Paper short abstract:

The project of Eurafrica disappeared from European colonial agenda after WWII. African migrants are currently transforming European spaces through agency and mobility, letting Eurafrica re-emerge in a new anti-colonial perspective.

Paper long abstract:

The term "Eurafrica" first emerged between the two World Wars in variety of colonial discourses, spanning from European imperialism up to utopias of socialist internationalism. Relics of the Eurafrican geopolitical enterprise can be found in coeval documents, such as science-fiction novels, as well as visionary infrastructure projects. After the Second World War, Eurafrica disappeared from European political agendas, these having been redesigned by the Cold War. Eurafrica is currently re-emerging from the backfire of colonial rule, having the circulation of people, commodities, and imaginaries tightened the relationship between the two continents. This paper explores the re-emergence of this "forgotten continent" from the perspective of irregular migrants. I analyse the life-stories of four interlocutors from different west African countries who I have been following since 2017, as they arrived in Italy applying for asylum, and who are representative for trends of irregular migration from Africa to Europe. While facing European regulations and mobility restrictions, my interlocutors have managed to settle down in different European Countries acquiring a "legal" status after a period of "irregularity". The material that emerges from their life-stories shows Eurafrican geographies in a renewed perspective which disrupts European nation states' territories and cartographies, providing a renewed anti-colonial reading of both European and African spaces. Eurafrica acquires in this way new meanings, becoming the setting where African migrants are able to interpret past trajectories and foreshadow possible futures.