Resisting Erasure: Tracing the Spaces of Afro-Feminist Thought and Activism in France

African diasporic women have traditionally forged critical spaces of discourse and activism born out of their intersectional position including gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, sexuality and socio-economic status. Though the naming of such spaces and practices vary including terms such as Afro-feminism, Black feminism and womanism, these sites of resistance to Western hegemony have always been transnational in nature. In the European context, there is a vibrant Afro-feminist movement taking place in France as evidenced by the high-profile collective of Mwasi. Recently there has been controversy surrounding the group’s organization of the Nyansapo festival that took place in Paris in July of 2017. The website advertised the event as “non-mixed so that we are in the best position to grasp the weapons of our emancipation." This mode of communitarianism runs counter to France’s republicanist posture regarding citizenship. The mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo threatened to ban the festival, but later came to a “solution” with the collective where the publicly scheduled events would be open to everyone whereas the private sessions would be reserved for both black and mixed-race women. What are the challenges of building and sustaining activist spaces amidst growing French far-right political push back which is often deemed as “a coloniality of the French” according to sociologist Ramon Grosfuguel? Moreover, how do we “trace” the ways in which spaces are configured both in terms of cultural production and activism? Lastly, what does a theory of Afro-feminism look like in the European context with an emphasis on France?