This somewhat longer post involves a reflection on a number of meetings I’ve had over the last months with African refugees in the city of Bologna, while preparing research on migrant labour and urban marginality. Though these meetings took shape … Continue reading
The Black Mediterranean has recently started to surface as a terminology to describe the cultural crossroads between Africa and Europe. It indicates the emergence of a vibrant cultural borderland characterized by growing proximity between African and European cultures in the … Continue reading
I am happy to announce the publication of the Black Mediterranean: Bodies, Borders and Citizenship. In collaboration with Black History Month, we (the is: a collective of scholars called the Black Mediterranean Collective) launched the edited volume at NYU, Florence, earlier … Continue reading
The University of Palermo and New York University have just finalised the programme of their conference titled ‘Black Mediterranean: ReSignifications‘ – a topic that is raising widening international interest lately (see amongst others these new publications by Ida Danewid -awarded with the … Continue reading
Further to my posts on the Black Mediterranean, I signal two interesting events this and the next month, on in Florence, and one in Milan. The Florence conference and exhibition Black Portraitures II: Imaging the Black Body and Re-staging Histories (28-31 May) offers … Continue reading
Invitation to the the first episode of a series of sessions on the Black Mediterranean – a topic amply discussed on these pages. location: the MET – Bologna, time: March 25, at 16.30-23.00, During the meeting we will discuss the working conditions … Continue reading
On the Problematic Nature of a Word by Camilla Hawthorne and Pina Piccolo I am happy to act as a host for this joint article by Camilla Hawthorne and Pina Piccolo on the politics of ‘mesticcatio’, or cultural hybridity, … Continue reading
Since my last posts mentioning border art and the Black Mediterranean, I’ve been receiving some additional suggestions. In the following post I discuss some of them.
Following my earlier post on the racial geography of the Black Mediterranean, colleagues keep pointing me at North-South connections in agri-food commodity chains, particularly with regard to tomatoes. My colleague Christian Berndt, for example, has written this wonderful comparison between the … Continue reading
2020-2024: Frontier Settlements – Territories of artisan mining labour in Africa This research project reveals how the extraction of the world’s underground resources territorializes through artisan mining labour. It is funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) and co-hosted by the … Continue reading