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- Convenors:
-
Aurore Vermylen
(UCL)
Basile Koechlin (Royal Museum for Central Africa)
Adam Rodgers Johns (SOAS)
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- Stream:
- Social Anthropology
- Location:
- Appleton Tower, Lecture Theatre 2
- Sessions:
- Friday 14 June, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
This panel suggests to focus on notions expressing a "being African" to analyse the impact of aesthetic phenomena (music, fashion, photography, theatre, football) in their ongoing continuities and ruptures, connections and disruptions, whether cultural, political, economic, religious, or else.
Long Abstract:
Different kinds of global politics and social movements have impacted African realities. As a general statement, one can stress the neocolonial and neoliberal tendency to extract natural and cultural material from Africa and aim them at outside markets. At the same time, used and outmoded products are taken back to Africa, transforming the continent into the biggest second hand market (Mbembe, 2017). However, the growing awareness of the (neo)colonial impact on the relationships between African societies, African diasporas and the rest of the world (as put forward in postcolonial theory) has affected the symbolic imaginaries and multilayered identities of the actors taking part in these exchanges.
Balancing the local-global dynamics, this panel suggests to focus on notions expressing a "being African" such as Pan African identity (Bridet et. al., 2018), Afrotopia (Sarr, 2016) or 'Blackness' ("How do these African utterances of a transnational blackness dialogue with other conceptions of the place of Africa in global processes?" In Politique Africaine, 2015) in order to analyse the impact of aesthetic phenomena on their ongoing continuities and ruptures, connections and disruptions, whether cultural, political, economic, religious, or else. An emphasis is placed on aesthetic phenomenon in order to better understand how these connections and disruptions manifest themselves in people's lives. The discussants could, for instance, analyse how these notions surface in music, fashion, photography, theatre, or even football, and how they define and are defined by these expressions.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Friday 14 June, 2019, -Lena Dallywater (Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography)
Paper short abstract:
Discussions about "African", "Black" or "Pan-African" aesthetics have been inspiring philosophers, writers, artists and poets up to today. Notions and framings keep circulating in both art world and academia. The intellectual history and writings of a contemporary scholar exemplify the variety.
Paper long abstract:
When recounting the history of Pan-Africanism in its global context, narrations of African and African diaspora aesthetics are rather overlooked. Historical research tends to focus on big names and prominent movements, enfolding a picture of Pan-African aesthetics as either invention of a few Francophone intellectuals in mid-20th century or part of 1960/70s' Black radicalism in the USA. But, the discourse has not only formed crucial part of cultural and political liberation movements both on the African continent as well as in the USA and Caribbean, it keeps inspiring philosophers, writers, artists and poets. Up to today, intellectuals have been arguing for the necessity and benefit of the development of Black (or African) critical standards for the evaluation of art and literature. By invoking notions like "Black aesthetics", "African aesthetics", "Afrocentric aesthetics" and "Pan-African aesthetics", framings of African art and philosophy, and ultimately Africanness and Blackness, are contested and re-interpreted. In the paper I argue that the respective debates can help understanding the kaleidoscope of the many 'Pan-African identities', as well as frictions in the discussions. They can be understood as 'pars-pro-toto'; as one angle to interrogate the complex and multi-sited phenomenon of Pan-Africanism and transnational Blackness. Resemblances and deviations are exemplified not regarding specific cultural or artistic forms, but by analyzing how Pan-Africanism is framed by scholars in academia today. This is done through a close reading of the biography and writings of Praise Zenenga, a contemporary theater historian and director of Africana Studies at the University of Arizona.
Daniel Gebrie (SOAS, University of London)
Paper short abstract:
In this paper, by closely examining aesthetics experiences through which people engage with the African Union (AU) building in Addis Ababa — either as members of the AU bureaucracy or as ordinary citizens, I explore the complex role architecture plays in Pan-Africanist collective identity formation.
Paper long abstract:
This paper explores the articulation of Pan-African collective identity formation by juxtaposing an analysis of Pan-African nationalism with a reading of the physical architectural structure hosting the African Union (AU) in Addis Ababa. It reflects upon the ways in which the AU built space ascribes and is ascribed with a multiplicity of aesthetic meanings and affect, and the way in which these enable at once the emergence, contestation and consolidation of various forms of Pan-African collective subjectivity. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Addis Ababa, the paper conceives of aesthetics as affective response of human interaction with objects. In so doing it illustrates how transnational political imaginations are mediated by concrete, social and sensorial entanglements of different actors with buildings. Bringing ethnographic work on aesthetics and affect into dialogue with literature on Pan-African nationalism, the paper aims to contribute toward a new approach to the study of the links between African trans-national organisations and the production of transnational collective subjectivity.
Kristin Kastner (LMUMunich University)
Paper short abstract:
Shifting between being a code for Africanness on the one hand, and a material expression of (neo)colonial politics on the other, waxprint has become a contested fabric, which reveals discourses of belonging and 'being African' both on the continent and among the Diaspora.
Paper long abstract:
Waxprint fabric is about to conquer the global fashion market. In contrast to other fabrics, it is not associated with specific religious or sacred features, which has facilitated its widespread appropriation. Despite its global popularity and code for Africanness, however, the use of waxprint fabrics has recently faced criticisms from both the continent and the Diaspora due to its (neo)colonial history as a fabric originally produced in the Netherlands and, nowadays, also in China. In Senegal, where fabrics and clothing play a decisive role in the fashioning of persons, waxprint has only quite recently conquered the local fashion milieus. Over the last twenty years, a new generation of street wear designers has contributed to a diversification of fashion and has produced a kind of Afropolitan fashion by interweaving local practices and fabrics with global fashion trends. In doing so, they critically engage with social and political issues in a transcolonial context. In the Parisian diaspora, Senegalese tailors fashion their clientele according to the current trends in Dakar. Especially among the second generation of migrants, a young scene of designers dresses a multi-faceted urban clientele and engages in decolonizing fashion in various ways. I suggest that both on the continent and among the Diaspora, waxprint has become a highly contested fabric, which reveals discourses of belonging and 'being African'.
Fiona Siegenthaler (Linden-Museum Stuttgart)
Paper short abstract:
Barkcloth produces images and imaginations of indigeneity, nationalism and African pride while adopting additional meanings within a global art/design market and discourses of environmental sustainability. This paper analyzes this convergence within the urban context of Kampala.
Paper long abstract:
Historically seasoned technologies and aesthetics are experiencing a revival in many African societies, often as part of a post- and decolonial reclamation of history and historiography. At the same time, they tend to deliberately relate to global contemporary discourses and debates such as climate change, de-colonial movements, neo-liberal markets and the revaluation of the 'community'. Long-standing and sometimes even forgotten African technologies are re-discovered and celebrated, re-activated and employed by contemporary artists within a framework that exceeds the local or national field and deliberately seeks global markets while emphasizing their local origin and cultural meanings. In this process, they adopt different aesthetics, functions and identities within local and transnational contexts as their cultural perception and reception vary between urban and rural, national and international, indigenous and foreign contexts. The current revival of barkcloth in Uganda is a case in point as it is situated exactly in this convergence. It relates to cultural practices at the court of the Kabaka (and beyond) in pre-colonial, colonial and contemporary Buganda and thereby experiences a valuation not only in local indigenist movements but also within an expanded tourist, expat, art and design market. This paper will present the different contexts in which barkcloth produces images and imaginations of indigeneity, nationalism and African pride while adopting additional meanings within a global market and discourses of environmental sustainability.