African Disapora Studies

Simon Njami opens his introduction to the 2005 Africa Remix catalogue with a description of the “chaos” and “metamorphosis” of contemporary African art.  This paper addresses three exhibits, Africa Remix (2005), African Art Now (2005), and Josephine Baker: Image and Icon (2006) in terms of the political economy, audiences, and semiography of the displays as they move across diverse venues.  Both Africa Remix, curated by Simon Njami, and African Art Now, organized by collector Jean Pigozzi, reinvent and reconfigure contemporary African art in relationship to avant-garde genres, new aesthetic themes, and contrasting audience demands.  Audience responses and critical interpretations to all three exhibits differed as they moved from site to site.  These responses will be viewed in comparative perspective and global context. 

Although the reception of Josephine Baker: Image and Icon, curated by Olivia Lahs-Gonzales, was more local than the two African displays, it introduced similar issues of provenance, ownership, and audience response.  The Josephine Baker exhibit raised questions concerning the iconographic representation of “Africa” in diasporic settings.  All three exhibits interrogate how the term “contemporary” is configured and transmogrified in African art, a question that compels curators and participants to “unmix” the chaos and locate traces of homogeneity and difference in the metamorphosis of the global art scene.  Unmixing will be used as a performative semiotic method of exploring layers of artistic production and display by manipulating signifiers in the topological structure of an art work and its environment.  This manipulation allows the remixing of artistic elements for comparative analysis

The lives of eighteenth-century women merchants in Saint-Louis, Senegal and in St. Mary's, Madagascar, both coastal ports, are locally remembered as cosmopolitan, elegant, and sophisticated - but perhaps they are also remembered as predataory and cruel. This text explores the issues of gender, ethnicity, and kinship as they may have affected the role of women slave merchants in Madagascar at St. Mary's island, and in St. Louis, Senegal. The chapter postulates what their social networks may have been and what effects the women had on local views of material extravagance and women's agency.

Abstract

Typically, spirituals have been viewed as religious folksongs, whose literary complexity and theological importance have been appreciated insufficiently, especially as these relate to one another. Spirituals are not generally categorized as lyric poetry in spite of the fact that poetry has historically been used for theological purposes. Their cultural and artistic worth is appreciated most fully by demonstrating the close integration of their literary and theological significance. By using the tools of cognitive science, cultural studies, religious studies, and literary theory, the spirituals are shown to achieve a high level of conceptual freedom and spiritual self-determination as a liberating response to the linguistic, physical, religious, intellectual, and social constraints of the slave poets' lives. By focusing in depth as an example on the metaphorical structure of the spiritual 'Oh Mary, Don't You Weep, Don't You Moan', it becomes clear that the spirituals should be classified as a type of sacred lyric poetry that was instrumental in developing and revealing the formation of African American Christianity.

Title: African Culture its Trends and Effects

This paper discusses traditional African culture: its nature, characteristics, and the main factors that affect it, its values and worldview. Among those factors are: Christianity, Islam, colonialism, capitalism and recently globalization. Since culture is seen as the sum of the peculiarities shared by a people, and Africa being a vast continent with over (2000), varieties of languages, this paper has adopted the holistic view about the African culture. Also, some current transmitters of the cultural changes were discussed here, such as the Francophonie movement and the internet and social media networks, as well as some of the African responses to the foreign cultural influences such as: The Pan-Africanism, Negritude, the Kemit, the Afropolitan movements, the emerging African intellectuals that graduated from Arabic higher learning institutions known as the ‘Arabisants’, and some NGOs, etc. The
African governments are not seen here as positive promotors or protectors of the African culture. However, it is argued here that, for the African culture to withstand the imposed imperial acculturation, Africa must, first of all, inevitably cling to the core elements of its culture. This is to articulate the process of the natural acculturation of the African culture with the rest of the world cultures. In addition to clinging to its cultural values, it is argued here that Africa cannot face the predatory imperial cultures alone, it is imperative on the African culture to join forces with its neighboring cultures that face the same treat and are struggling to secure their self-determination. Here, the triple heritage of Africa is invoked, namely: its traditional religion and values, Christian and Islamic cultural values and the Arabic culture. African culture has been a good contributor to each of the afore mentioned cultures. So, it is logical that the African culture returns to those constituents of its strength in order for Africa be an active and positive partner in the global cultural interactions.

The field of Postcolonial Studies has been gaining prominence since the
1970s. Some would date its rise in the Western academy from the
publication of Edward Said's influential critique of Western constructions
of the Orient in his 1978 book, Orientalism. The growing currency within
the academy of the term "postcolonial" (sometimes hyphenated) was
consolidated by the appearance in 1989 of The Empire Writes Back:
Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures by Bill Ashcroft, Gareth
Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin. Since then, the use of cognate terms "Commonwealth" and
"Third World" that were used to describe the literature of Europe's former colonies has
become rarer. Although there is considerable debate over the precise parameters of the
field and the definition of the term "postcolonial," in a very general sense, it is the study
of the interactions between European nations and the societies they colonized in the
modern period. The European empire is said to have held sway over more than 85% of
the rest of the globe by the time of the First World War, having consolidated its control
over several centuries. The sheer extent and duration of the European empire and its
disintegration after the Second World War have led to widespread interest in postcolonial
literature and criticism in our own times.

Somalia is generally thought of as a homogenous society, with a common Arabic ancestry, a shared culture of nomadism and one Somali mother tongue. This study challenges this myth. Using the Jareer/Bantu as a case study, the book shows how the Negroid physical features of this ethnic group has become the basis for ethnic marginalization, stigma, social exclusion and apartheid in Somalia. The book is another contribution to the recent deconstruction of the perceived Somali homogeneity and self-same assertions. It argues that the Somalis, just like most societies, employ multiple levels of social and ethnic distinctions, one of which is the Jareer versus Jileec divide. Dr. Eno successfully portrays another Somalia, in which a mythical homogeneity masks the oppression and social exclusion suffered by some ethnic groups in the country

American performance traditions and music industry trends have historically denigrated religious practices and spaces that African descended people considered sacred or worthy of regard. This legacy of sacrilege is an extension of colonialism wherein the cultural traditions of those conquered are marked primitive, strange, or laughable. Mahalia Jackson resisted such colonial systems of meaning through her discursive song and narratives incorporating both sacred and vernacular Black American traditions across the United States of America and Europe. It was her European success in the early 1950s that boosted her domestic career and distinguished her from peers with equal or greater talent. This critical hearing of her performance, together with a brief archeology of the term gospel,^ reveals how Jackson’s decolonial song labor disrupted structures that had previously excluded the African descended practices and people, and Negro women in particular, from the realm of the sacred.

ANGEL’S DESTINY A NOVEL STORY OF POEMS & ILLUSTRATIONS by April Martin Chartrand, M.S. (2019/2009 -  ISBN:  978170051147) 

INTRODUCTION By Imani Harrington (2009)
One main factor that binds one in an abusive relationship is relative to how one views herself and it is through self-awareness that we are able to break through our silence. Here in ‘Angel’s Destiny’, we find the inner working thoughts as a meditation on love and hate. A yin and yang of human behavior caught between mysticism, metaphysics and the principles of what the Gods, Goddesses, Angels and the Saints of Our Muse offers us when one uses their voice and pen as a weapon against violence. In its illustrations we find signs and symbols of transformative powers of the cosmos.

Ensconced in  April Martin Chartrand’s destiny we find a rare gem of a novel story of poetry that digs deep into the inner core of the soul, manifesting a deep reflection on the nature of violence.  She calls on the greatest sages of our times:  Thich Nhat Hanh, Dalai Lama, and even contemporaries as Louise Hay, Ruth King, Eckhart Tolle and Iyanla Vanzant all of whose philosophical underpinnings are sprinkled throughout this book and tells the tale of tension and conflict as an arc of violence and creates a spectacle with a cast of characters as told through emotions. What’s key to unlocking this compendium of poetry is when the door opens on the prisoners of violence, we witness the heroic act of breaking free from ones executioner.  This spiritual consciousness is verisimilitude at its best, and it offers us psychological medicine.
The poems are richly crafted in rhyme and meter and some told in the style of epigrams and others in longer stanzas that demonstrate through irony, sarcasm and wit, the illusions of anger, the attention of awareness and the offering of love where we find the archetype role each of us plays out in our own drama. Deception that hides behind violence unveils the lie of the mind and the maddening silence that traps the soul of its victims as prey.  But Chartrand awakens the souls of the dead and shows us how parts of one’s self lost and is now found in the arms of an Angel. 

Through poems like ‘Angel’s Destiny’ we find sheer power and in My River Iguazú there is a self-crafted identity Goddess Siddhu that illuminates and offers inner strength and the value and strength of finding the goddess in ourselves. Chartrand tells her readers that To Be a Poetess is akin to being a priestess and after having been at war she comes out of battle brandishing her shield of honor and courage as redemption. This act of poetry is an allegorical spin of moral lessons for all of us. 

In the last section, the most visual and reflective, she says “I’ve been sent here to tell you my overdue story of redemption and salvation in a world of symbolism syntax and pretext.”  This is a great read and metaphor reflecting historical and contemporary slavery that will reach a wide audience where we hear the cries of cultural violence and its echoes for which we have all experienced.  I commend and congratulate Ms. Chartrand on her courage and character that speaks the truth about the unwavering human condition.   

~Imani Harrington, Writer and Playwright
  October 7, 2009

In 2013, the Institute for African Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences began a study of black communities in the USA. By now, the research was conducted in six states (Alabama, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, and Pennsylvania); in a number of towns as well as in the cities of Boston, Minneapolis, New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago. The study shows that diasporas as network communities have already formed among recent migrants from many African countries in the US. These are diasporas of immigrants from individual countries; not a single “African diaspora”. On the one hand, diasporas as an important phenomenon of globalization should become objects of global governance by means of regulation at the transnational level of both migration streams and foreign-born communities norms of existence. On the other hand, diasporas can be agents of social and political global governance, of essentially transnational impact on individual societies and states, migrant sending as well as accepting. The evidence on the African diasporas in the USA confirm these arguments. Most American Africans believe that diasporas must and can take active part in the home countries’ public life. However, the majority of them concentrates on targeted assistance to certain people – their loved ones back home. The forms of this assistance are diverse, but the main of them is sending remittances. At the same time, the money received from migrants by specific people makes impact on the whole society and state. For many African states these remittances form a significant part of national income. The migrants’ remittances allow the states to lower the level of social tension. Simultaneously, they have to be especially thorough while building relationships with the migrant accepting countries and with diasporas themselves. Africans constitute an absolute minority among recent migrants in the USA. Nevertheless, directly or indirectly, they exert a certain influence on the establishment of the principles of social life and state politics (home and foreign) of not only native countries but also of the accepting one, the US. This confirms the argument that elaboration of norms and setting the rules of global governance is the business of not only political actors but of the globalizing civil society, its institutions and organizations either. The most recent example of this is public debates in the American establishment, including President Obama, on the problem of immigration policy and relationships with migrant sending states provoked by the 2014 US–Africa Leaders Summit. Remarkably, the African diasporas, in the persons of their leaders, actively joined the discussion and openly declared that the state pays insufficiently little attention to the migrants’ needs and insisted on taking their position into account while planning immigration reform. However, Africans are becoming increasingly less “invisible” in the American society not only in connection with loud but infrequent specific events. Not a few educated Africans who have managed to achieve a decent social status and financial position for themselves, have a desire to promote not just the adaptation of migrants from Africa, but to make their collective voice heard in American society and the state at the local and national levels. Their efforts take different forms but most often they result in establishing and running of various organizations of the diaspora. These associations become new cells of American civil society and in this capacity affect the society itself, and the institutions of government best of their ability. Thus, the evidence on Africans in the USA shows that diasporas are both objects (to date, mainly potential) and real subjects of global governance. They influence public life, home and foreign policy of the migrant sending African countries and of migrant accepting United States, make a modest but undeniable contribution to the principles and mechanisms of management of global phenomena and processes.

Black centered films from the various parts of the African Diaspora are rarely exhibited or released on DVD in other parts of this global community due to the current state of media distribution.  African cinema garners top awards at international film festivals, but their art film status does not translate into wider distribution that could reach an African American, Black Latino or Afro-European audience.

Happy to send the full version on request

Symbolic Geographies of the Sacred
Diasporic Territorialization and Charismatic Power in a Transnational Congolese Prophetic Church
David GARBIN


This chapter examines the relationship between migration, transnational religion, and the territorialization/reterritorialization of diasporic identities, taking as a case study the Kimbanguist Church, one of the largest “African-initiated” Christian churches. Initially a prophetic renewal movement led by Simon Kimbangu among the Bakongo people of the then Belgian Congo, Kimbanguism now has a strong presence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Congo-Brazzaville and Angola (Mokoko Gampiot 2004; Mélice 2006; Sarró, Blanes, and Viegas 2008). As a result of the development of a Congolese diaspora in Europe and North America, Kimbanguism has progressively acquired a transnational dimension. It is against this backdrop of transnationalization that I wish to examine a set of issues related to the socio-spatial experience of the sacred among Kimbanguists in diaspora. How are religious identities and power dynamics produced or reproduced in new diasporic set- tings? What is the role of transnational ties in generating a sense of religious diasporic belonging? How is space sacralized in diaspora? Another dimension that I wish to explore with reference to the Kimbanguist church relates to the “schismatic universe” of internal tensions and ecclesiastical conflicts. How are these tensions and conflicts negotiated across different diasporic scales?

My analysis will draw on data collected during fieldwork in London among the Kimbanguist community, mainly composed of Congolese migrants, and during field visits in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in 2007 and 2008. My overall focus in this chapter will be on the construction of what I shall call “symbolic geographies of the sacred” among diasporic Kim-banguists. These symbolic geographies of the sacred relate to the ways in which worshippers and religious experts/leaders define, produce, or imagine translocal fields of religious presence, flows, and mobility. While the pro cesses of physical or symbolic place-making and territorialization are integral to the constitution of these geographies, I wish to consider how a “diasporic sense of place” challenges fixed notions of territory and territorial identity. Indeed as Brenner (1999) argued this notion of territory often conveys ideas of timelessness, boundedness or “State-centrism”. Tarrius (2000, 2002) has provided a useful alternative analytical framework for the study of territori-alization through an exploration of transmediterranean diasporic networks. He shows how territories crystallize a creative tension between local spaces and global processes, between rootedness and mobility, between the realms of materiality (urban spaces or trade networks for example) and symbolic systems of meaning (such as diasporic consciousness or collective memory). According to this perspective, mobility and circulation shape deterritorialized spaces, and localities are reinterpreted by transmigrants as hybrid “homes” through both transnational networks and global “imagined communities”.
In addition to the multi-layered and “glocal” dimension of territorialized processes, the second important element to consider in the making and remaking of these geographies is the role played by the sacred. While this realm of the sacred is essential to the production of a Kimbanguist identity, especially in the diasporic context, it is also closely associated with power dynamics. Debates around the legitimacy of certain spiritual manifesta- tions and politico-charismatic authority are bound up with tensions over a sacred Kimbanguist body/space matrix. For many Kimbanguists, this body/ space matrix relates to an ideal organization of the church and a particular prophetic embodiment and territorialization. Thus, integral to this is the charismatic authority of the spiritual leader (chef spirituel) who embod- ies the Molimo Mosanto (Holy Spirit) and who has the power to regulate the use of spiritual gifts. While the centralized structure of the church, inspired by the missionary model, eroded from the mid-70s, partly due to the emergence of prayer circles and retreats (beko) as Mélice (2001) pointed out, the “centering” of Nkamba, the Holy City of Kimbanguism, remains an essential component of the contemporary Kimbanguist ethos (Eade and Garbin 2007). Nkamba, the main place of pilgrimage for Kimbanguists, is where Simon Kimbangu was born and where the current spiritual leader of the church resides. There is a sacralization of Nkamba associated with this presence of the spiritual leader of the church, one of the grandchildren of Simon Kimbangu, but the symbolic and spiritual power of the Holy City (Mbenza Velela) is also deeply rooted in a temporal and spatial Bibli- cal dimension, the “New Jerusalem”. As we shall see, this dimension has acquired a specific meaning in the post-colonial context, with the emer- gence of both a Pan-African vision and a particular collective memory.

The maintenance of a prophetic model, mainly through a ritualistic con-tinuity between the center and the (sometimes emerging) peripheries, is a key issue shaping contemporary symbolic geographies of Kimbanguism. However, tensions and conflicts over charismatic authority, ecclesiastic legitimacy and the sacred Kimbanguist body/space matrix have also played a role in the (re)configuration of these geographies.

African Americans, descendants of slaves forcidly brought from Africa to America hundreds years ago, and contemporary voluntary African migrants to the USA do not form a single “Black community.” Remarkably, this fact contradicts the postulates of many breeds of “Black nationalism” from the mid-19th century onward, which argue that all Black people are “brothers and sisters,” because they share a common spirituality and have a common cause that demands their joint action all over the world. Among the reasons for this, differences in the reflection of the past in their historic memory play an important role. Based on evidence collected in six states in 2013 and 2014, this article discusses reflection in historic memory and place in the mass consciousness of African Americans and contemporary African migrants of the key periods and events in Black American and African history: pre-slave trade and pre-colonial time; transatlantic slave trade, slavery and its abolition in the US; colonialism and anticolonial struggle in Africa; civil rights movement in the USA; and the demise of apartheid in South Africa. It is shown that contemporary African migrants and African Americans see the key events of the past differently. Even more so, each group sees different events as key. Many members of both groups do not feel that they share a common “Black history.” To some extent, visions of the past promote Africans and African Americans’ rapprochement as victims of long-lasting White domination. However, in the final analysis, collective historic memory of both groups works more in the direction of separating them from each other by generating and supporting contradictory or even negative images of mutual perception. In general, the relations between African Americans and recent African migrants are characterised by simultaneous mutual attraction and repulsion of two magnets. They understand that among all ethnoracial communities in the country, they (and also African Caribbeans) are the closest to each other, but myriads of differences cause mutual repulsion. The differences in the historic memory of African Americans and recent African migrants in the USA play a significant role in the fact that the “magnetic poles” of the Black communities both attract and repel them.

Africans constitute a rather small minority among the migrants to Russia. It appears that their numbers, as well as their impact on society at large, will probably never become comparable to those of migrants from former Soviet republics, or even from some other countries, such as China. At the same time it is evident that the inflow of Africans to Russia is growing, and they are becoming more noticeable in the Russian ethnocultural landscape, and yet there is still only a handful of studies on Africans in post-Soviet Russia. Our project of the study of the African migrants in the Russian capital megacity Moscow included two interrelated parts: The pathways of sociocultural adaptation Africans choose, willingly or forcedly, the one hand, and their perception and acceptance / non-acceptance by the receiving society (as reflected in the prevailing opinion about Africans and especially in their most typical image among native Russian citizens), on the other.

"Оттенки черного. Культурно-антропологические аспекты взаимовосприятия и взаимоотношений африкано-американцев и мигрантов из стран субсахарской Африки в США"

The book is based on the field evidence collected in 2013–2015 in more than a dozen cities and towns of seven states.

Монография основана на полевых материалах, собранных в 2013–2015 годах. В центре внимания автора – взаимовосприятие и взаимоотношения представителей двух африканских по происхождению групп населения США: существующего уже несколько столетий сообщества африкано-американцев и сложившихся в наше время диаспор выходцев из различных государств субсахарской Африки. В историко-социологическом контексте рассматриваются такие культурно-антропологические аспекты восприятия друг друга черными американцами и африканскими мигрантами, как историческая память и взаимные образы культур. Показывается влияние того, как взаимовосприятие носителей разных культур сказывается на взаимоотношениях между ними. Монография, с одной стороны, лежит в русле общих тенденций в современных антропологии и африканистике, а с другой, вносит вклад в разработку конкретной слабоизученной темы, актуальной не только для этих научных дисциплин, но и для американистики.

This article examines the issue of brain drain vs brain gain. Specifically, the case of whether the loss of higher education professional departures from a lesser developed country(Nepal in this case) to a higher developed country is balanced by a return of these individuals with skills enhanced by education and training. So far,  evidence does not appear to support this hypothesis.

ABSTRACT The article will discuss the variety of African migrants’ pathways toward social recognition and success in a Russian megacity by describing and analyzing the experiences of the Ethio-pian owners of two establishments in Moscow: a lavish downtown restaurant, and a small café on an international university campus on the city’s outskirts. These cases display various points of both similarity and divergence, but are here regarded as examples of successful Af-rican entrepreneurship, each in its own way, contrasting with the usual representation of Afri-cans as passive victims in the receiving society. As background for the analysis we provide information on the changes that have occurred since the breakup of the USSR, and which have impacted on the migrants’ social composition, on their strategies of integration, and on the modes of their acceptance by the new sociocultural milieu. The research is based mainly on in-depth and semi-structured interviews with the two establishment owners, their employees, and guests conducted in May to June 2012. It reveals the factors that have pro-moted their successful establishment in the Russian capital as well as their own perceptions of the position of migrants within it.

Esta contribución se centra en la presencia de mujeres cimarronas de origen africano en la capital de la Nueva España en el siglo XVI y en el uso estratégico de la palabra como práctica religiosa y medio político para abordar la circunstancia de vulnerabilidad en la que vivían.

Sin embargo, la investigación revela un escenario complejo en el que las mujeres africanas y sus descendientas desempeñaron un papel clave en la configuración de la sociedad colonial.

Abstract Typically, spirituals have been viewed as religious folksongs, whose literary complexity and theological importance have been appreciated insufficiently, especially as these relate to one another. Spirituals are not generally categorized as lyric poetry in spite of the fact that poetry has historically been used for theological purposes. Their cultural and artistic worth is appreciated most fully by demonstrating the close integration of their literary and theological significance. By using the tools of cognitive science, cultural studies, ...

Africans’ struggle for a decent social status in the USA is complicated by their frequent association with African Americans who, as a community, occupy a low social level. In the migrants’ attempts to distinguish themselves from African Americans, an important part is played by emphasizing cultural differences between the two groups. These differences serve Africans as a proof of their belonging to a different community; a positive estimation of their own culture contrary to African American supports their claims for a better social status. The source of their cultural distinction from, and superiority over African Americans, the Africans see in history of black people in and outside Africa. Based on field evidence, this paper discusses how Africans in America capitalize on the history of Africa. Africans stress that, not being descendents of slaves, they do not have inborn “slave mentality”, that they proudly feel natives of independent states while African Americans do not know where they are from. Africans frequently argue that the history of African Americans began only with the slave trade and they do not inherit the greatness of African civilizations. Most Africans believe that if there is any “black history” at all, it is nothing more than history of common sufferings of black people from white all over the world. So, the African migrants employ knowledge of history not only for claiming a decent social status but also for supporting self-identity and sense of dignity.

Adaptation to the effects of climate change will depend on many factors.  Strategies will vary based on geographical vulnerabilities. One tactic, which is highly under researched, is migration away from areas of deteriorating abilities to sustain life and livelihoods. Climate induced migration is a new and developing field and has been initiated in response to the susceptibility of island nations. Islands around the world share similar concerns and consequences of climate events and processes. Migration within and out of such situations will be a necessary strategy for adapting to climate change. In the case of the small island nations, there is already a strong history of out-migration and the development of diaspora communities. A diaspora, in this case, is considered an emigrant group with continuous involvement with its homeland. The cultural and familial ties to the diaspora allow for continual chain migration and will be an asset to those whose lives and livelihoods are under a growing threat from sea level rise and tropical storm destruction. While economic migration out of an island nation is not uncommon, many climate migrants will appear to be economic or environmental migrants on first glance; the impetus for their move may not always be seen in its full causal frame. This paper will explain why out migration will be seen as logical adaptation for islanders and how diaspora communities can facilitate this movement.

Vous trouverez dans ce livre poétique toutes mes angoisses, mes chagrins, mes joies, mes frustrations, et mes doutes que le temps et les profondes réflexions ont permis de concevoir. C’est dans ce cadre que s’inscrit « Sous l’écorce de l’âme », comme une sorte de réconciliation avec soi-même. C’est aussi un leitmotiv à la recherche de la liberté et de la paix pour tous les pays africains. Une clameur contre l’indifférence au milieu de tant de bouleversements culturels. C’est pourquoi, cette œuvre est empreinte de figue d’errances, de regards et de visions ideologiques, d’horizons pluriels et culturels. Dans ces récits poétiques, le portrait du poète se laisse brosser comme un prophète des masses. C’est un poète futuriste qui se dote d’une licence poétique et d’une imagination prolifique, pour extérioriser les images descriptives de la situation de la jeunesse africaine en quête de salut. Pour cela, il convoque par le biais d’une écriture incisive toutes les mentalités africaines sur des thèmes actuels et très sensibles tels que : l’identité, la gestion de pouvoir africain, et les systèmes dictatoriaux. Au-delà de cette principale exigence de l’œuvre, le poète aborde d’autres éléments essentiels de sa poésie comme : l’amour, le sexe, la nature, la nostalgie, l’espoir, et l’avenir.