Uppsala and Leuven anthropologists: Twenty Years of inspiring collaboration and exchange

The cooperation between the Uppsala and Leuven Departments of Anthropology so far included a bilateral agreement within the Socrates programme, a joint doctoral programme, the co-supervision of PhD-students, the participation in doctoral commissions, faculty visits, the co-organisation of Regional Workshops in S. Burkina Faso and N. Ghana, and joint publishing.

In 1993 a joint-programme was signed by Jan Ovesen and René Devisch. During this period a series of key activities were initiated, including the doctoral seminars of 1997 and 1998. In April 2004 the Department of Social and Cultural Antropology, Katholieke Universiteit, Leuven and the Department of Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology, Uppsala, signed a bilateral agreement within the Socrates programme in higher education/ERASMUS. The agreement basically includes student and staff mobility. 

Doctoral workshops

• 2007 Jan. - Uppsala: Fourth joint Uppsala and Leuven doctoral workshop, 11-12 January, on Ethnographies of Knowledge
• 2004 Oct. – Leuven: Third joint Uppsala and Leuven doctoral workshop, 13-16 October, on Competing over Public Space
• 1998 Oct. – Uppsala: Second joint Uppsala and Leuven doctoral workshop, on Space, place and power
• 1997 May – Leuven: First joint Uppsala and Leuven doctoral workshop, on The production of knowledge and the pragmatics of power: what does it mean to practice anthropology today?

Co-supervision

External examiners

• J. Leman (March 2005): at doctoral defence by Eva Carlestål, on: La Famiglia: The Ideology of Sicilian Family Networks (promoter J. Ovesen)
• A. Jacobson-Widding (Jan. 1999): at doctoral defence by Steven Van Wolputte, on: Body, cattle, and lifeworld among the OvaHimba of NW. Namibia (promoter R. Devisch)
• J. Ovesen (July 1993): at doctoral defence by Augustine Abasi, on: Death is pregnant with life: funeral practices among the Kasena of Northeast Ghana (promoter R. Devisch)

Staff Exchange

Leuven faculty visits to the Uppsala Dept of Anthropology:

• R. Devisch: - Nov. 1993: presentation of 1991 film The Oracle of Maama Tseembu: divination amongst the Yaka at the Uppsala Anthropological Film Festival; -April 1994: 16h. guest-lectures on Forces, signs and symbolic function: from the unconscious and the body to culture, centred on the Yaka of SW Zaire and Kinshasa; -Oct. 1998: 4h. guest-lectures on Mimicry and mockery as a homeopathic healing of the 'whitened' identity in the healing churches in SW. Congo and Kinshasa; Unbounded personhood among the Yaka in SW. Congo: sorcery and fetish; -May 2001: series of lectures in medical anthropology
• F. De Boeck -March 1995: 16h. guest-lectures entitled History, politics and cultural symbolism in SW Zaire; -April 2004: 4h. guest-lectures on history and anthropology
• Ann Cassiman -May 2006: 6 h guest lectures

 Uppsala faculty visits to the Leuven Dept of Anthropology:

• A. Jacobson-Widding Nov.94: 16h. guest-lectures entitled Dual classification and ambiguity in the symbolism of Kongo and Shona cultures; -Jan. 1999: lecture: What is in a name? Shona conception of personal identity .
• S. Hagberg -Oct. 1999: 14h. guest-lectures in CADES Master's programme; -Oct. 2000: 10h. guest-lectures in CADES Master's programme;-Nov 2001: 14h. guest-lectures in CADES Master's programme;-March 2003: 14h. guest-lectures in CADES Master's programme;-October 2004: 6h. guest-lectures in CADES Master's programme; -December 2007: 6h.guest-lectures in CADES Master's programme
• J. Ovesen -Oct. 1994: 18h. guest-lectures entitled Determinants and principles of social organization: issues of structure and agency; -Nov. 1999: 12h. guest-lectures in CADES Master's programme
• I.-B. Trankell -Oct. 1995: 14h. guest-lectures entitled World ethnographies: myth, symbolism and modernity in SE Asia.
• B. Helander -Nov. 1995: 14h. guest-lectures on Building and rebuilding communal identities in Somalia: from Independence, through the civil war, and beyond .

Co-organization of workshops and conferences

In the context of institutional linkages Uppsala-Ouagadougou-Leuven-Tamale (N.Ghana) with regard to interrelated research in the region of Northern Ghana and Southern Burkina: (1) The Uppsala Department of Anthropology upholds an agreement for collaboration with (2) the Institut des sciences des sociétés (Centre national de la recherche scientifique et technologique) in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso; and (3) the Leuven Africa Research Centre has set up a joint venture with (4) the University for Development Studies (Faculty of Integrated Development Studies, and Faculty of Agriculture) at Tamale-N. Ghana. A workshop was organised in Gaoua, Southern Burkina Faso (July 1998), on Terre et pouvoir contestés: bonds and boundaries in S. Burkina Faso and N. Ghana . The conveners, S. Hagberg (Uppsala) and A.B. Tengan (Leuven) have published the proceedings as a book (see below)

Co-funding of a 1999 International Symposium in Leuven on Youth, Violence and Education in Africa , conveners prof. F. De Boeck, and A. Honwana (University of Cape Town); proceedings forthcoming, University of Chicago press.

Since 2007 Uppsala and Leuven have efficiently and successfully collaborated within the framework of APAD - Euro-African Association for the Anthropology of Social Change and Development. The APAD-conference 2007 was organised in Brussels/Louvain-la-Neuve in December 2007 with active involvement of Uppsala and Leuven. The 2010 APAD Conference was organised in Ouagadougou in January 2010. Uppsala-anthropologist Sten Hagberg is APAD President, and Leuven-anthropologist Ann Cassiman is APAD Treasurer.

Joint publishing

Uppsala Studies in Cultural Anthropology (Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis)

• S. Bekaert 2000. System and Repertoire in Sakata Medicine: Democratic Republic of Congo.
• S. Hagberg and A.B. Tengan (eds) 2000. Bonds and boundaries in Northern Ghana and Southern Burkina Faso.
• A. Cassiman 2006. Stirring Life: Women’s Paths and Places Among theKasena of Northern Ghana.

Uppsala-Leuven Research in Cultural Anthropology (ULRiCA)

•  S. Van Wolputte, R. Devisch, J. Le Roy, Lapika D. 2002. Medical Pluralism and Lay Therapy Management in Kinshasa.