Representations of Africa Flashcards
How is Africa represented?
A homogenous continent - Bantu, Nilotic, Hamitic, Khoisan (language groups)
Rural and wild - 40% urbanisation (2016)
Deserted - 1.2 billion people (2016)
Dark - The metaphor of Africa as the Dark Continent continually (re)makes and represents the continent as Other. A place which is simultaneously in- corporated and excluded as negative reflection of the West.
Africa as a child - reinforces white man’s burden and development intervention discourses.
What was the role of ‘exhibiting’ Africans in the metropoles?
Where there was outcry at the violence of the colonial regime, exhibitions were held to ‘justify’ the regimes, to display them as savages and encourage the discourse of the civilising mission.
e. g. Museum of Africa - Tervuren, Belgium - in 1897 had a reconstructed village of Africans.
e. g. Saartje Baartman
What is ‘Africa Rising’ movement?
A movement to resist such colonial representations of the continent. Demonstrate African creativity and agency. ‘Made in Africa’ campaign promoting African produced goods.
