The Postproverbial Database Project is funded courtesy of the Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung/Foundation. It was developed directly from the Humboldt Alumni Award for Innovative Networking Initiatives (2017-2020) which was granted to Prof. Dr. Aderemi Raji-Oyelade by the AvH in June 2017.
INTRODUCTION: PACE RESEARCH NETWORK
PACE is the acronym for Postproverbials in African Cultural Expressions, a trans-national initiative which brings African scholars in the humanities together with the ultimate aim of contributing to the body of modernist and radical proverbs which are created mainly in urban communities almost all over the African continent.
The PACE Website covers the production of postproverbials in different language and ethnic communities on the African continent, with a view to populating its database with both sets of proverbs and postproverbials in Gikuyu and Luhya (Kenya), Luganda and Luo (Uganda), Kiswahili (Tanzania), Shona (Zimbabwe), Sesotho and isiZulu (South Africa), Twi and Kasem (Ghana), Ewe (Togo) and Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba, Ibibio, Mwaghavul (Nigeria), among others.
PACE NETWORK MEMBERSHIP
At present time, the coordinating members of the PACE Research Network are drawn from Nigeria, Ghana, Togo, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. Participants in each group/country focus on the collection of pairs of proverbs and postproverbials, with their English, French, or German translations (with English as the meta-language). The network encourages closer integration among scholars across the continent, and more collaborative work between experienced and junior scholars, thereby propagating a truly pan-African dialogue of specialists working in related fields but in different institutions on the continent.
Acknowledgements to Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung/Foundation for sponsorship, Prof. Dr. Flora Veit-Wild, Prof. Dr. Susanne Gehrmann and the staff of Institute of Asian and African Studies, Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany for providing strategic support.