« Métropoles africaines du Sud global : de la hantise coloniale aux mirages de la mondialisation »
Résumé
French-speaking, English-speaking or Portuguese-speaking African megacities, which serve as platforms for globalized economy, are still haunted by colonialism. This colonial afterglow sometimes goes together with the development of slums. The shantytown, often an infamous cesspool and evidence of failing city planning, is also a site of resistance or an alternative to European civilization. The megalopolis of the Global South now exercises strategic functions on a global scale. It constitutes a center that organizes flows, generates human mobility and tends to wipe out established institutions and categories. The aesthetics of the works mapping the global metropolis under study swings between postmodernism and magical realism, narrative modes which both cause a destabilization of the subject and commanding norms, while bringing about a defamiliarization effect.