Historicizing the Images and Politics of the Afropolitan

Much of the scholarly debate around the “Afropolitan”—the image of mobility, cultural production, and consumerism in Africa and the African diaspora—has focused on the elitism associated with the concept. Most critiques object to how the ideals of transnationalism and mobility inevitably refer to Western models of leisure and style, and Afropolitanism has rarely been contextualized in global African diaspora histories. This volume of written and photographic essays is one of the first sustained historical treatments of the Afropolitan. Contributors analyze the concept in a variety of contexts: itinerant artisans in fourteenth-century southern Africa, sixteenth-century African diaspora communities in Latin America, West African kingdoms and port cities in the waning decades of the Atlantic slave trade, a hair salon in twenty-first-century Paris, and a road-trip through Bangladesh. By engaging with the Afropolitan as a historical phenomenon, the authors highlight new methods and theories for analyzing global diasporas.

Contributors: Paulina L. Alberto, Antonia Carcelén-Estrada, Rosa Carrasquillo, Elizabeth Fretwell, Dawn Fulton, Mathangi Krishnamurthy, Patrícia Martins Marcos, Ndubueze Mbah, Héctor Mediavilla, Emeka Okereke, Melina Pappademos, Aniova Prandy, David Schoenbrun, Lorelle Semley