Mr. President, members of the Association, and guests: I regard it as a very great honor to be asked to address this Association. I know what a deep interest you hold in the continent of Africa and of the good that the members of the Association can do in publicizing the needs of and developments in African states. I also appreciate that many of you have personal knowledge of the African scene and I must refrain from the all top usual but reprehensible habit that some politicians indulge in of stretching the truth to suit their own ends. With such a well-informed audience before me, I shall take no risks.

Mr. President, the subject on which I am best qualified to speak is Bechuanaland, and today I would like to talk a little of the current position of Bechuanaland and of our hopes and ambitions for the future.

By September 30, 1966, Bechuanaland will be an independent country. I fear we are going to add to the confusion of the students of geography by following the fashion of changing the name of our country.

The people of Bechuanaland are certainly a “new” nation, as that term is now used. The country, according to its present boundaries, was created a mere seventy years ago. And for the bulk of these seventy years the local African inhabitants played little or no part in the administration of the country. For many years, of course, it was expected that Bechuanaland, along with Basutoland and Swaziland, would become an integral part of the Union, now the Republic, of South Africa. However, the people of Bechuanaland made it quite clear that they had no ambition to become politically integrated with the Republic of South Africa, and although I still occasionally hear it suggested that our future would be best safeguarded if we should become a Bantustan, I can assure you all that that is not where our future lies.

Ours is an association organized on an areal basis. What we have in common is an interest in a particular portion of the earth's surface. Yet every member of the society whether a practicing academician or not bears an affiliation of a different order, namely, membership in one of the standard academic disciplines--sociology, history, anthropology, or some other. This is formally acknowledged by the placing of an appropriate letter abbreviation after each name in our membership list, and it can normally be assigned without hesitation. The latter basis of group identification, that of discipline rather than area, seems in a real sense to be primary. It is older and better established, and, above all, it supplies the very framework of American academic organization, that into departments which normally are distinguished along the lines of division of the disciplines.

True, there are programs of African studies in a number of universities, just as there are other programs, both areal and nonareal. But after a period of initial enthusiasm in some quarters following World War II for the training of areal specialists as such and without primary reference to traditional disciplinary affiliation, it became evident that if a scholar was to be, for example, an Africanist and a sociologist, he should receive his higher degree in a sociology department. He would thus be a sociologist in the broadest sense of the word, but one with a special interest in Africa rather than an Africanist with a greater interest in the sociological than the other aspects of African life. Area study programs thus failed to shake the fundamental organizational basis of American academic life. In fact, today most African programs are interdepartmental as well as interdisciplinary and their staff members are usually at the same time members of established academic departments.

The African Studies Association was formed in 1958 by thirty-five founding fellows. At that time, African studies in the United States were just beginning to reach hesitantly beyond the half-dozen pioneer university centers in this country. The movement toward African independence was in full swing, but the political future of Africa was still uncertain. A few African universities were already in operation, but the great increase in their numbers was still to come. Even those that did exist were run almost entirely by an expatriate staff and followed European curricula. African participation in African studies was very small indeed. Now, some eight years later, the total membership of the Association is more than 1,200. Universities have sprung up all over Africa, and independence has brought an increasing rate of Africanization both in staff and in curricula. All the older African universities now have some form of African studies center, and the more recent ones were often founded with a built-in emphasis on research and teaching based on their own environment.

These dramatic changes were among those that prompted the President and Board of the Association to seek closer ties with Africanist scholars in Africa. In the summer of 1965, they sent an exploratory mission to Africa to examine possible avenues of cooperation with the Africanists in Africa. The Ford Foundation generously financed the project, and Professor Greenberg appointed two members of the Policies and Plans Committee to undertake it: Professor Hance for Eastern Africa and Professor Curtin for West and West-Central Africa. This report is designed to convey to the membership the findings and recommendations.

The conference was sponsored by the African Research Committee and was held at the Minnowbrook Conference Center of Syracuse University from October 30 to November 2, 1965. The disciplines represented were social and cultural anthropology, musicology, sociology, social psychology, political science, and history. Participants included Philip Allen (Department of State); Frederick Burke (Syracuse University); Remi Clignet (Northwestern University); L. Gray Cowan (Columbia University); Norma McCloud (Tulane University); John Middleton (Northwestern University); Allen Rawick (Library of Congress); Aidan Southall, Chairman (Syracuse University); and Peter Wilson (Yale University).

The conference concentrated its efforts on seeking and sharing a common understanding of the social background of the diverse ocean and island region that includes Madagascar, the Comoros, Mauritius, Réunion, and the Seychelles and on exploring precisely the extent to which linked interdisciplinary and comparative studies would be fruitful. The conference came to a strong and unanimous conclusion that the Western Indian Ocean Region offers the challenging possiblity of a real breakthrough in a number of dissimilar but closely interlocking research interests.

The main recommendations of the conference are as follows:

1. That a rather informal clearinghouse should be established which would institute and maintain contact between social scientists interested in the region and keep them up to date on all relevant plans and work in progress.

2. That a careful and detailed application should be drawn up to obtain funds for carrying out a series of well-balanced and integrated studies, attracting graduate students and training them for further work, securing library resources, and forming appropriate ties with interested scholars and academic institutions overseas.

Inquiries to: Dr. Darrell Randall, Chairman, African Area Studies Program, School of International Service, American University, Washington, D.C. 20016.

Faculty: Frank Lorimer, demography; Emmet V. Mittlebeeler, political science; Harvey C. Moore, anthropology; Matthew F. Norton, geography; Oliver A. Peterson, economics; Darrell Randall, political science; Absolom L. Vilakazi, anthropology.

Courses: Undergraduate courses; graduate degree in African area studies or in one of the following disciplines: anthropology, economics, sociology, history, government and public administration, philosophy and religion, international relations and organization, languages.

Main subjects: Political science, anthropology, history, geography, economics.

Main features: African studies may be taken at the School of International Service of the American University in cooperation with other departments and schools of the University and with other universities in the Joint Graduate Consortium of Washington, D.C. This means that a graduate student can work for a degree in African studies at the American University and take approved courses in any of the following universities: Howard University, Catholic University, Georgetown University, and George Washington University.

Cooperative study with other area programs: Unusual opportunities exist at the School of International Service, American University, for relating African interests to other area studies programs, such as the Middle East, Asia, Latin America, Europe, and Communist areas of the world.

Inquiries to: Department of Anthropology, Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, Brooklyn, N.Y. 11210.

Faculty: Robert W. Ehrlich, anthropology; Nathan Greenspan, political science; Dorothy Hammond, anthropology; Alta Jablow, anthropology; Joseph Jablow, anthropology; Albert McQueen, sociology; Benjamin Rivlin, political science.

Courses: Interdisciplinary courses, at undergraduate and graduate levels.

Although there are no area studies programs, more than twenty of the Institute's science, engineering, humanities, and social science faculty have an interest in Africa, and many of these have done serious African research in recent years.

A limited number of humanities and social science bachelor degrees are awarded. There is no formal graduate work in the social sciences, and there are no fellowships. African library materials are good. A small number of students have gone on to doctoral work in African studies following their strong science background at Caltech.

During 1966/67 an interdisciplinary seminar, “Science and Development,” will be offered by Professors Huttenback (history), Munger (geography), Oliver (economics), and Scudder (anthropology). This seminar will emphasize development problems in Africa by using visiting African experts as well as members of the faculty.

Faculty: Douglas Ashford, business and public administration; William H. Friedland, industrial and labor relations; Milton R. Konvitz, law; Alexander H. Leighton, social psychiatry; Victor W. Turner, anthropology.

Courses: Regular undergraduate and graduate degrees in departments.

Main subjects: Anthropology, economics, political science, psychology, sociology.

The African Studies Center at UCLA will offer a special NDEA summer program in African languages and area studies for undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate students. Five intensive language courses will be offered during the eight-week summer session from June 20 to August 12, 1966 (the first six of which will be coterminous with the regular six-week summer session). Introductory courses will be offered in Afrikaans, Hausa, and Zulu, and both introductory and intermediate courses will be offered in Swahili. Area courses in anthropology, education, geography, and political science will be offered during the first six-week summer session, and courses in education and history in the second six-week session. The area courses will be open to students enrolled in the eight-week language program. Each language course will include three hours of classroom instruction and one hour of work in the language laboratory each day, five days a week for the eight weeks. Classroom and laboratory hours will be conducted jointly by a linguist and an informant. The language courses are 6-unit courses, and the area courses are 2-unit courses.

A limited number of language fellowships for undergraduates will be available under the NDEA Fellowship Program. Inquiries should be directed to the Student Support Section, Graduate Division, Administration Building, UCLA.

The tuition fee for the eight-week summer session will be $130 and will also cover enrollment in any courses offered in the first six-week session. There will be no out-of-state fee.