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.