Welcome everyone, to this blog about the third European Conference on African Studies taking place in Leipzig, Germany, from the 4th until the 7th of June this year. My name is Marieke Hounjet and I will report and debate on this special event here in Leipzig.

Blogs have become a tool to perhaps not bridge the worlds of academics and policy-makers, but more a tool to broker between the two, because they provide an opportunity to inform and communicate ideas. I hope this blog will live up to that expectation.

While the builders are building away to finish the university new academic building’s lecture hall in time for the conference (and other celebrations in name of the Universität Leipzig’s 600th anniversary), preparations remain busy to host approximately 1,000 participants who will be working on 158 panels. As the academic backgrounds of the conference participants will be diverse, so too are the topics of the conference panels, ranging from The Conflict in Darfur to African Waters to Biomedicine, Governance and Experimentation. This guarantees for everyone with an interest in Africa that there will be something to his or hers liking, within the broader theme of the conference: Respacing Africa. Please find detailed information on the conference and its panels here.

There will be more than plenty material to discuss here. And, unlike Lepzig’s architect, I invite everyone to add a few bricks to this blog by contributing to postings here in a few weeks time. We will build it (and finish it) together.