Sandra Folie: Returning from Returns: Fractured ‘Afropeanism’ in Women’s Neocolonial Enslavement Narratives

Lecture as part of the European Conference on African Studies – ECAS 2025: African, Afropean, Afropolitan, 25–28 June 2025 in Prague

The concept of Afropeanism combines utopian ideals with lived realities of Black people in Europe. While empowering them and challenging stereotypes, it also evokes the celebratory image of the Afropolitan, which has been criticized for its lack of inclusivity. One group of migrants that have largely remained invisible in the discourse on Afropeanism are African migrant sex workers. For many, trafficking is one of the few viable paths to a better future, even if it often leads to debt bondage. Their stories are explored in several works that I term “neocolonial enslavement narratives”: a fictional variant of the slave narrative that centers on human trafficking from the late twentieth century onwards, addressing Europe’s continuing exploitation of its former colonies. The protagonists are characterized neither as subaltern nor as Afropolitan. While they are capable of making choices and decisions, they usually come to Europe illegally and thus cannot move freely. An intriguing yet seldom asked question is whether their staying in Europe makes them Afropean. I am interested in how the neocolonial enslavement narratives by Chika Unigwe, Abidemi Sanusi and Sudabeh Mortezai negotiate this question on a thematic and formal-aesthetic level. In my paper, I argue for a ‘fractured Afropeanism’. Whether their protagonists’ temporary returns to Africa are planned as visits, intended to be permanent, or forced through deportation, they ultimately undergo a similar experience: They feel like visitors to Nigeria and return from their returns because they find a fractured sense of home in Belgium, the UK, or Austria.

Comparatist Sandra Folie is a research team member in the project Black Narratives of Transcultural Appropriation: Constructing Afropean Worlds, Questioning European Foundations.