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Although thoroughly studied by live science specialists for the last three decades, East-African athletics has seldom caught attention of social and human scientists. In the meantime, the running phenomenon has locally reached an unprecedented level of development in some areas of Kenya and Ethiopia and is now affecting numerous sectors of social life: economic development, domestic and international migrations, development of sport activities and infrastructures, inter alia. In the regions touched by this phenomenon, gender issues and participation of disabled people have also raised as relevant topics of interest. Studying East-African runners under the social science perspective also represents a break with the tradition of reducing them to their biology (genetics) or their environment (altitude), opening a new field of research on the social determinants of their performances. Considering that the social sciences, namely history, sociology, anthropology, psychology, economy, political science, etc. have not yet been enough mobilized to study this field of activity and the numerous nexus between athletics and society, the 29th, 30th June and 01st July conference in the Addis Ababa University intends to give the opportunity to junior and senior scientists from either sport sciences or social and human sciences to present communications on any subject related to East-African athletics.