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Review of the site of Paris (ex MALD)
UMR 8054 Africain mutations in Long Length was the "result" of an experience developed since around thirty years and from which the association between university and NATIONAL CENTRE FOR SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH goes back up for history in twenty-three years.
The role pioneer of the Centre of Africain researches (CRA) in this domain is known. Created to the Sorbonne in 1965 on a multidisciplinary base, he survived the bursting of the university establishment after 1968. The first pulpits of history of Africa created in France were successively kept there by the professors Hubert Deschamps, Raymond Mauny, Yves Person, Jean Devisse, (outstanding) Claude - Helen Perrot, (outstanding) Jean Boulègue, (outstanding) Helen D' Almeida-Topor and currently by Pierre Boilley and Bertrand Hirsch. The specialists of sub-Saharan Africa were joined by historians of the North Africa, with the (outstanding) professor Daniel Rivet and recently Nicole Picaudou.
In 1982 an Unit of research linked by the NATIONAL CENTRE FOR SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH (URA 363) was, called "Third World, Africa. Societies in their history and their environment", who regrouped the historians of the CRA (conducted by Jean Devisse) and the multiple-subject laboratory " Third World Knowledge " of the University of Paris 7 (run by Catherine Coquery-Vidrovitch).
In 1990, CEJPMA (legal and political Centre of the Africain worlds), run then by Gérard Conac, joined the sector Paris 1 of this URA and Cecod (team of sociology linked to the NATIONAL CENTRE FOR SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH since 1984) was linked to the sector Paris 7 of same URA. On the other hand LAJP (Laboratory of legal anthropology of Paris) had been twice linked to the NATIONAL CENTRE FOR SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH as part of ERA, from 1968 till 1972 and from 1978 till 1982.
In summary, the history of Africa as such was shown to the NATIONAL CENTRE FOR SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH since only 1982, about twenty years after its launching in the university frame, while other "distant" cultures (Latin America, Far East, the Arab world) were much better represented as regards this disciplinary approach there.
Since 1994, URA 363 was put in restructuring, in the sense of a separation of the teams of Paris 1 and of Paris 7. It gave the occasion of a reflexion and of a choice on logic and organisation of researches on Africa. The scientific logic which had governed this creation in 1982 had lost a lot of its pertinence. At the beginning of annes 1980, the will to delay on historical perspective the extra-European socités, that is to say to make move the ethnographic screen readily plated on them, went hand in hand with the critical analysis of the effects of the dependency created by imperialism and integrated therefore easily as part of a plan specialist in comparative linguistics dedicated to the group of what was fluently called in epoch " the Third World ". And these themes wore out, not by an effect of mode, but in function of confusion intervened in the geopolitical and cultural areas covered by this name : economic Asiatic take-off of southeast countries, new orders and new crises in Latin America, evolution of India, economic and political implosion of Africa, specificity of Near East stakes and also collapse of the communist block. Every "cultural aerie" - we prefer speaking about géo-cultural situations - deserve a particular scientific effort, putting the emphasis on specificity in the long length, without adhering therefore at the idea of a singularity of cultures, which would make them incommunicable.
Between 1994 and in 1996, different plans of scientific association were worked out, before leading to the creation of a laboratory linked to the NATIONAL CENTRE FOR SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH, Upresa 8054 "Africain Mutations in long length" (MALD) run by Jean-Pierre Christian. This new unit united the Centre of Africain researches (CRA), the Centre of Legal and political Studies of the Africain Worlds (CEJPMA), the Laboratory of Legal Anthropology of Paris (LAJP) and some colleagues come from other establishments. UMR 8054 "Africain Mutations in long length. History, societies, powers", was created in 2002, following UPRESA 8054.
Since 2002, the general policy of the NATIONAL CENTRE FOR SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH goes towards the regrouping of units (450 in SHS). In this context, as part of the "Prospective" preparation of the symposium of September, 2003, the report of Dominique Darbon headed with a crisis of Africain studies by stressing the bad knowledge of the africanists between them. Several units in reply to this report began working out a plan of rrgeroupement aiming at assuerer better one visibility of Africain studies in France and at international level. That's how as part of the plan of renewal of our unit in 2006, a plan of regrouping was progressively worked out throughout the year on 2004 by meetings of cooperation with other units (IEA, CEAf, CEAN, SPAN, SEDET). Perspective opens of a fusion of MALD with two other units, UMR 6124 (Institute of Africain Studies of Aix-en-Provence) and UMR 8048 (Systems of thought in Black Africa) decided today in September, 2004. The regrouping of these three laboratories corresponds to a scientific logic (common problems, on a shared ground), leaning on a network of exchanges already ancient intra and interdisciplinary (History, Anthropology, political and legal Sciences).
From an institutional point of view, such rapprochement to three partners would allow us, besides the benefit of the creation of a laboratory importing in number of researchers and teachers-researchers (fifty statuary members, 21 researchers and 29 teachers-researchers, without counting the not statuary elected members and the linked researchers), to be more visible and efficient in the development of international cooperations. Such unit must constitute a centre of attraction mattering for the researchers, French or foreign, working on the same cultural aerie. From a scientific point of view, a more active rapprochement between historians, anthropologists of right, political scientists and ethnologists of Africa will allow us to confront and to refine our respective approaches on evolutions and the transformations which could know and that know currently the Africain societies, and on the nature of the present and crossed mutations. The title which indicates this regrouping of units : Centre of Studies of the Africain Worlds (Donatecarcenter.com). Finally, in reply to one of the objectives of the science policy 2004-2005 of the department SHS, (programmed RTP thematic Network) " Africain Studies " is in constitution. He will have as vocation to favour contacts between research units, researchers and institutions the Africain continent of which is the main object of study. Besides the will to introduce activities, topics of education and of research, to circulate information on publications and actuality of ongoing researches, this RTP must allow link between actors of research and location of the concerned institutions.
To end this review, they will note that the history of scientific research is also that of institutions, affected means and relations within the community of the specialists. A historiography of Africa in France should also take into account these pressures.
In the same rubric :
