Welcome to the Africa-Bayreuth International Alumni Network (afriBIAN)!

The Africa-Bayreuth International Alumni Network (afriBIAN) is supported by the DAAD and funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the Federal Foreign Office (AA) in the years 2022 and 2023.

Its founding members are alumni of the Bayreuth International Graduate School of African Studies (BIGSAS) but the network aims to include other alumni who did their PhD studies at the University of Bayreuth and who have been working on Africa-related topics in all academic disciplines as well.

The Project Team consists of coordinators and partners of the

• University of Bayreuth, Germany,
• Moi University, Eldoret, Kenya,
• University of Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah, Fes-Sais, Morocco,
• University of Jos, Nigeria,
• University Cheikh Anta Diop, Dakar, Senegal, and
• University of Sousse, Tunisia.

afriBIAN is proud to announce its first conference series “Rolling Religion on the African Map: Beliefs, Practices and Contentions in Times of Transition”.
   

The first afriBIAN conference on "The Idea of Religion: African Perspectives and Planetary Considerations" was held at the Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences, Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University, Fes-Sais in collaboration with the research laboratory “Discourse, Creativity, Society and Religions (DISCRESOR)” in June 2022.

In November 2022, the second afriBIAN conference on "The Politics of Religion in Africa" was held at the University of Jos.

From 6 to 9 June 2023, the conference “Religion and Education in Africa” at the Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar, Senegal, was supposed to take place but, unfortunately, had to be cancelled last minute due to political riots.

Now we are glad to announce the next afriBIAN event in 2023! From 23 to 28 October 2023, Moi University in Eldoret, Kenya, will host the last activity in this funding period. At Moi University, a two-day conference on "African Myths, Spiritualities and Faiths in Times of Globalization" including a field trip will be followed by an alumni workshop, where the future of the afriBIAN network will be discussed. The participants will explore western parts of Kenya by bus and visit the home universities of several Bayreuth alumni on the way to and from Eldoret.