If you follow the western media, you are likely to think of ‘Africa’ as the continent of origin of desperate migrants, a continent of hunger and disease and a breeding ground for international terrorism. But if you want to see the bigger picture, you should look no further than the African Studies scholars…

At LUCL we study almost all aspects of a wide range of African languages. From phonology to anthropological linguistics, from theoretical syntax to urban youth languages, we study it all.

This is an Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility project of the Faculty of Science with the University of Pretoria.

The debate about Africa’s changing relations with the world has rapidly evolved over the past decade. The initial emphasis on China’s role in Africa has given way to a more diversified approach, acknowledging that other emerging global players have also become important.

As Lila Abu Lughod pointed out in 1989, North Africa has been one of the geographical ‘zones of prestige’ for the development of canonical approaches and crucial theoretical debates regarding the comparative study of Islam.

Studies in Early Near Eastern Production, Subsistence, and Environment, vol.16. Edited by Noriyuki Shirai.

The Great Rift Valley in Africa is a real treasure trove for discovering early human fossils. The fossils found in this part of Africa have determined our view of human evolution. But was the Great Rift Valley really the place where evolution took place or just a place where fossils are well preserved…

The authors in this volume explore how external innovations (products, technologies, services, institutions and processes) have been appropriated in African societies in order to be acceptable and relevant to local conditions, expectations and demands.

The emergence of new players on the world market such as India, Brazil, China, Turkey and the Gulf States gives Africans more choice in who they work with and under which terms. At the same time, African multinationals are choosing to work with regional partners and are thus furnishing old political…

English The purpose of this research is to identify and examine the challenges faced by African States in the field of foreign investment with a view to contribute not only to the academic debate, but also to foster awareness and develop the capacities of these States with regard to the drafting, negotiation…

The studies outlined in this volume explore how connectedness continues to change Africa and how Africa continues to shape the social life of connections.

This project investigates the causes of the major archaeological change in the period of 40.000-20.000 BC in South Africa.

VODAN Africa started as a platform to enable access to critical data needed from Africa to fight the novel COVID-19. The initiative was inspired by the experience from the Liberia Ebola Virus outbreak in 2014: early detection requires contact tracing. Inclusion of the most vulnerable is critical to…

On the 16th of September, Bert van Pinxteren successfully defended a doctoral thesis. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Bert on this achievement!

This monograph by Robert Ross provides a detailed narrative of the Kat River Settlement in the Eastern Cape of South Africa during the nineteenth century.

Across cultures, parents help their children master the social and linguistic codes needed in adult life. Recent research on language socialization found important cross-cultural differences, pointing out the need for more diversity for a full understanding of this process.

Across cultures, parents help their children master the social and linguistic codes needed in adult life. Recent research on language socialization found important cross-cultural differences, pointing out the need for more diversity for a full understanding of this process. Deaf communities form…

This project investigates the rich linguistic history of the crucial language groups in East Africa and includes a search for words that indicate earlier lost languages. These outcomes, combined with recent archaeological and genetic research, will contribute to a new understanding of East Africa’s…

This research programme seeks to understand the dynamics in the relationship between social media, mobile telephony and the social fabric under duress in Africa's mobile margins. It combines studies on mobility/migration, conflict and communication in an attempt to uncover these new dynamics, which…

The aim of the project is to contribute to the process of archive formation ongoing in Post-Apartheid South Africa through the inclusion of photographs that have been either unacknowledged or excised from the national canon.

This project uses archaeological, literary and epigraphic evidence to investigate urban development in Roman-period North Africa, compiling this in a GIS-linked database in order to analyse the development of urban settlement spatially over time.

This programme starts from the idea that cultural discourse is one of the main engines of intellectual history and the history of ideas.

In recent years, and especially since the ‘Arab Spring’ of 2011, a growing body of research, media reporting, and scholarly literature has focused on the role of ‘Arab youth’ as the drivers of social and political movements across the Middle East and North Africa.

Southern Africa has a rich tradition of social history, one inspired by the tumultuous changes that have regularly convulsed the region from the 1780s onwards. Scholars have always sought to understand what these changes meant for everyday life and emphasised a perspective of marginal groups, how these…

Social and Behavioural Sciences, Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology, African Studies Centre Leiden

This book offers readers an alternative history of the origins of the discipline of International Relations.

Bachelor, Master

Bachelor, Master

Bachelor, Master

On 10 november 2021, Carmel van Niekerk-Jacobs defended the thesis 'Realising the right to reproduce with assistance in South Africa'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. J.J. Sloth-Nielsen and Prof. T. Liefaard.

This study seeks to partially fill the knowledge gap about national culture in Africa, basing its research on data on ethnolinguistic groups (instead of administrative regions).

This book is about the workings of networks of the mobile in Africa, a continent usually associated with the ‘global shadows’ of the world.

Leiden University investigates biodiversity not only in the Netherlands, but also abroad, with the goal of improving global nature conservation. We do so in collaboration with local universities. Education is also high on our agenda.

The first comprehensive and authoritative history of work and labour in Africa; a key text for all working on African Studies and Labour History worldwide.

This project examines the notion of sacred fertility and sacred landscapes, associated rituals and material culture, both archaeological and ethnographic manifestations in the Horn of Africa.

Health workers have always sought ways to fight disease in vulnerable groups in the population. It is now clear that such research also benefits more prosperous countries. African worm infections and innovative thermometers have shown Leiden researchers how to fight diseases of affluence and keep health…

Lecture, LUCIS Keynotes

Taught from primary school to the university level – where new courses on the globalization of the Arabic writing system have cropped up (Abdallah 2014) – the Arabic script, with all its orthographic peculiarities and multiple facets, continues to shape languages other than Arabic, their communities…

Combining approaches from intellectual history, philology and the study of Arabic manuscripts, this study places the Bornu scholar Muḥammad al-Wālī within his intellectual environment on the one hand, and it portrays him as someone who responded to the concerns of ordinary Muslims around him on the…

Humanities, Centre for Linguistics