The African and African Diaspora Studies Program at Florida International University in Miami has entered into an agreement with the Universidad Andina Simon Bolivar in Quito, Ecuador, to develop a collaborative program in African diaspora studies and Latin American cultural studies.
Under the agreement, the two universities will participate in student and faculty exchanges programs, joint research projects, and the exchange of academic materials. The universities will hold workshops and conferences on African diaspora and Latin American cultural topics and collaborate on developing educational courses, programs, and seminars.
“This collaboration should be of interest to any study area or academic unit of both institutions,” said Jean Muteba Rahier, director of the African and African Diaspora Studies Program at Florida International University and professor of anthropology in the department of global and sociocultural studies. “It’s especially a great opportunity for students from diverse academic backgrounds, like law and social sciences, to get involved in cultural studies research.”
Professor Rahier holds a Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Paris. He is the author of Kings for Three Days: The Play of Race and Gender in an Afro-Ecuadorian Festival (University of Illinois Press, 2013) and the forthcoming Blackness in the Andes: Ethnographic Vignettes of Cultural Politics in the Time of Multiculturalism and State Corporatism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).
