International Symposium on the Study of African Languages and Cultures 2025(Announcement 1)
Language without Borders: China and Africa Shaping a New Narrative for the Global South
Responding to Change - Eliminating Prejudice - Exploring Symbiosis
30 June - 1 July 2025 | Beijing · Nairobi · Kano
I. Theme of the Conference
Against the backdrop of profound changes in the world landscape, the collective rise of the African continent and the Global South is reshaping the new order of the international landscape. This development is not only a landmark achievement in the institutional representation of the region but also signifies the emergence of a new paradigm in the Global South’s system of knowledge production and discourse construction.
BFSU, a prominent academic institution specializing in African languages and cultures, has been instrumental in this endeavor. Leveraging its strengths in foreign language disciplines, BFSU has been a driving force in the Global Alliance of Foreign Language Universities (GAFSU), the China-Africa University Alliance exchange mechanism, and other collaborative networks. This endeavor involves the construction of a disciplinary knowledge system that is centered on local ideas, but rather based on the ontology of language and literature. This system is being developed through the strength of the academic community in the fields of African language, African literature, and African culture research, among other disciplines. At the cognitive level, the exploration of practical methods of using language and culture as a path to promote mutual understanding between multiple civilizations is underway.
In recent years, the process of African integration has been characterized by an epistemological turn: the reconstruction of symbolic power through decolonization in the dimension of language policy, the practice of retelling cultural memory in the field of literature, and the reshaping of subjective identity in the dimension of cultural governance. The trinity of knowledge production practices not only constitutes a new starting point for the construction of a new type of global knowledge system, but its academic value also lies in the fact that it provides a localized programme of cultural governance for the countries of the Global South to cope with the complex challenges of the globalization process.
Against this background, the School of African Studies at Beijing Foreign Studies University, the Department of Kiswahili at the University of Nairobi, and the Centre for Research in Nigerian Languages, Translation & Folklore, Bayero University Kano are jointly organizing this academic symposium to build a dialogue mechanism combining the new narratives of the Global South with the discourse system of the China Africa Community of Shared Future, and to promote cross-disciplinary, transnational, and cross-disciplinary research innovations. In addition, in view of the important opportunities that digital development has brought to humanities research on the Global South in China and African countries, this conference will feature a special topic, inviting experts and scholars from various countries to share their practical paths of reshaping pluralistic knowledge systems in the midst of digital transformation, with the aim of providing a reference of local experiences in the field of digital humanities research, and promoting the formation of a more culturally inclusive solution to the global governance of technology.
II. Conference Topics
(i) Ontology of African Languages and Literature and Mutual Exchange and Learning of Multiple Civilizations.
(ii) From language and literature to region and country studies: Reconstructing African identity in intercultural exchange.
(iii) From Symbolic Decolonization to Digital Empowerment: Reconstructing the Knowledge Meridian of the Global South.
(iv) African experiences in digital transformation and culturally inclusive global technological governance.
III. Conference Programme
Language: English
Mode of participation: Online and offline
Conference Date: 30 June 2025 - 1 July 2025
Venue: Beijing Foreign Studies University, China
University of Nairobi, Kenya
Bayero University Kano, Nigeria
IV. Registration
Registration Deadline: 1st May 2025
Registration Reply: Please fill in the Attendance Confirmation Form and send it back to the contact email address.
Contact Email: bfsubukuon2025@163.com
Contact Person: Wei Yuanyuan, Iribe Mwangi, Lin Mengyuan, Yakubu Azare, Li Chunguang
Tel: +86(10)88818512, +254(20)4913251,+234 (80)33752285
V. Other Matters
1. No conference fee will be charged for the Beijing conference venue, but round-trip travelling, food and accommodation expenses will be paid by the participants.
2. The conference fees for Kano will be collected on-cite by the Bayero University Kano in accordance with the usual practice.
3. Excellent papers will be recommended for publication in the Journal of African Languages and Culture Studies and other Chinese, Kenyan and Nigerian journals.
School of African Studies, Beijing Foreign Studies University
Department of Kiswahili, University of Nairobi
Centre for Research in Nigerian Languages, Translation, Folklore, Bayero University Kano
