By Kwame Edwin Otu AbstractIn this essay, I conduct an afroqueer futurist reading of e-waste ecologies in postcolonial Ghana. I bring ethnographic observations undertaken at the Agbogbloshie e-waste dump, arguably the world’s largest e-waste dump, inconversation with Nnedi Okorafor’s feminist and Africanfuturist novel, Lagoon, which focuses on the environmental consequences of petrochemical capitalism in Nigeria….
Category: Feature
“One Foot on the Other Side”: An Africanfuturist Reading of Irenosen Okojie’s Butterfly Fish (2015) and Akwaeke Emezi’s Freshwater (2018)
By Kelsey Ann McFaul AbstractThis essay argues that Africanfuturism is present in a much wider range of African literature than just those texts with science-fictional or speculative themes. Rather, Africanfuturism is a method of storytelling and of literary criticism that centres African ways of being and thinking and, against inherited traditions that render them science-fictional,…
Haunted Airports and Sexual Anxieties in Nana Nyarko Boateng’s “Swallowing Ice”
by Delali Kumavie AbstractThis essay argues that the airport is an international borderland where the nation attempts to position itself within the futural orientation of transit while also making gestures to cement its sovereignty. Drawing on Ghanaian writer Nana Nyarko Boateng’s short story, “Swallowing Ice”, which tells the story of two women Frenchkissing at the…
Africanfuturism and the Reframing of Gender in the Fiction of Nnedi Okorafor
By Arit Oku AbstractMarvel’s Black Panther movie, released in 2018, sparked renewed interest in the genre of science fiction (SF), particularly in Afrofuturism and Africanfuturism (AF) as SF subgenres that promote Black and African themes and heritage. This study delineates the similarities and differences between Afrofuturism and AF using two writings by Nnedi Okorafor to…
Contextualising Extractivism in Africa
By Charmaine Pereira and Dzodzi Tsikata AbstractThis article contextualises the phenomenon of extractivism in Africa, exploring the extent to which the different meanings of extractivism in the literature contribute to an understanding of its gendered character. We argue that extractivism is embedded in the changing dynamics of contemporary capitalism and configured differently in diverse social…
Reclaiming Our Land and Labour: Women’s Resistance to Extractivist Agriculture in South-eastern Ghana
By Gertrude Dzifa Torvikey AbstractNeoliberal development projects have invaded multiple spaces. In rural areas, women’s livelihood activities are targets for interventions in the name of poverty reduction and this is often conveyed through commercial agricultural production schemes. These initiatives have become the source of tension between householdbased production and capitalist production systems. This qualitative research…
“Cinderellas” of Our Mozambique Wish to Speak: A Feminist Perspective on Extractivism
By Teresa Cunha and Isabel Casimiro All in uniform. Some in army uniforms, others in administrator uniforms. (Pepetela, 2018) AbstractMozambique is currently undergoing an intense cycle of extractive activities, with most of the generated benefits being transferred to international corporations and local elites. This has given rise to extreme inequality, the emergence ofviolent conflicts, the…
“Walking into Slavery with Our Eyes Open” – the Space for Resisting Genetically Modified Crops in Nigeria
By Charmaine Pereira AbstractThis study focuses on genetic modification of cowpea, a food crop grown predominantly by poor men and women in Nigeria and an important source of protein for the poor. The official justification for genetic modification is that itpromotes resistance to the Maruca insect, which is said to be capable of destroying up…
Skimpy Fashion and Sexuality in Sheebah Karungi’s Performances
Myriad factors determine people’s choice of dress for any particular occasion, but when the event is a musical performance in a short-lived stage appearance, or in a music video meant to be viewed widely and possibly eternally, what to wear becomes a significant decision.
“These Girls’ Fashion is Sick!”: An African City and the Geography of Sartorial Worldliness
They are the noble savages, staring out from coffee table books. Africa Adorned. The Last Nomads. Backdrops and extras for Vogue fashion shoots. Stock ingredients for tourist brochures … They are the myth of tribal splendour. Everything about them is foreign … Their “timeless culture” is the stuff of children’s books, of Western fantasies. They…