Project description
Exploring the contours of literary activism in sub-Saharan Africa
The entire ecology of literary production including authors, event producers, editors, teachers, facilitators, publishers, audiences, publics, etc. have always had their way with words, but what happens when activism takes the form of literature? The result is literary activism – a form of protest and critique. The EU-funded LITCOM project views it as encoding a double meaning: describing the act of opening spaces for literary expression while also referring to the more explicit intersection of literary engagement and socio-political activism. Specifically, the project explores literary activism in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). It will explain the forms of civic participation produced, contested and authenticated from literary activism in SSA, and it will also identify the social and political claims literary activism engenders across its various instantiations in the area. The project will focus on case studies from Nigeria, Cameroon, Uganda and Kenya.
Objective
LITCOM explores the contours of literary activism in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). It views literary activism as encoding a double meaning: both describing the act of opening spaces for literary expression, while also referring to the more explicit intersection of literary engagement and socio-political activism. LITCOM examines everyday encounters with and participation in literary activism as a form of social production creating new types of commons, networks of practice and sometimes-ephemeral publics which function outside of the normative sphere of the state and civil society. It offers a notion of the literary as a lived space of mediation, engagement with which itself produces new understandings of the horizons of the political in SSA.
LITCOM asks:
1. What forms of civic participation are produced, contested and authenticated through the networks of practice and forms of commoning which arise from literary activism in SSA and what new publics does literary activism create?
2. How do the commons, networks of practice and publics produced by publishers, writers and readers function with respect to formalised civil society institutions and patrimonial structures in an era alternatively characterised as that of ‘late capitalism’ (Jameson) or ‘liquid modernity’ (Bauman)?
3. How does the literary, both as aesthetic practice and mediating form, enable a more expansive understanding of the political and its horizons?
4. What kinds of social and political claims does literary activism engender across its various instantiations in SSA?
5. In what ways do the ecologies of literary activism and its attendant social production make visible new topographies of affiliation in SSA?
Operating across two primary strands with four cross-cutting case studies from Nigeria, Cameroon, Uganda and Kenya, LITCOM combines fine-grained empirical analysis with broad-based literary and cultural readings to answer these questions.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- natural sciences physical sciences astronomy planetary sciences planetary geology
- natural sciences biological sciences ecology
You need to log in or register to use this function
We are sorry... an unexpected error occurred during execution.
You need to be authenticated. Your session might have expired.
Thank you for your feedback. You will soon receive an email to confirm the submission. If you have selected to be notified about the reporting status, you will also be contacted when the reporting status will change.
Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
-
H2020-EU.1.1. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
See all projects funded under this programme
Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
ERC-STG - Starting Grant
See all projects funded under this funding scheme
Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2019-STG
See all projects funded under this callHost institution
Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
BS8 1QU BRISTOL
United Kingdom
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.