The Bootcamp is targeted at Early Career Academics and is a training and mentorship platform tailored to the changing theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of African economic history in the 21st century. The inaugural bootcamp titled Money and Monetary Institutions in Africa, places money at the centre of economic and social dynamics on the continent. Money itself has manifested in different forms and shapes in the history of the African continent and of humanity at large. The definitions of “what is money” in its different shapes changed over time, according to the hegemonic discourse that produced them, from “commodity money”, to “fiat money”, to “mobile money” and cryptocurrencies. Looking at the actors that produced these definitions as well as at those involved in the management of monetary circulation at national and international levels also represents a useful vantage point for the study of the impact of monetary policies, as well as of the local practices that challenged or took advantage of those policies over time. This call for papers is for those young academics interested in contributing to unpacking the changing uses of money and the evolving roles of monetary institutions and their impact in Africa.
The organizers are accepting complete and semi-complete draft papers in any of the following themes:
i. Theories of money, monetary practices, and the role of money in Africa.
ii. State and non-state monetary institutions in Africa.
iii. Transregional and trans-imperial monetary circulation.
iv. The construction and impact of monetary policies.
v. Indigenous credit institutions and the building of formal banking institutions in Africa. vi. Challenges of institutional money management and control: smuggling, hoarding and demonetisation of currencies.
vii. Money and the transformation of labour regimes. Eligibility Criteria and Process
The bootcamp will be limited to a group of 12 early career scholars – MA holders, PhD candidates/students, and PhD holders within three years of obtaining their PhD. Eligible applicants should have less than three academic publications in accredited journals or edited collections, and they should not have published a monograph by the time of their application. The participation to the bootcamp is open to non-historians, provided that the proposed paper is coherent with the general theme of the Bootcamp and it complies with historical methods. Participants must be based in institutions on the African continent.
At the end of the bootcamp each early career scholar will have a paper ready for submission for a Special Issue of the Southern Journal for Contemporary History, with Drs Geraldine Sibanda and Alessandro De Cola as the Issue’s guest editors. Mentorship at this year’s Bootcamp will be provided by Professor Ayodeji Olukoju from the University of Lagos, Professor Tinashe Nyamunda from the University of Pretoria, and the Committee of Fiscal Studies of the University of Nairobi.
Papers should be submitted to the organisers at [email protected] or [email protected] , no later than Friday 29 July, 2022, 12 midnight CAT.