The Africa Institute is an incorporative academic research institute committed to the study, research, and documentation of Africa. The Sharjah based institute also focuses on African people and their cultures, Africa’s complicated past, present, and future. It strives to establish Africa’s complex linkages with the broader world. It is a broad-brush institution focusing on the humanities and social sciences that will have a postgraduate studies program. It will incorporate both masters and Ph.D. degrees to train a new generation of critical thinkers in African and African diaspora studies.Speaking on Sheikh Sultan’s involvement with the institute, the institute spokesperson noted that, “The ruler has always had an interest in Afro-Arab relations. The first president of the University of Sharjah was a Sudanese historian called Yusuf Fadl Hassan, and Sheikh Sultan also collaborated with the Institute for Afro-Asian studies at the University of Khartoum. And of course, right at the height of the gas crisis in 1976, he called for an Afro-Arab conference. This conference later resulted in the establishment of The Africa Institute in Sharjah.”
The Africa Institute in Sharjah is currently holding the Modern Nation - Ancient Roots conference with a focus on Ethiopia. It began in October 2019 and will run to May 2020. The primary goal of this Ethiopia-focused season is to shed new light on Ethiopia’s history and contemporary condition, while also considering its contributions to current debates on modernity and the postcolonial state. There is much in Ethiopia’s history that audiences in the Arab and Islamic world will find inspiring considering the early history of Islam and its unique relationship with Ethiopia, where first converts to Islam sought refuge in the land of Abyssinia.
Explaining the plans for the Africa Hall in Sharjah, Al Qasimi, the institute spokesperson says, “The momentum is there for a project, and it’s a shame to lose it.” She states further that, “We’re looking to program something here alongside the Sharjah Art Foundation Film Platform, in December, to do a conference in March, and to do a theatre project in March, which is Sharjah Theatre Days.”
On March 12, 2019, to March 14, 2019, the institute held a conference on Global Africa. The theme was African and African Diaspora Studies in the 21st Century. It was a three-day event held at the institute’s Africa Hall in Sharjah. The inspiration for the conference came from the rising interest in the contributions of several pioneering African diaspora intellectuals such as Frantz Fanon, AiméCésaire, EdouardGlissant, Du Bois, and Leopold Sedar. These scholars played pivotal roles in the formation of schools of thought, such as Pan-Africanism and Negritude. The conference saw Africanist scholars produce a body of work critical of patriarchy, Euro-centrism, and other hegemonic paradigms.
About Africa Institute in Sharjah
AI is an academic research institute based in the United Arab Emirates. The Africa Hall in Sharjah hosts the institute, which serves as a meeting place for conferences, symposia, and lectures. The institute His led by its president, Al Qasimi, and director, Salah Hassan.