CfP: Igbo Fusions:
Past, Present and Futures,
London, 1-2 April 2016,
Deadline 31 December 2015
5th Annual International Igbo Conference
1-2 April 2016 – SOAS, University of London, UK
Deadline: 31 December 2015
The Annual Igbo Conference has carved out a unique space, serving as a bridge between the community and academia. In the last five years, the conference has created discussions and interrogations amongst contributors from all over the world and given rise to interactive sessions, lectures, paper presentations, master-classes and workshops, films, choral performances, traditional dances and masquerades.
The theme for the 5th Annual International Igbo Conference is Igbo Fusions: Past, Present and Futures. This conference will create a platform for discussions exploring how Igbo culture has been influenced by and influences other cultures. It seeks to complicate perceptions of ‘what is Igbo’ through examining the diversity amongst the Igbo at ‘home’, abroad and in digital spaces.
The Igbo people’s decentralised system of governance led to the development of politically autonomous communities. Within Igboland an individual’s identity was often rooted in their clan or village. The many cultural and linguistic variations amongst the Igbo have led to a series of debates centring on who is Igbo. The 20th Century saw an increase in the articulation of a pan-Igbo identity, but in post-Biafra Nigeria it also saw some members of Igbo speaking groups in the Niger Delta dispute their Igbo ethnic identification. This conference is interested in exploring how the Igbo identity is understood and constructed in different eras and locations. In exploring the various manifestations of ‘Igboness’, this conference intends to create a space for issues of contemporary and historical relevance. This includes historicising the fusion between the Igbo and their neighbours, examining Igbo heritage in the older Igbo Diaspora in the Americas and Europe, and engaging with contemporary examples of Igbo fusion and identity formations both in Nigeria and abroad.
We invite papers that examine a variety of aspects of Igbo fusions which include, but are not limited to:
– Igbo Fusion in Digital Spaces
– The Politics of Naming: Semantic Changes and Conceptual Shifts
– Transracial Fostering of Igbo Children in Britain
– Igbo Language Fusion: The Case of ‘Ingiligbo’ (English & Igbo)
– Fusion in Anglophone Igbo Literature and Igbo Language Literature(s)
– Igbo Diasporic Communities: Assimilation and/or Acculturation
– Cultural Continuums: the Igbo and their Neighbours
– Transnational Institutions and Practises
– Fusion in the Early Igbo Diaspora: the Americas, Sierra Leone and Liberia
– Globalisation and Igbo Identities
– Fusion in Rituals, Religious Practices and Belief Systems
– The Igbo Language: Variations of Dialect and the Politics of Standardisation
– Igbo Music and its Influences
– The Margins of Igbo Identities and the Politics of Identifying as Igbo
– Fusion in Igbo Performances: Past, Present and Future
– Changes to the Political, Social and Economic Structures in Igboland in the Postcolonial Era
– Home Town Associations: Constructing ‘Home’ when ‘Abroad’
– Images of Igboland in Nollywood
– Igbo Attire and its Influences
– Igbo Business/Trading and the Changing Position of Women
Organisers: Igbo Conference in association with Centre of African Studies, SOAS, University of London
The conference will be held in the Brunei Gallery Building, SOAS, University of London, April 1-2, 2016. Please send abstracts in an attached word file, and please do not use all capital letters when writing. Participants are welcome to present in English or Igbo, but if presenting in Igbo we ask that that an English Language translation is provided. Participants who require a British visa are encouraged to submit their abstracts as soon as possible.
Please email abstracts of up to 300 words including the paper title, your name, current position, institutional affiliation (where applicable), email address and phone number to info@Igboconference.com and le7@soas.ac.uk no later than 31st December 2015.
We also welcome panel submissions. Proposed panel submissions should be made by the chair, and must provide details of the panel’s theme in addition to the names of up to four panellists, abstracts of up to 300 words for each paper, and details of each panellists’ name, current position, institutional affiliation (where applicable), email address and phone number. This should be sent to info@Igboconference.com and le7@soas.ac.uk no later than 31st December 2015.