Afterlives, Remains, and Traces: Theorizing Presence

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Abstract The concept of presence in Black Atlantic and African diasporic spiritual practices refers to a continuum of relations between human and nonhuman actors and between the living and the dead. This article explores aesthetic and ritual practices that work with material traces as modalities for cultivating relationships with the dead, including transfigurations that locate and activate spiritual energies in alliances with the living. Working across two cases inspired by west central African traditions, and in dialogue with Glissant’s concept of the Trace, this article presents a sociohistorically situated, semiotic approach to onto-political processes of presenting and absenting. The article argues that engaging with presence is vital to understanding practices that make necropolitical violence visible in order to demand recognition of the dead and the living consigned to social death. Thinking about presence enables the examination of ontological and political questions of awareness, recognition, connection, and even obligation.