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Institut des mondes africains (IMAF)

African Worlds Institute (IMAF)

The African Worlds Institute (IMAF, Institut des mondes africains) was created in January 2014 through a merger of three laboratories : CEMAf (African Worlds Study Center), CEAf (Centre of African Studies) and CHSIM (Centre for the Social History of Mediterranean Islam). Since September 2019, the institute is spread over two sites : Aix-en-Provence (southern France), and Aubervilliers (suburban Condorcet Campus).

Research areas
IMAF is a joint interdisciplinary (history, art history, anthropology, political science, history of law, archaeology and geography) research institute for studying the African continent and its diaspora communities. Its work is centred on six research areas :
 The creation and circulation of knowledge
 The long history of political economies and globalization in Africa
 Power, space, time and uses of the past
 Religious spaces: Genealogies, textualities, materialities
 Art as a political object
 Gender, bodies, subjectivities

Oversight
IMAF is under the supervision of six organizations : the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS – UMR 8171), the Research Institute for Development (IRD – UMR 243), the School of Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS), École Pratique des Hautes Etudes (EPHE), Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University, and Aix-Marseille University (AMU).

African studies (GIS)

IMAF is a leading figure in the African Studies Scientific Interest Group (GIS).

Africa-Europe Group for Interdisciplinary Studies (AEGIS)
IMAF is a full part of the multidisciplinary research network of European institutions working on Africa : the Africa-Europe Group for Interdisciplinary Studies (AEGIS).

Laboratories of Excellence (Labex)
IMAF is a member of the following Laboratories of Excellence :
 HASTEC, History and Anthropology of Knowledge, Technologies and Beliefs
 TEPSIS, State Transformation, Politicization of Societies, Institutionalization of Social Issues
 LabexMed, The Humanities and Social Sciences at the Core of Interdisciplinary Research for the Mediterranean

IMAF’s staff
Directors : Hervé Pennec and Fabienne Samson ;
Deputy director of the Aix-en-Provence site : Henri Médard
Administrator/general secretary : Cécile Vincenti