits, one of the founders of the ASA. The name was changed in 2019 as the ASA considered how to decolonize the discipline of African studies.^[8]

Distinguished Africanist Award

Beginning in 1984, the association has awarded the Distinguished Africanist Award.^[9] In 2000, 2001, 2022, and 2023 two awards were given. Winners include:

Bethwell Ogot Book Prize

The Bethwell A. Ogot Book Prize of the African Studies Association is awarded annually at the ASA Annual Meeting to the author of the best book on East African Studies published in the previous calendar year. Initiated in 2012, the award was made possible by a generous bequest from the estate of the late Professor Kennell Jackson, the award honors the eminent historian, Professor Bethwell A. Ogot.^[13]

Winners of this award are:

2012 Andrew Ivaska, Cultured States: Youth, Gender, and Modern Style in 1960s Dar es Salaam
2013 James R. Brennan, Taifa: Making Nation and Race in Urban Tanzania
2014 Shane Doyle, Before HIV: Sexuality, Fertility and Mortality in East Africa 1900–1980
2015 J.J. Carney, Rwanda Before the Genocide: Catholic Politics and Ethnic Discourse in the Late Colonial Era
2016 Elena Vezzadini, Lost Nationalism Revolution, Memory and Anti-colonial Resistance in Sudan
2017 Bert Ingelaere, Inside Rwanda's Gacaca Courts: Seeking Justice after Genocide
2018 Getnet Bekele, Ploughing New Ground: Food, Farming, and Environmental Change in Ethiopia
2019 Laura Fair, Reel Pleasures: Cinema Audiences and Entrepreneurs in Twentieth-Century Urban Tanzania
2020 Elizabeth Giorgis, Modernist Art in Ethiopia
2021 Mai Hassan, Regime Threats and State Solutions: Bureaucratic Loyalty and Embeddedness in Kenya
2022 David L. Schoenbrun, The Names of the Python: Belonging in East Africa, 900 to 1930^[14]
2023 Claire L. Wendland, Partial Stories: Maternal Death from Six Angles^[12]

Graduate Student Paper Prize

In 2001, the ASA Board of Directors established an annual prize for the best graduate student paper. The prize is awarded at the Annual Meeting for an essay presented at the previous year's Annual Meeting. This prize highlights exceptional scholarship produced by emerging scholars in any African studies related discipline.^[15]

Winners of this award are:

2002 – Benjamin Lawrance, “Le Revolte des Femmes: Economic Upheaval and the Gender of Political Authority in Lome, Togo, 1931-33”
2003 – Staffan Lindberg, “The ‘Democraticness’ of Multiparty Elections: Participation, Competition, and Legitimacy in Africa”
2004 – Kristin E. Cheney, “Village Life is Better than Town Life’: identity, migration and development in the Lives of Ugandan child citizens”
2005 – Abena Dove Osseo-Asare, “’Dangerous Properties’: Poisoned Arrows and the Case of Strophanthus hispidus in Colonial Gold Coast, 1885 – 1922″
2006 – Séverine Autesserre, “Local Violence, National Peace? Local Dynamics of Violence during the Transition in the Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo”
2007 – Habtamu Mengistie Tegegne, “Revisiting Land Tenure in Eighteenth Century Gondärine Ethiopia: Zéga and the Land Charter of Däbrä-Sehay Qwesqwam Church”
2008 – Kristin D. Phillips, “Consuming the State: Hunger, Healing, and Citizenship in Rural Tanzania”
2009 – Bert Ingelaere, “Peasants, Power, and Ethnicity: Centre and Periphery in the Knowledge Construction in/on Post-Genocide Rwanda”
2010 – Laura Weinstein, “The Politics of Government Expenditures in Tanzania: 1999-2007”
2011 – Noel Twagiramungu, “The Anatomy of Leadership: A view-from-within Post-genocide Rwanda”
2013 – Jamie Miller, “Yes, Minister: Reassessing South Africa's Intervention in the Angolan Civil War”
2014 – Catherine Porter, “Bound and Unbound Identities: The Reconstruction of Katanga's Nationhood Struggle”
2015 – Kathleen Klaus, “Contentious Land Claims and the Non-Escalation of Violence: Evidence from Kenya's Coast Region
2016 – Moritz Nagel, “Precolonial Segmentation Revisited: Initiation Societies, Talking Drums and the Ngondo Festival in the Cameroons”
2017 – Amanda B. Edgell, “Vying for the ‘Man's Seat’ – Constituency Magnitude and Mainstream Female Candidature for Non-Quota Seats in Uganda and Kenya”
2018 – Shaonan Liu, “Symbol of Wealth and Prestige: A Social History of Chinese-made Enamelware in Northern Nigeria”
2019 – Victoria Mary Gorham, “Displaying the Nation: Museums and Nation-Building in Tanzania and Kenya”
2020 – Allen Xiao, “Lagos in Life: Placing Cities in Lived Experiences”
2021 – Justin Haruyama, “Shortcut English: A Pidgin Language and Symbolic Power at a Chinese-operated Mine in Zambia.”

Conover-Porter Award for Africana Bibliography or Reference Work, 1980 - 2018

The Conover-Porter Award is a biannual prize presented during 1980 - 2018 by the Africana Librarians Council of the African Studies Association (US) to reward outstanding achievement in Africana bibliography and reference tools. It honors two pioneers in African Studies bibliography, Helen F. Conover, of the Library of Congress, and Dorothy B. Porter, of Howard University.^[16] Latest and first awards:

2018 – co-winners Historical dictionary of women in sub-saharan Africa by Kathleen Sheldon. 2nd ed. Rowman & Littlefield, 2016, and the project Dictionary of African Christian biography (DACB) by Jonathan Bonk, project director Overseas Ministries Study Center; Center for Global Christianity and Mission, Boston University.
1980 – The United States and Africa: guide to U.S. official documents and government-sponsored publications on Africa, 1785-1975, compiled by Julian W. Witherell. Washington: General Reference and Bibliography Division, Reader Services Dept., Library of Congress, [1978].

Presidents of ASA

Presidents of the ASA are elected annually by the membership. They include:^[17]

1957–1958 Melville Herskovits, Northwestern University
1958 Gwendolen M. Carter, Smith College^[18]
1959 William O. Brown, Boston University
1960 Cornelius W. deKiewiet
1961 William O. Jones, Stanford University
1962 Vernon McKay, Johns Hopkins University
1963 E. Franklin Frazier, Howard University^[19]
1963 James Smoot Coleman, University of California, Los Angeles
1963 Hans Wolff, Michigan State University
1964 Paul J. Bohannan, Northwestern University
1965 Joseph H. Greenberg, Stanford University
1966 Rupert Emerson, Harvard University
1967 William A. Hance, Columbia University
1968 James Duffy, Brandeis University
1969 Benjamin E. Thomas, University of California
1970 L. Gray Cowan, Columbia University
1971 Philip D. Curtin, University of Wisconsin
1972 Carl G. Rosberg, University of California, Berkeley
1973 Immanuel Wallerstein, McGill University
1974 Absolom Vilakazi, The American University
1975 John Marcum, University of California, Santa Cruz
1976 Victor Uchendu, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign
1977 Edris Makward, University of Wisconsin–Madison
1978 J. Gus Liebenow, Indiana University
1979 Ali Mazrui, University of Michigan
1980 Peter Gutkind, McGill University
1981 Norman Bennett, Boston University
1982 Richard Sklar, University of California, Los Angeles
1983 M. Crawford Young, University of Wisconsin–Madison
1984 Laura Bohannan, University of Illinois at Chicago Circle
1985 Robert J. Cummings, Howard University
1986 Gerald J. Bender, University of Southern California
1987 Aidan Southall, University of Wisconsin–Madison
1988 Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja, Howard University
1989 Simon Ottenberg, University of Washington
1990 Ann Seidman, Clark University
1991 Martin A. Klein, University of Toronto
1992 Edmond J. Keller, University of California, Los Angeles
1993 David Robinson, Michigan State University
1994 Edward A. Alpers, University of California, Los Angeles
1995 Goran Hyden, University of Florida
1996 Iris Berger, State University of New York at Albany
1997 Gwendolyn Mikell, Georgetown University
1998 Sandra Greene, Cornell University
1999 David Wiley, Michigan State University
2000 Lansine Kaba, University of Illinois
2001 Catharine Newbury, University of North Carolina
2002 Allen Isaacman, University of Minnesota
2003 Beverly Grier, Clark University
2004 Sandra T. Barnes, University of Pennsylvania
2005 Bruce J. Berman, Queen's University
2006 Joseph C. Miller, University of Virginia
2007 Pearl T. Robinson, Tufts University
2008 Aliko Songolo, University of Wisconsin–Madison
2009 Paul Tiyambe Zeleza, Loyola Marymount University
2012 Aili M. Tripp, University of Wisconsin–Madison
2013 Abdi Samatar, University of Minnesota
2014 James A. Pritchett, Michigan State University
2015 Toyin Falola, University of Texas, Austin
2016 Dorothy Hodgson, Rutgers University
2017 Anne Pitcher, University of Michigan
2018 Jean Allman, Washington University in St. Louis
2019 Maria Grosz-Ngaté, Indiana University
2020 Ato Quayson, Stanford University
2021 Carolyn A. Brown, Rutgers University^[20]
2022 Ousseina D. Alidou, Rutgers University^[20]
2023 Adérónké Adésolá Adésànyà, James Madison University^[21]
2024 Gretchen Bauer, University of Delaware

Publications

Publications include History in Africa: A Journal of Method, published annually and African Studies Review, published quarterly. The Association publishes a biannual newsletter ASA News for its members, and runs a news blog.

African Heritage Studies Association

The African Heritage Studies Association was originally an offshoot of the African Studies Association,^[3]^[22] and was founded in 1968 by the ASA's Black Caucus and led by John Henrik Clarke.^[4]^[23]^[24]

Notes

^ "About the ASA".
^ "Annual Meeting". African Studies Association Portal – ASA – ASA. Retrieved 2022-09-14.
^ a b "Supporting exploration, education and preservation". ahsa50.org. African Heritage Studies Association. 2022. Retrieved 7 January 2023. The African Heritage Studies Association (AHSA) was founded in 1969 as an association of scholars of African descent, dedicated to the exploration, preservation, and academic presentation of the heritage of African people on the ancestral soil of Africa and in the diaspora.
^ a b Eric Kofi Acree. "John Henrik Clarke: Historian, Scholar, and Teacher". Africana Library, Cornell University. Archived from the original on 31 May 2009. Retrieved 2009-05-16.
^ Wiley, David (2013). "Militarizing Africa and African Studies and the U.S. Africanist Response". African Studies Review. 55 (2): 147–161. doi:10.1353/arw.2012.0041. ISSN 0002-0206.
^ "African Studies Association of Africa - ASAA - About ASAA". as-aa.org. Retrieved 2023-01-07.
^ "ASA Best Book Prize". africanstudies.org. Archived from the original on 16 May 2022. Retrieved 24 March 2022.
^ "ASA 2018 Presidential Lecture | Ghostarchive". ghostarchive.org. Retrieved 2022-12-24.
^ "Distinguished Africanist Award". African Studies Association. Retrieved 23 March 2022.
^ The award to Senghor was not without controversy. Bensaid, Alexandra and Whitehead, Andrew (1995) "Literature: Award to Senghor Triggers Debate" IPS-Inter Press Service, 18 April 1995, accessed via the commercial service Lexis/Nexis, 30 December 2008
^ "Brenda Randolph Receives the Distinguished Africanist Award". Howard University. Retrieved 23 November 2022.
^ a b c "2023 ASA Award Winners". African Studies Association (ASA). Retrieved 1 January 2024.
^ "Bethwell A. Ogot Book Prize". African Studies Association. Retrieved 24 March 2022.
^ U of Wisconsin Press [@UWiscPress] (November 21, 2022). "Congratulations to David Schoenbrun" (Tweet). Retweeted by @ASANewsOnline – via Twitter.
^ "Graduate Student Paper Prize".
^ "ALC : Africana Librarians Council: ALC Conover Porter Award : Nominations & Winners, 1980-present". guides.library.upenn.edu. Penn Libraries. University of Pennsylvania. April 22, 2021. Retrieved 16 November 2023.
^ "Past Presidents of the ASA".
^ Elected ex-officio.
^ Died before taking office.
^ a b "ASA Board of Directors". African Studies Association. Archived from the original on 24 Dec 2022. Retrieved 24 Dec 2022.
^ "ASA Board of Directors". African Studies Association. Retrieved 9 July 2023.
^ "Our Vision".
^ Diamond, Sara (2001). "African Heritage Studies Association". In Nina Mjagkij (ed.). Organizing Black America: an encyclopedia of African American associations. Taylor & Francis. pp. 16–17. ISBN 0-8153-2309-3. Retrieved 2009-06-10.
^ Martin, William G.; West, Michael Oliver (1999). Out of one, many Africas: reconstructing the study and meaning of Africa. University of Illinois Press. pp. 99–106. ISBN 0-252-06780-0. Retrieved 2009-06-27.

External links

Official website