CFP for IJIA Special Issue on Climate Change and the Built Environment in the Islamic World Special Issue: Climate Change and the Built Environment in the Islamic World Thematic volume planned for May 2024 (IJIA 13.2)Proposal submission deadline: April 30, 2022 This special issue of IJIA focuses on the impact of the current climate crisis on the built environments of the Islamic world. Environmentalist scholar and eco-theologist Seyyed Hossein Nasr once said that the natural environment occupies a type of ‘sacred’ space in the world, an elevated position that exists only because nature is ‘always in danger of desecration’ (Chidester and Linenthal 1995). In fact, many scientists are now seeing our current global predicament as evidence of the emergence of a ‘fifth nature’ or ‘post nature’, referring to a world ‘after’ nature or potentially beyond or in addition to it, which expands the central definition of the ‘natural’ to include man-made waste, environmental pollution, and importantly climate change as part and parcel of a lived and living ecosystem (Apotsos and Venter 2020). To this end, this special issue takes up the challenge of unpacking this complex topic by utilizing architecture as a space of discourse for thinking about how one might craft a theory of ‘critical environmentalism’ across the Islamic world. Currently accounting for 40 per cent of the world’s total energy usage per year, the built environment provides a fitting platform for a consideration of climate change and attendant environmental themes such as sustainability –  broadly defined as ‘the endurance of systems and processes’ – towards examining how such realities are made manifest through the lens of diverse spatial templates within Muslim societies around the globe.   To this point, many architectural approaches being explored in the contemporary period as potential solutions to building in an increasingly unstable climatic future are rooted in historical practices, many of which emerged in proto-Islamic lands. Archaeological evidence from North Africa and the Middle East, for example, not only suggest that early civilizations used thermodynamically efficient materials like earth to build in desert environments, but also developed an understanding of how to generate livable microclimates through infrastructural design and engineering. Some of these early approaches have also served as the basis for some of the first modern attempts at crafting climate-appropriate design, spearheaded by architects such as Hassan Fathy (Egypt) and his utilisation of AT (Appropriate Technology), and even certain contemporary structural counterparts like Dubai’s new eco-mosque in Hatta, which opened in 2021 and uses both solar panels to reduce its energy usage and water treatment units to reuse water for irrigation and cleaning due to the lack of potable water sources in the region. Importantly as well, such building projects and approaches also gesture towards shifting conditions and modes of being in the world, realities informed by numerous different perspectives ranging from social, cultural, economic, and even religious modes of existence. In 2021, the Saudi Arabian government issued a fatwa on the topic of water reuse, requiring mosques in both Mecca and Medina to recycle wastewater or ‘grey water’ due to the limited potable water resources in the region and the extreme drain on regional water resources that events like the annual Hajj provoke. Some see this as evidence of the emergence of a ‘Green Deen’, or an approach to sustainability that positions environmental stewardship as a faith-based ordinance.   Contemporary considerations of the effects of climate change on built environments throughout the Islamic world also compel a reconsideration of the continuing fallacy imposed by western Enlightenment thought that the relationship between architecture and the environment is one of mutual exclusion. Although advancements in green technology, the growth of design fields oriented around biomimetic applications, and the development of sustainable building materials such as ‘cradle to cradle’ products are shifting the relationship between built form and the environment in a more cooperative direction, the fact remains that architectural practice continues to position the natural environment as a separate, distinct realm to be studied and above all controlled, a largely non-collaborative system that rarely overlaps with the built environment unless forced and often actively opposes it. To this end, this special issue encourages contributions that explore the role of architecture and the built environment in shaping the contours of current climate change and environmentalist discourse in the context of diverse socio-political, cultural, and economic spheres throughout the Islamic world. Contributions might consider past and present events, circumstances, and spaces that offer different or nonconventional interpretations of environmentalism and even the idea of ‘nature’ itself as a space of multiple perspectives, definitions, and concerns, as well as how communities individually encounter and define environmental concerns and incorporate natural design elements into structural responses and solutions specific to the context. Papers might additionally address how architecture as an analytical mechanism challenges established approaches and tendencies that position the built environment in opposition to environmentalist concerns by recognizing its capacity to act as a type of text composed of multiple narratives and registers of knowledge that reflects the value system and frameworks operating within a society at a particular moment with regards to the environment. Papers should adhere to the IJIA’s remit, which is defined broadly as ‘the historic Islamic world, encompassing the Middle East and parts of Africa and Asia, but also the more recent geographies of Islam in its global dimensions’. Further, contributors should fully exploit the self-reflexive potential of this remit towards addressing a spectrum of critical approaches to the built environment in the Islamic world that not only position architecture as a theatre of environmental performance, but also a platform from which to consider additional conditions revolving around issues of race, gender, ethnicity, culture, and politics as they relate to environmental challenges and concerns. To this end, this special issue not only aims to be strongly interdisciplinary, drawing from fields ranging from urban design, history, architecture, archaeology, sociology, and anthropology, but also accommodate a diversity of discourses that focus on regions, communities, and built environments not widely addressed in scholarship on Islamic space. Such case studies are particularly important toward generating a comparative interrogative approach to effectively consider the ongoing encounter/relationship between humanity and the natural world over time and space. Examples of themes contributors might wish to explore include, but are not limited to, the following: Imagining sustainable futures/architecture as an environmentalist frontier Global warming, climate change, and its social/cultural impacts Natural aesthetics as design inspiration Green architecture in desert environments Environmentalism, heritage, and its discontents Eco-Islam and the ‘Green Deen’ Armed conflict and its environmental impacts/implications Petropolitics and sustainable space Architecture and ecological conservation/preservation Non-traditional/emerging designs, materials, and spaces Colonial/postcolonial frameworks in environmental discourse AT (appropriate technology) Articles offering historical and theoretical analysis (DiT papers) should be between 6000 and 8000 words, and those on design and practice (DiP papers) between 3000 and 4000 words. Practitioners are welcome to contribute insofar as they address the critical framework of the journal. Please send a title and a 400-word abstract to the guest editor, Michelle Apotsos, Williams College (IJIAsustainability@gmail.com), by April 30, 2022. Authors of accepted proposals will be contacted soon thereafter and will be requested to submit full papers by January 30, 2023. All papers will be subject to blind peer review. For author instructions, please consult: www.intellectbooks.com/ijia. Read more

CALL FOR PAPERS Conference Weaving Histories from Below in the Global South Needlework, Gender, and Empowerment in Southern Africa Johannesburg 2-3 November 2022   Wrapped around the walls of the Parliament in Cape Town is the Keiskamma Tapestry, created in the 2000’s by more than a hundred Xhosa women. Modelled on the Bayeux tapestry in France, and spanning 120 meters in length, this tapestry tells the epic history of the Xhosa people on the Eastern Cape Frontier.i This work of embroidery brings the voices and the experiences of women into one of the most powerful buildings in South Africa: where policies are made and debated, where budgets are decided, and where power is negotiated. It offers an interesting echo to the tapestry made by Afrikaner women embroidered in the 1950s at the height of apartheid with the ambition to exalt the Boer Great Trek of the nineteenth century — and still on display in the Voortrekker Monument in Pretoria, a landmark of the Afrikaner memory. As these two examples show, politics, history and memory can surface at the end of a needle and sometimes a needle can be as powerful as a pen, if not as a sword.   Beyond such political questioning, various issues emerge around the objects related to needlework and ornamental activities in Southern Africa. The ambition of this conference is to interrogate how the rich material culture of “needlework” —embroidery, beadwork, weaving, tapestry, spinning, knitting, etc. — can give access to subaltern voices and social actors. Mainly related to women, such culture is often considered ‘modest’ in comparison to male productions. However, in addition to its practical purposes, it provides genuine forms of cultural and artistic expression. In addition, they are part of an economic sector in their own right, whose importance has long been diminished, as women’s labour is often “free” or underpaid. Of particular interest is the positioning of these activities within the everyday, at the intersection of art versus labour, and culture versus history, together with their materiality, and their ability to communicate in non-verbal and non-textual ways that endows them with such potential. Needlework is also part of these so-called “traditions” where innovation has been constant, from the bone needles of prehistoric times to the computer-assisted design of our era.   Black women, who have historically been triply marginalised on the basis of race, class and gender often remain invisible in records and archives. In this context, needlework traditions hold the potential “to give voice to those who might otherwise go unheard”ii as emphasised by Clare Hunter. For instance, the Amazwi Abesifazane (Women’s Voices) memory cloth programme allowed several thousand Zulu, Sotho, and Xhosa women to document their experiences of violence and discrimination under apartheid, and find healing, community with other women, and a place in history.iii By bringing together researchers from diverse disciplinary backgrounds (history, art history, anthropology, archaeology, economics, sociology, geography, visual arts, etc.), the main objective of the conference is to reflect on how a new set of material objects and practices can offer “new sites” and encourage innovative “critical pedagogies” from which to write gendered and subaltern histories. This perspective has long been advocated by Achille Mbembe and Sarah Nuttall who called for “identifying sites within the continent, entry and exit points not usually dwelt upon in research and public discourse that defamiliarize common-sense readings”.   In the United States, research on African American quilting traditions has shown the way in which quilt patterns were used to guide runaway slaves navigate the perilous journey from south to north as part of the underground railroad, contributing to our understanding of the gendered nature of black liberation and the retention of African technologies, culture and aesthetics, despite enslavement. Passed down across generations such patterns furthermore speak to the relationship between oral histories, story-telling, migration and needlework traditions.v Returning to the African continent, Anitra Nettleton’s work on the changing patterns of beadwork and clothing decoration in nineteenth century South Africa illustrates how such traditions were used by African women to navigate between tradition and modernity, and renegotiate identity in a transforming world thrown open by capitalism, migrant labour and Christianity.vi Contemporary African American artist Bisa Butler also takes up a similar theme – that of the renegotiation of identity — in her work, producing textured quilts from contemporary African fabrics, but drawing inspiration from archival photographs of famous and ordinary African Americas. In so doing her quilts “resurface and reimagine historical narratives of Black life simultaneously situating them in the present withinthebroadercontextofadiasporicidentityandnetworks.”vii Whileneedleworkactivitiescan provide a powerful means for bearing witness and expressions of trauma, they can indeed be mined as expressions of agency.   In line with this approach, the Weaving Histories from Below Conference organisers call for abstracts studying needlework activities from diverse perspectives: as forms of autobiography/biography; as markers, makers of identity, both individual and collective; as discourses on history and on the past; as memory-building tools; as forms of resistance and disruption; as ways of negotiating/renegotiating complex identities; etc. They also expect proposals that consider, in their tangible dimension (both social and economic), these generally artisanal or artistic activities (which places and modes of production? Which networks? marketing channels? organisation of the workforce? etc.) — activities which often lead to the creation of gendered communities (women's cooperatives, for example), of gendered identities and spaces(feminine,orpossiblyqueer,non-binary);etc. Thislistisofcoursenotexhaustiveandall proposals in line with the theme will be welcomed. Contributions can cover a large time period, from the Prehistoric era to nowadays, and stem from all the disciplines of the social sciences. Dr Annie Devenish (University of the Witwatersrand) Prof. Sophie Dulucq (IFAS-Research) Line Relisieux (IFAS-Research)   Please submit your abstract before 30 April 2022, together with a short autobiography, at the following addresses: comm.research@ifas.org.za and sophie.dulucq@frenchinstitute.org.za   Abstracts should not exceed 300 words (or 2500 characters). Read more

CALL FOR PAPERS   Africa’s natural environment is rich and diverse, ranging from its wildlife and plants to its land and resources. It is also one of the continents most severely affected by climate change, with increasingly erratic weather events adversely impacting biodiversity, agriculture and those living there. This conference will explore library and archive materials relating to Africa and the environment and how they are collected, catalogued, preserved and used in research and teaching. We would welcome papers relating to a range of media including documents and manuscripts, photographs, newspapers, historical printed collections, audio-visual material and born-digital material. Subjects might include: How the archives of individuals and organisations working on environmental issues are being preserved and made available How library and archive materials are used to chart and address climate change How collections are used to research renewable energy in Africa How current field research is being preserved and published How environmental challenges affect libraries and archives in Africa and how they respond Librarians, archivists and researchers are invited to submit abstracts of up to 350 words for consideration to Sarah Rhodes (sarah.rhodes@bodleian.ox.ac.uk) by 31 March 2022. http://scolma.org Read more

Stata is a complete and integrated data management software. It is fast, accurate, easy to use and provides all that can be considered as data science needs including data manipulation, visualization, statistics and automated reporting.   Date: March 23rd to June 15th 2022 (every Wednesday). Time: 5:00pm – 7:00pm WAT. Mode of delivery: ZOOM   Certificates shall be offered based on request and satisfactory level of participation during training.   Who can participate: Academics Researchers Students (Undergraduates & Postgraduates) Data Analysts & Scientists Civil Servants Entrepreneurs   Download training module here:  PILAF STATA TRAINING MODULE FACILITATORS Prof. O.E. Olubusoye Dr. O.A. Otekunrin     Registration closes 17th March, 2022. Register at PiLAF STATA Training Registration Form (google.com) Read more

PAYC is organized by the African Students Association (ASA) of Notre Dame, in conjunction with the Pan-African Students Union (PASU) at Northwestern University. The Conference will bring together young people from across the world with the aim of fostering a critical understanding of Africa’s historical and contemporary challenges. This year’s Conference will be held under the theme "Which Way, Africa?" which will explore explore alternative paths for Africa’s political, economic and cultural development.Discussions at the Conference will be guided by four critical questions; 1) WHO are we as Africans? 2) WHERE are we as a continent? 3) HOW did we get where we are? and 4) WHERE do we go from here? Discussions will take place within three committees; a) Politics & Governance b) Socioeconomic transformation and c) Culture & Identity. The Conference will feature a keynote address by Prof. Lwazi Lushaba from the University of Cape Town. For more information, please visit our website.Please do not hesitate to reach out to me should you have any questions about the Conference  - Olemo Brian payc2022@gmail.com.   Registration deadline Friday, March 11, 2022 https://www.panafricanyouthconference.org/ Read more

This two-day ICT training will be held in two sessions. The first will be Monday, March 28 from 9:00 – 10:00 AM (Eastern Time/US). The second session will be Tuesday, March 29 from 9:00 – 10:00 AM (Eastern Time/US). ​In order to complete this training, attendance is required on both days.Kindly use this link to compare time zones https://timezonewizard.com/?gclid=Cj0KCQjwz7uRBhDRARIsAFqjulkIzMc5eqvDZToeBekhc0cNy_zVpO9BUAdagZRUeb2QM-egXUTj4ocaAoUGEALw_wcB Certificates will be presented to all attendees who complete the two-day training.Training will be held through Zoom and is accessible through your computer. Click https://zoom.us/ to download Zoom to your computer.Registration will be limited to 20 participants. Please ensure you are able to commit to attending both days of the training before you register.Please click the SUBMIT button at the bottom of the registration form linked here: Zoom based free SAWBO/Kataru network training: Scaling of impact through WhatsApp - March 28 and March 29, at 9:00 AM EST/USA (google.com) to complete your registration. Your spot in the training will not be reserved unless the SUBMIT button is clicked.Kindly send any questions about this form to Severina Adames at seveadames@sawbo-animations.org. Read more

The Einstein Foundation Berlin has announced an international award to provide publicity for researchers and institutions seeking to improve the quality of research.Einstein Foundation Award for Promoting Quality in Research is the first award to recognize outstanding efforts that enhance the rigour, reliability, robustness, and transparency of research.To honour researchers and institutions whose work helps to advance the quality and robustness of research findings, awards worth €500,000 have been allotted across various categories.    Individual researchers or small teams of collaborating researchers can be nominated. The laureate will be awarded €200,000.   Governmental and non-governmental organizations, institutions, or other entities can apply or be nominated. The award-winning organization or institution will receive €200,000.    Early career researchers or small teams of collaborating researchers can submit a project proposal that seeks to foster research quality and value for an award of €100,000   Nominations and applications close on April 30, 2022   Apply now: Award – Einstein Foundation Berlin Read more

To stimulate new and diverse lines of discourse about the Middle East and Africa, ASMEA’s Research Grants Program seeks to support research on topics that deserve greater attention. The topic areas and sub-topics listed below are intended as a guide for potential participants in the program and constitute the types of subjects that ASMEA intends to support. An applicant may submit a proposal on any topic as long as it is directly relevant to the five broad areas outlined below, and constitutes new and original research. Grants of $2500 will be awarded. For eligibility and requirements, refer to the grant guidelines.   Topic Areas: Minorities and Women Feminism, women’s rights, family law Christians in the Middle East and Africa Alevis, Bahai, Berbers, Druze, Kurds, Yazidis Military History Terrorist groups- ideologies, intentions, and methods Conventional conflict and proxy war Approaches to national security, deterrence, and proliferation Governance and Economy Maintaining power- elections, patronage, coercion Political and economic reform movements Economy and state corruption Dealing with bounty: oil, gas and other resources Faith Islamism Islamic heterodoxy Islamic reform movements Shia/Sunni rivalry Iran Current political affairs Center vs. periphery and Persians vs. minorities Traditional approaches to domestic rule and empire Expressing opposition- protest, culture, youth, migration, violence   The deadline to submit is April 15, 2022. Contact ASMEA at info@asmeascholars.org for questions on the application process.   Link to apply/more info: 2022 Research Grant Program (asmeascholars.org) Read more

Gender sensitive institutional structures and policies. Using Evidence and data to #BreakTheBiasEducation Sub Saharan Africa (ESSA), European Women Rectors Association (EWORA) and the International Association of Universities (IAU) have come together for International Women Day 2022 to launch a global conversation on women in leadership in education, with a special focus on Europe and Africa. The focus of this initial conversation is gender-sensitive institutional structures and policies.During the webinar, evidence and data from research will be shared, including findings from the ESSA The State of Women Leading Report, the European She figures 2021 - Statistics on Gender in Research and Innovation by EWORA and information from the IAU World Higher Education Database (WHED).University leaders and organisations from Europe and Africa will present gender equality issues in higher education and research. This webinar will set the scene for a panel discussion on gender-sensitive institutional structures and policies to support female leadership development in education.   To register: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/2116457046730/WN_8ZGkWOc6QsauclNkXXfZAQ Read more

The Einstein Foundation Award for Promoting Quality in Research aims to provide recognition and publicity for outstanding efforts that enhance the rigor, reliability, robustness, and transparency of research in the natural sciences, the social sciences, and the humanities, and stimulate awareness and activities fostering research quality among scientists, institutions, funders, and politicians. To acknowledge the outstanding role early career researchers (ECRs) have in promoting research quality, ECRs will be invited to propose projects that foster research quality and value. Projects will be competitively selected for funding and internationally showcased.   The Einstein Foundation Award honors individual researchers from all fields, as well as collaborations, institutions, and organizations (NGO or governmental), that have made substantial contributions to fostering research integrity through outstanding measures that increase the quality and reliability of research, e.g. by improving transparency, access to research results (‘Open Science’), overcoming the fragmentation of research (‘Team science’); have developed and/or implemented quality-improving interventions, governance and policies; have delivered groundbreaking research on research to identify opportunities for improving research practice, have generated evidence for potential interventions, and have developed metrics and policies that incentivize the adoption of best possible research practices; have developed innovative approaches that foster research on research integrity, have conducted and designed novel measures or programs preventing misconduct and safeguarding validity and reliability in science and research; have identified and addressed systemic factors leading to improved research integrity and more responsible research; have performed or supported studies on the reproducibility of scientific results; have made a significant contribution to the teaching of good research practice; have identified research standards and incentives that directly or indirectly constrain the quality of research (e.g. reliance on purely quantitative output measures) and have designed more adequate means to assess the quality of research and researchers; have demonstrated exceptional integrity when facing difficult circumstances and/or conflicts of interest; have significantly contributed to increasing the diversity of research by taking into view aspects such as gender, race/ethnicity, geography, career stage, etc.; guarantee the long-term archiving of data and publication (generation-spanning archives); or that seek to make such developments and/or contributions in future Award Categories The Einstein Foundation will honor successful candidates in the following three categories:   Individual Award: Individual researchers or small teams of collaborating researchers can be nominated. The laureate will be awarded €200,000.   Institutional Award: Governmental and non-governmental organizations, institutions, or other entities can apply or be nominated. The award-winning organization or institution will receive €200,000. If governmental organizations or institutions are the recipients of the award, they will not receive any funds in addition to the award itself. Non-Governmental organizations can be publicly funded; although government representatives may sit on an NGO’s governing board(s), governments cannot unilaterally determine the use of the organization’s funds, its structure, or its activities.   Early Career Award: Early career researchers or small teams of collaborating researchers can submit a project proposal that seeks to foster research quality and value for an award of €100,000. Eligibility and Requirements This award is open to any researcher or group of researchers, organizations, or institutions involved in science and research, education, and scholarship. To be eligible for the early career award, candidates must hold a doctorate or have equivalent research experience, and should have been an independent researcher for no longer than five years.   Nominations of individual or small teams should include a nomination letter, a CV, and a list of relevant publications of each nominee, as well as letters of support from eminent experts and former trainees.   Applications or nominations of organizations and institutions should consist of a nomination or application letter, as well as letters of support from eminent experts.   Early career researchers or small teams of early career researchers should submit a letter of motivation, a project proposal, as well as a CV and a list of relevant publications for each team member. Find out more about the nomination and application requirements in the different categories.   Learn more: https://www.einsteinfoundation.de/en/award/?sap-outbound-id=DA302B06ABF7EE060E3DEC6F13812012898900E7&utm_source=hybris-campaign&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=000_SDR8597_0000020206_CONR_AWARD_APPL_GL_SCON_EFA22_NomEFA22&utm_content=EN_internal_38102_20220301 Read more

THE, in partnership with UNESCO IESALC (the International Institute for Higher Education in Latin America and the Caribbean) invite you to join five experts from five regions of the world to share how their universities are beacons of excellence in driving progress towards gender equality.On International Women’s Day, THE and UNESCO-IESALC will publish a new White Paper presenting a global analysis of exclusive data across 18 indicators, and five detailed case-studies that will help you support your own institution’s efforts to tackle gender inequality and discrimination.We will reveal regional examples which are making outstanding progress, and the possible factors and strategies behind their success.Gain access to the new research that is designed to guide strategic decision making towards promoting SDG5.We will explore:• Which regions are working towards greater equality when it comes to the average shares of female students across different subject areas• How universities are becoming more focused on improving women’s access to higher education than improving their outcomes and success rates• In which areas are women underrepresented within the university staff and academics.• What is a new emerging frontier in the fight for gender equality?Speakers:• Erika Adriana Loyo Beristáin, Head of the Gender Equality Unit, University of Guadalajara• Emma Deraze, sr data scientist, THE• Eileen Drew, director, Centre for Gender Equality and Leadership, Trinity College Dublin• Rosa Ellis, rankings reporter, THE• Victoria Galán-Muros, chief of research and analysis, UNESCO-IESALC• Kathryn Maud, assistant professor of women and gender studies, American University of Beirut• Bhavani Rao, director, Ammachi Labs and Unesco chair in gender equality and women’s empowerment, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham• Judith Waudo, director of the Center for Gender Equity and Empowerment, Kenyatta University   To register: https://timeshighereducation.zoom.us/webinar/register/6016439759437/WN_dT2C5wYDTWOojK8RoUzhkg?mc_cid=5d6cfd5ca7&mc_eid=7136de6cb6 Read more

Fish4Thought Event:Gender-inclusive innovations in aquatic food systems A virtual event to celebrate International Women's Day and highlight the importance of gender-sensitive approaches to empower women actors in aquatic food systems.Tuesday, 8 March 202215:00-16:20 (UTC+8) / 08:00-09:20 (UTC+1) Click here to register and save your spot Growing evidence points to gender equality playing a key role in aquatic food systems’ crucial contributions to achieving the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. However, despite recent progress in advancing gender equality and women’s empowerment, inequity and barriers still remain in most parts of the world.In this upcoming Fish4Thought virtual event held in conjunction with International Women’s Day, WorldFish's research experts will come together to highlight gender-sensitive approaches that empower women actors and ensure gender-equal opportunities in food, nutrition and income security in aquatic food systems.The presentations will focus on WorldFish’s years of research work in designing and implementing gender-inclusive innovations in response to climate and COVID-19 impacts. The panel of experts will also share regional innovations in aquatic food systems to increase the visibility, agency and leadership capabilities of women in small-scale, artisanal fisheries and aquaculture sectors in Asia, Africa and the Pacific.    Read more