The Pan-African Heritage of Senegal

Ferdinand de Jong was granted a British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship on The Pan-African Heritage of Senegal. The Fellowship will enable him to complete a monograph and organise a touring exhibition.

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Image: Mural in Dakar (photographer: Ferdinand de Jong)

This research project pertains to the pan-African heritage of Senegal. As one of the Utopian ideologies of the twentieth century, Pan-Africanism still requires a full analysis in terms of its impact on the current outlook of postcolonial citizens. How do contemporary citizens engage with the Pan-African legacy at this moment in history in which the postcolony is said to be in serious crisis? This project investigates the Pan-African heritage of Senegal and focuses on an often neglected aspect in postcolonial studies: the materiality (rather than textuality) through which the postcolony is imagined. The project has already resulted in the publication of various articles, but requires another three months of work towards the publication of a monograph. The project also continues my collaboration with the photographer Judith Quax whose work on Senegal has already been published and exhibited in other contexts. This project should result in a web-exhibition and a series of museum exhibitions which address the legacy of Pan-Africanism and its failures to address the present crisis.

The research project will enable Dr Ferdinand de Jong to complete publication of a monograph titled The Pan-African Heritage of Senegal. Collaboration with the acclaimed photographers Judith Quax and Mamadou Gomis will result in a web-exhibition and a touring exhibition on Senegal's Pan-African heritage. The exhibitions should raise questions about the pasts and futures imagined through Senegal's heritage. The postcolony's failure to provide a future is one reason why African youth embark on hazardous trips to Europe in order to secure economic opportunities which they cannot realise in Senegal. The tension between a legacy of Pan-African Utopia and postcolonial failure reflects a drama that these exhibitions seek to convey to the wider public. In the current climate of anxiety about immigration, this project engages the public in thinking about the consequences of the failure of the postcolony to provide an economic context in which youth can realise their aspirations.

Image: The Monument of the African Renaissance, Dakar, 2010, unveiled at the fiftieth anniversary of Senegal's independence.