The Africanist Network of EASA seeks to promote further development of African studies as an integral part of anthropology in Europe, Africa and around the world. By welcoming contributions from all the EASA members and beyond, the Network hopes to encourage African anthropological studies in all the subfields and subdisciplines of anthropology – kinship systems, indigenous political system, religion and society, et cetera – and also those which have appeared only recently, such as digital anthropology, medical anthropology, and so on. African studies has gone through a transformation for a “regional” discipline into a field that is “global” in more ways than one: for that reason, the Network also promotes research of African diasporas worldwide, the transcontinental and global impact of African cultures, and other related and relevant topics.
The network was founded on the initiative of Petr Skalnik, at the association’s 2002 conference in Copenhagen,. Since then, it has organized regular panels at EASA meetings, and, in 2012, an inter-conference meeting at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle. Many panels have been held under the network’s name, organized by board members Tilo Grätz, Dmitri Bondarenko and Petr Skalnik, and the network is planning to expand its activities in the near future.
In 2014, at the Tallinn conference of EASA, David O’Kane was elected as convenor of the network: Dmitri Bondarenko became the volunteer assistant. Since then, the network has held productive panels at successive EASA conferences. It does not wish to limit itself to these alone, however: at the time of writing January 2026, they are planning to expand the network’s activities. They welcome comments and suggestions from all members of the network, and urge all interested EASA members to get in touch!