Extended Deadline | Call for Papers on Modern Heritage in Africa
There is still time to contribute to the upcoming special issue of the Nsibidi Institute's Centre for Culture and Memory's Journal. This special issue themed “Reimagining ‘Modern’ Heritage in Africa,” with the abstract submission deadline now extended to 5 June 2026.
This special issue invites scholars, practitioners, designers, and researchers to critically engage with Africa’s 20th-century heritage and the evolving narratives surrounding modernity, memory, and place across the continent.
The publication seeks to challenge Eurocentric interpretations of modern heritage by exploring how African communities have adapted, transformed, and redefined modern spaces through lived experience, Indigenous knowledge systems, and local cultural practices. From post-independence campuses and colonial railways to industrial towns, cinemas, civic monuments, and cultural hubs, the issue aims to uncover the layered social, spatial, and environmental histories embedded within these landscapes.
Guided by the Cape Town Document on Modern Heritage (2022) and the Nairobi Outcome on Heritage and Authenticity (2025), contributors are encouraged to rethink ideas of authenticity, conservation, and heritage through African-centered perspectives.
Submissions are welcomed across themes including:
Modern architecture and cultural landscapes
Infrastructural and industrial heritage
Oral histories and intangible heritage
Difficult heritage and decolonial practice
Urban memory, adaptive reuse, and evolving authenticities
The issue welcomes interdisciplinary contributions from landscape architecture, architecture, planning, heritage studies, anthropology, urban studies, and related fields.
Updated Deadline
Abstract Submission Deadline: 5 June 2026
Abstracts of approximately 250–300 words, along with a short author bio, should be submitted to:
journal@nsibidi.institute
This special issue presents an exciting opportunity to contribute to growing conversations on African heritage, landscape, identity, and modernity while helping shape more inclusive and locally grounded heritage discourse across the continent.
