Research Focus Group Talk: The Place of Africa: Erasure, Elision, and the Task of Self-Writing
McCune Conference Room, 6020 HSSB Santa BarbaraNarratives of "connectivity" typically rely on discourses about Africa as a blank space devoid of social networks that are unique, vibrant, and continually being modified. While this takes agency away from Africans, it rests on the colonial assumption that "connectivity," just as "civilization" before it, is inherently exogenous, white, and male. This talk begins with the Rhodesian fantasy of connecting Africa from the Cape to Cairo and traces this logic through the contemporary discourse of ...