Looking at science as a terrain of postcolonial interaction between Africa and Europe adds a vital dimension to the many commemorative and celebratory events related to the fiftieth anniversary of seventeen African countries.

The central question is if, how and to what extent scientists have been assessing their stances and interventions in connection with Africa in terms of decolonisation. The conference invites scholars to put their own positions to academic and public scrutiny and scrutinize the vicissitudes of science and scientists throughout the postcolonial period. This general question is not the licence for a navel-gazing retrospective but the starting point of an open-minded combination of historical reconstruction and reflexive prognosis on science as site of collaboration and distinction, antagonism and complicity between Africa and Europe. Without for that matter essentialising either the colonial vs. the postcolonial, science vs. 'non-science', or Africa vs. Europe, this conference is a transgressive as much as an interdisciplinary endeavour which addresses the overall theme in three different registers: theoretical, institutional and thematic. In the thematic register, the conference investigates the role of science in processes of subjectification and objectification that take place in the domains of heritage, conflict and advocacy...
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Looking at science as a terrain of postcolonial interaction between Africa and Europe, adds a vital dimension to the many commemorative and celebratory events related to the fiftieth anniversary of seventeen independent African countries.
Although scholars often play a large part in these events, as experts, eyewitnesses, activists, or otherwise, they rarely or marginally seize these occasions to put their own positions - the vicissitudes of science and scientists throughout the postcolonial period - to academic and public scrutiny (Ki-Zerbo 2005; Mkandawire 2005). One could object that such is perhaps easier done for the colonial period. After all, it is now widely acknowledged that scientific work - its practices and infrastructure as much as its insights and findings - in many different disciplines, ranging from the humanities and social sciences, to geography and the life sciences, were vital for the mise en valeur, the exploitation of human and natural resources, of the African colonies (Bonneuil 2000; Harrison 2005; Kuklick and Kohler 1996: 7-10; MacLeod 2001). But much the same can be said of the postcolonial period although it is clear that science and scientists now operate in knowledge/power configurations that differ considerably from the colonial ones and that have been variously identified as developmentalism, neoliberal governmentality, therapeutic domination, etc. (Bonneuil 2000; Cooper 2004; Mamdani 2008; Rottenburg 2009; Seth 2009)...
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• - Bozar, Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels
  
  
• - Central Africa Programme (Egmont, Royal Institute for International Relations), Brussels
  
  
• - Ghent Africa platform (GAP), UGent
  
  
• - Institut d'Anthropology Culturelle, ULB
  
  
• - Institute for Anthropological Research in Africa (IARA), KULeuven
  
  
• - Royal Museum for Central Africa, Tervuren
  
  

• - Karel Arnaut, Myriam Mertens, Marleen Temmerman & Annelies Verdoolaege (GAP, UGent)
  
  
• - Bambi Ceuppens, Hilde Keunen (Royal Museum for Central Africa, Tervuren)
  
  
• - Filip De Boeck (Institute for Anthropological Research in Africa, KULeuven)
  
  
• - Pierre De Maret (Centre d'Anthropologie Culturelle, Institut de Sociologie, ULB)
  
  
• - Sarah De Mul (Interuniversity Working Group on Congo, KULeuven)
  
  
• - Nicola Setari (Bozar, Brussels)
  
  
• - Koen Vlassenroot (Central Africa Programme (Egmont), Brussels & UGent)