Sandra G. Harding is an American philosopher of feminist and postcolonial theory, epistemology, research methodology, and philosophy of science. She directed the UCLA Center for the Study of Women from 1996 to 2000, and co-edited Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society from 2000 to 2005. She is currently a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Education and Gender Studies at UCLA and a Distinguished Affiliate Professor of Philosophy at Michigan State University. In 2013 she was awarded the John Desmond Bernal Prize by the Society for the Social Studies of Science (4S).
Silvia Federici is a scholar, teacher, and feminist activist based in New York. She is a professor emerita and teaching fellow at Hofstra University in New York State, where she was a social science professor. She also taught at the University of Port Harcourt in Nigeria from 1984 to 1986. In 1972, with Mariarosa Dalla Costa and Selma James, she co-founded the International Feminist Collective, the organization that launched the campaign for Wages for Housework. In 1990, Federici co-founded the Committee for Academic Freedom in Africa (CAFA), and, with Ousseina Alidou, was the editor of the CAFA bulletin for over a decade. She was also a member of the Academic Association of Africa Scholars (ACAS) and among the voices generating support for the struggles of students across the African continent and in the United States. In 1995, in the course of the campaign to demand the liberation of Mumia Abu-Jamal, she cofounded the Radical Philosophy Association (RPA) anti-death penalty project, an organization intended to help educators become a driving force towards its abolition. From 1979 to 2003, she was a member of the Midnight Notes Collective.
Leila Ahmed is an Egyptian-American scholar of Islam. In 1992 she published her book Women and Gender in Islam, which is regarded as a pioneering historical analysis of the position of women in Arab Muslim societies. She became the first professor of women's studies in religion at Harvard Divinity School in 1999, and has held the Victor S. Thomas Professor of Divinity chair since 2003. She was later awarded the Victor S. Thomas Research Professor of Divinity in 2020.
Arif Dirlik was a Turkish-American historian who published on historiography and political ideology in modern China, as well as issues in modernity, globalization, and postcolonial criticism. Dirlik received a BSc in Electrical Engineering at Robert College, Istanbul in 1964 and a PhD in History at the University of Rochester in 1973.
The African Studies Association (ASA) is a US-based association of scholars, students, practitioners, and institutions with an interest in the continent of Africa. Founded in 1957, the ASA is the leading organization of African Studies in North America, with a global membership of approximately 2000. The association's headquarters are at Rutgers University in New Jersey. The ASA holds annual conferences and virtual events for its members year-round.
Postcolonialism is the critical academic study of the cultural, political and economic legacy of colonialism and imperialism, focusing on the impact of human control and exploitation of colonized people and their lands. The field started to emerge in the 1960s, as scholars from previously colonized countries began publishing on the lingering effects of colonialism, developing a critical theory analysis of the history, culture, literature, and discourse of imperial power.
The Union for Democracy and Social Progress is a centrist political party in Niger. With its support base in the Tuareg people of northern Niger, the party's history is tied up with that of the Tuareg rights movements which surrounded the Tuareg insurgencies of 1990–95 and 2007–09. Its slogan, "Amana", is a Hausa language word for "Trust"
Mounira Maya Charrad is a Franco-Tunisian sociologist who serves as associate professor of sociology at the University of Texas at Austin.
Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyěwùmí is a Nigerian gender scholar and full professor of sociology at Stony Brook University. She acquired her bachelor's degree in political science at the University of Ibadan in Ibadan, Nigeria and went on to pursue her graduate degree in Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. Oyěwùmí is the winner of the African Studies Association's 2021 Distinguished Africanist Award, which recognizes and honours individuals who have contributed a lifetime of outstanding scholarship in African studies combined with service to the Africanist community.
Decoloniality is a school of thought that aims to delink from Eurocentric knowledge hierarchies and ways of being in the world in order to enable other forms of existence on Earth. It critiques the perceived universality of Western knowledge and the superiority of Western culture, including the systems and institutions that reinforce these perceptions. Decolonial perspectives understand colonialism as the basis for the everyday function of capitalist modernity and imperialism.
The Rutgers University Department of African, Middle Eastern, South Asian Languages and Literatures(AMESALL) is dedicated to the study of Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. It is the primary academic home of sixteen core faculty and seven part-time lecturers. AMESALL provides instruction in over a dozen languages from these three regions. It offers courses taught in English and regional languages such as Arabic and Hindi, and regularly hosts events such as lectures, workshops, and conferences for the student body, the faculty, and the general public.
Susan Zaeske is Professor of Rhetoric and Public Culture in the Department of Communication Arts and Arts and was formerly Associate Dean for Arts and Humanities in the College of Letters & Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Science and technology studies (STS) in India is a fast growing field of academic inquiry in India since the 1980s. STS has developed in the country from the science movements of the 1970s and 1980s as well as the scholarly criticism of science and technology policies of the Indian state. Now the field is established with at least five generations of scholars and several departments and institutes specialising in science, technology and innovation policy studies.
The Africa-America Institute (AAI) is an international education organization dedicated to advancing the continent's development through higher education and skills training, convening activities, and promoting greater engagement between Africa and the United States.
Hassana Alidou was a Nigerien diplomat who served as Ambassador to the United States and Canada from 2015 to 2019. She then became the first scholar in residence for the Union Institute and University Institute for Social Justice.
Prof. Olubayi Olubayi (born November 11, 1960, in Kenya, raised in Kenya and educated at Rutgers University in the United States. He is the Chief Academic officer at Maarifa Education, he was the vice chancellor and president of the International International University of East Africa in Uganda. He is a scientist and an expert on bacteria, education, learning, leadership and social-entrepreneurship. As a scientist and eclectic scholar, Olubayi earned his Ph.D. on bacteria-and-plant cell interactions at Rutgers University, holds a research patent on the flocculation of bacteria and has published several scholarly articles in microbiology, biotechnology and social science. As an educator he taught at Middlesex College and at Rutgers University for 16 years, and has taught critical thinking in the IUEA MBA program. He has been an advisor and consultant to government officials in Kenya and South Africa, and UNDP on matters of literacy, education, biotechnology, sustainable development and global citizenship. He is an external advisor to Ph.D. students in the Oxford University-Kemri/Wellcome Trust Research Program in Kilifi, Kenya. As a social entrepreneur, Olubayi co-founded the nonprofit Kiwimbi International and the widely respected American nonprofit Global Literacy Project which sets up libraries worldwide and provides global service learning opportunities. As a thinker, he is the author of the book “Education for a Better World” and a ground breaking scholarly exploration of the emerging National-Culture of Kenya.
Hamsou Garba was a Nigerien singer.
Dr. Wendy Onyinye Osefo is a Nigerian-American political commentator, public affairs academic, and television personality. She is an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins School of Education, and a main cast member of The Real Housewives of Potomac. Wendy practices in the field of journalism and has received rewards recognizing her contributions to the field of journalism.
Alice J. Kang is Associate Professor of Political Science at University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Bouli Kakasi is a Nigerien singer.
