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Creative Methodologies: Writing the stories of working women from popular classes in African urban milieux, 1920 – 1970 | January 2024


IMAF (Institut des Mondes Africains), in partnership with the European Research Council, Women at work and the CNRS, is organizing the Creative Methodologies conference, which marks the beginning of the ERC WomatWork.

The conference will take place at Campus Condorcet Paris-Aubervilliers from 8 to 10 January 2024.

Zoom link for the three days:

https://cnrs.zoom.us/j/96456641290…

passcode: 1iM7zc


The programm of the conference:

Day 1. Monday, 8th January 2024

9:00 – 9:45  Welcome and presentation of the project

9:45 – 10:45   Noor Nieftagodien, University of Witwatersrand

South Africa, Social History and the Recovery of Women’s Experiences in History

Break

11:00 – 12:00  Mahassin Abdel Galil, EHESS, Paris

Sudanese Women’s History through Biographies and Microhistory: Implicit Methodological Challenges

12:00 – 13:00  Akosua Darkwah, University of Ghana

The River of Life as an Interview Method

Lunch (IMAF, Bâtiment de recherches sud, 3rd floor, room n. 3.122)

14:30 – 15:30  Danielle Van den Heuvel, University of Amsterdam

What can the Early Modern do for You? Uncovering Ephemeral Activities on Everyday City Life using the Snapshot Method

15:30 – 16:30  Darren Newbury, University of Brighton

Historical Photographs and Photographic Histories: Methodological Reflections on Research in Photographic Archives of Africa

Break

16:45 – 17:30  Karin Pallaver, University of Bologna

ERC Research Project: Ayahs in Kenya: a Preliminary Exploration of Themes and Sources

Day 2. Tuesday, 9th January 2024

9:00 – 10:00  Felix Meier zu Selhausen, Utrecht University

Gender Inequality and urban Elite Formation: New Insights from Parish Registers in British Colonial Africa

10:00 – 11:00   Filipa Ribeiro da Silva, International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam

Searching for African Women’s Urban Occupations in Colonial Censuses: Preliminary Reflections and Comparisons

Break

11:15 – 12:15  Tim Gibbs, University of Paris Nanterre

The Widows of Warwick Junction Pavement Markets (Durban, South Africa): Studying Commercial Networks in a Time of Crisis

12:15 – 13:00   Domenico Cristofaro, University of Bologna

ERC Research Project: Creative Mobilities: Introductory Thoughts on Migration, Infrastructure Development and Market Traders in Colonial Northern Ghana

Lunch (IMAF, Bâtiment de recherches sud, 3rd floor, room n. 3.122)

14:30 – 15:30  Salvatory Nyanto, University of Dar es Salaam

Women, Brewing and Urban Professionalism in Twentieth-Century Tabora, Western Tanzania, 1930-1970

15:30 – 16:15  Alma Simba, EHESS, Paris

PhD ERC Research Project: Women’s Resistance and Informal Labour in Dar es Salaam, 1950-1985

Break

16:30 – 17:15  Daniel Worku Kebede, EHESS, Paris

PhD ERC Research Project: A History of Women in the Informal Sectors in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (1886 -1991): the Case of Weavers and Potters

17:15 – 18:00  Juliet Tiwaah Adu Boahen, EHESS, Paris

PhD ERC Research Project: Wayside Female Dressmakers: A Historical Analysis of Cultural, Economic and Social Impacts of Dressmaking in the Gold Coast and Ghana, 1919-1970

Day 3. Wednesday, 10th January 2024

9:00 – 10:00  Emma Hunter, University of Edinburgh

Swahili Language Newspapers and the History of Urban Working Women in Mid-twentieth-century Tanzania

10:00 – 11:00   Elara Bertho, Laboratoire Afriques dans le Monde, Bordeaux

Can Literature Rescue History? Paradoxes in Subalterns’ Voices (Guinea, 1970s)

Break

11:15 – 12:15  Heather Sharkey, University of Pennsylvania

The Guide to Modern Cooking’: Tracing the History of Sudanese Women’s Domestic Labor Through a Home Economics Textbook

12:15 – 13:00  Mariam Sharif, EHESS, Paris

“PhD Research Project: The History of Nursing: Education, Practices and Political Participation in Sudan from 1899-1970s”

Lunch (IMAF, Bâtiment de recherches sud, 3rd floor, room n. 3.023)

14:30 – 15:30  Tirsit Sahledengle, University of Addis Ababaand Meron Zeleke, University of Addis Ababa

Understanding the History of Female Employment in the Textile Industry in Ethiopia; the Value of Anthropological Methods

15:30 – 16:15  Pierre Guidi, IRD, Paris and Tirsit Sahledengle, University of Addis Ababa 

ERC Research Project: Discourses ‘From Within’ versus Discourses ‘About’? The Work of Ethiopian ‘Traditional’ Midwives in the Press and in their Own Testimonies (1970s)

Break

16:30 – 17:15  Anne Hugon, University of Paris 1

“ERC Research Project: Documenting the History of Birth Attendants versus Documenting the History of Registered Midwives in the Gold Coast/Ghana: some Preliminary Reflections on Sources”

17:15 – 18:00  Elena Vezzadini, Institut des Mondes Africains, Paris

ERC Research Project: Only Shadows of Traces: Studying Hairdressers and Estheticians in Colonial and Early Colonial Sudan


OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
IFRA Nairobi (December 7, 2023). Creative Methodologies: Writing the stories of working women from popular classes in African urban milieux, 1920 – 1970 | January 2024. IFRA Nairobi. Retrieved April 12, 2026 from https://doi.org/10.58079/pw47