Plants in Africa and the Global South: Multi-Species Materialities, Ecologies, and Aesthetics (MMEA)
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Consortium Respectful Behavior Policy
Participants at Consortium activities will treat each other with respect and consideration to create a collegial, inclusive, and professional environment that is free from any form of discrimination, harassment, or retaliation.
Participants will avoid any inappropriate actions or statements based on individual characteristics such as age, race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, marital status, nationality, political affiliation, ability status, educational background, or any other characteristic protected by law. Disruptive or harassing behavior of any kind will not be tolerated. Harassment includes but is not limited to inappropriate or intimidating behavior and language, unwelcome jokes or comments, unwanted touching or attention, offensive images, photography without permission, and stalking.
Participants may send reports or concerns about violations of this policy to conduct@chstm.org.
Upcoming Meetings
There are no currently scheduled upcoming events.
Past Meetings
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May 11, 2023
Janet Marion Purdy (Art Institute of Chicago, University of Chicago): Jackfruit, Jani, Teak, and Tamarind: Botanical Imagery, Wood Types, and the Significance of Wood in Carved Zanzibar Doors
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July 14, 2022
*POSTPONED*
Maxmillian J Chuhila (University of Dar es Salaam): Green Imperialism and Biomedical Campaigns in Colonial Tanganyika
postponed to autumn 2022!
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June 9, 2022
Melanie Boehi (University of the Witwatersrand), Phakamani m’Africa Xaba (Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden), and Luciano Concheiro San Vicente (The National Autonomous University of Mexico): Reimagining Botanical Gardens and Urban Parks in a Time of Crisis
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May 12, 2022
Anna Arabindan-Kesson (Princeton University) in conversation with Annalee Davis: Sites of Healing: Plantation Histories and Histories of Care in the Work of Annalee Davis
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April 14, 2022
Cecylia Mgombele (University of Dar es Salaam), Sinyati Robinson Mark (University of Dar es Salaam) and Sarah Walshaw (Simon Fraser University): Human-Plant Relationships in Tanzania's Past: Changes, Choices, Challenges - and Specifically the Changes Brought with the Caravan Trade
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March 10, 2022
Aqsa Mengal (Lahore University), Dania Nasir (Lahore University), Kulsoom Din Malik (Lahore University) and Moiz Abdul Majid (Tufts University UEP): Nature in the City: Memory, Scandal and Leisure in Lahore's Urban Parks
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February 10, 2022
Sarah Longair (University of Lincoln): The Coco-de-Mer in the 19th-Century Indian Ocean World: Connections, Conservation and Colonialism
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January 13, 2022
Jennifer Leetsch (Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn): Mary Seacole's Plant Matter(s): Vegetal Entanglements of the Black Atlantic in Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands (1857)
Lidia Ponce de la Vega (McGill University): The Travel Stories of Plants in the "Biodiversity Heritage Library": Colonization and (In)Visibility of the Global South in Human-Plants Relationships
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December 9, 2021
West Africa Session:
Amanda Logan (Northwestern University): Archaeobotanical Evidence of Food and Crafting from Oduduwa College, Ile-Ife, Nigeria
Chioma Ngonadi (University of Nigeria, Nsukka/University of Cambridge): Ancient Food Practices and Pottery Production in Southeastern Nigeria
Orijemie Emuobosa Akpo (University of Ibadan): From the Hills to the Valley: Changing Food Production Practices among the Tiv in Central Nigeria
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November 11, 2021
Elaine Ayers (New York University): Packed in Moss: Bryology and the Circulation of Plants in Nineteenth-Century Colonial Natural History
Group Conveners
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Jacques Aymeric-Nsangou
Jacques Aymeric-Nsangou studied at the University of Yaoundé I (Cameroon) where he got his B.A and M.A in Archaeology and Cultural Heritage Management, and the University of Geneva (Switzerland), where he got his Ph.D. in Archaeology in 2019. He is a specialist in African endogenous fortifications, the history of settlement, and the post-1500 period in West Africa. He is the author of Les fortifications endogènes au Sénégal Oriental, freely available at https://www.fulcrum.org/concern/monographs/r494vn55b#description. He took part in archaeological rescue excavations during the construction of the Lom Pangar dam in eastern Cameroon and served as a Cultural Guide at the National Museum of Cameroon. As a postdoctoral fellow, he did a research stay at the Deutsches Historisches Institut in Rom and Villa I Tatti Harvard University Center of Florence (IT). Since September 2022, he has been a Swiss National Science Foundation Associate postdoctoral researcher at the University of Manitoba. His work aims to document the Islamisation of Northern Ghana influenced by the Gonja chiefdom through studying the ceramic change. Since 2022, he has undertaken pioneering archaeological research in São Tomé and Principe, and is continuing parallel research on some settlement sites in Eastern Senegal and Cameroon. He is the founder and principal moderator of the linkedIn West African Archaeology and Anthropology Group https://www.linkedin.com/groups/12474756/. He is also assistant editor of the Journal of African Archaeology; and is the Africa coordinator of the Newsletter of the Society of Historical Archaeology. His research has been support by the Swiss Confederation, the Swiss Academy of Social Sciences, the Swiss National Sciences Foundation, Brown University and the University of Manitoba.
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Abidemi Babatunde Babalola
Abidemi Babatunde Babalola is Smuts Research Fellow in African Studies at the University of Cambridge and an expert in cultural heritage, West African archaeology, early glass production, innovation practices, early technologies, early urbanism and complex societies with a particular focus on Ile-Ife, Nigeria. He received his BA and MA in archaeology from the University of Ibadan in Nigeria and holds a PhD in Anthropology from Rice University, Houston, with a specialization in African Archaeology. He was the McMillian Steward Fellow at the Hutchins Center for African and African & American Research and a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Anthropology Harvard University and his research has furthermore been supported by the University College London in Qatar (UCLQ), the Corning Museum, and the Archaeology and Heritage Centre of the Cyprus Institute, among other institutions. His research includes human-environment interaction in terms of the exploitation of vegetation/plant resources for fuel in pyrotechnological activities, and his research on the archaeology of glass in Sub-Saharan African received the Discovery Award of Shanghai Archaeological Forum in 2019.
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Vera-Simone Schulz
Vera-Simone Schulz is an art historian working at the crossroads of African, Islamic and European art histories and postdoctoral research associate at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz–Max-Planck-Institut in Florence, Italy. She holds a Ph.D. in art history from Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and her research has been supported by the German Academic Scholarship Foundation, the German Research Foundation, the German Academic Exchange Service, the Gerda Henkel Foundation, and the Bard Graduate Center in New York City, among others. While her first book on Florence and Tuscany in their Mediterranean and global entanglements (in preparation for publication) already went beyond the common geographical frameworks of art historical studies concerned with Italy and the Islamic world by bringing also material from Nigeria, Ghana, Angola, Kongo and coastal East Africa into this discussion, her habilitation and second book project moves from Florence as one of the traditional centers of art history to Eastern Africa, thus contributing to the overcoming of traditional notions of periphery and center in the discipline of art history. She was the 2022 CIRN Sanpaolo Visiting Fellow at CRASSH at the University of Cambridge where she was also a postdoctoral fellow at Wolfson College, and she is currently a MuseumsLab fellow and visiting fellow at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies.
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