Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the peculiar politics and aesthetics of the corpus of science fictional and speculative literary work aptly characterized as “Africanfuturism” by the “Naijamerican” novelist Nnedi Okorafor, specifically in terms of how it contests the Euro-Western Science Fiction (SF) archive.

Paper long abstract:

In Eshun’s “Further Considerations on Afrofuturism”, he highlights Afrofuturism’s important work of assembling countermemories that contest the colonial archive by re-centering “Africa and its subjects into history denied by Hegel et al.” This paper examines the peculiar politics and aesthetics of the corpus of science fictional and speculative literary work aptly characterized as “Africanfuturism” by the “Naijamerican” novelist Nnedi Okorafor. Situated within global discourses on Science Fiction (SF) and its attendant privileging and preoccupation with a Euro-Western historiography, Africanfuturism emerges as a genre that contests this Euro-Western historicizing by focusing instead on African epistemologies, history and culture. It subverts the old logics of SF historicizing by foregrounding the African space and exploring tropes of contemporary SF culture such as alien encounters, technologically altered human bodies, and figurations of Artificial Intelligence.

Specifically, this paper explores the genre of Africanfuturism in terms of how it questions, complicates, modifies and transcends the Euro-Western SF imaginary. By considering Bodomo’s short film “Afronauts”, Wanuri Kahiu’s “Pumzi” and Okorafor’s “Lagoon”, the paper explores the Africanfuturist genre as always already situated in the chronopolitical act of centering the African socio-cultural space while subverting and reconstituting a Euro-Western SF archive that occludes Africa and its subjects.

In the final analysis, the paper argues that Africanfuturist texts in their narrativizing of the African socio-cultural space via SF, are invested in the important work of authoring Africa on its own terms. By fabricating “new” worlds and contemplating a technocultural Africa, the genre rejects Euro-Western artistic hegemonies that misrepresent the continent.

Paper short abstract:

Based on interviews with Burundian journalists in exile, I show that a renegotiation of journalistic norms, conventions, and practices is required to respect non-Western contexts and enable a more inclusive media representation.

Paper long abstract:

Crises on the African continent are generally underreported or misrepresented in Western media. Among other reasons, this is due to the unrepresentativeness of Western media themselves, reflected both in the demographic of newsrooms and their reporting. Besides a lack of ethno-racial diversity in Western newsrooms, normative theories of journalism underlying their ideas of reporting lead to conventions and practices which often ignore or exclude non-Western contexts such as crises on the continent or reporting from exile. For example, despite exiled journalists having media expertise, well-established networks on the ground and expert knowledge, their media productions from exile remain largely unknown, or their objectivity and professionalism are questioned by Western institutions. To examine the latter, this paper presents findings from ten in-depth interviews on journalistic norms like objectivity and professionalism with Burundian journalists in Rwandan exile conducted in January 2020. The study shows that reporting from exile brings along a change in journalistic conventions and, indeed, argues that exiled journalists can only partly adhere to Western normative theories. But this does not validate the dismissal of their journalistic work. On the contrary, the analysis of Burundian exile journalism proves that a renegotiation of Westernized journalistic theories and practices is required to respect non-Western contexts and enable a more representative reporting of crises on the continent by including exiled journalists’ knowledge. It calls for a flexible approach to journalism that includes theoretical considerations from African journalism and non-idealistic practical realities of reporting, for example from exile.

Paper short abstract:

My paper explores how the spectacle-inducing representations of Africa by Euro-Americans have influenced the digital content of non-African Youtubers. Through selected videos, I critique the narrative techniques of non-African Youtubers and provide examples of ethical storytelling practices.

Paper long abstract:

In today’s world of digital storytelling, YouTube has become an important space for the world to experience diverse cultures and imagine the lived experiences of people in different countries. Travel vloggers armed with a camera, a global passport, and thousands of dollars to travel the world often provide digital access for their global audience. As they journey through the world, their narrative arc changes when they travel to African countries. With phrases like “dangerous adventure!” and images of landscapes that do not define the reality of millions of Africans, they inform their audience of their journey to the “dark continent”. This romanticized and poverty-focused storytelling approach is quite familiar and follows a history of the spectacle-focused image of Africa for the aim of profit. The capitalist intention behind these YouTube videos can be traced to the Colonial Exhibitions that ravaged the 20th century. During exhibitions at Wembley, Glasgow, etc., Africa was presented as a pristine space with untouched beauty. African arts and cultures were represented as a #throwback to Euro-American civilizations and Africa was marketed as a colonial space with cheap labor—an aspirational abode for lower-class Europeans. Lastly, these exhibitions placed a strong emphasis on trade and profit.

My paper, therefore, explores how the spectacle-inducing representations of Africa (with a focus on Nigeria) from EuroAmerican perspectives have influenced the digital contents of non-African Youtubers. Through selected videos, I critique the narrative techniques of non-African Youtubers and end with examples of ethical storytelling practices from Nigerians on digital spaces.