4th Annual International Conference on Japanese Studies in Africa: Protest, Communication and Performance: Pre-Covid, Covid and Post-Covid Tempers
Deadline for submission is 10th August 2021.
Protest, Communication and Performance: Pre-Covid, Covid-19 and Post-Covid Tempers
Heightened Social movements and diverse forms of non-violent action among other tactics, are forms of protests, counter-protests and unrests that have rocked the international community since the Covid-19 pandemic began in China in December 2019. Japan, since its triple disaster in 2011, have become the center of stylised protests. These successful, highly structured, and intensely sustained political mobilisations engage carnivalesque approaches as forms of non-violent action.
This year’s Annual International Conference on Japanese Studies in Africa takes its bearing from protests in Japan. The Covid-19 protests in Japan have ranged from resistance and demonstrations against the enforcement of nose masks use as observances necessitated by Covid-19 protocols to the very serious engagement of non-violent protests against the hosting of the Olympics games in Tokyo in view of the third wave of the Covid-19 Pandemic.
The threat of the pandemic notwithstanding, dominant political, racial, sociological and psychological tempers in other parts of the world rose and metamorphosed into stylised global justice movements in 2020. These include African centered global responses to police brutality in the United States of America, the #Black lives Matter and #EndSars in Nigeria and beyond. Protests, enhanced by digital communicative competences and non-violent performative tactics are the urgent front used as strategic non-violent action for the radicals and the moderates. Africa, Japan and the entire world have become urgent upon this tool of reform, be it against anti-nuclear cause, resistance to police brutality, persistent bad governance and, in many ways, the diverse protests are also forms of expression of fear and insecurity.
The cumulative sociological and economic impact of community lockdowns in escalating movements across national and continental borders require systematic investigations. Japan having conducted several highly successful rallies, demonstrations, blockades and even forms of involutions remains the core of this discourse.
AICJSA welcomes comparative, inter-disciplinary, trans-continental, cross-continental discourse on global protests, counter-protests and protest directly or remotely triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic and after effects of lockdowns.
Submissions are invited on the following sub-themes
Proposals may also focus on related issues
- Protest as strategic Campaign
- Protest Theories and Theorising Protests
- Artistic energies and the 2021 Protests
- Contemporary Contests on Critical Race Theory
- Non Violent resistance in Japan and around the world
- Protestival: the Carnival of Protest
- Contexts of physical street-based protests and social media-based protests
- Influencers, Mobilisation and Protest Music: Kiyoshiro Imawano, Chernobyl Coma-chi and Rumi, Rankin’ Taxi, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, Haacaaluu Hundeessaa Yehune Belay, Dorothy Masuka, Messi Mekonda Martin, Annie Anzouer, Abdullah Ibrahim, Mohamed Mounir, Falz ,Davido, Wizkid ,Tiwa Savage and other national musicians in context.
- Protest: Politics, Subjectivity and Exclusion in World Politics
- Protest Music Across Africa and Japan
- The Politics and the Economics of the Covid-19 and Post-Covid-19 Protests
- Creative Arts and Protests: Paintings, Pictures, Memes, Emojis and Placards
- Protest Communication and Performance
- Implications of Protest on Culture and Tradition
- Covid and Post-Covid Influence on transcontinental protests.
- Music and antinuclear demonstrations in Japan
- Dialogue: A Tool of Communication and Compromise amidst protests
- Future Casting: Protest a Predictive Formula
- Apocalyptic Warnings amidst Covid-19 and Post-Covid-19 Crisis
- Digital Metamorphosis and the Challenge of Change
- The Shaping Power of Protest in Developmental Studies
- Protest and Performance: Responsibilities, Risks and Rewards
- Foreign Policy Atmosphere for Effective Protest Engagement
- Beyond Covid-19: Protests within The New Normal and the New World
- Propaganda versus Truth in the Age of Covid and Post-Covid Tempers
- Social Media and its Roles in Protests
- Coercion and Harassment of the Media
- Apology as a Subtle Tool: Perception and Thoughts
- Government Policy and Protest in Japan and Africa
Guidelines for Submission
Proposals should include: a title, an abstract of not more than 200 words, name of presenter (and that of co-presenter, if any), institution or organization and email address. Topics for panels and round tables are expected on or before 1st August 2021.
The call for papers and panels is now open at: https://aajstudies.org/.
Deadline for submission is 10th August 2021.
**The conference will be virtual
Submission shall be acknowledged and assessed by the Abstract Committee. Notification of acceptance will be communicated from 20th August 2021.
Conferences Outcomes
Papers from the conference shall be published in the subsequent edition of Studies in Transnational Africa and Japan (STAJ).
African Association for Japanese Studies (AAJS) is an international organization dedicated to promoting scholarship in the comparative fields of African-Japanese interests. The association, in partnership with the Embassy of Japan, academic institutions and other organizations, maintains scholarly agenda intended to stimulate critical understanding of the convergence between African and Japanese literary cultures, histories, developments, economy, religion, media systems, and politics. The objectives are achieved through conferences, seminars, workshops, colloquiums, and knowledge production through publications. To advance academic dissections and connections, the association organises an annual conference on Japanese studies in Africa.