Africa session at IRA Annual Convention, Chicago, April 27, 2010

The IRA Annual Convention will be held in Chicago, IL USA from 25-28 April 2010.

If you are planning to attend the convention, please plan to attend
the session of the Literacy Issues in Developing Countries Special
Interest Group entitled:
‘Assessing our roles in literacy work in developing countries:
opportunities, challenges and ... Focus on Africa.’
This session will be a moderated panel/audience/member discussion on
how members in the "Global North" can work for and with our colleagues
in the "Global South" in ways that take their needs and potential
seriously.

The presenters will be Beatrice Quarshie Smith; Judith Baker; Scott
Walter; Samuel Andema; Sakil Malik and they will lead a discussion of
how the IRA can work effectively in Africa. Please come and take part
in this vital discussion.

The meeting will take place on April 27 from 9 to 11:45AM in the
McCormick Lakeside Center, Room E256.

Topics for discussion include:
- Is it possible to advocate for developing regions from within IRA?
How does the SIG facilitate a higher visibility for these regions?
- What are the best ways in which the SIG can facilitate work in
developing countries beyond the often problematic voyeur “show and
tell” that has become a staple at its presentations?
- How does one reassert the political significance of the
“International” in IRA as a site for critique to open spaces for
critical engagement with other regions. For an exemplar, this year's
panel focuses on Africa.

If you cannot attend but have ideas then please email them to Beatrice
Smith at bbsmith@mtu.edu
If you are coming to the Convention, you will find all the information
you need to register, arrange accommodations and plan your program at
reading.org by clicking on the ‘Meetings and Events’ button on the
left, and then press ‘Annual Convention.’

Please pass along this information to all your colleagues who are
interested in African education and help us publicize the meetings by
posting this on your professional networks.

Hope to see you in Chicago,
Samuel Andema, Chair, International Development Committee for Africa
[IDC/A], IRA [Kyambogo University, Uganda]
Beatrice Quarshie Smith, Chair, LIDC Special Interest Group, IRA
[Michigan Technological University]

Call for Papers Conference in Cape Town Jan 2011

Dear Literacy Experts,

Here is a conference you may wish to attend. The entire document is
at Website: http://www.moblanglit.com/ and it will also be under
'Files' on the Pan African site and linked on the Pan African blog.

MOBILITY LANGUAGE LITERACY: An international conference examining
transnational, translocal and global flows of people, language and
literacy through the lens of social practice - Cape Town January 2011

Website: http://www.moblanglit.com/

SECOND ANNOUNCEMENT AND CALL FOR PAPERS
Hosted by: AILA Research Networks on Language and Migration; Applied
Linguistics and Literacy in Africa and the Diaspora; and Literacy
Studies.
Co-hosted by the Dept of Linguistics, University of the Western Cape;
the School of Education and the Department of English Language and
Literature, University of Cape Town (UCT); Dept of General
Linguistics, Stellenbosch University; Faculty of Education, Cape
Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT); School of Literature and
Language Studies, University of the Witwatersrand (Wits)
Date: 19-21 January 2011
Venue: Vineyard Conference Centre, Claremont, Cape Town
Rationale: The conference will aim to
• bring together a group of established and emerging researchers in
applied language and literacy studies who are interested in the
transnational, translocal and global movements of people, language and
literacy in relation to social practice;
• focus on the lived experiences of individuals on the front lines of
global, transnational, and translocal processes;
• engage with both accounts of global flows and ethnoscapes as well
as local practices and processes produced by or impacting on migrants
and other people who cross various kinds of social, linguistic,
cultural, economic and workplace borders in socially stratified and
ethnically plural social settings;
• pay attention to the dynamics of multilingualism in located settings
and the social and personal management of multilingualism in such
settings;
• explore the role (and nature) of language and literacy practices in
boundary maintenance or disruption in global, transnational, and
translocal flows; discuss research about language practices and
documentary practices as regards access, selection, social mobility
and gate-keeping processes in particular settings.