History of African Print Cultures and the Transnational Circulations of Anticolonialism

Presentation of a research project as part of the "Jeudis de la Maison Suger", a residents' research seminar.

This session will feature Arlena Buelli, a fellow of the FMSH Atlas programme, presenting her ongoing research, which explores the political communication networks that produced and disseminated anticolonial and antiracist information and ‘propaganda’ across Africa and its diasporas up to the era of decolonisation.

The theme of the session 

"The history of African periodical print cultures, deeply heterogeneous and connected to transnational dynamics from the nineteenth century onwards (including links between West Africa and Afro-American abolitionism, Ottoman domination in North Africa, and Christian missionary activity), will be situated beyond conventional narratives that often focus primarily on the nation-state.

African and Afrodiasporic anti-colonial periodicals (sometimes referred to as the “independent press” or “protest press” [Switzer 1997]) represent a valuable source for studying anti-colonialism and decolonisation, revealing the transformations of public opinion in colonial contexts marked by repression and scarcity. By proclaiming themselves “the voice of the people” [Asante 1977] in various contexts where state power overlapped with colonial domination, they contributed to the emergence of charismatic figures and intellectual and political elites, as well as to the dissemination of transnational or translocal identities.

The seminar will reflect on the challenges involved in historically analysing these sources: the development of a printed debate and its reading public in colonial or segregated contexts reflects social, gendered and geographical exclusions. These exclusions will be examined through the study of socially situated reception and reading practices, crossing literary divides and adopting an intercultural perspective. Methodologically, we will demonstrate how the investigation can simultaneously address transnational processes of information gathering, publication and distribution, alongside imperial systems of control and censorship of “seditious literatures” and the negotiation strategies employed by publishers and subaltern publics. The aim is to illuminate the “human infrastructure” supporting these information networks and their role in mobilisations against colonialism and racial segregation, revealing unexpected connections grounded in material circulations."

Speaker

Arlena Buelli is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow and Adjunct Professor at the University of Naples Federico II. Her research focuses on the transnational policing of anticolonial activists, intercolonial antifascism, and Arab-Black encounters during the Spanish Civil War.