Short Abstract

We explore artistic and experimental approaches to sensing, visualising and/or mediating the ecological and social violence of extractive capitalism in Africa, including eco-horror, folklore, witchcraft, animation, speculative cinema, photomontage, collective performance or experimental documentary.

Long Abstract

Extractive capitalism produces forms of ecological and social violence that are at spectacular, intergenerational, diffusely structured: oil spills, poisoned waters, devastated landscapes and displaced communities may be (and, indeed, have historically been) readily photographed and filmed. Yet visibility does not routinely produce political recognition or action (Sontag 2003) and the structures and actors producing these harms often remain slow and diffuse (Nixon 2011), buried or displaced across corporate networks, subcontracting arrangements, colonial infrastructures, financial systems and state power (Murrey 2015). In this panel, we are interested in forms for engaging with violence that exceed or challenge conventional visual representation (Godmilow 2022)—these might include horror, eco-horror, folklore, witchcraft, animation, speculative cinema, photomontage, collective performance or experimental documentary (on the latter, see McCormack et al. 2021; Ugwu 2024). We invite contributions and practice-based experimental and artistically informed reflections that (re)consider how violence is known, sensed, visualised/obscured, fictionalised, mediated or refused.

The panel is chaired by Dr Chiagozie (Agozie) Ugwu, filmmaker and Lecturer in Theatre Arts at the University of Abuja, whose research and creative practice bring Nigerian mythological and folkloric traditions into conversation with eco-horror, environmental justice and film; and Dr Amber Murrey, University of Oxford, whose work examines extractive capitalism, environmental violence and the politics of visibility and recognition in Cameroon through collaborative research involving animation, ethnographic film, photomontage and other creative forms.

This Panel has 1 pending paper proposal.
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