Centre for Pan African Studies

The Centre for Pan-African Studies (CPAS) is a platform for promoting interdisciplinary research, policy dialogues, and public engagement on issues related to the African continent and its diaspora.

It is based at the Department of Politics and International Studies. The Centre facilitates the development of new and ongoing joint research projects, publications, seminars, and collaborations with scholars, civil society actors, and institutions in Africa, the UK, and beyond. 

CPAS hosts and is supported by the "Pan-African Frontiers and Identities: the remaking of Africa in world politics" scheme. The project is a multi-sited collaborative 4-year research project funded by the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Future Leaders Fellowship scheme. It aims to bring together contemporary policy discourse around pan-Africanism with a broader analysis of it as an ideology with a longstanding and multifaceted tradition and history. 

We ask how pan-Africanism, as a system of ideas, becomes animated, and how it comes to matter, in the African policy arena, in popular politics and diaspora identities and whether it can be a viable ideology in these very different contexts.  

The research is particularly guided by the following questions:  

• How is pan-Africanism as a system of ideas formed and translated into policy aspirations and with what effects?  
• How is it mobilised in the specific sectors of peacebuilding, development and diaspora engagement initiatives?  
• Are there regional differences in the way it is deployed and how do African citizens and the diaspora react to pan-African claims of universality?  
• How, to what extent and under which conditions do African regional integration initiatives and global diaspora solidarities contribute to transformative change?  
• How should we conceptualise pan-Africanism in the contemporary world?  

We employ a pioneering multi-level research approach that combines an exploration of top-down institutional and policy processes with the bottom-up identity narratives of African citizens in different parts of the continent and members of the Afro-diaspora in the UK.  

By exploring the diverse deployments of pan-Africanism as a geopolitical and policy framework on the continent and in the diaspora, we seek to establish a novel located approach to the study of pan-Africanism. We consider the policy implications of the mobilisation of the idea and ideals of pan-Africanism in the fields of African security, African development and diaspora politics.  

We aim to bridge gaps between theory, policy and practice and develop perspectives that will help drive new thinking in continental and regional policymaking and diaspora engagement 

The Centre for Pan African Studies is a partnership comprising the Pan-African Reconciliation Network (PAREN), Centre of Pan African Thought, Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana Royal African Society, Addis Ababa University, and the Institute for Peace and Security Studies.  

Here are some of the recordings of some of the events hosted by the SOAS Centre of Pan African Studies.