The New York African Studies Association (NYASA) invites scholars, educators, students, practitioners, artists and community leaders to submit proposals for its 2026 Annual Conference, hosted at the State University of New York Geneseo (SUNY Geneseo) on October 30–31, 2026.
The Future is Africa, and Africa is at the epicenter of the world. Across the African continent and throughout the global African diaspora, new ideas, innovations, and movements are reshaping governance, culture, economics, knowledge production, and global cooperation. From technological innovation and entrepreneurship to migration networks, cultural production, and decolonial scholarship, Africa and its diasporas are increasingly positioned at the center of global transformation.

This conference explores how global Africa (Africa and its diasporas) are generating innovative frameworks, policy ideas, cultural movements, and intellectual contributions that shape the future of the world. It asks how African epistemologies should and do move across borders and physical spaces in order to positively impact the African and Black people here and there, and how African ways of knowing transform the environments where they find themselves. Further, it considers how this movement of people, ideas, culture, knowledge, policy, economics, etc. innovatively grows global African people, places, social and cultural systems. The relationships between global African nations, peoples, cultures, and existence as it contributes to transformational experiences, social identities, and cultural productions is also of interest. How does Afro-Cuban engagement with Yoruba in Nigeria impact how we understand Yoruba cultures globally? How do Sri Lankans who remember their lineage back to contemporary Tanzania understand Africanity? How do Mozambican and Zimbabwean migrants to South Africa negotiate Blackness and contend with Afrophobia while maintaining their cultural identity? How do global Africans who migrate to the United States understand themselves alongside Black Americans with differing historical pathways to the same place (European Slave Trade)? Drawing from cross-disciplinary, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary scholarly perspectives, we invite proposals that consider such questions of movement in relationship to identity/existence amongst Africans and how such evolutions advance African futures.

Topics of Interest
We welcome cross-disciplinary, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary proposals addressing global Africa (Africa and its diaspora) and its transnational evolutions, including but not limited to:
● Diaspora engagement and transnational networks
● Migration, mobility, and transnational Africa
● Decolonizing knowledge and African epistemologies
● Governance, democracy, and political transformation
● Technology, innovation, and economic development
● AI and African Languages
● Ethnolinguistics in transnational African contexts
● Transnational identities, cultures, and knowledge systems
● Gender, youth, and social transformation
● Education and African futures
● Culture, arts, and global African expression

Conference Awards

NYASA recognizes outstanding scholarship through several awards, including:

• NYASA Distinguished Africanist Award
• Ali A. Mazrui Outstanding Publication / Book and Educational Activities Award
• NYASA book award
• Tom and Corinne Nyquist NYASA Service Award
• Roger Coking Student Award
• Best Student Paper Award ($500)

Conference Leadership

NYASA Chair: Professor Remi Alapo
Local Conference Chair: Professor Ọlaọcha Nwadiuto Nwabara

Contact and Submission Information

Submission instructions and conference updates will be posted soon.

For inquiries, please contact the NYASA Conference Organizing Committee.

Email: conference@nyasa.org

Website: https://nyasa.org/ 

Proposal Formats

We welcome submissions in the following formats:

• Individual papers
• Panel proposals
• Roundtables
• Workshops

Individual paper submissions should include:

• Title of paper
• 250–300 word abstract
• Author name(s) and institutional affiliation
• Email contact information: conference@nyasa.org

Abstract Submission Deadlines: August 30, 2026

Participants can submit proposals early and request letter for entry to the US between March 30-May 1 for letters by June 1, and until Aug 30 for letters by Sept 15th

Notification of Acceptance: September 2026
Conference Dates: October 30–31, 2026

Conference registration will open in the summer of 2026.

Registration fee:
$130 (includes NYASA one year-membership)
$25 Undergraduate students
$35 Graduate students