Black African refugee (im)mobility in post-2022 Europe

Talk with Aghogho Akpome, associate professor at the Department of English at University of Zululand, South Africa.

The movement of refugees from Ukraine into Europe following Russia’s invasion in February 2022 was accompanied by an outcry from many black Africans who suffered significant forms of discrimination in their attempts to leave Ukraine. Not only were there reports of black Africans being prevented from leaving Ukraine – especially via the most readily available means such as public trains – they also faced sometimes obstacles in securing passage into other European states. For those who may have ‘successfully’ arrived in third states (being either unable or unwilling to return to their home countries), these reports are portentous for the prospects of new and old arrivals in Europe.

This is the immediate point of departure for this open-ended discussion of contemporary black African (im)mobility which focuses on the impressions and conditions of black Africans in the wake of the events of February 2022. It will be enriched by narratives of black African migrants/refugees in Denmark as well as comments from local authorities and officials of relevant NGOs. The discussion is situated within the context of, and takes off from, a wider project on European discursive responses to the so-called refugee/migrant crisis of 2013 – 2015. The project focused on selected narratives from Germany, Italy and Denmark and sought, among other things, to examine the extent to which current representations and imaginings of Africa(ns) operate within and reflect historical discourses in Europe – philosophical, political and socio-cultural.

Speaker bio

Aghogho Akpome is an associate professor in the Department of English at University of Zululand, South Africa. He worked briefly in the media in Nigeria where he was also a schoolteacher and lecturer before moving to South Africa in 2010. He also taught English literary studies and academic literacies briefly at University of Johannesburg and University of Witwatersrand and was a research associate at the Centre for Africa Studies, University of the Free State, South Africa from 2013-2016. He was a visiting researcher at the Centre of Postcolonial and Gender Studies, University of Naples L’Orientale, Naples as well as the Institute of English Language and Literature, Freie University, Berlin in 2019 and 2020. His research interests include narratives, migration, decolonisation, representations and discourses, especially as these relate to Africa.He is currently rated C1 by the National Research Foundation (NRF) of South Africa. 

This presentation builds on the project, ‘The refugee ‘crisis’ and European re-imaginings of Africa’ out of which he published the following articles:  ‘‘Corpses and numbers’: The portrayal of black African refugees in It Will Be Chaos by Lorena Luciano and Filippo Piscopo’; ‘‘Their Skin Is Black’: Invoking and Subverting Problematic Imaginaries of Africa in Jenny Erpenbeck’s Go Went Gone (2015)’ and ‘Depicting the Black African Refugee in The Jungle by Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson’.