Africa in Oceania: Blackness Between Islands
Oceans connect; and, the “ocean” provides a topological metaphor that, unlike land, encourages a sensibility towards flux, ambivalence, and plurality in connection. Can oceans root too? Or is rooting – an apparently essentialist practice – less intellectually attractive than the prospect of sailing with the post-material, post-human? In this talk I argue that, when it comes to Blackness, we must not avoid the prospect that oceans root, creatively, fractally, and redemptively. In this respect, I look at some of the anti-colonial connections between Blacknesses in Oceania and the Caribbean.
