Navigating Africanity, Afrophobia and Citizenship Crises in a Fractured World: Perspectives to the Emerging Options for Global Peacebuilding
This panel engages in a critical interrogation of ways in which global disruptions shape, and mirrored in the crises of citizenship which continue to be deepened by post-pandemic economic dislocations, widening social inequality and poor governance in Africa. It draws on thematic and case studies to analyze how African citizens are navigating and renegotiating their identities within fractured and fragile societies by seeking to reclaim and defend them in ways that are either exclusionary or inclusive, or by engaging in intense contestations in the face of socio-economic decline, pauperization, marginalization, violations of the rule of law, and perceived historical or social injustices. The key question posed by this panel relates to how Africans confront the challenge of constructing a cohesive sense of unity within a fragmented world as well as Africa, where waves of Afrophobia and in extreme cases, xenophobia animate struggles for power and resources. The panel also seeks to unpack how political mobilization by hegemonic and counter-hegemonic forces using populist ideologies, social media and new technologies feature in the ongoing struggles marked by inclusion or exclusion, including attempts to advance or resist the marginalization, exclusion or removal of segments of society, labelled as outsiders, or non-citizens. It also interrogates the marginalization and expulsion of other Africans considered as “undocumented migrants” or non-citizens from some African states, partly mirroring the expulsion of African “illegal immigrants” from other regions of the world. This trend raises critical questions about the options facing African states and regional organizations, as well as global multilateral organizations in responding to the crises of identity and citizenship in an era of global disruptions by laying a new normative basis and practices for equitable, inclusive, just, and sustainable peacebuilding.
Speakers:
- Dr. Cyril Obi, Programme Director for the African Peacebuilding and Development Dynamics (APDD)
- Dr. Sebastian Paalo, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Ghana
- Prof. Beza Dessalegn, Center for Peace and Security Studies, Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia
- Medina Moosa, University of the Western Cape, South Africa
- Dr. Silindile Nanzile Mlilo, Global Migration Institute, Toronto Metropolitan University, Canada
