No Pass, But Nine Passports
In her 30 years of exile, Miriam Makeba redefined pan Africanism – performing and speaking around the world, informing the Black Power movement, forwarding the liberation struggle, and participating in events that shaped public cultures on the continent and around the world. She was a woman with nine passports and honorary citizenship in 10 countries. […]
Dislocations in the Congolese World of Sound
“Dislocation” is how Congolese rumba historians describe the incessant splinterings that are part of the story of every major band – in a music system where the “first to leave” holds the place of pride. Between 1997 and 2008 the group Wenge Musica lived through 18 dislocations – almost twice a year, starting with the […]
TO REFUSE THAT WHICH HAS BEEN REFUSED TO YOU
Fred Moten and Saidiya Hartman sit down to talk about the temporal and traditional in the age of refusal – of movement, of citizenship. They offer up a different way of thinking, a pathway to another understanding of community as well as the possibility of harnessing fugitivity as a creative empowering strategy*. Saidiya Hartman: One […]
The “Walking Corpse”
Thousands of Africans, physically displaced and economically disabled by postcolonial dis-order, confront daily the violence of passage to, across and within borders of relative safety. Tagged all manner of other: temporary, foreign, homeless, opportunist, ephemeral, 2nd generational, thief, fence jumper, black… they arrive, are birthed, reborn—regardless of birthplace, status, story—as Europe’s “migrant crisis”; moving targets […]
EVERY JOURNEY IS A READING
By Stacy Hardy My cover is easy. There are a million roles I can assume. A thousand identities to choose from. But they are all the same. Worker. Foreigner. Non-resident. Non-citizens. Visa. People. A Million. More. Homeless. Visiting. Residing. Born. Brought. Arrived. Acclimatizing. Homesick. Lovelorn. Giddy. Tailor. Solderer. Chauffeur. Maid. Oil-Man. Nurse. Typist. Shopkeeper. Truck […]