Post by Onyango Oloo on Jul 20, 2015 18:31:18 GMT 3
Amidst the hustle and bustle, the frenzied frantic anticipation of the entire government and people of Kenya eager to welcome
President Obama's second coming, there is an enthralling academic seminar which serves as a counterpoint to the commercial, diplomatic and political overtones of the visit to our country by the world's most powerful man, who we claim as our own son.
The seminar, dubbed "Imagining Social Justice: Images of Obama, Culture and Human Rights in Kenya" ,will be held at the
British Eastern Africa Institute on Thursday, July 23, 2015 from 11 am to 12:30 pm.
Dr. Steve Ouma Akoth is currently the Executive Director of Pamoja Trust and a practicing anthropologist. He holds a PHD in social athropology from the University of the Western Cape in South Africa. He has extensive experience in conceptualizing, formulating, designing and implementing human rights and social justice pogrammes in civil society organizations in Eastern Africa for the last 15 years. Ouma’s interests in ethnography, urban studies, pedagogy of humanities, social life of human rights and discourse of modernity bridges his joint participation in the academy and civil society in Kenya. His most recent academic paper was on Rethinking Urban Modernity: Negotiation of Positions and Disciplinary Conversations in Contemporary Nairobi at the Conference on Building the City:Planning, Participation, and Practice in East Africa
Dr. Ouma who will be the main speaker will fashion his presentation on his ongoing Book Project : Meanings of Obama: Negotiating Cultural Democracy and the Era of Human Rights in Kenya.
According to Dr. Ouma, "this is an intellectual project that is much different from the current commoditization of Obama. This ethnographic project examines various moments of Obama in Kenya in the last four years. While it is deeply ethnographic, the project provides a reading of identity politics and crisis of nationhood in both contemporary and historical Kenya. Through the various chapters, I demonstrate the entanglement of notions of culture and identity in colonial identity as well as contemporary Kenya. I think that this project provides an opportunity for developing further scholarship on nationhood. While similar studies are being made by disciplines of political studies and philosophy, such work from an anthropology perspective remains scanty."
The discussant is
Hassan Omar, the Senator for Mombasa County.
The seminar will explore three interconnected aspects of culture, human rights and citizenship:
(a) how do forms of production of culture mediate what it
means to be a Kenyan in the contemporary era;
(b) how are such productions of culture in the context of claims of Obama’s belongingness in K’Ogelo connected with politics of belonging
and the concomitant dynamics of inclusion and exclusion, and
(c) what is the significance of human rights strategies for the reconfiguration and authentication of citizenship in
contemporary Kenya.
to get to the venue, please consult the map below:
RSVP:
Kamukam Ettyang
tomettyang@gmail.com
President Obama's second coming, there is an enthralling academic seminar which serves as a counterpoint to the commercial, diplomatic and political overtones of the visit to our country by the world's most powerful man, who we claim as our own son.
The seminar, dubbed "Imagining Social Justice: Images of Obama, Culture and Human Rights in Kenya" ,will be held at the
British Eastern Africa Institute on Thursday, July 23, 2015 from 11 am to 12:30 pm.
Dr. Steve Ouma Akoth is currently the Executive Director of Pamoja Trust and a practicing anthropologist. He holds a PHD in social athropology from the University of the Western Cape in South Africa. He has extensive experience in conceptualizing, formulating, designing and implementing human rights and social justice pogrammes in civil society organizations in Eastern Africa for the last 15 years. Ouma’s interests in ethnography, urban studies, pedagogy of humanities, social life of human rights and discourse of modernity bridges his joint participation in the academy and civil society in Kenya. His most recent academic paper was on Rethinking Urban Modernity: Negotiation of Positions and Disciplinary Conversations in Contemporary Nairobi at the Conference on Building the City:Planning, Participation, and Practice in East Africa
Dr. Ouma who will be the main speaker will fashion his presentation on his ongoing Book Project : Meanings of Obama: Negotiating Cultural Democracy and the Era of Human Rights in Kenya.
According to Dr. Ouma, "this is an intellectual project that is much different from the current commoditization of Obama. This ethnographic project examines various moments of Obama in Kenya in the last four years. While it is deeply ethnographic, the project provides a reading of identity politics and crisis of nationhood in both contemporary and historical Kenya. Through the various chapters, I demonstrate the entanglement of notions of culture and identity in colonial identity as well as contemporary Kenya. I think that this project provides an opportunity for developing further scholarship on nationhood. While similar studies are being made by disciplines of political studies and philosophy, such work from an anthropology perspective remains scanty."
The discussant is
Hassan Omar, the Senator for Mombasa County.
The seminar will explore three interconnected aspects of culture, human rights and citizenship:
(a) how do forms of production of culture mediate what it
means to be a Kenyan in the contemporary era;
(b) how are such productions of culture in the context of claims of Obama’s belongingness in K’Ogelo connected with politics of belonging
and the concomitant dynamics of inclusion and exclusion, and
(c) what is the significance of human rights strategies for the reconfiguration and authentication of citizenship in
contemporary Kenya.
to get to the venue, please consult the map below:
RSVP:
Kamukam Ettyang
tomettyang@gmail.com