Unpacking Identities in Uber-Colonial Africa

Abstract

The question of the “self” in the contemporary African context is crucial to the broader question of identity which is the main theme of today's gathering. My identity — the self — is as much personal as it is political and social.1 However, the self itself is also corporeal, national and corporate, and thus linked to much broader issues beyond the personal story. It is linked to the very meaning of the words “ethnicity,” “religion,” “gender” or “sexuality.” It is linked to the place of the post-colonial African state in an age of uncertainty and it is also tied up with the multiple ways in which people in contemporary 21st century Africa and the world beyond identify themselves distinctly from the artificial geopolitical structures in which they have been accidentally placed.