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Conference Programme: Creative methodologies

Room 100, Ground floor, Centre des Colloques, Campus Condorcet, Place du Front populaire, 93322 Aubervilliers cedex (Metro Front Populaire)


The participants of the conference

Creative Methodologies: Writing the stories of working women from popular classes in African urban milieux, 1920-1970

Preliminary program

Monday 8th of January 2024, 9:00 – 17:30

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

Coffee break

11:00 – 12:00  Mahassin Abdul Jalil, EHESS
Sudanese Women’s History through Biographies and Microhistory: Implicit Methodological Challenges

12:00 – 13:  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

Coffee break

16:45 – 17:30 Karin Pallaver, University of Bologna
ERC Research Project. Ayahs in Kenya: a Preliminary Exploration of Themes and Sources


Tuesday 9th of January, 9:00 – 18:00

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

Coffee break

11:15 – 12h15: 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)

15h15-16h15: 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
PhD ERC Research Project: Women’s Resistance and Informal Labour in Dar es Salaam, 1950-1985

Coffee break

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


Wednesday 10th of January, 9:00-18:00

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)

Coffee 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
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 Ababa and 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, and Tirsit Sahledengle, University of Addis Ababa
Discourses ‘From Within’ versus Discourses ‘About’? The Work of Ethiopian ‘Traditional’ Midwives in the Press and in their own Testimonies (1970s)

Coffee 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