Over centuries of Western rule, speculative narratives about the social systems and political movements of populations were foundational to state discourse across imperial frameworks on the African continent. From anthropological renderings of secret societies in West Africa in the 19th century to the mass internment camps established during Mau Mau Uprising in late-colonial Kenya, allegations of conspiracies amongst the colonized worked from familiar registers of scapegoating, nefarious string-pullers, and the ever-present “outside agitator.” In this, legal frameworks codified crimes of dissent and served as the justificatory backbone of punishing them. The speculative politics that conditioned imperial discourses seeking to delegitimize antisystemic resistance did not end with the raising of new flags after formal processes of decolonization. Rather, the structural continuities that characterize many postcolonial state apparatuses in Africa are foundational to speculative state rhetorics regarding social movements, grassroots politics, and religious practices on the continent today. Recent events — such as the heedless state repression of Kenyan youth protesters in the wake of the Finance Bill Protests that erupted in June 2024 and have continued since — underscore the role played by base speculation in naming threats to state interests, those who serve as embodiments of them, and the policing functions that work to root out resistance campaigns. This year, the Association of Postcolonial Thought (Pocothought) invites submissions for a panel focused on the role of speculation and conspiracy-theorizing in political, anthropological, and social frameworks across colonial and postcolonial African contexts. We are particularly interested in papers examining the rhetorical (dis)continuities of speculative politics in Africa across colonial and postcolonial epochs.
Key areas of inquiry with regard to this might include:
– The relationship between speculation in state rhetoric and the identification of targets for political and military repression
– Conspiracy theories in colonial and postcolonial contexts as they relate to the law and the selectivity of its enforcement
– Transnational and global dimensions in speculative politics that interpret anticolonial critique, forms of dissent, and practices
– Tracing the historical narratology of speculative politics across continents and linguistic spheres
We encourage submissions from across disciplines and fields so long as they engage with (post)colonialism as a central problematic.
For consideration in this panel, please email a 200-word abstract and 100-word bio to Christian Alvarado (University of California, Davis) at cdalvarado@ucdavis.edu no later than 5pm Pacific Time on Thursday, March 20th.
