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Event: 7th Annual International Igbo Conference (21st April, SOAS, London)

By Africa in Words on 11 April , 2018 • ( 0 )

The Centre of African Studies invites you to the 7th Annual International Igbo Conference 2018, in partnership with SOAS, University of London:

“Memory, Culture and Community: Remembering the past, Imagining the future”

21^st April 2018, 10am-8pm

Brunei Gallery Lecture Theatre, SOAS, London

This one-day international conference will provide a platform to discuss Igbo heritage studies and modes of documenting the past. The ‘Memory, Culture and Community’ conference seeks to promote the creation, management and use of records and archives, highlighting the need to preserve the archival heritage of people of Igbo descent around the world, through the sharing of experiences, research and ideas. During the course of the day, the conference will put on a series of workshops which will provide members of the public the skills to compile and collate content on Igbo culture and heritage through the medium of film, photography, oral history and writing.

The central output of the conference will be the development of an online Igbo digital archive through harnessing the knowledge and cultural resources of the community.

Igbo Conference 2018

The last conference was held in 2017 with the guiding theme ‘Legacies of Biafra: Reflections on the Nigeria-Biafra war 50 years on’, marking the fiftieth anniversary of the outbreak of the Nigerian civil war. The ‘Legacies of Biafra’ conference launched the “Know Your History” initiative which seeks to create physical and digital spaces for learning and knowledge exchange centring on Igbo history, whilst also serving the development and population of the digital Igbo studies archive.

The speakers for the ‘Memory, Culture and Community’ conference include: Ms. Chimamanda Adichie . Professor Osita Okagbue . Professor Paul Basu . Ms Ego Ahaiwe . Mr Nathan Richards . Ms. Kelly Foster . Mr Brian Ezeike . Ms. Vivian Ogbonna . Mr Emeka Ed Keazor.

Award winning Filmmaker Ujuaku Akukwe-Nwakalor will return to the Igbo Conference to screen her latest film: Harvest of Pride: Iri Ji. This feature length documentary centres on the significance of the New Yam Festival in Igboland. The film screening will be followed by a Q&A with Ujuaku and a discussion on the way they have approached the documenting of the most famous annual event in Igboland.

A video trailer of this documentary can be viewed here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKwJoTEMcyA

Conference Schedule

Woman in Igboland, ‘Wiki Loves Africa’

9:30 Registration
10:00-12.00 Parallel Workshops
12:10 Conference Welcome Address
12:20 Launch of the Igbo Studies Archive
12:30 Keynote: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Title TBC
13:30 Lunch
14:30 Keynote: Osita Okagbue (Goldsmiths, University of London), ‘Playing With Our Ancestors: Culture and Communal Memory in Igbo Masquerade Theatre’
15:30 Roundtable: Transmitting and Archiving Memories of Igbo Communities, featuring Nathan Richards (Sussex), Kelly Foster, Ego Ahaiwe
16:30 Break
17:00 Featured Speaker: Paul Basu (SOAS) ‘[Re:]Entanglements: Colonial Anthropology and its Archival Legacies in the Present’
17:45 Roundtable: Recording Igbo Histories: Past, Present and Future featuring Emeka Keazor, Vivian Ogbonna, Brian Ezeike
18:45 Film Premiere: Screening of ‘Harvest of Pride: Iri Ji Ndi-Igbo’ followed by a Q&A with the director Ujuaku Akukwe-Nwakalor
19:45 Conference Closing Remarks’