SOAS Finally Welcomes the BA Africa and Black Diaspora
Frances Howe, LLB
SOAS announced the launch of the BA Africa and Black Diaspora programme on 17 January 2022. The programme will accept entrants from 2022 onwards and seeks to replace the BA African Studies programme which was controversially discontinued by SOAS in 2020.
The Tab reported on 6 October 2020 that the decision
to discontinue BA African Studies was due to ‘decreasing student numbers’ and was incorporating it into a new BA Languages and Cultures programme to avoid the ‘othering’ of Africa and it being taught as a ‘country rather than a continent.’ Despite this, the MA African Studies programme was never discontinued.
Over the summer holidays of 2020, the ‘Transformation and Change’ policy at SOAS saw the cutting of 60 programmes and 247 modules in order to keep the University financially viable for an additional year.
According to SOAS, the degree programme is set to ‘enable students to situate and engage with Africa in the global stage by acquiring substantive knowledge of historical and topical issues that are related to the continent.’
Furthermore, students will have the opportunity to
‘engage with their own understanding of contemporary themes including migration, colonialism, economic change, climate change and popular culture.’
Dr Ida Hadjivayanis, lecturer in Swahili Studies and Dr Wayne Dooling, Senior Lecturer in the History of Southern Africa, co-designed the degree programme. Dr Hadjivayanis said of the programme:
‘In the process of developing the course, we negotiated some of the key tensions in the study of Africa and its multiple diasporas. We centred the continent and sought innovative ways to engage with its history, its people, its languages, perspectives, politics, cultures etc. This programme fits squarely into what it means to study Africa at SOAS, it carries the expertise of various colleagues within SOAS including Awino Okech, Lutz Marten, Mashood Baderin, Marloes Janson, Alastair Fraser to name a few.’
‘We are extremely proud that students will be able to combine their study of disciplines including Politics, Social Anthropology, Languages and Cultures, and International Relations with Africa and Black Diaspora. They will be able to do meaningful projects, explore the regions of their interest through our summer or year abroad programmes where they will travel to African Universities.’
Students who undertake the four-year degree program will have the opportunity to partake in language studies through the year abroad at Zanzibar State University in Tanzania and Kenyatta University in Kenya for a term each.
“The introduction of the BA Africa and the Black Diaspora programme is said to mark ‘SOAS’s broader social justice agenda found in the institutional community pillar of the new strategic plan.'”
The introduction of the BA Africa and the Black Diaspora programme is said to mark ‘SOAS’s broader social justice agenda found in the institutional community pillar of the new strategic plan.’ The ‘institutional community pillar’ of the new strategic plan sets SOAS to ‘take action on racial justice’ including to implement the Race Equity Action Plan 2021- 24 and to implement the recommendations of the Statement on Racism and Anti-Blackness at SOAS, which was made in response to Habib’s use of a racial slur during an all-students meeting on 11 March 2021.
Speaking on the new programme, Habib has said: ‘Through reimagining SOAS for the 21st century we are seeking to pioneer new models of education that transcend national boundaries. This new BA demonstrates our firm commitment on rethinking how we study our regions – Africa, Asia and the Middle East – in order to prepare a new generation of graduates who are technically skilled, socially responsive and committed to the building of an equitable planetary community.’