Introduction: Bridging Histories of East and Central Africa

Abstract

Regional distinctions such as “East” and “Central” Africa have been constructed, originally very much from an outsiders’ perspective. Different East and Central African historiographies reflect – and reproduce – these distinctions. However, the inhabitants of those spaces never stopped crossing and entangling them. Likewise, this section approaches East and Central Africa empirically as a space of historical entanglement. Moreover, the authors question the traditional divide between both regions epistemologically, by transferring research perspectives from one region’s historiography to the other. They thus illustrate that bridging histories of East and Central Africa can reveal histories that would otherwise remain hidden or marginal.

Biographical Note

Dr. Geert Castryck (SFB 1199 & Leipzig University)

Geert Castryck is a historian specialized in African and global history, particularly focusing on East and Central Africa from a global and transregional perspective. He published on African urban history, Islam in East and Central Africa, colonialism, and colonial legacies.

He got his PhD in history from Ghent University for a dissertation about the Muslim communities of Bujumbura (Burundi) in the colonial era.

Since 2010 he is affiliated with Leipzig University, where he worked at the Institute of African Studies, at the Centre for Area Studies, and since 2016 at the Collaborative Research Centre “Processes of Spatialization under the Global Condition” (SFB 1199). In the academic year 2015-’16, he was visiting professor in African history at Ghent University.

Current research projects include a global urban history of Kigoma/Ujiji (today Tanzania) and a history of the redefinition of space in East and Central Africa as well as in Europe during and after the Scramble for Africa.