Paper short abstract:

Based on an engaged 360° video coproduction fieldwork in Lagos, Cotonou and Dakar, this contribution discusses the radical ambivalences stemming from our experimentation with this futuristically charged media form, as well as africanfuturism's operability and limitations for decolonial research.

Paper long abstract:

Based on an engaged 360° video coproduction fieldwork in Lagos, Cotonou and Dakar, this contribution discusses the radical ambivalences stemming from our experimentation with this futuristically charged media form, as well as africanfuturism's operability and limitations for decolonial research. After briefly presenting the prevalence of the twin digital technologies of the VR headsets and the 360° camera in West African urban contexts, this contribution presents how members of the media teams of the local NGOs I was partnering with, were rapidly confronted with radical ambivalences arising with our attempts to use VR technologies within social struggles, for and with informal settlements dwellers. I present several hands-on practical ambivalences and discuss them conceptually using africanfuturism as a decolonial anchoring point enabling a heuristically rich critical perspective on the use of futuristically charged technological artifacts in urban westafrican contexts. I discuss the ethical issues stemming from these ambivalences and extend the discussion to the possibility of subverting the extractive characteristics of the 360° camera, its futuristic appeal as well as the white and male gaze often reproduced by immersive digital technologies. I conclude by critically (re)assessing 360° videography and africanfuturism potentialities for emancipatory struggles in urban Africa.