Date and Time: 14:00-17:00, March 3, 2018 (Saturday)
Venue: Middle Meeting Room, 3rd Floor, Inamori Foundation Memorial Hall, Kyoto University
(Honorifics and titles omitted hereafter)
This plenary meeting was organized as a team leaders’ meeting in which the leaders of the seven teams (including an acting leader), members in charge of general overview, and secretariat participated. Motoji Matsuda, the project leader, presented the following report and the team leaders responded with opinions and discussed the ways forward for the project.
1. International Communication
First, a report on international communication of research outcome was presented. The speaker reported the record international communication (European Conference on African Studies and African Studies Association in the US) in fiscal year 2017 and shared a plan for the communication in fiscal year 2018 (World Social Science Forum and International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Science).
2. African Potentials Forum
A detailed report on the Africa Forum held in Grahamstown, South Africa, was presented. It also referred to the outcome of the forum. Following the report, the speaker explained that the selection of the keynote speaker and report presenters from Africa for the Africa Forum in the next fiscal year (December in Accra, Ghana) is in progress, and requested the leaders to list candidates for the presenters. In addition, he also referred to the publication of the outcome of the Kampala Forum 2016 (to be included in African Study Monographs Supplementary Issue 56).
Explanation on the symposium in Kyoto, scheduled in January 2019, was also provided. He explained the symposium will serve as an international exchange seminar mainly for young to mid-level researchers, and requested the leaders to consider candidate invitees from African young/mid-level researchers and candidate presenters from Japan.
3. Research Collaboration with Other Area Studies Groups
The speaker reported on collaborative research activity with other area studies group (Joint Symposium with Japanese Society for Oceanic Studies) implemented this fiscal year and shared a plan for future activity (collaboration with Japan Society for Southeast Asian Studies, May 2018).
4. Team Activities
The budget for the next fiscal year and schedule for the Plenary Meeting were announced, and direction of the project for the next fiscal year onwards was discussed. Prior to the discussion, Motoji Matsuda, the project leader, shared his thoughts on how to proceed with the project. In response to his requests, each team leader shared updates on team activities and commented on the ways forward for the project. The leaders discussed whether to continue the current approach based on individual reports or to start focusing and sharing discussions beyond the teams. They concluded to maintain the individual report approach for another year. On the other hand, they confirmed to encourage mutual exchange with other teams and collaborative activities by multiple teams.
(Reported by Shinichiro Ichino.)
