WARA - West African Research Association

WARA Conferences/Workshops/Institutes

As part of our efforts to promote collaboration across the Atlantic, WARA promotes a variety of opportunities for scholarly exchange. These include:

WARA participation at the ASA annual meeting
WARA Summer Institutes
WARA International Symposia

For more information and photographs from selected conferences, please scroll down to the headings below.

WARA ASA Participation
The ASA 51th Anniversary Annual Meeting was held October 18 - 21, 2008 at the Sheraton Chicago Hotel and Towers in Chicago, IL. The Annual Meeting theme was "Knowledge of Africa: the Next Fifty Years."

As a coordinate member of the ASA, WARA officially sponsored:

Knowledge and Practice of Islam in Senegal and Ghana. Perspectives of Laity and Scholars, Women and Men, Across Class and Ethnic Lines
Chair: Catherine A. Foley, Michigan State University
David Robinson, Michigan State University
Maria Grosz-Ngate, Indiana University
Fallou Ngom, Boston University
Gracia Clark, Indiana University

Click here to read about previous WARA ASA meetings.

WARA Summer Institutes
WARA Summer Institutes are held on a yearly basis, and are organized around a particular theme. Summer institutes typically last for two weeks, and are geared toward college and university faculty who wish to develop and expand teaching or research related to the topic of a given year's institute. Activities include lectures, seminars, and discussion sessions with local specialists in the focus area. Group excursions are also included to cultural and historic sites relating to that year's institute topic.

WARA International Symposia
WARA symposia occur approximately every five years, and are substantially broader in scope than summer institutes. The last international symposium, "Field Work in Africa," took place in Dakar in 2002. The next symposium, “Democracy and Development in West Africa ” will be held in Fall 2007 in collaboration with the newly established Center for International Education and Sustainable Development at the University of Abomey-Calavi in Benin .