Afropolitan Encounters

Afropolitan Encounters: Literature and Activism in London and Berlin explores what Afropolitanism does. Mobile people of African descent use this term to address their own lived realities creatively, which often includes countering stereotypical notions of being African. Afropolitan practices are enormously heterogeneous and malleable, which constitutes its strengths and, at the same time, creates tensions.

This book traces the theoretical beginnings of Afropolitanism and moves on to explore Afropolitan practices in London and Berlin. Afropolitanism can take different forms, such as that of an identity, a political and ethical stance, a dead–end road, networks, a collective self–care practice or a strategic label. In spite of the harsh criticism, Afropolitanism is attractive for people to deal with the meanings of Africa and Africanness, questions of belonging, equal rights and opportunities.

While not a unitary project, the vast variety of Afropolitan practices provide approaches to contemporary political problems in Europe and beyond. In this book, Afropolitan practices are read against the specific context of German and British colonial histories and structures of racism, the histories of Black Europeans, and contemporary right–wing resurgence in Germany and England, respectively.

Anna von Rath lives in Berlin, Germany. Her PhD dissertation, completed at the University of Potsdam, won the Better World Award in 2020. As a literary and cultural studies scholar and former fellow of the Research Training Group Minor Cosmopolitanisms, she has published on Afropolitanism, postcolonial ecocriticism and travel narratives. Next to her academic work, she works as a freelance cultural event organizer, and social justice and diversity trainer. She is one of the founding–editors of poco.lit., an online platform for postcolonial literatures in the widest sense.