Deadline for Abstracts: 16 November
On 18–19 June 2026, the University of Manchester will host a conference on Histories of African Economic Thought. The conference aims to bring together scholars working on African economic thought (broadly conceived) across disciplines and on all eras and parts of the continent.
Possible themes include (but are not limited to):
• African epistemologies and discourses of value, inequality and crisis
• Gendered perspectives in African economic thought
• Economic concepts and categories in indigenous languages and systems of thought
• The political and social implications of economic thinking in Africa
• Colonial political economy
• History and sociology of economics in postcolonial Africa
• African economists and intellectuals on ‘development’
• African socialism, Marxism, anarchism, dependency theory
• African economic thought from global and diasporic perspectives
• Historiographical and methodological reflections on the opportunities and challenges of writing about African economic thought
Papers privileging African voices, ideas, concepts and experiences will be given priority over those dealing primarily with how the rest of the world engaged with Africa.
Selected participants will be expected to pre-circulate their papers in advance. The papers discussed at the conference will then be published in a volume on Histories of African Economic Thought co-edited by Dr Gerardo Serra and Dr Paola Vargas Arana. Travel funding, accommodation and meals will be offered to selected participants. Early-career scholars and scholars based in Africa will be given funding priority.
Those interested in applying should submit a long abstract (800 words, references excluded) and a CV (max. 4 pages) to the conference organisers, Dr Gerardo Serra ([email protected]) and Dr Paola Vargas Arana ([email protected]). The deadline for submission is 16 November 2025. Accepted participants will be notified by 19 December 2025. Full papers should be submitted and pre-circulated by 15 May 2026.
The conference is funded by Dr Gerardo Serra’s University of Manchester Faculty of Humanities Large Collaborative Grant, and will mark the conclusion of the project ‘Inequality and Crisis in West African Economic Thought’.
