YSI @ REFA: Decolonising Economics and Knowledge Production in Africa

Dates: Main Festival: Thursday 7 September and Friday 8 September 2023
Post-conference event at Students' Convening: Saturday 9 September 2023
Venue: University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), Johannesburg, South Africa

The annual Rethinking Economics for Africa (REFA) Festival is a public platform for exploring new forms of thinking, practice and policy proposals, to ensure that economics serves the needs of the African continent. The REFA Festival has brought together between 200 and 400 students, academics, civil society, workers in the labour movement and activists annually for the past five years. Participants explore the economic and social issues of our time through conference-style lectures, panel discussions and workshops as well as interactive stalls, artwork displays, film screenings and live performances.

This year, the REFA Festival will partner with the YSI Africa Working Group to host a post-conference event. This will enable young scholars to attend the main REFA Festival conference, and present their work at the REFA Festival Student Convening post-conference.

Objectives YSI @ REFA Festival post-conference event:

The objectives of the pre-conference are to:

(a) Provide a platform for knowledge sharing and networking between young scholars and senior academics working on decolonising economics in Africa.

(b) Discuss and reflect on how young African scholars can strengthen their networks to ensure continued coalescing around new economic thinking beyond YSI Africa and the REFA Festival

(c) Showcase the value of the YSI community to REFA members (university students as prospective members of YSI) and the public

The Africa Working Group invites young scholars working on research papers in line with this year’s theme Decolonising Economics and Economic Knowledge Production in Africa, to submit abstracts to present at this year’s REFA Festival Student Convening Pre-Conference. Six selected young scholars will have the opportunity to present their work to the public and the REFA network of University Chapters. Participants will also attend the main REFA Conference and REFA the Students Convening.
Abstracts will be accepted for research papers on any of the following sub-themes: .

■ Decolonising economics in Africa: concepts, debates, future prospects, and recommendations
■ The politics of economic knowledge production in Africa
■ Advancing pluralist, heterodox, real-world based, Africa-focused economics curricula
■ Overcoming challenges in the teaching-and-learning of economics in African higher education
■ The role for young scholars, early-career researchers, young members of the public and private sectors, in economic knowledge production