FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 24, 2024
Contact: Alix Saba, Executive Director, asaed@africanstudies.org
PDF Press Release for Distribution: Download Here
African Studies Association Announces 2024 Finalists and Awardees
PISCATAWAY, New Jersey, – The African Studies Association is honored to announce its annual awards heralding some of the most prominent contributions to the field of African Studies. The ASA will announce the honors and winners during the organization’s 67th Annual Meeting in Chicago, IL December 12-14.
The ASA Distinguished Africanist Award will honor the life work of Paul Lovejoy (York University) and Ousmane Kane (Harvard University). Each year, the African Studies Association presents the Distinguished Africanist Award to a member of the association who has made extraordinary contributions to the field.
Previous honorees include Kenneth Harrow, Richard Joseph, Steve Howard, Brenda Randolph, and Frederick Cooper, and Pearl Robinson.
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Established in 1965, the ASA Best Book Prize recognizes the most important scholarly work in African studies published in English and distributed in the United States during the preceding year.
The finalists for the 2024 ASA Best Book Prize are: Rabiat Akande, Entangled Domains: Empire, Law and Religion in Northern Nigeria (Cambridge University Press, 2023); Brahim El-Guabli, Moroccan Other-Archives: History and Citizenship after State Violence(Fordham University Press, 2023); Gabrielle Hecht, Residual Governance: How South Africa Foretells Planetary Futures (Duke University Press, 2023); Rachel Jean-Baptiste, Multiracial Identities in Colonial French Africa: Race, Childhood, and Citizenship (Cambridge University Press, 2023); Hugo ka Canham, Riotous Deathscapes (Duke University Press, 2023); and Amanda Swarr, Envisioning African Intersex: Challenging Colonial and Racist Legacies in South African Medicine (Duke University Press, 2023).
The ASA Best Book Prize winner will be announced during the annual Awards Ceremony.
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The ASA’s Bethwell A. Ogot Book Prize recognizes the best book on East African studies published in the previous calendar year. Established in 2012, the award is named in honor of Prof. Bethwell A. Ogot, a leading Kenyan historian, public servant and public intellectual, made possible by a generous bequest from the estate of Prof. Kennell Jackson, Jr., of Stanford University.
The finalists for the 2024 Bethwell A. Ogot Book Prize are: Jennie E. Burnet, To Save Heaven and Earth: Rescue in the Rwandan Genocide (Cornell University Press, 2023); George Paul Meiu, Queer Objects to the Rescue: Intimacy & Citizenship in Kenya (University of Chicago Press, 2023); Ng’ang’a Wahu-Mũchiri, Writing on the Soil: Land and Landscape in Literature from Eastern and Southern Africa (University of Michigan Press, 2023); and Jodie Yuzhou Sun, Kenya & Zambia’s Relations with China, 1949-2019 (Boydell & Brewer, 2023).
The Bethwell A. Ogot Book Prize winner will be announced during the annual Awards Ceremony.
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The ASA will present the 2024 ASA Outstanding Service Award to Alwiya Omar, Indiana University.
Each year, the African Studies Association presents the ASA Outstanding Service Award to a member of the association who has distinguished themselves through their dedication to the ASA’s mission by facilitating the production of knowledge about Africa and its diasporas; its dissemination within the academy or in civil society; or by establishing or supporting collaborations and exchanges between institutions in the global north and in Africa.
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The ASA Board of Directors established the annual Graduate Student Paper Prize in 2001 and singles out an exceptional student essay presented at the previous year’s ASA Annual Meeting.
The winner of the 2024 Graduate Student Paper Prize is Oluwasola Daniels (University of California, Davis), “How Stories of Sex Became Stories of Shame: Ale and Sexual Mobilities in Yoruba Conjugal Spaces.”
In 2024, the committee selected two Honorable Mentions: Stephen Quansah (University of Alabama), “Decentralization Local Level Development Process in Ghana: A Case Study of Asokore Mampong Municipal Assembly” and Tony Yeboah (Yale University), “The Capital City of Trees: Kumase in the Making of the Asante Kingdom, 1650-1874.”
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The ASA’s Sembène-Kelani Film Prize is awarded annually for an outstanding film, whether fiction or documentary, made in the preceding two calendar years by an African filmmaker. Established in 2019 as the ASA Film Prize, this award was made possible by a generous gift from Kenneth W. and Elizabeth W. Harrow through the establishment of the Ken Harrow ASA Film Fund.
The winner of the 2024 Sembène-Kelani Film Prize is Mambar Pierrette directed by Rosine Mbakam (2023). The film will be screened at the ASA Annual Meeting on December 12 to be followed by a Q&A.
In 2024, the committee selected two Honorable Mentions: Mami Wata directed by CJ “Fiery” Obasi (2023) and Omen directed by Baloji (2023).
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The ASA’s Gretchen Walsh Book Donation Award is selected by the Africana Librarians Council and offers an annual grant to support shipping costs to send books to African libraries and schools.
The 2024 Gretchen Walsh Book Donation Award Committee selected three awardees including the Sherkole Secondary School in Sherkole Refugee Camp, Centre de Documentation, l’UFR CRAC, and The Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA).
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The Mahmoud Mohamed Taha Student Travel Award facilitates research, study abroad, and/or travel to present research at the ASA Annual Meeting. The award was established in 2023 by a generous gift from Dr. Steve Howard and is named in honor of Sudanese author, activist, and intellectual Mahmoud Mohamed Taha (1909-1985).
The nine recipients of the 2024 Mahmoud Mohamed Taha Student Travel Award are: Ridwan Balogun (Florida State University), Diweng Mercy Dafong (University of Alabama), Oluwasola Daniels (University of California, Davis), Kevin Hayes (Howard University), June Kariuki (Ohio University), Kefas Lamak (University of Iowa), Atswei Laryea (Barnard College), Ashley May (Brown University), and Vitalis Nwashindu (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee).
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The ASA’s Conover-Porter Award was established in 1980 in honor of two pioneers in African studies bibliography: Helen F. Conover and Dorothy B. Porter Wesley. The Conover-Porter Award, awarded in even years, is the most prestigious award for published works of bibliography or reference on Africa, selected by the Africana Librarians Council.
The winner of the 2024 Conover-Porter Award is Africa Bibliography, Research and Documentation, edited by Terry Barringer (Cambridge University Press, 2022).
