(Re)conceptualizing Africa: transgressing historical patterns of misrepresenting the continent
The project (Re)Conceptualizing Africa gives a platform to voices that criticize dominant narratives and (mis)representations of the continent. In a recent event, journalist Seada Nourhussen talked about racism in the media.
The project was launched at 木瓜福利影视 College Utrecht in Spring 2018 and hosted a wide array of speakers, performers and activists both from Africa and from the African diaspora who reside in the Netherlands.
Seada Nourhussen, editor-in-chief of the Dutch media platform showed her audience the subtle workings of racism in the media. She questioned the omnipresent pictures of dead African bodies in western media outlets after a natural disaster or terrorist attack while western victims鈥 dignity and privacy is in similar cases protected.
Among other (Re)Conceptualizing Africa events are guest lectures by visiting academics and activists, a theatre play, films, an Afrobeat dance workshop, an East African music night at the UCU Bar and a presentation by Yaden, a team of youth activists and performing artists from Kenya.
Interconnectivity
鈥淥ne of our aims is to counter the stereotypes or one-sided stories which still prevail in the Western media and that do not do justice to the richness, complexity and global interconnectivity of the continent,鈥 says Rhoda Woets, Lecturer in Anthropology, who coordinates the project together with her Anthropology colleague Corey Wright and Media Studies Lecturer Nina K枚ll.
鈥淚t is impossible to define what Africa is but we hope to achieve is that students and staff challenge their own conceptions and create more Afro-centric understandings. A good example was the stage adaptation of Kafka鈥檚 novel 鈥楾he Trial鈥 by the Ghanaian theatre group Men on Black, which we and the three actors brought to campus in Fall 2018. It presented a powerful critique of contemporary xenophobia.鈥
The next event takes place on 30 April: An evening with two amazing DJ鈥檚 in the campus bar.
(Re)Conceptualizing Africa is financed by 木瓜福利影视 College Utrecht鈥檚 Seneca Fund for special projects.
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