In order to support young academics, the VAD has been awarding a young academics prize at the VAD conference every two years since 2004. This prize honours outstanding qualification work by young academics (master’s, diploma, doctorate, etc.) with a focus on Africa.
We are very pleased to be able to honour the following people for their outstanding theses (Master’s and PhD) at the VAD Conference 2024 in Bayreuth.
Céline Geisen-Mayerl (MA Labour, Cultural and Social Anthropology, University of Vienna)
Becoming a ‘Handicapable’ Parent: Negotiating Disability, Parenthood, and Parenting in Cotonou (Benin)
This brilliantly written master’s thesis deals with the intertwining of disability, parenthood and parenting practices in Cotonou, Benin. Geisen-Mayerl notes that ‘in contrast to Euro-American discourses, disabled people who have children are seen as an important life project and an enrichment in everyday life’. Another significant aspect is the idea that parents’ involvement in various social networks is seen as part of their caring work. This work fills a gap in the Eurocentric focus of the literature on disability and ableism in relation to parenting.
Céline Geisen-Mayerl completed her master’s degree in Cultural and Social Anthropology at the University of Vienna in 2024. Her master’s thesis was based on fieldwork conducted in collaboration with the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Bayreuth. Her research focuses on disability, care and the state.
Esi Callender (MA thesis) (European Interdisciplinary Master African Studies, University of Bayreuth)
African Alliances of Subversion, Collaboration and Solidarity among Artists from Africa and the Diasporas in pIAR, Kumasi, Ghana
This highly noteworthy and bold master’s thesis explores how collaboration and solidarity can be established between artists in Ghana and globally and the benefits of this collaboration for artists in Ghana. The innovative study looks at a specific, previously unexamined collective of artists. The author’s reflexivity is remarkable. Above all, she sees this study as an archive for artistic production under marginal, even crisis-ridden conditions. The study also serves as a warning call, as the LGBT centre under investigation is under existential threat in the context of planned legislation against homosexuality in Ghana.
esi callender is a writer and theatre artist, most recently appearing in the debut production of Wine & Halva by Deniz Başar. In 2023, they completed a masters in African Studies, focusing on artistic collaboration and political solidarity between Black artists of diverging backgrounds in the perforcraZe International Artist Residency in Kumasi, Ghana. Prior to that, they co-founded Sort Of Productions with Oli Siino, a queer feminist theatre collective based in Tiohtia:ke/Montreal.
Immanuel Harisch (Dissertation) (Institute of African Studies, University of Vienna)
Great Hopes, False Promises. African Trade Unions in the World of Organised Labor. Institutions, Networks, and Mobilities during the Cold War 1950s and 1960s.
We are honouring the outstanding work of Immanuel Harisch, the only doctoral thesis dedicated to a topic of global history that has not yet been sufficiently researched. Immanuel Harisch describes a period of intense activity by the ‘social-reformist’ International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) in Brussels and the ‘social-revolutionary’ World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) in Prague. The main research question examines the role of international trade unions during the transition from colonial rule to independence in African states such as Ghana, Uganda, Guinea, Mali, Congo/Angola and Nigeria. The dissertation offers a comparative view of this crucial point of interaction between the global North and South. Harisch’s work is an innovative, ambitious and comparative network study that advances global history, Cold War history and African labour history.
Immanuel R. Harisch is a historian with a special interest in labour, education and economic relations. His dissertation focuses on the educational institutions, networks and mobilities of African trade unions and/or within the international labour movement during the Cold War. He has co-authored an edited volume on East German-African relations during the Cold War and is currently the managing editor of the open access journal Stichproben – Vienna Journal of African Studies.
The official award ceremony will take place on 1 October 2024 at this year’s VAD conference in Bayreuth.
