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23.01.2021 13:51 Alter: 3 yrs

Historicizing the Images and Politics of the Afropolitan


Call for Publications

Theme: Historicizing the Images and Politics of the Afropolitan
Publication: Radical History Review
Date: Issue no. 144 (October 2022)
Deadline: 1.2.2021


Radical History Review seeks contributions that examine the idea of
the Afropolitan, derived from the prefix Afro, for African, and
polis, the Greek word for “citizen.” Achille Mbembe’s 2007 essay
describes Afropolitanism as an ability “to domesticate the
unfamiliar, to work with what seem to be opposites” while explicitly
refusing “victim identity.” Though Mbembe emphasizes heterogeneity in
Africa, most scholarship focuses on the flow of Africans and African
cultures between global megacities. In popular media, the term
appears in magazine titles, art exhibits, and albums, highlighting
fashion, consumer culture, and networks of capital. A powerful visual
aesthetic accompanies this focus on urban landscapes, the arts, and
gendered bodies. Yet, studies of the Afropolitan have not engaged
with the deep history of mobility within and beyond Africa. Nor have
historians contextualized fully the expansive global African diaspora.

A 1599 painting titled, “Los tres mulatos de Esmeraldas” (The Three
Black Gentlemen of Esmeraldas) can serve as a departure point.
Painted by Indigenous artist Andrés Sánchez Gallque in Quito,
Ecuador, it demonstrates how people of African descent always
countered European representations of blackness. The figures in the
painting, Don Francisco de Arobe and his sons were of African and
Indigenous descent and combined Spanish dress with Chinese silks,
gold, and local adornments. The artwork was a gift to the Spanish
king to celebrate the conquest of Esmeraldas, yet the region was
famous for its maroon settlements and the self-fashioning of the
three men suggested more than simple submission or subjugation. Thus,
this painting evokes several themes related to the Afropolitan such
as performance, histories of slavery and colonialism, and
transcending borders. Still, some themes remain elusive. The painting
barely hints at the Indigenous mother of the two sons or the
importance of women in maintaining maroon communities. Indeed, the
role of women, children, femininity, and trans identities in defining
the Afropolitan is a theme we seek to explore in this volume. In
broadening the time and geography of the Afropolitan to include the
global history of empire and gender and sexuality, we seek to deepen
and problematize the understandings of the Afropolitan with the
stories of historical actors who have been “domesticating the
unfamiliar” for a long time. Today’s Afropolitans build upon that
space others before them created.

We expect to focus on the eighteenth to twentieth centuries, but
invite submissions from earlier periods. The Atlantic World is a
primary site of the Afropolitan and we seek proposals treating all
Atlantic regions, including the Caribbean and Latin America. We also
are eager for projects on the Indian Ocean or Mediterranean Worlds,
for example, that may decenter an Atlantic emphasis. Possible topics
include: 

- Politics of performance, broadly, including citizenship, dandyism,
 sports, hip hop culture
- Femininities, Masculinities and Trans Identities
- Networks and affective ties during enslavement
- New narratives of emancipation
- Policing of borders (physical and cultural)
- Debating beauty and body aesthetics
- Visualizing intersectionality and mobility
- Contextualizing Afrofuturism

Procedures for submission of articles:

The RHR publishes material in a variety of forms. We welcome
submissions that use images as well as text. In addition to articles
based on archival research, we encourage submissions to our various
departments, such as Historians at Work; Teaching Radical History;
Public History; Interviews; and (Re)Views.

By February 1, 2021, please submit a 1-2 page abstract summarizing
your potential article as an attachment to contactrhr@gmail.com with
“Issue 144 Abstract Submission” in the subject line. By March 15,
2021 authors will be notified whether they should submit a full
version of their article for peer review. Completed articles will be
due on July 1. Those articles selected for publication after the peer
review process will be included in issue 144 of the Radical History
Review, scheduled to appear in October 2022.

Issue Editors:
Rosa Carrasquillo, Melina Pappademos, and Lorelle Semley
Email: contactrhr@gmail.com

Journal website:
https://www.radicalhistoryreview.org