Sources, fields & contexts

This section focuses on the connections between sources, fields of study and the contexts of production and reception of historical research in African studies. It seeks to show how the collection and processing of sources during a research field is concretely carried out depending on the various production contexts and academic institutions in Africa or outside the continent.

Starting from a situated research perspective, the aim is to show how working with sources may reveal changing patterns of access and analysis. Considering the historical, historiographical and reflexive contexts of research data, historians are invited to question their relationship to the discipline taking into account the characteristics and expectations of the time, their status as a researcher (insider/outsider/partial insider), or more generally, the politics of memory, access to writings, censorship, valorization or rewriting of history with which they are confronted.

This section also invites historians of different generations and/or historians and researchers from other disciplines to engage in a dialogue and reflect on the transformations of access to sources at different times as well as on the methods of analysis of sources - common or of diverse nature - according to disciplinary affiliations and academic backgrounds.

While the focus is on history, this section is also opened to authors from disciplines other than history as well as to authors inside or outside academia, as long as they demonstrate an interest in presenting sources and explaining their context of production.  

The expected articles are aimed at a wider readership, hence the shorter and more accessible format (30,000 characters including spaces, or about 5,000 words, including notes and bibliography; accessible language; reduced footnotes).

Authors can submit contributions the section editors :  Daouda Gary-Tounkara, Muriel Gomez-Perez and Jonas Matheron. anais.angelo@univie.ac.at / daouda.gary.tounkara@gmail.com/ Muriel.Gomez-Perez@hst.ulaval.ca / jonas.matheron@gmail.com 

Persons in charge of the section : Daouda Gary-Tounkara, Muriel Gomez-Perez and Jonas Matheron