ABSTRACT
This second part of the book addresses Afropolitan trends, potentials and limits. This first chapter by Albert Kasanda introduces this part of the book. From the outset, Kasanda notes that Afropolitanism is at the core of current debates on African identity and empowerment. These debates are revived and complexified thanks to flows generated by global interactions and subsequent social and cultural configurations. Proponents of Afropolitanism argue that this concept expresses both the African identity and the struggle for emancipation better than conventional narratives. They argue that the concept of Afropolitanism embodies a revolutionary sense of space and sensibility when regarding the relationship between Africa and the world. It represents an epistemological category through which Africa can negotiate with the “other” (the “foreign”) on a basis of mutual recognition and imbrication. The chapter explores, in particular, Mbembe’s contribution to the debate. He distinguishes Mbembe’s approach to Afropolitanism from Taiye Selasi’s definition, because both the authors are considered concomitant coiners of this concept. For Taiye Selasi, the idea of Afropolitanism applies to African migrants living in G8 cities who somehow maintain a link with Africa, speak foreign languages, and pursue a successful professional career. Mbembe goes beyond that approach and places an emphasis on the idea of the mobility of people and cultures (circulation des mondes), leading to the burgeoning of new identities that can be considered a hybrid. On the basis of this premise, Mbembe denounces the essentialist dimension of conventional narratives of African identity and emancipation, including Négritude and Pan-Africanism. While considering Mbembe’s approach as promising for the debate on African identity, the chapter denounces both its elitist propensity as well as its inability to overcome the essentialist background that it criticizes in relation to conventional theories of African identity and emancipation policy. Kasanda offers his own better way of understanding Afropolitanism.
