Snapshots from the ASAUK Conference 2026@ Durham University: Part II

 5 min. read

Part I

Durham, UK (c) Jeffrey Zhang (Unsplash)

Breakfast is included in the price of the room. I’d usually skip out on it during a weekday, considering it too indulgent. I’m nonetheless so scandalised by the daily fee, I insist on getting my money’s worth.  At breakfast, Diego introduces me to Gina, one of his compatriots whom he’s met at the conference. The full gamut of my Portuguese is on display, from the worst to the best. At least it’s practice. I ask if either have come across other Lusophones. They nod. Gina mentions over-hearing some fellow Brazilians and speaking to a Cape Verdean participant.

I’m hoping Diego will accompany me to the main venue but he’s yet to check out. He’ll meet me there, during my intervention for which I’m already late. I have no idea how to get to the lecture hall. I take a chance by following a young woman with what looks like a conference bag.

It’s quite a trek to the lecture theatre. I don’t trust my orientation skills to have made it on my own. In the process, I reckon I work off at least a bit of the more generous than usual breakfast I’ve consumed (a portion of scrambled eggs, veggie sausages, baked beans, a dollop of yoghurt, sprinklings of muesli, fruit and half a bagel? Wanton excess).

I arrive at the venue in time for the latter half of the first of my co-panellist’s talk, as part of the Histories of Women at Work: Works of Care stream. Diego arrives as the second panellist, Matimba, is in full flow. She’s a confident white Zimbabwean post-doc, currently based at Cambridge University. Her activist parents decided to reverse the colonial convention and give their daughter an indigenous name. Matimba has in turn done the same for her son, whom she claims doesn’t have any connection to her Zimbabwean ‘roots’ otherwise. I get it, I tell her, I’m just not sure what I think about it. 

I’d be the first to decry the proliferation of Western names amongst Africans. Matimba agrees with my framing of it as a form of cultural annihilation. Nevertheless, on reflection, I’m not as convinced as she that the response is for more Europeans to give their children African names. 

It’s well-intentioned but comes across as a paternalistic gimmick and even cultural appropriation. The aim is not for more white people to walk around with non-Western names. It is for African parents not to feel embarrassed/reluctant/hesitant/sceptical about giving their children indigenous first names (forget that middle name business that so few people ever use in every day life). 

Despite the many ways Anglophone Europeans in particular find to butcher my own West African name, and being aware that in a world of systemic discrimination it puts a target on my back in certain contexts, I still wear it as a badge of honour. I often say, only half-joking, that it’s the one truly African thing about me.

(c) Tiago Silva

Structural racism makes us overly concerned with what white Westerners think of our names. What should matter is how we Africans regard them. That won’t change simply because a few Caucasians choose Kwesi over Kevin, or Bunmi over Becca for their own children. It's not a favour to be returned.

If we diverge over nomenclature, Matimba and I have overlaps in our research, which we share during and after the session. Over the course of the day, I’ll be made to understand that my intervention was received well. Rehearsing ad nauseum was not in vain.

I enjoy some choice snacks during the tea break (another indulgence) and a convivial conversation about Afro haircare with a Nigerian artist accompanying her academic husband. Now that my presentation is behind me, I’m free to roam the conference, spread all over Durham’s campus. I’ve already spotted three sessions I’d like to attend at the same time. In the end I narrow it down to a panel on former liberation movements in Southern Africa and another about the economic imperialism inflicted on African states by international financial institutions, bond markets and Eco-colonialists. I end up at the latter when I discover the other has no more seating left. I’ll be glad to have made that choice. The session on economic imperialism has a more ethnically-diverse, not to mention all-female, panel.  In any case, I’m ever-ready for a refresher on economic policy, as I often feel my grip on that domain remains tenuous. 

It turns out that two thirds of the panel and some of the audience all write for the same anti-imperialist publication which, to my shame, I’ve not heard of until that point. The session is followed by lively discussion about the agency of African heads-of-state in their own oppression (and therefore their potential liberation), the wedge that neoliberal policies drive between social and economic policy, and whether a ‘purist’ Marxist class analysis is adequate for attending to the intersectional nuances of marginalisation.

(c) Jeffrey Zhang (Unsplash)

Two of the guests are of Ghanaian extraction. One of them, Dzidula – as I guess from her indigenous name – is part of the Ewe ethnic group, like my late maternal grandfather. Thanks to her, I learn my mother’s surname is the equivalent in Eʋe of ‘Makinde’ in Yoruba; that is ‘the one born after twins’.  Dzidula sees many linguistic similarities between the Ewes and Yoruba. I've learned something new. I was aware of the historical link between the Yoruba and the Ga but ignorant of any connection with the Ewes. 

Incidentally, that day I'm wearing a traditional outfit handmade by my Ewe colleague, Geraldine. I'll regret not sharing this small detail with Auntie Dzidula.

I’ll insist on calling Dzidula 'auntie', which makes her feel awkward. I mean nothing but respect by it. She’s of my mother’s generation. It’ll be like calling my mum by her first name. 

We convene for lunch and I find out more about the others in the anti-imperialist collective. (Uncle) Kofi studied law up to PhD level before dedicating his life to professional activism. He found his legal studies in the UK too ‘positivist’, he says. Dzidula spent most of her academic career in Ghana, and then accepted an opportunity to work for a prestigious London university to avoid spending her whole working life in one location. Independent researcher Portia, originally from Italy, knows more about the activist credentials of one of my almae matres than I do.

Before I realise, the afternoon is fast spent. I can squeeze in one more session before leaving to catch my train. The decision about which panel to attend is already made and life is much easier for it. Loyalty demands I join Diego’s session, chaired by Kadija Sesay. It’s a very eclectic panel, with presentations on performance-based Yoruba funeral rites, representations of the enslaved in West African cinema as well as Diego’s paper on Gayl Jones' depictions of Brazil in Anglophone literature that side-step fetish and cliché. The post-show discussion is as vibrant as the previous panel I attended, if not more so. I manage to catch up with Dr. George before and after the session. She has a hard time placing me until I pass her my business card. In fairness, it’s been a decade or two since our last encounter.

Another tea break. I say ‘Até logo’ to Diego and ‘Adeus’ to Gina, grabbing a couple more deluxe flapjacks on the way out to catch my bus to Durham train station. To my chagrin, I’ll miss out on yet another conference keynote lecture.

As I step out into the sunny and mild afternoon, I hear inflections of melodious Portuguese as a group of Brazilian scholars congregate in front of the lecture theatre, before we all eventually head towards the same bus stop.