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Theme: 12. ‘Africa-Asia’ in an Entangled World: Migrations, Diasporas, Creolities
Rosa Beunel-Fogarty
City Saint George's, University of London, United Kingdom
Sandrine Soukaï
Gustave Eiffel University, France
Rosa Beunel-Fogarty
City Saint George's, University of London, United Kingdom
Ananya Jahanara Kabir
King's College London, United Kingdom
Rosa Beunel-Fogarty
City Saint George's, University of London, United Kingdom
Sandrine Soukaï
Gustave Eiffel University, France
Ananya Jahanara Kabir
King's College London, United Kingdom
Nikhita Obeegadoo
The University of Chicago, United States
Kelsey McFaul
Independent scholar, United States
This panel answers the thematic cluster ‘”AfricAsia” in an Entangled World: Migrations, Diasporas, Creolities’ by mobilizing the archipelago as a site and a method for researching African-Asian connections. The six scholars and five papers comprising this panel explore cultural artefacts and initiatives as well as literary productions that draw from African-Asian history of migrations and creolization processes to create counter-hegemonic epistemologies and aesthetics contesting the violence of the plantation system, (post)colonial oppression and their most insidious ramifications in today’s societies. Stretching from the Caribbean to Mauritius, via Pate Island, Madagascar and the Seychelles, the papers argue that an archipelagic geography underpins much of what could be defined as the AfricAsian World. Together, the papers consider the archipelagic as a theoretical and conceptual framework for analysing cultural phenomena across and beyond national borders and embracing disruptive mobilities, fragmented histories and unsuspected connections. By deploying an archipelagic theory which sheds light on an array of Afro-Asian creative expressions, we propose alternatives to land-based and continent-centred methodologies for researching AfricAsian relations. The panel discusses a variety of creative works and projects showcasing different manifestations of AfricAsian ‘discontinental’ cultures such as the non-aligned Lotus anthologies, Mauritian ‘Afro-Jaune’ or Chinese sega, secret gardens cultivating feminist Indian Ocean sensibilities, Caribbean art exhibitions interweaving legacies of indenture and enslavement, and trans-oceanic Creole festivals.
The panel brings together literary scholars who, both collectively and individually, have worked to develop archipelagic studies in relation to cultural scholarship on the Caribbean and the Indian Ocean to reflect on how the entanglements of African and Asian histories, memories, cultures and populations exemplified in these regions have shaped current African-Asian relations and can help envision future solidarities between African and Asian communities in and across continental and non-continental spaces. Part of our collective work was presented during the successful round table ‘Archipelagic Memory’ at the International Conference of Asia Scholars in July 2024, where three of the presenters also contributed to a series of panel on ‘Archipelagic Asias.’ At the Africa-Asia conference, our intervention aims to assert the importance of humanities scholarship in creating new axis of knowledge underpinned by an innovative AfricAsia aesthetics. This aesthetics, we argue, is best grasped through a critical apparatus – the archipelagic – which widens the scope of analysis by looking at AfricAsian relations from a discontinental perspective that acknowledges the multiform African-Asian connections wrought across continents, islands and archipelagos in various parts of the world.
Presenter: Rosa M C Beunel-Fogarty – City Saint George's, University of London
Presenter: Sandrine Soukaï – Gustave Eiffel University
Presenter: Ananya Jahanara J. Kabir – King's College London
Presenter: Nikhita Obeegadoo – The University of Chicago
Presenter: Kelsey McFaul – Independent scholar