The University of Birmingham has a long tradition of studying Africa, attracting African students, and collaborating with African scholars and institutions.
The Africa Hub promotes and disseminates research conducted across its colleges and departments, as well as by invited scholars and international research partners, students and alumni.
Our research on Africa is world-leading, and we are one of a very select group of Universities in the UK that have a dedicated Department of African Studies and Anthropology founded in 1963. However, excellent research on Africa is carried out across all the five colleges of the University. While Africa is still marginal in school curricula and public culture, we engage pro-actively with unequal structures of knowledge production and exchange, and advocate for research that keeps African colleagues and institutions, and their concerns, at the heart of the field.
Media, policy, and academic representations of Africa emphasise poverty, crisis and dependence. The point is not to confirm or deny these conditions: they exist for some people in some places. The point for us, as a research institution, is to think critically, question received wisdom, and ask difficult questions. Africa Hub is a space for thinking Africa differently.