The Ferguson Centre is a research centre of the
Faculty of Arts, Open University, which cultivates research and
academic exchange with regard to and in Asia and Africa from a wide
variety of disciplinary standpoints, but with a particular emphasis
on the Humanities and Arts. In the context of the Centre Africa
and Asia have several overlapping connotations:
• they allude to conventionally defined geographical
domains (continents);
• they represent changeable and interpenetrating formations
within a field of international or global geopolitics;
• they incorporate a wide and fluid variety of social and
cultural expressions and interactions;
• they are constantly articulated and constructed both from
within and without.
As such, we regard Africa and Asia to be of as much
moment within their conventional geographical locations as within,
for instance, Europe and America, and we understand the constituencies
and cultures of Africa and Asia to extend wherever they are assumed
and perceived.
The primary function of the Centre is to foster and
develop research related to Africa and Asia as understood above.
As such the Centre is committed to extending the national and international
reach of the Arts Faculty and The Open University, and to providing
a dynamic space for the well-developed research culture in these
areas that exists already within the Faculty particularly and the
University at large. Research engagements of the following kinds
are within the remit of the Centre:
• affiliated members of the Centre conduct individual
research projects pertaining to Africa and Asia;
• the Centre engages in developing multilateral collaborative
networks which are anchored to certain broad themes relevant to
African and Asian studies;
• the Centre works in collaboration with other similar centres/bodies
– within the Open University, nationally, and internationally
– on well-defined joint projects relevant to Africa and Asia;
• the Centre may lend external support to individual or joint
research projects of interest to it which are being conducted independently
by members of the Open University Arts Faculty.
Though research is the principal base of the Centre,
it also contributes to the core activity of the Open University
Arts Faculty: the development of teaching material and presentation
of courses. The Centre considers that it is important to bring research
to bear on pedagogy, and to feed into the reach that The Open University
has to the student population.
In all respects the Centre is designed to enhance
the principles of openness and diversity that The Open University
adheres to.
From 2002 to 2006, when he moved to a Chair at the
University of Stirling, David Richards was the Director of the Ferguson
Centre. Suman Gupta and Bob Owens were Joint Directors from 2006
to 2008 and Dennis Walder will be taking over as substantive Director
in September 2008, John Wolffe will be acting Director until then.
Please find below details of Centre members with links
to their personal research pages and details of our Internal and
External Advisory Boards.
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