Call for Papers: “Renewing Economic History in East Africa”

Over recent decades, economic history has evolved into a highly interdisciplinary and empirically grounded field. Combining quantitative methods with historical inquiry, it sheds light on long-term trends and determinants of income, wealth, and inequality. In Europe, economic history has its own departments and research groups; in the United States, it has gained renewed visibility within economics, as illustrated by recent Nobel Prizes awarded to scholars working on the economic past. The field of history has also seen a renewed interest in
economic history with the rise of the “new history of capitalism.”

African economic history has also expanded remarkably, thanks to the African Economic History Network and a new generation of scholars uncovering long-term trajectories of living standards, missionary education, trade, and colonial state formation. Yet economic history remains a marginal and weakly embedded discipline across much of Africa, with notable exceptions in South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Nigeria. In East Africa, a vibrant tradition once emerged from what was then known as the East African Institute of Social Research, but it
gradually fragmented and faded as its pioneers left the field. Meanwhile, the need to understand Africa’s historical trajectories of inequality, growth, and economic change has not abated.

Against this background, this workshop brings together local and international scholars across disciplines who engage with, or are curious about, economic history to present their work, exchange ideas, and build collaborations that can renew and strengthen the study of economic history in East Africa. We invite contributions on topics focused on East Africa, in any period, which draw from any of the following disciplines: economic history, social and labour history, global history, political economy, agricultural and development economics,development studies, economic anthropology, and demography. We are particularly interested
in papers that focus on the following themes: labour and migration; gender and the family; agriculture and land; artisanal work and manufacturing; trade and markets; taxation and public finance; public health; energy and mining; transportation and infrastructure; economic policy and institutions.

We particularly encourage submissions with a clear historical character (e.g., using
archival sources). We prefer advanced papers over early-stage research. Selected papers will be invited to submit to a special issue of Economic History of Developing Regions