Re-thinking Afropolitanism: the kinship and differences

Abstract

ABSTRACT Afropolitanism has become a very contentious keyword in the lexicon of current African cultural and literary studies. This is evident in several essays written on it which emerged in the 21st century. Two streams of Afropolitanism serve as take-off points for the debate and essays on the concept. The first is the perspective on the New African diaspora of Selasi. The second is Africa’s rhizomatic cultural ‘unity-in-diversity’ in the continent from Achille Mbembe. Both streams share commonalities in terms of transnational human mobility, socio-cultural pluralism and Africanised hybridity they espouse. Critical responses to the concept of Afropolitanism are also divergent. They border on what is Afropolitanism and what it is not. Thus, drawing from the foregoing, this paper within a descriptive and analytical approach mediates on the debates on Afropolitanism by reviewing its extant literature. It mapped the possible kinship and differences which Afropolitanism shares with Afropolitan, cosmopolitanism, and Afrocentrism. It closed with a brief commentary on notable Afropolitan literature and a modest suggestion towards the need for what it calls ‘Critical Afropolitanism’.