Sara de Wit

Graduated in African Studies (Research Master)

"Among the things that I cherish the most has been the possibility to share in the outstanding expertise and devotion of the lecturers. Their longstanding experience in the field of African Studies – with varying disciplinary backgrounds and a wide range of thematic interests – allowed us to dwell in enthusiasm and continued to spark my curiosity."

Contemporary issues

"Also the in-depth exchange with my classmates, a relatively small group of students coming from different parts of the globe, made it such a worthwhile journey. Of course, a two-year track can never exhaust all the constituents that the broad field of African Studies has to offer, but the immersion in historical research enabled me to put things into context and to shed critical light on contemporary issues. It was during this masters that I all the more realized how flawed, one-sided and biased the history is that we are being taught at high-school in The Netherlands. It dawned on me how important it is to keep retelling our history through the eyes of the people who have been left out of our history books for too long."

Independent research

"The training in ethnographic methods and the six months of fieldwork have been a good preparation for carrying out independent research during my PhD. The greatest merit of having followed this trajectory, in my view, is that it allows you to develop a particular sensitivity and ‘meta approach’ towards the knowledge that we generate – an invaluable lens to think critically and creatively. I feel that the overall programme is comprehensive enough to give you a good idea of the past and current research developments, while at the same time allowing for an in-depth engagement with a topic of one’s own preference. That being said, it's not something you can easily do ‘on the side’. Given the intensity of the programme, it's wiser to allow yourself to be engulfed by it and get carried away. As a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Oxford I look back at this research masters with joy and gratitude."

Miriam Ocadiz Arriaga

Alumna

“After receiving a scholarship to undertake this two-year Master, I had the freedom to develop my own research interest guided by the outstanding support of my supervisor from the African Studies Centre Leiden. This can be described as an equally challenging as enjoyable process that culminated in a solid ground towards an academic career. As soon as I graduated, I was employed as a junior researcher at the ASCL, and within less than a year I got a fully-funded PhD position at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam on engaged scholars and the social inclusion of refugees in South Africa.”