Панельная дискуссия исследует двойственную роль африканских транснациональных сетей поддержки

This panel brings papers into conversation that examine African personal transnational networks of support and interrogate their ambivalent role as sources of empowerment, obligation, mobility, precarity, or constraint. Across the continent and the diaspora, individuals from positions of both privilege and precarity navigate dense webs of transnational relationships—religious, professional, familial, philanthropic, artistic, and medical—that facilitate access to resources and opportunity. Yet these same networks may reproduce asymmetrical power relations, moral pressure, and new forms of vulnerability. We seek contributions that critically explore how such networks operate in practice and how they reshape subjectivities, economies, and institutions. How do individuals mobilize transnational ties to secure funding for everyday lives, travel opportunities, education, medical care, or professional advancement? When do these connections foster genuine empowerment, and when do they entangle participants in unequal expectations or extractive dynamics? Possible subtopics include (but are not limited to): • Connections to religious organizations and faith-based sponsorship • Tourism, volunteerism, and humanitarian circuits • Performance industries (music, acrobatics, film, digital media) and global patronage • Medical aid networks and transnational health mobility • Diaspora remittances and informal financial support systems • NGO partnerships and personal brokerage • Digital platforms and social media as infrastructures of transnational support • Gendered, generational, and class dimensions of obligation and reciprocity We welcome historical, anthropological, sociological, and interdisciplinary approaches, as well as case studies and comparative perspectives. Contributions that foreground African voices and lived experiences are particularly encouraged. This panel aims to move beyond celebratory or purely critical narratives to illuminate the complex moral economies and power structures embedded in personal transnational networks. Please submit abstracts to Nina Berman ([email protected]) by September 6.