African Studies Research and Study Opportunities

Thousands of study and academic opportunities in African Studies are available internationally. Conferences and summer schools in African Studies are organized regularly in the best academic centers of the world. The majority of universities and many foundations also offer BA, MA and PhD programs in African Studies as wells as postdoctoral research grants, awards and fellowships. Below you will find the updated list of international opportunities available in African Studies.

Scholarships in African Studies

Fellowships in African Studies

African Studies Conferences

African Studies relevant accounts on Twitter

African Studies as a discipline

All the countries and all the nationalities are worth studying. Only by exploring our similarities and differences as humans can we build a society full of mutual understanding, tolerance, and cooperation. 

African studies are one of the disciplines revealing Africa, with its culture, history, demography, politics, economy, languages, and religion. The discipline and its related African studies become emphasized during the latest Black Lives Matter movement. 

Generally, not only African studies as a discipline but all the other ones who explore aspects of African life are important to discuss here. Three main disciplines are considered similar and actually can contain similar courses in many universities. Yet, they have core differences and are discussed in a bit more detail further. 

African American Studies

By choosing African American Studies, students dig deep to understand African-descended people's past and present circumstances in America. The major help to critically examine and analyze the unique fragments of African-descended people in the US.

Black Studies

The above description for African American studies can also be usable here. In addition, Black studies educate students on the black people's residence experience in the US and Black people's achievements and life history worldwide. There are plenty of options to choose from. You might study Black people history, psychology, sociology, political science, music, art, biology, public health, and anything else offered by the university. 

Africana Studies

This course can help explore the African content, both with its natural resources and potential and the development history of the inhabitants. Many global, political, economic, social, and cultural aspects of African nations can be studied in detail here. You will open a new Africa for you from a completely different perspective. 

All the above-mentioned three courses form a multidisciplinary form where students picture African people and African-descended people across the Diaspora. You might find it useful to have a short introduction of why those studies are necessary?

Let's start with the foundation. Though those degrees are offered and supported by many higher educational institutions, they were actually formed out of campus. It was the response action to black students, black allies, and supporters' demand to transform higher education to address diversity. The studies were in the active phase of their formation between 1960 and 1970. 

African studies managed to reach their goal of supporting more diversity in higher education systems. The success went in the chain to studies related to other groups who did not have high acceptance in society. After African studies were adopted and became the norm, ethnic studies and women's studies started their way also. The introduction of specific studies and attention to race, class, gender, and sexuality became the norm for liberal arts and humanities curricula. 

Partially because of the foundation and promotion of this academic direction, many practice circumstances in Black people's lives started to change as well. So, in the post-1970s, there began a sharp rise in black population migration to the US from Continental Africa, the Caribbean, and Latin America. 

What do African studies majors work?

As already mentioned, by completing this study program, you will have a vast knowledge of Africa and Africans. Therefore, the roles of lecturers or other academic positions requiring theoretical knowledge in this sphere are one of the leading career options. 

Secondly, by analyzing and understanding both successes and failures of a significant portion of society, Africans, you can generally understand human-related topics like migration, social work, psychology, etc. 

Therefore, though the discipline may sound rather specific, its career applications are wide enough. The list below contains some of them:

  • Human Resources
  • Teaching
  • Oil Industry
  • Trading
  • Publishing and Bookstore chains
  • News Media
  • Consulting
  • Public Relations
  • Law
  • Politics and government
  • Community and Humanitarian services, etc.