Cuba and Africa 1959 -1994: writing an alternative Atlantic history

CUBA AND AFRICA 1959–1994: WRITING AN ALTERNATIVE ATLANTIC HISTORY

Coordinated by Professor Robert van Niekerk, Chair of Public Governance, Wits School of Governance

Tuesday 16 January  1.00 pm  COURSE FEES R110; Staff and students R55

Professor Robert van Niekerk will lead discussion of the book Cuba and Africa 1959–1994: Writing an Alternative Atlantic History with editors Giulia Bonacci, Adrien Delmas, Kali Argyriadis and Koni Benson (UWC Department of History). The book delves into the long history of Atlantic solidarity between and Africa in the struggle for African independence from colonial powers. The historical experience and the legacies documented in this book speak to the major ideologies that shaped the colonial and postcolonial world, including internationalism, developmentalism and South–South cooperation.

TO BOOK:

https://www.webtickets.co.za/performance.aspx?itemid=1534476372

Robert Van Niekerk served as a youth organiser and student activist in the 1980's. He holds a BA (UCT) and a Masters in Social Policy (LSE). He was a senior researcher in the Education Policy Unit at UWC in the 1990’s. At the University of Oxford he co-established the Centre for the Analysis of SA Social Policy. In 2011, he was the Director of the Institute of Social and Economic Research at Rhodes University. Currently he is Professor and Chair of Public Governance and Social Policy at the Wits School of Governance. He co-leads an on-going academic project on 'Cultures of Social Solidarity and Social Emancipation: Reflecting on Cuba in Southern Africa.”

Dr Koni Benson is a historian, organizer and educator. She is a lecturer in the Dept of History at UWC. Her research focuses on collective interventions in histories of contested development and the mobilization, demobilization and remobilization of struggle history in southern Africa’s past and present. She is a co-convenor of Revolutionary Papers, a transnational research collaboration. She is part of Know Your Continent (KYC), an African history popular education programme. She has authored numerous books.

Dr. Adrien Delmas is the director of Jacques Berque Center for Human and Social Sciences (Rabat). A historian and archeologist, he is associate researcher at the Institute of African Worlds (CNRS, France) and was director of the French Institute in South Africa from 2012 to 2016. He is at present the main coordinator of the Globafrica ANR Program, Reconnect Africa, XIth-XVIIth centuries.XIe-XVIIe siècles.