SPP 1448: Adaptation and Creativity in Africa - Technologies and Significations in the Production of Order and Disorder

非洲大陆及其在世界上的角色再次发生变化。政治和经济自由化、不断变化的国家和社会关系、新的本地和跨地区动态以及全球化进程的加快都构成了广泛的挑战。非洲正在经历其后殖民时代最不稳定的时期之一：在不同级别谈判新的主权分配和秩序形式。非洲社会驾驭这些变化的能力至关重要，但对这些能力的决定因素研究严重不足。优先方案解决了一个关键问题，即后殖民时代的非洲行为者如何通过调动和转变其适应和创造的体制能力来应对其面临的多重挑战。人们特别注意有意义的技术和系统在秩序和无序的产生中的作用。该研究方案的主要目标是以经验为依据的理论讨论和澄清适应与创造力之间的关系。优先方案有四个结构目标：(1)促进了解是什么决定了非洲的适应能力和创造力，以应对各个领域的根本新挑战；(2)促进德国非洲研究领域不同学科的学者之间以及人文和社会科学不同教学和/或研究机构之间的合作；(3)在共同研究议程和学者网络的基础上，为在德国非洲研究领域不同学科的代表之间发展共同词汇创造一个有利的框架；(4)提高设在德国的非洲研究在整个非洲和具有非洲研究传统的国家(如法国、荷兰、斯堪的纳维亚、联合王国、美国和葡萄牙)以及在非洲发挥越来越大作用的国家(如巴西、中国、印度和俄罗斯)的知名度。它通过促进创新的跨学科研究和促进研究方法来做到这一点，这些方法有望认真对待非洲机构。

The African continent and its role in the world are changing again. Political and economic liberalisation, changing state-society relations, new local and translocal dynamics as well as accelerated processes of globalisation are posing wide-ranging challenges. Africa is witnessing one of the most precarious periods in its post-colonial time: new distributions of sovereignty and forms of ordering are negotiated at various levels. The capacities of African societies to navigate these changes are crucial, yet the determinants of these capacities are heavily under-researched. The Priority Programme addresses the key question of how actors in post-colonial Africa deal with the multiple challenges they are facing by mobilising and transforming their institutional capacities of adaptation and creativity. Particular attention is being paid to the role of technologies and systems of signification in the production of order and disorder. The main goal of the research programme is an empirically informed theoretical discussion and clarification of the relation between adaptation and creativity. The Priority Programme has four structural aims: (1) to contribute to the understanding of what determines the capacity for adaptation and creativity in Africa in view of fundamental new challenges in various arenas; (2) to promote cooperation between academics from different disciplines in African studies in Germany and across different institutions of teaching and/or research in the humanities and social sciences; (3) based on the common research agenda and the networking of academics, to create an enabling framework for the development of a common vocabulary among representatives of different disciplines in African studies in Germany; (4) to increase the visibility of Germany-based African studies throughout Africa and in countries with an established tradition of African studies (such as France, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, the United Kingdom, the United States and Portugal), but also in those countries, which play an increasing role in Africa (such as Brazil, China, India and Russia). It does so by facilitating innovative, interdisciplinary research and by promoting research approaches, which are promising to take African agency serious.