As many African societies confront successive historical ruptures which include colonial disruption, economic restructuring, and political and social transformations, significant dimensions of African social and economic history have been silenced or rendered invisible. However, some moments of rupture have also generated processes of remake, as ordinary people reconfigured livelihoods, social relations, and systems of meaning in response to a dynamic and shifting world. Recovering these histories is central to understanding African possibilities beyond elite, state-centered, or linear narratives of change. This panel brings together scholars History, African Studies, Linguistics and other disciplines to rethink lost or marginalized African social and economic histories through the lenses of memory, gender, and “history from below.” Rather than privileging formal archives or dominant actors, the panel foregrounds everyday experiences, oral traditions, and subaltern knowledge practices as key sites where rupture was lived and remake was negotiated. The panel invites papers that examine how women, workers, marginalized communities, and actors within informal economies and environmental contexts responded creatively to social and economic change. It welcomes research spanning colonial conquest and labor regimes, postcolonial crises, and contemporary restructuring. The panel also encourages critical engagement with archival absence, the politics of memory, and alternative sources, including oral histories, life narratives, material culture, and community-based knowledge.
Send a 200 word abstract with your full name and institution of affiliation to:
Session organizer: Ropafadzo Hove
Email: ropafadzo2310@gmail.com OR rhove@kent.edu
Submission deadline: Thursday, March 12, 2026
Rethinking African Social and Economic History: Memory, Marginalization, Gender and History from Below
