Vortrag

Freddy Tsimba, In Koli Jean Bofane & Nadia Yala Kisukidi

Moderator : Ayoko Mensah

This panel will discuss the work of Freddy Tsimba, his dialogue with objects from the AfricaMuseum's collections and the curatorial questions this has raised.

MuseumTalks

Priscilla Kasongo Dioso

The experience of migration can cause identity and/or language disturbances. In order to manage these disturbances, migrants can be led to develop strategies. These strategies were at the heart of Priscilla Kasongo's doctoral research, carried out at the Catholic University of Louvain between 2014 and 2020.

During her thesis, she analysed the language practices of young people of the second generation of Congolese migration (D.R. Congo) in Belgium, in order to identify the identity strategies they put in place, and to establish the profiles corresponding to these strategies.

During this communication, Priscilla Kasongo will present her research results, in particular the intercultural identity construction schema that she has constructed, a schema in which the Belgian-Congolese identity is central and broken down into several sub-profiles (radical or multicultural, convergent or divergent).

MuseumTalks

An encounter with artist Hadassa Ngamba, in residence at the HISK Ghent

Hadassa Ngamba is interested in the cartographic arrangements of former African colonial territories, particularly the DRC, and the way in which these spaces have been submerged and confiscated by imperial and capitalist systems.

In particular, she attacks the indicators of capitalism and, through her work, she challenges the signals of a system that she considers to be failing and unbalanced.

Her current work analyses and investigates the cartographies of Katanga and Kongo Central.

Hadassa Ngamba completed a residency at the AfricaMuseum in January 2020. There she conducted research in the departments of geology and history.

During this MuseumTalk, she will address the theme of Congolese cartography and access to archives. 

MuseumTalks

Jean Omasombo Tshonda

On 30 June 1960, King Baudouin and Patrice Lumumba each defended their views on colonisation. Their speeches expose diametrically opposed visions and constitute the dominant image of the decolonisation of the Belgian Congo.

On 30 June 2020, on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the independence of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the AfricaMuseum is organising a MuseumTalk with Jean Omasombo Tshonda, author of the book La décolonisation du Congo belge: la gestion politique des 24 derniers mois avant l'indépendance. This book traces the political management from July 1958 to June 1960. During this conference, the author addresses the global context of independence as well as the role of Patrice Lumumba.

MuseumTalks

Wannes Hubau

Intact tropical forests captured 15% of our carbon dioxide emissions over the early 2000s, storing it in wood and other forms of biomass. However, the capacity of Amazonian forests to capture excess carbon from the atmosphere is waning. In this MuseumTalk, we learn how the African tropical forest ‘carbon sink’ is evolving and whether we have pushed ‘The Lungs of our Planet’ to their very limits.

Slope processes and the hazards they pose affect landscapes and societies at variable spatial and temporal scales. Their study relies on the combination of various tools and approaches. Remote sensing - space-borne, aerial or field-based – often plays a major role. When it comes to studying these processes in challenging environments (i.e., remote, steep topography, context of data-scarcity, etc.), common research strategies need to be questioned.

Combining expert talks and a poster session, this workshop aims at offering an opportunity to foster exchanges of ideas and experiences among experts, students and young researchers (PhD and postdocs) regarding the study of slope processes in challenging environments.   

Tamires de Oliveira and Milton de Paula are two Brazilian researchers who have been invited to participate in the BiosphereCarbon project of the Royal Museum for Central Africa.

Tamires de Oliveira has worked on river turtles and floodplain ecology in the Amazon and will present her thesis work.

Milton de Paula is a PhD candidate who is researching the impact of human environmental disturbances on Amazonian game animals and will present his PhD research.

Dr. Jesús Aguirre Gutiérrez

Dr. Gutiérrez is a postdoc researcher at the Environmental Change Institute of the University of Oxford, where he is involved with the Ecosystems research group. His research focuses on understanding the impact of environmental condition on the distribution of species at a local and a global level over time. At the Ecosystems Lab he investigates the relationship between plant functional trait diversity, climate, LiDAR derived vegetation structure, and the plants’ spectal reflectance obtained from remote sensing data. 

Dr. Aida Cuní Sanchez

Dr. Cuní Sanchez is a research associate at the University of York at the Department of Environment & Geography and at Colorado State University at the Department of Ecosystem Science & Sustainability. She has done a lot of fieldwork in various Biosphere Reserves in Africa, focusing on research in tropical forest ecology, carbon stocks, ethnobotany, forest conservation and forest use by local communities. Her research combines natural and social sciences: currently she works on a project that assesses ecosystem services, threats and potential management strategies for African montane forests.

MuseumTalks

Tine Huyse

Parasites are unwanted passengers of people and animals. By traveling with their host to new areas, they can cause new epidemics. A striking example of this is the tropical disease bilharzia, which was introduced in South America by the transatlantic slave trade.

Increasing globalisation and human interventions in nature, such as the construction of reservoirs or irrigation channels, are also creating new breeding grounds for mosquitoes, snails and other disease vectors.

A state of affairs and possible solutions.