5th Pécs African Studies Conference: Africa’s Changing International Relations and Realities – an international conference co-organised by the Jagiellonian Research Center for African Studies

The 5th Pécs African Studies Conference: Africa’s Changing International Relations and Realities, an international  scientific conference organised by the Africa Research Centre of the Department of Political Studies at the University of Pécs in cooperation with the Metropolitan State University Denver, the Jagiellonian Research Center for African Studies, the Centre of African Studies at the University of West Bohemia, and the Polish Centre for African Studies, took place on 24^th-26^th May 2018 in Pécs (Hungary).

The conference was interdisciplinary, and the topics were focused on an analysis of Africa’s place and role in international politics and the global economy at the beginning of the 21^st century. During the conference, the organisers aimed to form a space in which various research perspectives (both on the macro and micro scale) could be presented, useful in the analysis of the mutual interactions between various entities (countries, international organisations, institutions) present on the African continent. Some of the key research questions investigated in the conference papers and discussions were linked to the issue of African “agency” and the way in which it could be decisive in the choice of the path of development most sought after by African states.

Prof.  Göran Hydén was the conference’s special guest – a renowned political scientist and Africanist, as well as a long-time lecturer at the University of Florida. The Jagiellonian University was represented by the Head of the Jagiellonian Research Center for African Studies, Prof. Robert Kłosowicz and the young researchers, Dr Joanna Mormul (the Jagiellonian University Institute of Political Science and International Relations and the Jagiellonian Reserach Center for African Studies) and Dr Jakub Kościółek (the Jagiellonian University Institute of Intercultural Studies). The conference was also attended by Africanists from the Polish Centre of African Studies: Prof. Dominik Kopiński, Ph.D. and Wojciech Tycholiz, M.A.

The conference ended with a political and academic symposium on the political approach toward Africa and on the state of African studies in Central Europe (Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary), organised within the framework of the official programme of the Hungarian presidency of the Visegrad Group (V4) in cooperation with the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Representatives of departments dealing with the African region within the ministries of foreign affairs of all the Visegrad group countries participated in the symposium, as did members of African studies research centres from Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary. A historical overview of the development of Polish African studies and the challenges it faces were presented by Prof. Dominik Kopiński, Ph.D. from the Polish Centre of African Research. In turn, the Heaf of the Jagiellonian Research Center for African Studies, Prof. Robert Kłosowicz, presented the Cracovian African studies traditions and the beginnings of the development of the Jagiellonian Research Centre for African Studies.

The conference events also included culture and entertainment. The participants could listen to some African drummers, become acquainted with traditional dances from West Africa, and have some fun dancing to the rhythms of African music as selected and played by DJ Director, a role performed during the last evening of the conference by the main organiser and the event’s spiritus movens, Prof. István Tarrósy, who normally functions as the director of the Africa Research Centre of the University of Pécs.

Program konferencji