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Faculty Seminar hosts Emery Kalema, Assistant Professor of History, The Africa Institute who will share his research titled, “Space, Mobility, and Displacement: The Mulele ‘Rebellion’ in Postcolonial Congo” on April 12, 2023 (12:00 noon – 02:00 pm) at The Africa Institute Library.
Professor Kalema’s seminar has a two-fold objective: firstly to showcase the relationship between the meaning of space, control over mobility, and the resulting displacement in the context of the dramatic Mulele rebellion that took place in the Kwilu region in the Western part of the Congo, from 1963 to 1968. While the second goal is closely intertwined with the first, is to show how suffering becomes deeply embedded within a (violent) space through the forms and structuring of the continual movement of people within that space.
Drawing on extensive oral interviews, as well as an archive of materials created during and shortly after the rebellion, Professor Kalema argues that violent conflicts, by their very nature, always shatter the mental, temporal and spatial frameworks through which people make sense of their lives. When conflicts broke out in the Congo, and were accompanied by violence, terror, and actual physical movement, they ruptured the previous logic of daily life that people used to lean on to give meaning to their existence. This affected not only physical bodies but also the relationship of the self to the environment. To grasp the meaning of the suffering produced in this context and its inscription in the imaginary of people, requires mobilising a variety of approaches.
Emery Kalema holds a Ph.D. in History from the University of the Witwatersrand. He was a Postdoctoral Fellow at both the Institut de Sociologie at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (2021-2022) and the South African Research Chair in Historical Trauma and Transformation at Stellenbosch University (2017-2020). In addition, he was a Summer Program in Social Science Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton (2018-2019) and the winner of the competition for the inaugural Center for the Study of Africa and the African Diaspora (CSAAD) Research Fellowship at New York University (Fall 2019). Kalema is the recipient of the 2021 Central African Studies Association (CASA) Essay Prize for the Best Published Article by a Junior Scholar.
The seminar will be moderated by Amy Niang, Associate Professor of Political Science, The Africa Institute.
Through these lectures and workshops, The Africa Institute reaffirms its mission as a center for the study and research of Africa and its diaspora, and its commitment to the training of a new generation of critical thinkers in African and African Diaspora studies.
The seminar will be in English.
The session is free and open to the public. Registration is mandatory, Click here to book your place.
Faculty Seminar hosts Emery Kalema, Assistant Professor of History, The Africa Institute who will share his research titled, “Space, Mobility, and Displacement: The Mulele ‘Rebellion’ in Postcolonial Congo” on April 12, 2023 (12:00 noon – 02:00 pm) at The Africa Institute Library.
Faculty Seminar hosts Emery Kalema, Assistant Professor of History, The Africa Institute who will share his research titled, “Space, Mobility, and Displacement: The Mulele ‘Rebellion’ in Postcolonial Congo” on April 12, 2023 (12:00 noon – 02:00 pm) at The Africa Institute Library.
Professor Kalema’s seminar has a two-fold objective: firstly to showcase the relationship between the meaning of space, control over mobility, and the resulting displacement in the context of the dramatic Mulele rebellion that took place in the Kwilu region in the Western part of the Congo, from 1963 to 1968. While the second goal is closely intertwined with the first, is to show how suffering becomes deeply embedded within a (violent) space through the forms and structuring of the continual movement of people within that space.
Drawing on extensive oral interviews, as well as an archive of materials created during and shortly after the rebellion, Professor Kalema argues that violent conflicts, by their very nature, always shatter the mental, temporal and spatial frameworks through which people make sense of their lives. When conflicts broke out in the Congo, and were accompanied by violence, terror, and actual physical movement, they ruptured the previous logic of daily life that people used to lean on to give meaning to their existence. This affected not only physical bodies but also the relationship of the self to the environment. To grasp the meaning of the suffering produced in this context and its inscription in the imaginary of people, requires mobilising a variety of approaches.
Emery Kalema holds a Ph.D. in History from the University of the Witwatersrand. He was a Postdoctoral Fellow at both the Institut de Sociologie at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (2021-2022) and the South African Research Chair in Historical Trauma and Transformation at Stellenbosch University (2017-2020). In addition, he was a Summer Program in Social Science Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton (2018-2019) and the winner of the competition for the inaugural Center for the Study of Africa and the African Diaspora (CSAAD) Research Fellowship at New York University (Fall 2019). Kalema is the recipient of the 2021 Central African Studies Association (CASA) Essay Prize for the Best Published Article by a Junior Scholar.
The seminar will be moderated by Amy Niang, Associate Professor of Political Science, The Africa Institute.
Through these lectures and workshops, The Africa Institute reaffirms its mission as a center for the study and research of Africa and its diaspora, and its commitment to the training of a new generation of critical thinkers in African and African Diaspora studies.
The seminar will be in English.
The session is free and open to the public. Registration is mandatory, Click here to book your place.
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