The Australasian Review of African Studies (ARAS) invites submissions for a special issue to be published in December 2026 titled The status and future direction of African Studies in the Australasia and Pacific region. This special issue is aimed primarily at African Studies scholars, research leaders, and university administrators in Australia, Aotearoa New Zealand, and the wider Pacific region. It seeks to stimulate critical reflection on the place, purpose, and future of African Studies within universities, research institutions, and policy environments. Building on the long-standing intellectual and institutional work of the African Studies Association of Australasia and the Pacific (AFSAAP) (for example this book chapter), this issue responds to ongoing concerns about marginalisation, disciplinary dilution, funding constraints, and uneven institutional support for African Studies in the region.

At a time when debates about decolonisation, Indigenous knowledge, and epistemic justice are gaining renewed prominence, this special issue provides an opportunity to re-centre African Studies as a rigorous, politically engaged, and socially relevant field.

How we define African Studies
For this special issue, African Studies is understood as:
• An academic discipline grounded in interdisciplinary scholarship on Africa and its diasporas
• An epistemological project concerned with African-centred knowledge systems, intellectualities, and research methodologies
• A politics of decolonisation that challenges colonial, neo-colonial, and Eurocentric frameworks in research, teaching, and institutional practice
• Based on African Studies Theory

African Studies is therefore not treated as “anything or everything about Africa”, but as a distinctive field with clear theoretical, ethical, and political commitments.

Purpose of the special issue
This issue aims to:
• Examine the institutional and intellectual status of African Studies in Australasia and the Pacific
• Analyse structural, political, and epistemic challenges facing the field
• Explore relationships between African Studies, Indigenous Studies, Pacific Studies and decolonial scholarship
• Document innovative teaching, research, and community engagement practices
• Articulate sustainable and future-oriented models for African Studies

Attention is given to relationships between African Studies and Indigenous scholarship and communities across the Pacific, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander in Australia, Māori in Aotearoa New Zealand and Indigenous peoples in Tonga, Fiji, Vanuatu, and other Pacific Island societies. This includes shared histories of colonialism, resistance, knowledge suppression, and contemporary struggles for epistemic sovereignty.

Indicative themes
We welcome submissions addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:
• The history and political economy of African Studies in Australasia and the Pacific
• Institutional marginalisation, precarity, and academic labour
• African Studies as decolonial epistemology and praxis
• Relationships between African Studies and Indigenous scholarship in the Pacific
• Curriculum design and African-centred pedagogy
• African diaspora scholarship and community–university partnerships
• Comparative studies of African Studies in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Africa, South America, and the Caribbean
• Knowledge production, citation politics, and epistemic justice
• Language, translation, and African intellectual traditions
• Research ethics, Indigenous methodologies, and relational accountability
• African Studies and development, aid, and foreign policy discourse
• Graduate training, supervision, and capacity building
• Funding regimes, neoliberalism, and research sustainability
• Digital scholarship, archives, and open knowledge platforms
• South–South and Africa–Pacific scholarly collaborations
• The future of African Studies in a multipolar and post-Western academy

Submission guidelines
• Articles should be between 6,000 and 8,000 words, including references
• Manuscripts should follow ARAS author guidelines
• All submissions will undergo double-blind peer review

Important dates
• Abstracts (300 words) due: 30 June 2026
• Notification of acceptance: 30 July 2026
• Full papers due: 30 October 2026
• Final revisions: 30 November 2026
• Publication by 30 December 2026

Submission process
Abstracts and enquiries should be submitted to editor@afsaap.org.au) with the subject Special Issue 2026.

Abstracts should include:
• Proposed Title
• Author(s) and institutional affiliation(s)
• Contact details
• Article type
• Theme to be addressed
• Brief outline of the aim, questions, theoretical and methodological approach to be used in generating the manuscript.

Invitation
We especially encourage submissions from:
• African Studies scholars
• Scholars working at the intersections of African, Indigenous, and decolonial studies
• Senior academics and researchers
• Diaspora intellectuals

This special issue seeks to strengthen African Studies as a field grounded in reciprocity, justice, intellectual sovereignty, and critical engagement. It aims to support scholars and institutions in reimagining African Studies for the next generation in Australasia and the Pacific.

I warmly invite you to contribute to this collective reflection on the past, present, and future of African Studies in our region.

Rugare Mugumbate
Editor-in-Chief
ARAS